Glenn Kirschner – MORE stolen classified documents found at Trump’s Florida property
The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – December 6, 2022
MSNBC – German Police Arrest Dozens Who Allegedly Plotted To Overthrow Government
Farron Balanced – Legal Troubles Increase For DeSantis Administration Over Migrant Flights
This Rescued Cat Has The Most Unusual Toy Ever!
Beau – Let’s talk about what the Senate can learn from Roman roads….
Yesterday, I was glad to see that we finally found someone acceptable to swap for Britney Griner, who is now on her way home. About time, too. Of course Republicans are screaming bloody murder. But there are a few other good news items which got me through the day. and I got to see my BFF, who ca me by to bring me a prescription so I don’t have to go into a store and get exposed to heaven knows what. The three items which I think really command attention concern Lizzo, Biden, and Kamala Harris.
Cartoon
Short Takes –
Wonkette – Germany Arrests 25 In QAnon-Fueled Coup Plot, Proving America Does Too Still Export Stuff
Quote – The plot included a plan to attack Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, to kill members or take them hostage. By golly, we have seen that movie…. In addition to the plan to storm the Bundestag, the group allegedly planned to attack Germany’s electric grid and use the resulting chaos to foment a civil war. All told, while only 25 people were arrested, a total of 50 have been accused of involvement in the terrorist organization.
Click through for story. This appears to be a bit of a scoop – there was a short clip on MSNBC and that was all I found (it’s in the video thread.)
Crooks & Liars – ‘Religious Freedom’ Bites Forced-Birthers Where The ‘Son’ Don’t Shine
Quote – Jewish people, for instance, don’t believe the fetus has a soul until it draws its first independent breath. We prioritize the life of the pregnant person above the life of the fetus for the entirety of the pregnancy, including in situations that put the pregnant person’s emotional health at risk. With the imposition of the GOP’s fetus-fetish laws all over the nation, however, Jews and others whose religions don’t subscribe to the ideology of these nutters are fighting fire with fire.
Click through for details. I applaud this work. I’m so tired of people claiming to be Christians saying abortion is murder when the Bible does not say so, but implies it is not. What clearly IS murder is failing to treat pregnancy issues and thereby causing death. If you’re going to outlaw abortion, you might as well also outlaw the Heimlich maneuver.
Food For Thought – OMG, this is beautiful!
Glenn Kirschner – Trump Org GUILTY! Will Donald Trump be next? Plus, J6 committee to make criminal referrals to DOJ
The Lincoln Project – Trump Against The Constitution
MSNBC – Harry Dunn: ‘I’m Not Letting Anyone Steal The Joy I Feel’
Liberal Redneck – Liberal Redneck – Kanye, Nazis, Etc
Bird Loves To Annoy His Dog Brother
Beau – Let’s talk about Sweden, Finland, and cold weather gear….
MTG Greene seems to be in a never-ending battle with Lauren Boebert and Louie Gohmert for the Congressional Olympic Gold Medal of Abject Stupidity.
But her latest pungent foray into the Stupidity Olympics battle really stinks. No, really … it STINKS!
So many people still wearing masks.
I just want to ask you.
If a pair of underwear, really thick ones, high quality cotton, can’t protect you from a fart, then how will a mask protect you from covid??
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@mtgreenee) November 29, 2022
COVID has been plaguing the world for a couple of years now and this is NOT the first time this question has been raised and answered. You would think that before posting a question like this that anyone would do a minimum bit of research – especially someone who serves the people as a Representative in Congress.
But noooo – not MTG!
I’ll try doing my best Bill Nye the Science Guy imitation to help her out.
Let’s start with a brief overview of the chemistry of farts (a topic you’ve probably wondered about a time or two, but never felt it worth your while to delve into.)
There are three different types of gaseous sulfur compounds that cause the stinky odor of our farts:
To understand why masks truly DO WORK to protect against COVID (but not preventing MTG from smelling her own farts) it turns out size actually DOES matter. (Given MTG’s lurid history of multiple extramarital affairs that led to her recent divorce, you’d think she’d have at least a passing familiarity with this concept.)
Now let’s get down to the nitty-gritty:
The main sulphur-containing flatus component was hydrogen sulphide (1.06 (0.2) μmol/l), followed by methanethiol (0.21 (0.04) μmol/l) and dimethyl sulphide (0.08 (0.01) μmol/l) (means (SEM)).
https://gut.bmj.com/content/43/1/100
I agree – that’s way too much chemistry. Here’s something a little bit easier to understand:
Dear God,
Your underwear isn't designed to filter the air.
A fart is a bunch of gas molecules. They're tiny, e.g. methane is 3.8 x 10⁻¹⁰ m. The coronavirus (1.25 x 10⁻⁷ m) is 3+ orders of magnitude larger!
If a molecule is a corn of sand, COVID has aircraft-carrier size. https://t.co/kaBwjoeH0D
— Walpurga Müller-Schm (@WalpurgaMueller) November 29, 2022
NOTE: Remembering that “orders of magnitude” is a logarithmic term based on power of 10 – so from the Tweet:
3.8 x 10⁻¹⁰ m = 0.00000000038 m.
1.25 x 10⁻⁷ m = 0.000000125 m.
Realizing that MTG is severely “intellectually challenged” – let’s go for something more graphic to help her grasp why masks work against COVID but not farts:
And even more akin to her Saturday morning cartoon-watching (I’m sure MTG enjoys animated graphics) something even simpler
But that doesn’t mean MTG wouldn’t be ruthlessly mocked for this level of stupidity, so let’s enjoy a few.
(To save space, rather than posting each individual Tweet in full, I’ll just post the response to MTG’S question with a link to its author.)
And don’t forget her stinky question:
“If a pair of underwear, really thick ones, high quality cotton, can’t protect you from a fart, then how will a mask protect you from covid??”
No surprise that beloved George Takei would come up with the perfect analogy to help her understand the concept using tools that she’s more familiar with:
If you wear a white hood, really thick, with eye slits, it still can’t protect you from being identified as a white supremacist.
She’s comparing COVID to a fart smell. Because that’s what idiots do.
Mainly because I don’t wear my underwear on my head. Next question.
The same way socks aren’t designed to be used as condoms.
Behold. A sitting Congresswoman thinks farts are highly contagious.
How the hell did we go from leaders like John Lewis to MTG in just one generation.
How very sad.
Why is it any of your business if people choose to mask up to protect themselves and their loved ones from the flu or covid19 or smelling your stinky farts?
MYOB, stop being a bully and leave folks to decide for themselves what’s best for them.
It’s called free choice, Marj!
FREE CHOICE!
Cartoonist Steve Bensen thought that maybe if MTG were provided a bespoke mask, she might actually be enticed to wear it. He’s got a point:
Others had a more … hmmm … aromatic approach to mask customization:
When it comes to MTG regularly displaying her ignorance via Twitter, I think we’d all agree with Sunday Claus on this:
Liked you better this way. pic.twitter.com/sUQ17TrwMX
— 𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕖_ℂ𝕝𝕒𝕦𝕤 (@SundaeDivine) November 29, 2022
Of course, the actual reason MTG is not having any success with blocking out the smell of farts is easily explained with this one graphic:
So if MTG does not want to be known as the absolute DUMBEST person in Congress, she had better hope that Boebert and Gohmert don’t die!
Yesterday, after Senator Warnock’s victory, I was at least able to breathe again. Sadly, that was a real nail biter. But it ended well. So I decided it was time to move on to the Supreme Court. Both of today’s short takes are – not eacttly hopeful. But we need to know about them. If you need some comic relief, you can check out this BuzzFeed article on misconceptions (no pun intended) that men have about women’s anatomy and bodily functions. They reach never-before-published levels of absurdity.
Cartoon
Short Takes –
Mother Jones – Con Law: How a Fake Document Could Help the Supreme Court Diminish Our Democracy
Quote – So this August, historians of the Constitution were alarmed to see Pinckney’s fraud credulously cited in a brief submitted to the Supreme Court in Moore v. Harper, a high-stakes case that will be heard on Wednesday and whose outcome could usher in new state-level voter suppression and gerrymandering schemes. If the decision rests on Pickney’s alleged plan or similar shaky foundations, it may also prove to be the most dramatic example of a troubling new trend at the court: the flaunting [sic] of inconvenient facts and the adoption of alternative ones in their place.
Click through for article. Of course the author means “flouting” – flaunting is something quite different – almost the opposite actually. But that doesn’t change the fact that this is a horrible danger. It is impossible to trust Thmas, Alito, and the MAGA three not to fall for it. I would love to be proved wrong.
Colorado Public Radio News – Supreme Court seems poised to side with Colorado web designer in 303 Creative case
Quote – The case, 303 Creative v. Elenis, pits a Colorado website designer named Lorie Smith against state officials trying to enforce Colorado’s Anti Discrimination Act. Smith wants to start creating custom wedding websites. Specifically, she wants to post a message on her company’s site that she would not create websites for same-sex marriage “or any other marriage that is not between one man and one woman,” according to a brief in the case. But state officials would consider that discriminatory behavior based on the state’s laws, so Smith sued the state.
Click through for details. If I tried to express my deepest opinion on this, I would become incoherent, so I’ll fall back on my favorite bumper sticker: “Jesus called. He wants his church back.”
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – In Trump Org criminal trial, NY prosecutors argue to jury that Donald Trump HIMSELF committed crimes
Ojeda LIVE – Top 5: MAGA Symbols
Armageddon Update – Elmer Is Stuck
Real Subtitles? – The truth about aggressive politicians.
This Stray Cat Ask To Be Let Inside To Keep Her Kittens Safe
Beau – Let’s talk about San Francisco and robots….
.
Yesterday, of course, was the runoff election in Georgia. I followed the New Yorker’s live election results for a while … but every time I looked, Warnock’s lead, though still commanding, was a little smaller. In fact, at 88% counted, it was donw to less than a point. But DeKalb County, apparently the last to come in, went blue enough to confirm Warnock’s win. I wish the margin had been wider … but I’ll take it.
In other news, a report from Colorado Public Radio says the Q-Club shootr was arraigned and charhed with 305 counts, which included muder and hate crimes. That’s a lot of counts. And, in New York, the Trump** Organization was found guilty on all charges. Oral arguments in Moore v. Harper begin today. And – do we have any Neil DIamnd fans here?
Cartoon (You were expecting maybe Pearl Harbor?)
Short Takes –
The Daily Beast – Why SCOTUS Could Be About to Unleash Frankenstein’s Monster
Quote – Proponents of the “ISLT”–Independent State Legislature Theory–believe that the U.S. Constitution bestows unreviewable power upon state legislatures to determine how congressional elections–and by extension Presidential elections–are conducted. The case is so controversial that more than 70 amicus briefs–“friends of the court”–have been submitted, including everyone from former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the ACLU, with 48 of them being opposed to the legitimacy of the ISLT.
Click through for pretty much all we know right now. This is no ordinary case. And this is no ordinary court. And the decision is going to be a long time coming – although probably not quite as long as it’s going to seem.
Colorado Public Radio – Colorado Springs LGBTQ chorus Out Loud unifies community with song
Quote – That mixture of pride and rage, laughter and tears, is what Out Loud aims for in their upcoming holiday concerts…. The small audience sensed that magic at rehearsal as the chorus progressed through “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” a carol based on a Civil War-era poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow about his wounded son. Their despair lifted as the music pulled toward resolution: “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: God is not dead, nor doth he sleep. The wrong shall fail … the right prevail with peace on earth.”
Click through for full article, which covers far more than jist one concert. This is a wonderful group. I used to go to their concerts and unjoy them immensely – though of course I haven’t been out to any concerts since the pandemic started, and won’t be going now. I was introduced to the group by a co-worker who was a member
Food For Thought
Added late by request:
Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump advocates “terminating the Constitution” and restoring him to the presidency.
Meidas Touch – Test REVEALS True Nature of DISTURBING MAGA Psychology
CBS News – Herschel Walker, Raphael Warnock make last pitches to voters in Georgia Senate runoff election
Mother Jones – Souls and Polls: Christianity Is on the Georgia Ballot
What It’s Like Living With Two Parrots (has a commercial in the middle – it’s thankfully short)
Beau – Let’s talk about Biden wanting to change the primaries….