Tuesday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

Get happy

Hot Takes

Political reporters have one little problem: they hate Kamala Harris.  If they liked her then the "push Biden out" reporting/punditry would have reached Dean Scream levels of insistence months ago.

(extra funny as "Bartlet not dropping out despite major health issues" was a big West Wing plot!)

Biden's Deep State Gets Another One

I really don't have any deep thoughts on the Hunter Biden guilt verdict.. Over to you!

Lunch

eat

Feisty

Rolling Stone:

When Windsor tells Mrs. Alito she is being persecuted and depicted as “a convenient stand-in for anybody who’s religious,” the justice’s wife gets quieter, and her tone turns more serious: “Look at me, look at me. I’m German. I’m from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I’m gonna give it back to you. And there will be a way — it doesn’t have to be now — but there will be a way they will know. Don’t worry about it. God — you read the Bible. Psalm 27 is my psalm. Mine. Psalm 27, the Lord is my God and my rock. Of whom shall I be afraid? Nobody.”

Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post:

Martha-Ann’s flag, first hoisted at her home a few days after Jan. 6, initially sparked only the ire of a neighbor. Perhaps the neighbor has reason to dislike Martha-Ann, who is funny, feisty, unfiltered and the life of any party, according to mutual friends and my limited impression of her.

Debate

Do we think Donnie is going to show?

Godliness

With Trump as the leader of your political movement, what does this even mean?

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told a woman posing as a Catholic conservative last week that compromise in America between the left and right might be impossible and then agreed with the view that the nation should return to a place of godliness.

“One side or the other is going to win,” Justice Alito told the woman, Lauren Windsor, at an exclusive gala at the Supreme Court. “There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”

It means the same thing that it's always meant, but I'd like some journalists who spent years writing about "Values Voters" to explain it.

Monday Night

Rock on

Your Moment of Zen

Watch and share my campaign video - Luke Akehurst for North Durham pic.twitter.com/MfK4KeNElo

— Luke Akehurst (@lukeakehurst) June 10, 2024

Sack Of Vipers

One thing that became apparent during the Trump presidency was that all of those people didn't have any experience with normal humans. They're all horrible people who have spent their lives surrounded by horrible people. "Everyone is a complete shithead, like me" is all they know.

There is a reasonable amount of fiction - like 19th century British stuff - which makes clear how horrible the rich are to the help, and to anyone "lower" than them, I suppose, but I'm not sure it comes through how horrible they are to each other.

I don't know how to improve socialization generally, and certainly not among the self-segregated elite, but, you know, this is a problem!

Wide Stance

It occurs to me that the political "sex scandal" is mostly dead. It was dying before Trump, but he rendered them nonfunctional. This is mostly good, as part of what made sex scandals possible was the pretense that all of those Republican were virgins before marriage and had intercourse as many times as they had children. I think historians will understand 1980-2010 or so as a neoVictorian age of cultural norms.

Still "massive unignorable hypocrisy" is one way that conservative culture warriors could get their deserved falls, and now we have lost that, mostly, too.

Lunch

Eat

Probation Interview

That wacky Donald has so many adventures!

Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to sit for a virtual interview on Monday with a New York City probation officer from his home at Mar-a-Lago with his attorney Todd Blanche at his side after he was found guilty on all counts in the hush money trial against him last month, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Strategery

I'm not a mindreader, but if every single mild action or statement against Israel's conduct had merely been a cynical ploy to silence critics, what would have been different? They've been very successful! Not because they're any good at it - they're transparent liars - but because the people who control the microphones are on board.

Progress

Some movement from the White House.

Joe Biden said on Tuesday that he has warned Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of Gaza was beginning to alienate Europe and the rest of the international community.

Speaking at a 2024 re-election campaign fundraiser in Washington, the US president ramped up pressure on Israel over any post-hostilities deal. He said the Israelis “can’t say no” to a Palestinian state, and urged Netanyahu not to repeat the mistakes made by the US after 9/11.

Invoking specifically the prolonged US war in Afghanistan, he said: “There’s no reason we did so many of the things we did.”

Wait, hold on. Computer: enhance.

Morning

Monday notsofunday.

Sunday Night

Rock on.

Afternoon Thread

Discuss the ratio of justice.

Moral Clarity