A Hail of Bullet-Points

Even though I'm committed to trying to keep up my blogging pace of the last few days, I have a lot of grading to do today, so I'll just list some bullet points for now.

• One way to get people to believe crazy things is to lie. Steve Benen has posted about how Republican senator Mike Pence is so successful in spreading his lies about the Health Care bill. (via Matthew Yglesias)
• The Texas Board of Education is trying to promote the teaching of "the biblical motivations of America's settlers and founders" in public schools--and they have so much clout in the textbook industry, it could affect the whole country.
• Dale Neumann, lethally stupid Wisconsin father, has been convicted of reckless homicide in the diabetes death of his daughter Madeline, and faces up to twenty-five years in jail.
• According to John Tantillo of Fox News, President Obama's tendency to explain is a bad thing. Right. Give me the good old days, when we had the Decider . . .
• "Hell is a morally repugnant doctrine. People wonder why God would send people to eternal punishment." Nevertheless, 59% of Americans believe in it, according to one poll.
• Jefferson County, Alabama is going bankrupt. Why? Because the Republicans in power there lowered taxes and put public services in the hands of private enterprise. Thank you, capitalism.

I really need to get my brain under control. I'm still going in too many directions. Maybe once I get all of this out of my system, and once I've finished my grading, I'll be able to focus.

Whaaaaaaaaat?

We've all been reading stories lately about right-wing knuckleheads breaking out their (rightfully-held but woefully-employed) firearms and killing them some freaking lefties. First there was the George Tiller murder. Then there's the cop-killer Richard "Pop" Poplawski. And now there's James W. von Brunn. I thought that Michael Gerson would have something interesting to say about this, since he's a Reich-winger and I figured this would challenge his worldview. I was wrong.

In the course of his screetardation, here's a puzzling bit:

The anti-Semitic community is varied in background and ideology. It includes both Internet Nazis and campus leftists carrying signs that read, "Jews = Nazis."

Really? Who are these "leftists"? Are they represented by Jeremiah Wright, who Gerson mentions in his next sentence? Here's Gerson's Wright quote:

Oh, wait. He doesn't have a quote. But he will put a couple of words in quotation marks. Here's what Gerson has to say:

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright recently blamed "them Jews" for blocking his access to President Obama.

Really? That's what Gerson has for "leftist" antagonism for the Jews? Does Gerson think that more than a hundred people in America take Jeremiah Wright seriously? But that is it. Then Gerson goes on to document other instances of anti-Semitism. Leftist? No. But that's the last brush he used, so the next painting must have been done with the same implement, right?

Er, no.

This article is just another example of Michael Gerson's incompetence. But given that he got started as Dubya's speech-writer, we shouldn't expect much. Oy.

Sometimes the Angel is in the Details

I just saw this picture posted to The Rude Pundit:

My first reaction to this was: holy shit, what a cynical attempt at pathos. My next thought was: "Wait . . . that woman has a cane--this hug isn't normal. And it shouldn't be. We like to think of those who have disabilities in the way in which they compensate, but sometimes they define themselves by their limitations. If Tammy Duckworth* leans over, she'll fall. If Obama is going to hug her, he's going to have to do all the leaning.

I feel like he didn't need to be coached on that. That's part of why I'm ecstatic about the election.

*I didn't realize who Ms. Duckworth was. She deserves all kinds of good will from American patriots. Especially those toolboxes who listen to Rush or Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly.