Our renewed Blogging Council of Wisdom speaks:
- Missed during my respite for court prep: SilverAppleQueen is not unhappy bidding goodbye to 2024, and is not discouraged about 2025.
- Amid Trump, California conflagration, and Middle East war, death, and peace possibilities, we are reminded of the significance of one:
Max’s Dad provides a solid summary of what matters about the life, Presidency, post‑presidency, and death of Jimmy Carter, and how it applies to the state of America today.
Key conclusion:
Was he America’s best President? No. Was he the worst? Hell no. Was he the best human being to be President? Goddamn right he was. The man was a saint among men. Period. - At Juanita Jean’s Dangerous Beauty Salon blogger El Jefe has made the decision to ride off into the sunset after reviewing dismal current events.
Key contemplation:
I was watching the Capitol Rotunda memorial service for Jimmy Carter and was struck by how his passing is really the end of a long chapter of US global leadership and the beginning of what I fear will be a long chapter of darkness, cruelty and corruption.Juanita herself thinks about closing the salon but changes her mind for now (Yay!) (tentatively).
- North Carolina former pastor John Pavlovitz, for the first time in his life, finds himself imagining life as an expat.
- Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit contrasts the reaction of Republican vs Democratic lawmakers to natural disasters affecting voters who support the opposing parties.
- Vixen Strangely reacts to MAGA reaction to the California fires. Yes, it’s deliberate cruelty. But cruelty may not be the real point, but rather a means to a deeper end.
- tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors brings us Marjorie Taylor Greene and her proposed solution to the fires raging in and around Los Angeles.
- Frances Langum knows California is experiencing a mega‑disaster.
But don’t worry. Right wing media has a disaster plan.
It centers on using the disaster to create a flood of lies. - Juliet at Decoding Fox News goes into detail on the ways and means Fox has already employed to weaponize the fires in California.
Podcast form is also available.
- Tommy Christopher brings news from the fire front as California Governor Gavin Newsome praises the Fox Network (and is not kidding) for their report on the courage of members of the CA National Guard in battling the flames.
- Saying such individuals posed a threat to the safety and security of all city residents, The Onion, has Los Angeles Police ordered to arrest everyone who lost their home in the ongoing wildfires.
Can’t have homeless people wandering around.
- Iron Knee at Political Irony is semi-glad that Trump’s official sentencing now means he is an official felon, but is a bit irritated that he escaped the jail sentence he deserved.
- Award winning author John Scalzi explains what he expects from the new administration.
- @whiskeywhistle98 seems less than enthused about January 20.
- Last month, President Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 people on death row. 3 left to die were convicted of mass murders that fit the dictionary definition of terrorism.
There is a lot of room for objection, perhaps depending on one’s views of the death penalty itself, or the perceived inconsistency of leaving 3 to die.
Unfortunately, libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara chooses to object based on the weakest of mainstream argument:
Key argument:
But this is tantamount to saying that the values of the lives of victims of cold‑blooded murderers varies according to the motives of the murderers, a moral abomination. Are the lives of victims of racists and terrorists more valuable than the victims of bank robberies or drug dealers?Degrees of guilt in horrific crimes resulting in death are long established in both law and commonly accepted morality.
Criminal intent has always been taken into consideration, especially in sentencing.The idea is not that the value of victims’ lives depends on motivation, but rather that the degree of evil in the act is amplified by the malevolent motive of the perpetrator.
- Hackwhackers (The Hack is BACK – Yayyyyy) can predict which Tech and Media rulers have bribed their way in by the oligarchs with front row seats at the Trump inauguration.
- Reporter, pundit, and all around deep thinker Brian Beutler finds one method by which we can peer into the inner workings of the mind of a member of the new oligarchy, one of the tech oriented controllers, (involves reading what he writes without professional help).
Brian explains why it’s important.
Key insight:
“Oligarch” is too cryptic; “tech bro” conveys too much affability; these people are misanthropes, and we can’t allow them to dictate the future to us.Key Headline:
Do Not Welcome Our New Misfit Overlords - At Right Wing Watch, Peter Montgomery looks at Trump plans to staff the Justice Department, beginning with Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, who vows to go after the lawyers who investigated Trump.
I think of it as a sort of Pac-Man substitute for Justice.
- With words and pictures, Dave Dubya urges us to remember what we saw this month 4 years ago.
- Julian Sanchez suggests the most shocking thing about the January 6 insurrection is how little it ultimately mattered.
He explains how that happened.
- In Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson carefully reports the pretzel-like efforts of professional Republicans in North Carolina to prohibit voters from pushing them from power. That would include tactics used in the election just concluded, and what is planned for all future elections.
Key quote (Chair of redistricting, David Lewis):
I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats. So I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.
- CalicoJack in The Psy of Life has a suggestion of what we each can do to help save the Republic: shame the truth out of MAGA politicians.
Key Summary:
- driftglass suggests that, in communicating with MagaVille, appeals to reason will not work. MAGAfolk are not interested in mere truth.
- PZ Myers is uncomfortable with one aspect of the MAGA/Musk/Bannon Civil War. He flinches at having to agree with Steve Bannon.
Key conundrum:
You know, Bannon’s gripe with Musk is over those H‑1B visas, that allows some well‑educated brown people to live and work (and be exploited) in the USA, polluting his vision of an all‑white America — yet white South Africans are the most racist people? - Infidel753 sees the beginning of a new political divide overtaking the left v right model, with the dawn of class awareness on the right.
- From The Borowitz Report Musk’s Dept. of Government Efficiency will eliminate the office of Vice President, but JD Vance will not actually be out of work.
- Sarah Cooper finds her entertaining story interrupted by an unexpected bit of ugliness:
- M. Bouffant at Web of Evil has the links as Mark Zuckerberg tries a clumsy pivot, puffing his chest, proclaiming himself a pro‑manliness masculine he‑man.
(No girly girl stuff for him!) - The Moderate Voice watches as the once venerated Washington Post declines after the sellout of owner Jeff Bezos. Numbers continue to slide and columnist Jennifer Rubin joins those leaving.
- Since Democracy Dies in Darkness no longer applies, Ant Farmer’s Almanac helps out The Washington Post with a suggested new motto.
- At News Corpse a Newsmax host shoots down Trump’s Defense Secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth.
News Corpse responds with the unavoidable question:
Has Hell Frozen Over? - Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson suggests a sort of journalists’ epistemic closure:
"It might be hard for reporters to hear but the reality is that WAY too many of them are producing work for each other (or to win a prize) and not the sort of journalism that people, you know, want to read." – @chriscillizza.bsky.social 📰
— James Wigderson (@jwigderson.bsky.social) January 13, 2025 at 8:23 PM
- In Scotties Playtime, Nancy Mace (R‑Hell) gets mad and suggests a fist fight when Jasmine Crockett (D‑TX) implies a bit of childishness on her part.
Key compelling proof she is NOT childish:
I am not a child, I am a grown woman. If you want to take it outside… - Imani Gandy and Jessica Mason Pieklo of Rewire News Group go to podcast with Chief Justice John Roberts’ annual report on the Supreme Court. They notice the elephant NOT in the room: The one word missing from the report? “Ethics.”
- In Nan’s Notebook, Nan is explicitly non-religious, but she has enough Biblical literacy to pose a question: Does Trump fulfill Biblical prophecy? She quotes chapter and verse.
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Evangelical Christians deliver messages from God, specifically for Bruce.
Bruce has questions.
- Clickbait satirist Reductress provides helpful advice on how to develop a sense of community and belonging by waving to people while on a boat.
- Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger goes to the opinion polls to find which professions inspire the most confidence from Americans.
- As the year inflates in its newness, Tamra Brown explains what is now IN and what is now OUT in 2025.
- In Happiness Between Tails da-AL hosts noted author, David Lee Summers, who explains how weird, ultimately explained, events at Kitt Peak National Observatory unexpectedly inspire a major piece of horror fiction.
- Dave Columbo, looking for embarrassing stories, begins with his own adventure with a pomegranate:
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