Colin Powell, 1937 – 2021

I was meaning to leave poor Colin Powell alone today — and all future days, too — but I am just the teensiest bit weary of the continuous eulogizing that’s been going on all day.

Photo: Brittanica.com

Powell was a young man who — like far too many of our young men — thought that the best way to solve a problem was by violence. How else do you explain his love for the military? And no matter how much his friends declare him a man of peace, a man who “understood that war was a last resort,” he spent his life in wars in various places around the world, as a young officer and as a four-star general, all of them of extremely dubious value to his country, unless you count gratuitous ass-kicking as “value.”

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American Rescue Plan vs. GOP Tax Giveaway of 2017

You may be hearing a lot of Republican bullshit

…about how President Biden’s about-to-be approved American Rescue Plan is being “shoved down the throat” of the helpless American taxpayer, who of course is totally against its many wasteful elements. But how does it stack up against the Trump Tax Giveaway Act of 2017, which was passed with no negotiation and no Democratic votes? Well, both bills cost us about the same amount – 1.9 trillion dollars. Other than that, if we put them side by side it looks like this:

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There’s More to Biden’s Covid Bill Than the Price Tag

Image swiped from somebody’s Facebook page

If you watch television, read the paper or listen to the news on the radio

…you could be forgiven if you thought there was absolutely nothing to know about President Biden’s covid relief bill other than how much it’s going to cost. One point nine trillion dollars! That’s almost two trillion dollars! So expensive! Every single news account I’ve heard or read for the past month has called it “President Biden’s one point nine trillion dollar covid relief package, emphasizing “trillion” every time. No one calls it “The American Rescue Plan,” which is its name, after all.

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GOP Prefers Fewer Voters

Photo: Megan Varner/Getty Images

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the voting booth, Republicans across the nation are busy writing new laws to make it harder to vote. They did well in many state elections this past November, but they lost control of the Senate, gained seats but remain a minority in the House, and lost the White House to Joe Biden.

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Trump’s Lawyers Quit Him

“Butch Bowers” sounds like the name of the bully in an Our Gang comedy.

Photograph: Mary Ann Chastain/AP

But by all accounts he is, in fact, a smart, experienced ultra-competent trial lawyer who works at Miller Law Group, a super respectable law firm. So after years of crackpot sycophant attorneys like Rudy Giuliani, Sydney Powell and Lin Wood, Donald Trump finally hired excellent counsel for his upcoming (second) impeachment trial.

Except they’ve apparently all quit, days before they are supposed to file statements with the United States Senate.

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Protesters vs. Looters

There are four distinct groups out on the streets these days in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd: Cops, journalists, peaceful protesters and troublemakers. The protesters are telling us they are fed up with systemic racism and they want it to stop, and the troublemakers are seeing the protests as an opportunity to steal stuff, and have fun by smashing things.

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Is Donald Trump The Chosen One?

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

If there are any other atheists out there who need more reasons to keep religion OUT of matters of the state, Ed Kilgore outlines a few of them here. Many of Trump’s apologists are saying that Donald is not the self-involved, narcissistic ignoramus he appears to be. Rather he is “the chosen one,” whatever the fuck that means.

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Dems: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

Talking about impeaching Kavanaugh is not good politics.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that the Federalist/Heritage judges Trump has been nominating won’t do much to improve women’s reproductive rights, immigration justice, income inequality, voting & civil rights, or human rights in general. More likely, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and lower court judges will rule in partisan ways to lock in regressive policies for generations.

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Dorian in Alabama

Friends have suggested that I should just let go of the latest insane antics of our Celebrity Apprentice president. I probably should, but instead I’m going to have one more go-round.

Donald Trump displays doctored weather map to prove he is right as always. Photo: Getty via Ars Technica

Trump screwed up a few days ago, and reported that Hurricane Dorian might hit the state of Alabama, and despite everybody in the whole world, including the National Weather Service and members of his staff telling him this just wasn’t true, he spent days doctoring official maps and repeating endlessly that Dorian was, too, going to hit Alabama (at one time). He could have just said “Sorry, I misspoke,” and moved on. An hour later no one would remember the incident. But Donald Trump can never be wrong, and he can never apologize.

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