Trump Laughs When Audience Member Shouts Out "Shoot Migrants"

May 9, 2019, 10:02 am

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Trump Chuckles Audience Members Shout Out To Shoot Migrants

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2019/05/09/trump-chuckles-shooting-migrants/1150160001/

A History Of Trump's Incitation To Violence
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/04/trump-incites-violence.html

"Pittsburgh Rabbi Told Trump That Hate Speech Led To Synagogue Massacre"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/11/pittsburgh-rabbi-told-trump-that-hate.html

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If The Mueller Report Is The Nothing Burger Trump Says, Then What's He Trying To Hide?

May 9, 2019, 8:14 pm

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Napolitano: If Mueller Resigns From DOJ, Trump Can't Stop Him From Testifying About Obstruction Of Justice

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/05/06/napolitano_if_mueller_resigns_from_doj_trump_cant_stop_him_from_testifying.html

Persuasion? Yes. Biden? Maybe.

May 10, 2019, 5:33 am

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Persuasion? Yes.

Biden? Maybe.

Op-Ed Columnist My colleague Jamelle Bouie made two arguments in a column about Joe Biden this week. This morning, I want to agree with one of the two and take issue with the other. Jamelle’s central point was that Biden may not be as strong a general-election candidate as many Democrats seem to be assuming. The first reason is that Biden’s current popularity — especially among swing voters and among Democratic voters who don’t always turn out — may prove fleeting. Jamelle wrote: “Biden, like [Hillary] Clinton, is extremely vulnerable to Trumpian forms of faux-populist attack. He is a 36-year veteran of Washington who backed the Iraq War, cultivated close ties with banks and credit card companies and played a leading role in shaping the punitive policies that helped produce mass incarceration. As he did with Clinton, Trump can slam him on these issues and sow division among Democratic voters.” This seems exactly right, and somewhat overlooked. Presidential candidates with long histories in the spotlight haven’t fared very well in modern times. It’s not just Clinton. Think about John McCain, John Kerry, Al Gore, Bob Dole and Walter Mondale. Candidates who seem fresher have done better, like each of the last four presidents: Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Are they ‘gone’? I’m less persuaded by the second case against Biden’s electability — namely, that no Democrat can win the white working-class voters, not even Biden. These voters, Jamelle wrote, may simply be “gone.” It is possible, he added, “that their shift away from the Democratic Party, which began long before 2016, is permanent.” I’m skeptical that they’re “gone,” because Democrats have won a decent share of these voters in two of the last three national elections. Obama held his own with white voters who lack a college degree (at least outside of the Deep South), and congressional Democrats did so as well in the 2018 midterms. That’s a major reason that the party flipped House seats in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, upstate New York and elsewhere. If 2018 had been a presidential election, Democrats would have swept the upper Midwest states that had carried Trump to victory in 2016 — Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan — as well as Pennsylvania. Democrats aren’t going to win most working-class whites. But there is a big difference between losing them as badly as Hillary Clinton did and doing as well as Obama or many 2018 Democratic candidates. As a longtime senator, Biden has weaknesses that Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg and others do not. In coming months, perhaps one of them will come to seem like a more electable candidate. But it would be a big mistake for Democrats to give up on persuasion and focus almost entirely on turnout in 2020. Related: Jamelle Bouie is starting a newsletter, which will have more of his thought-provoking arguments. And in today’s Times, Anita Hill has an Op-Ed about combating sexual violence and harassment — and about Biden’s missed opportunity to do so in 1991. Elsewhere: In The Atlantic, Ron Brownstein connects a few recent polls to argue that many swing voters, both suburbanites and blue-collar whites, are skeptical of some recent Democratic proposals, like Medicare for All and free college. “Though they’ve attracted little attention, recent public polls have sent clear warning signals that the ambitious agenda of the rejuvenated Democratic left could strain the coalition that carried the party to its sweeping gains in the 2018 election,” Brownstein writes.

A 2,624-Year-Old Bald Cypress Tree Has Just Been Found Growing In A NC Swamp

May 10, 2019, 7:01 am

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A 2,624-Year-Old Tree Has Just Been Found Growing in a Swamp in America

Along the Black River in North Carolina, bald cypress trees have been quietly growing for millennia. Quite literally so: Scientists recently found trees over 2000 ...

ScienceAlert7 hours ago

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In an NC swamp, researcher finds tree older than Christianity. Could there be more?

Scientists documenting ages of bald cypress along the Black River in southeastern North Carolina have discovered an ancient tree whose annual growth rings ...

Rock Hill HeraldYesterday

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St. Thomas Aquinas And The Keeping of Pets

May 10, 2019, 7:10 am

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St. Thomas Aquinas and the Keeping of Pets

There is a wonderful story about St. Thomas, teleology and a bunch of birds. It goes like this. A grand duke was visiting St. Thomas in the convent of St. Jacques in Paris and wanted to express his appreciation for St. Thomas and the Dominican Order by offering some sort of gift. The two went for a walk along the Left Bank of the Seine River and came upon a number of birds in cages being sold to passers-by. (I am told you can still buy birds at the spot today!) At this point, Thomas has an idea: will the duke buy him all these birds? The duke is more than happy to purchase the whole lot, and after the transaction is complete he asks what St. Thomas would like to do with his feathered friends. Thomas responds: “Open the cages.”

Why? Well, St. Thomas wanted to make a point about the bird’s natures. They have wings, and therefore their perfection is served, not by being cooped up in a cage, but by exercising the natural abilities God gave them.

This is a charming story illustrating Thomas’ teleological philosophy. A creature finds its perfection in its end. As Aristotle said, nothing in nature is without purpose; the wings of a bird are to be used in flight, not looked at through bars. Unfortunately, for me, and, I imagine, for a number of others, this story is Janus-faced. I appreciate the philosophical point, but it also makes me uncomfortable. Was St. Thomas against pets?

This might seem absurd, but for someone who grew up with over 120 animals in the house, ranging from fish written about in the New York Times to trained lizards, this is a real concern. Was I wrong to have all these animals? Are pet-lovers really animal-haters? Is having friendly fauna in the house a “performative contradiction” of Thomistic principles?

Before we address this question directly, let me quote from another’s lifetime experience with animals, which serves as a sed contra of sorts. Chilton Williamson, a zoo docent, writes about a famous lion, Elsa, who manifested what seemed to be remarkably personal characteristics:

Like everyone working with zoos, I’m frequently asked by the public if I feel sorry for the ‘captive’ animals. My answer is no. (Are you sorry for your housecat within the confines of his comfortable home?) But I do feel for those animals who are capable of Elsa’s achievement, yet lack the opportunity to realize their animal potential as she was able to do.

Do certain animals need people to attain their true potential? This may sound sentimental in the extreme—something that Thomists are not generally known for—but I think itis something St. Thomas would endorse, in a way. In the  Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas discusses the possibility of one thing’s perfection coming from another. He says: “The nature that can attain perfect good, although it needs help from without in order to attain it, is of more noble condition than a nature which cannot attain perfect good, but attains some imperfect good, although it need no help from without in order to attain it.” Citing Aristotle as the source of this principle, Thomas goes on to appeal to the example of health: “He is better disposed to health who can attain perfect health, albeit by means of medicine, than he who can attain but imperfect health, without the help of medicine.”

Now Thomas’s main concern in this article is the perfect happiness of the rational soul as assisted by God’s grace, a perfection that is unattainable for irrational animals. And, of course, I am not disputing this; we all know, or should know, that dogs don’t “go to heaven.” What I do think this analysis allows, as a possibility, is that through engagement with and in the compassionate company of human beings, some animals (certainly not all—I leave the question of snake-temperament to those with more experience) may attain a greater perfection of their own natural potential; they may become, with a little help from us, more fully what they can be.

Just as we are raised to perfection through participation in the divine life of the Trinity, could we not say that, in a roughly analogous way, some animals may be “raised,” not to a genuinely rational form of life, but to a more perfect exercise of their sensitive and estimative powers, through participation in human fellowship and community? This has been my experience, and I don’t think it is entirely sentimental projection.

So what about the story of St. Thomas and the birds? I like to think that Thomas was right to free all those birds cooped up in cramped cages. But I also like to think that, while most of the birds flew away to places unknown, if one did happen to alight on St. Thomas’s shoulder and greet him with a chirp or a tweet, St. Thomas would have welcomed a new friend. And what heights a bird-friend of St. Thomas could have reached—well, that is something for any animal-lover to ponder.

Br. Bonaventure Chapman O.P. entered the Order of Preachers in 2010. He received an M.Th. in Applied Theology from Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University, where he studied for the Anglican priesthood.

Breakthrough Discovery In Easily Recyclable Plastic From Lawrence Livermore Lab

May 10, 2019, 7:25 am

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Breakthrough Discovery In Easily Recyclable Plastic From Lawrence Berkeley National Lab:

Plastic Recycled From The Inside Out

https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2019/05/06/recycling-plastic-from-the-inside-out/

Trump Says John Kerry Should Be Prosecuted Under The Logan Act

May 10, 2019, 8:21 am

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Trump says John Kerry should be prosecuted under Logan Act | TheHill

President Trump said Thursday that former Secretary of State John Kerry should be prosecuted under the Logan Act for speaking with Iranian officials and ...

The HillYesterday

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Are You And I The Two People Responsible For Keeping Trump In Power?

May 15, 2019, 11:51 am

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Dear F,

Here is  the intro to New York Times' columnist Frank Bruni's most recent column.

Are we, as Bruni says, guilty of "giving Trump too much of what he thrives on? Attention."

Is it possible that you and I constitute the "two straws worth" of attention that insure His Deplorability never weakens to the point where he would collapse.

Sort of like the proverbial camel's back -- but "in reverse."

I'm not suggesting abstinence... but moderation.

Frank Bruni Opinion Columnist

President Trump’s outrages, absurdities and indelicacies arrive with such frequency that they numbingly blur together, and to comment on each is to give him too much of what he thrives on — attention — and be debilitated by his dominance of your thoughts and passions.

That’s why many of you rightly cry foul about the media’s obsession with him, and it’s why I’m judicious, or try to be, about how much real estate he gets in my columns and in this newsletter. Love A

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The Borowitz Report: "Betsy DeVos Suggests That Bribing Colleges Helps Students Learn Math"

May 15, 2019, 11:53 am

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Betsy DeVos Suggests That Bribing Colleges Helps Students Learn Math

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Offering an upbeat assessment of the headline-grabbing college-admissions scandal, Betsy DeVos said on Thursday that bribing colleges gave students “a really neat opportunity” to learn math.

The Secretary of Education suggested that, rather than keeping children in the dark about the bribes that enable their college acceptances, “Parents should sit around the kitchen table with their kids and work on some fun math problems together.”

“Let’s say it’ll cost Amber seventy-five thousand dollars to get into Stanford, and it’ll cost her twin brother Dylan seventy-five thousand to get into Georgetown,” she said. “How much money total will their parents have to wire?”

“Or let’s say Jenna has a 470 verbal score, but she needs a 730 to get into Yale,” DeVos said. “How much will she have to pay to get her score changed?”

DeVos said that, as regrettable as the criminal charges against the parents in the bribery scandal were, the arrests themselves provided a teachable moment. “Lori Loughlin posted a million dollars in bail, and Felicity Huffman posted two hundred fifty thousand,” she said. “How much bail did Lori and Felicity post?”

"Only You Can Prevent Fake News"

May 15, 2019, 11:59 am

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Highly Potent Weed Has Swept The Market, Raising Concerns About Health Risks

May 15, 2019, 9:05 pm

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Highly Potent Weed Has Swept The Market, Raising Concerns About Health Risks
NPR

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/15/723656629/highly-potent-weed-has-swept-the-market-raising-concerns-about-health-risks

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts On Marijuana And Psychedelics

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/06/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-on.html

"The Eyes Are Useless When The Mind Is Blind"

May 15, 2019, 9:12 pm

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QAnon: The Evanescence Of Sanity, And The Catastrophic Collapse Of American "Conservatism"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/05/john-kennedy-jr-is-alive-and-trump-fan.html

Trump's Whores And Hustlers: "We Are Known By The Company We Keep"

May 16, 2019, 6:37 am

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Here Are All Of The Indictments, Guilty Pleas And Convictions From Robert Muellers Investigation

Time Magazine

http://time.com/5556331/mueller-investigation-indictments-guilty-pleas/

United States of Barbaria (Meme Collection)
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-united-states-of-barbaria-meme.html

"Trump Arrests The Good Samaritan," New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof

May 16, 2019, 6:45 am

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Teresa L. Todd was detained by Border Patrol agents after stopping her car to help a group of migrants in Texas. Jessica Lutz for The New York Times.

"Trump Arrests The Good Samaritan" Nicholas Kristof, New York Times Columnist Teresa Todd is just a good person. So when she was driving along a West Texas highway recently and saw a young man trying desperately to flag down her car, she didn’t drive on. “I’m a mom,” she told me, and he reminded her of her 15-year-old son. Teresa stopped and found three siblings from El Salvador, including a desperately ill 18-year-old woman whose life she helped save. And then a sheriff’s deputy and Border Patrol officer pulled up behind Teresa — and arrested her.

My column today tells the story of Teresa and how her compassion as a Good Samaritan got her arrested and detained in a holding cell; she is still facing possible federal charges. It’s part of a general crackdown on Americans who try to save the lives of migrants. I also mention a man in Arizona, Scott Warren, who goes on trial this month and faces up to 20 years in prison for trying to save migrants’ lives in the desert there.

“I’m simply a mom who saw a child in need and pulled over to try to help,” Teresa says. “The whole time I was by the side of the road, I was thinking: What country am I in? This is not the United States.” Now here’s my column about how a mom in West Texas got arrested for helping save a life — and what that says about our country today. Read! Alan: The conservative malice represented in the article above distills to the right-wing conviction that anyone on "the left side of the aisle" is a "baby killer." This categorization of all liberals and progressives as "horned devils with pointed tails" provides American "conservatives" -- particularly "Christian""conservatives" -- with all the self-righteous justification needed to see themselves -- and only themselves -- as "Godly people"... whereas everyone is "God-damned." Are "Pro-Lifers" The Deadliest "Baby Killers" Of All? http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/05/what-if-pro-lifers-are-deadliest-baby.html Reprise: Catholic Nun Explains "Pro Life" In A Way That Will Surprise American Conservatives https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/05/reprise-catholic-nun-explains-pro-life.html American Conservatives And The Righteousness Of Cruelty https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2019/04/american-conservatives-and.html

My Prime Political Directive Is To Keep Lunatics Out Of Office, Not To Advance Progressivism

May 16, 2019, 7:24 am

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Alan: For me, "the prime political directive" is to keep lunatics out of office. 

In light of this litmus, Hillary -- even with her baggage -- was sane while Trump is a sociopath afflicted with several subsidiary psychiatric diagnoses. 

It is a great boon when politics contributes to "The Common Good,""The General Welfare" and the enhancement of a "Social Contract." 

But fundamentally, I see political goodness (particularly in the federal government) as unexpected "gravy" atop the "main dish" whose chief menu choices are "madness" or "sanity."

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Like Other Red States AL Students Suffer Intense Bullying. Then They Grow Up To Bully Others.

May 16, 2019, 8:19 am

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Like Other Red States Alabama Students Suffer Intense Bullying. No Wonder They Grow Up To Bully Others.

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/alabama-students-suffer-some-of-the-worst-bullying-in-the-us-like-other-southern-conservative-states-study/

Donald Trump Is A Dopamine Junkie

May 16, 2019, 10:29 am

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Trump Tweets Compulsively Because He's Addicted To The "Euphoria" He Gets From Making People Mad

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/05/trump-writes-most-of-his-own-tweets-because-hes-addicted-to-the-euphoria-he-gets-from-making-people-mad-report/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=207

All The Dirt On Donald
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/01/all-dirt-on-donald.html

"Trumpistas Don't Just Lie, They're Antagonistic To Truth"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/10/lies-lies-lies-lies-compendium-of-pax.html

It's Not Just That Trump And His Lickspittles Lie: They Lie More Brazenly Than Satan Himself

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/06/its-not-just-that-trump-his.html

Scott Pruitt: How Conservatives Use Decontextualized Shards Of Truth To Tell HUGE Lies

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/08/scott-pruitt-how-conservatives-use.html

At his last campaign stop in 2016 election, Ted Nugent was Donald Trump's special guest.

"My Gripe With Christianity"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-gripe-with-christianity.html

"The Who" And Jimmy Fallon Play "Won't Get Fooled Again" On Elementary School Instruments

May 16, 2019, 6:55 pm

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"The Who" And Jimmy Fallon Play "Won't Get Fooled Again"

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/8511682/the-who-jimmy-fallon-wont-get-fooled-again-watch

My Fascination With The Nearness Of The Moon

May 16, 2019, 7:07 pm

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Jesus Saves: How It Works In "Jesus Land"

May 17, 2019, 6:08 am

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"The Deadly Oppression Of Black People: Best Pax Posts"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/10/like-me-black-people-are-far-from.html

Pax On Both Houses: Compendium Of Voter Fraud And Voter Suppression Posts

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/04/compendium-voter-fraud-and-voter.html

The Daily Show Interviews Republican Official Who Spills Beans On Deliberate Voter Suppression 
Masquerading As Prevention Of Voter Fraud
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/10/jon-stewart-asif-mandvi-investigates.html

Republican Party Is "Full Of Racists," Colin Powell's Chief Of Staff
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/republican-party-is-full-of-racists.html

"Dog Whistle Politics": Coded Language And The Rise Of Racially Scornful Political Rhetoric

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/04/dog-whistle-politics-coded-language-and.html

Dirty Trickster Lee Atwater: The GOP SOB At The Heart Of Republican Barbarism (Hidden Mic)

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/04/lee-atwater-gop-sob-at-heart-of.html

Couldn't Happen Here?

It Has Happened Here.

Republican Presidential Candidate Pat Buchanan "Summarizes The Republican Philosophy"

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/republican-presidential-candidate-pat.html

Compendium Of Best "Pax" Posts About Devious Donald, "The Deplorable One"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/08/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-about.html

Best Trump Memes From "Pax On Both Houses"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/best-trump-memes-from-pax-on-both-houses.html