Treasury Secretary's wife brags about flight on government plane and all the big-name fashion brands she wore on that plane -- then unloads on one of her critics thusly: "Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country? I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day ‘trip’ than you did. Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you’d be willing to sacrifice if the choice was yours." Well, much is required from those to whom much is given! We'll always have people who think they're better than us; our task, as civilized people, is to contain their evil.
Notorious big pharma executive Martin Shkreli has been buying up internet domains with the same names as some of his critics (mayakosoff.com, carolinemoss.com, etc) so he can better mock them. I used to tell people that Michael Jackson's Neverland was a great argument for the 91% tax bracket, but of course I never dreamed of the Pharma Bro back then. How is buying up websites so you can mock journalists an example of the genius of the free market? Hell, how is jacking up the price of a life-saving HIV drug 5000%?
Long-time seller of white supremacist merchandise decides to shut down his store and find "spiritual peace" after making the front page of the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer. So how quickly did he get from ZOMG FRONT PAGE ABOVE TEH FOLD OF TEH INQUIRER WE HAVE ARRIVEDZ!!!!! to all my neighbors have stopped talking to me? Quicker, I bet, than he gets from TEH BOTH SIDEZ ARE TO BLAMEZ!!!! to I was wrong and I have no excuses.
Vice President Pence says we shouldn't take down Confederate monuments, but just build more monuments that "celebrate the progress that we’ve made since that history." How did Mike Pence ever make it as a right-wing talker? Because let's-keep-the-racist-monuments-and-then-make-new-better-monuments is about as far from straight talk as you can get; it's a little like King Solomon suddenly splitting the baby in half. And I bet historians who spend most of their time making sense of medieval balance sheets also roll their eyes. (Also, too: how is anti-racism "some contemporary political cause"?)
Finally, the Department of Justice got a warrant demanding extensive information on everyone who visited an anti-Trump website hosted by Dreamhost, but now the DOJ has amended its warrant request so that it doesn't look like a fishing expedition. Frankly, trying to convict 200 protestors of "felony rioting" is still a damn fishing expedition, but still, a little sunlight can go a long way.
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