Alexis Goldstein at TruthOut describes a "National Investment Authority" that would enable good Americans to invest in public projects directly. That could be a lot better than "get Wall Street to do it" or "create an infrastructure bank" or "hand out tax breaks to attract private investment," the last of which was Donald Trump's big infrastructure idea. Also, too, banksters like to charge a shit-ton of fees and tolls, and a National Investment Authority wouldn't have to do that -- you know, just like Medicare doesn't have all the administrative overhead that private health insurance corporations do. They'll call all that "socialism," but you might better call it cutting out the middle-man. (As an aside, we also learn from Ms. Goldstein that the Chicago parking meter privatization deal was even worse than we thought.)
Nicholas Powers at TruthOut reports that "The ZIP Codes of the Trump Loyalists Who Attacked the Capitol May Surprise You" -- i.e., that many "came from Democratic strongholds, where the number of white people had declined as diversity increased." Well, if you're surrounded by people who think like you, you're more likely to let off steam around them than in a Capitol coup. Mr. Powers's last five paragraphs, under the subheading "The Poverty of Hatred," are must-read.
Jonathan Tilove at Texas Monthly profiles Michael Wood, running in the Texas's 6th House district special election, who's explicitly running as an anti-Trump Republican. His half of an exchange with a right-wing radio blowhard, who says "It's your feeling that everybody that disagrees with you is just deluded," is worth quoting in full: "This is one of the worst parts of what Trump has done to the right, is he’s turned us into a bunch of whiny little lefties. It’s all about 'feelings.' It’s all about 'Well, you’ve got your truth; I’ve got my truth.'" I've said similar things about Trump votaries (though I'll say "their own stereotype of liberals" rather than "a bunch of whiny little lefties"), but I wish Mr. Wood more success in shaking them out of their masturbatory stupor.
Larry Kudlow goes on Fox News to say the Biden climate plan will result in "(n)o burger on July 4," "(n)o steaks on the barbecue," and "grill(ed) Brussels sprouts," among other absurdities. I guess they'll claim it's "tongue in cheek," but aren't you supposed to be funny when you're tongue-in-cheek? That's only funny if Mr. Kudlow is deliberately parodying all the people he's been hanging out with since attaching himself to Donald Trump, and that does seem beyond him, even in this supposedly post-modern age.
CBS/YouGov poll finds that nearly half of Republican voters think the jury got the Derek Chauvin verdict wrong. Let them explain how! was my first reaction, but note well that "nearly half of Republican voters" represents most of the 25% of all voters who disagree with the verdict, and what percentage of the electorate is batshit insane, according to me? 25%. So, no explanation needed, or wanted! (But I also notice on page one of the poll, we also learn that nearly four out of five Americans think their local police do a good job, and displacing evil outside of your backyard is a foible not contained to the Batshit Insane 25%.)
Finally, it only took a dozen years, but we are witnessing, per Renée Graham at the Boston Globe, "The Wholly Undeserved Rehabilitation of George W. Bush." I've found chronicles of his sins as President to be, if anything, rather incomplete -- before Trump, Mr. Bush set the standard for gaslighting and fear-mongering, and I still vividly remember the fear of neighbors tattling on me to Homeland Security and me winding up in a Guantánamo, Indiana concentration camp. Since January 6, I've come to accept that Mr. Trump was worse, but really, that's like discerning the difference between a mound of dung the flies have found and a mound of dung they haven't found yet.
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