When I hear Ben Shapiro say, in re Donald Trump’s latest legal troubles, that “the only way that you actually restore the credibility of the justice system is to have Republicans prosecute Republicans and Democrats prosecute Democrats,” I note that folks who trap themselves in corners always make up new rules. Pledge allegiance to America, Mr. Shapiro, and not Donald Trump, and you won’t have to resort to such stratagems. Also too, Republicans have so thoroughly won the “law and order” propaganda war that even Democratic Presidents tend to appoint Republicans to law enforcement positions in their Administrations, so again we must ask: why does anyone listen to Ben Shapiro?
From Popular Information we learn that murder rates have dropped rather dramatically in at least 90 cities in 2023, and surprise, surprise! Our “liberal” media have basically ignored this development.” That’s partly because all they care about is sensationalism! But also, when they covered the 2020 spike in murder rates – when it was still much lower than in the relatively pandemic-free ‘80s and ‘90s – they argued that Donald Trump’s “law and order” approach was needed, even though the murder spike occurred on his watch. How else to blame liberals for everything? I did actually type the phrase “Donald Trump’s ‘law and order’ approach” without spritzing tea all over my keyboard. (Also too, think Larry Krasner will ever get any credit for Philadelphia’s 17% murder rate decline? I kid, of course.)
When I hear that a proposed constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights in Florida enjoys 70% support but “its passage is far from assured,” I’m reminded not only that Florida is a fascist state that deserves ejection from our Union, but that a lot of very, very popular ideas die once the big corporations, to quote a phrase, flood the zone with shit. And when I hear about the anticipated battle over whether the amendment should say “pregnant people” instead of “women,” I think we worry too much about offending other people – seriously, if you’re insistent enough on saying “women” that you’d rather see the amendment die, I don’t want you in my foxhole. Saying “patient” instead was a pretty good way to slice that knot, though. And rest assured that right-wing complaints about the amendment are far, far worse than any battle over diction.
Dahlia Lithwick at Salon argues that calling Justice Alito’s fishing trip imbroglio an “ethics” issue actually diminishes its evil, but since I don’t actually “tend to think of ‘ethics’ scandals in league with failures to use the correct shrimp fork,” I can’t say I agree. I do agree that “(i)t is a big-game safari for access to powerful people,” and that the Justices are actually “the hunted” in that safari. And I also say that we Americans like to flaunt our cynicism, particularly about ethics, because we have far less mastery over our lives than we did 50 years ago, and while we need to struggle to regain that mastery, we also need to shame cynics who strut around like peacocks. (Of course cynicism isn’t as great an evil as dishonesty or hypocrisy; it is a gateway drug to either or both, but maybe I hate it more than I should because I see so many good people become cynics.)
This 2019 article alleging that “Your Cotton Tote is Pretty Much the Worst Replacement for a Plastic Bag” seems like the sort of thing an editor demanded – while it’s true that manufacturing cotton actually uses up a lot more resources than manufacturing plastic does, you must also consider that plastic never breaks down and chokes our oceans and winds up in our bodies at alarming and unhealthy rates, which fact the article does disclose in paragraph 3, but almost dismissively. One might just as easily say that the Chicago Bears were a pretty good team last year except for all the losing, and you would not feel particularly informed by that statement. Also, what about hemp, which would be more durable and which uses up way less water and fertilizer than cotton does? If we ask our “liberal” media, we might never know!
Finally, the Georgia Elections Board has cleared pollworkers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss of all those ridiculous election fraud allegations, and in a sane and decent society, the knowledge that a Republican-dominated board cleared them would be enough to end all the stupid stories and death threats. Sadly, the only reason that’ll ever happen is that folks have moved on to some new outrage manufactured by their right-wing thought-leaders – dirty books, trans folk, it doesn’t matter. Have I mentioned that folks who make death threats are the weakest, most cowardly people on Earth? It is possible I have not mentioned that yet.
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