Bumpty-Bumpty-Bump

Not channelling Trashcan Man...

(Aside:  I managed somehow not to have heard that song until the late '90s, which meant I lost the aural background of a fair piece of The Stand).

• To begin:  Lesley Stahl interviews the last living prosecutor from the Nuremberg (Nürnberg in German) trials.

  The Nuremberg trials after World War II were historic -- the first international war crimes tribunals ever held. Hitler's top lieutenants were prosecuted first. Then a series of subsequent trials were mounted against other Nazi leaders, including 22 SS officers responsible for killing more than a million people -- not in concentration camps -- but in towns and villages across Eastern Europe. They would never have been brought to justice were it not for Ben Ferencz.
  
  [...]
  
  But Ferencz knew they were guilty and could prove it. Without calling a single witness, he entered into evidence the defendants' own reports of what they'd done. Exhibit 111: "In the last 10 weeks, we have liquidated around 55,000 Jews." Exhibit 179, from Kiev in 1941: "The city's Jews were ordered to present themselves… about 34,000 reported, including women and children. After they had been made to give up their clothing and valuables, all of them were killed, which took several days." Exhibit 84, from Einsatzgruppen D in March of 1942: Total number executed so far: 91,678. Einsatzgruppen D was the unit of Ferencz's lead defendant Otto Ohlendorf. He didn't deny the killings -- he had the gall to claim they were done in self-defense.

• Via skippy: Paid protestors. When "conservatives" claim that protesters are paid by various shadowy leftist financiers (there are leftist financiers? Where?), it's because that's how they roll, and they are so unimaginative that they can't believe anyone would take sufficient exception to acts unless money was involved.  (Tommy Christopher, Shareblue.  Which may be biased.)
• Following the money...  Because it's indicative of the man's character.  (The Rectification of Names)
• Stealth oppression of poor people.  Because their lives are still insufficiently Dickensian.  (Kai Wright, The Nation, and I've hit my limit of 6 articles.)
• Why Republicans hate sick and/or poor people.  A streak of libertarianism holds that a person attracts those pre-existing conditions on purpose.  (Another reason to distrust libertarianism.)

  In reality, people exist in a society where their life trajectories are largely determined by impersonal social and political systems. Nevertheless, the just world hypothesis can be compelling. It allows the privileged, the powerful and the rich to rationalize their opportunities: “I earned it! Those people are lazy!” “Good things happen to good people! Those people are immoral and made bad choices unlike me!” “Their problems aren’t my responsibility!”

  (Chauncey DeVega, Indomitable)
• An illustration
• Joy Reid's staff could not get one Republican to come on and defend health care vote.  (Susie Madrak, Crooks and Liars)  Yes, I know I've mentioned it before.
• A fuller explanation

  It's unlikely that the Republican House bill ends up used as the real blueprint, but if that happens the most likely outcome would be that many individuals with pre-existing conditions would be priced out of the insurance markets altogether, and a certain number of them would die earlier than would have been the case under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Those early deaths are a bizarre way of saving money, and so is a plan aiming at insuring only the healthy against the expenses of illness.

  (Echidne of the Snakes)
• Lance Mannion on the health-care bill fight:

  I mean the Republicans civic religion, their belief that all government spending is bad for the economy and bad for the character of the nation. The road to serfdom is paved with liberals' good intentions and paid for by conservatives who---another article of faith---are the only people in America who work and pay taxes. How can we call ourselves a free people if most of us are imprisoned by our dependency on the government for food, shelter, and health care while the hardworking rest of us are held captive by our obligation to foot the bill for the lazy, entitled, irresponsible mobs demanding and collecting free stuff?

• Eschaton: the "It's better than nothing, but" defense of Obamacare.
• Three from driftglass:
  • Conservatives co-opting liberal positions and erasing liberals at MSNBC
  • About "centrism" (with bonus Star Trek clip)
  • Bankruptcy of both-siderism (with bonus dance clip from Dragnet [movie])
• Meanwhile, back at the ranch... Michael Flynn is still a problem.  (Zandar Versus The Stupid)  UPDATE!  Sally Yates testifies.
• Southern Beale:

  This is part of a larger flaw in white Southern evangelical Christianity. There’s this belief that material success is the outward manifestation of spiritual worthiness. It’s proof that one has been “chosen” by God. It has to be that, right? To concede that it might more accurately be the result of privilege and decades of the cards being stacked in your favor at the expense of others would be to concede complicity in an unjust system. Few have the moral courage to admit that. Better to believe that the system is fair and success a sign of righteousness.

And that closes all the tabs. But there are probably outrages I've missed.  Oh, and Emmanuel Macron defeated Marine Le Pen.  (Video)  Whew!