Potpourri

I'd like to say this is a themed collection of links.  Unfortunately, it isn't.  Much.

• Via supergee, 10 easily-disproved falsehoods.  (Close the poll. )
• Clouding their minds.

  Meanwhile Trump, his family and his closest associates are using the presidency to personally enrich themselves. They view it as a personal ATM and not as a means of serving the public good and the general welfare. Except for what he can force by fiat, Trump has accomplished none of his major campaign promises — and in the case of building his “amazing” wall and “draining the swamp” he has all but admitted such promises were snake oil and outright lies to con the rubes.
  
  Nevertheless, Trump’s voters still enthusiastically support him.

   (Chauncey DeVega, Indomitable)
• You know, it is completely unnecessary to twist the words of "right-wing" politicians to cause them to sound off.

  [Caltech geochemist Kenneth] Farley was testifying in his capacity as the project scientist for the 2020 Mars rover, and at the end of Rohrabacher's allotted time, the congressman asked for one extra question.
  "You have indicated that Mars was totally different thousands of years ago," he told the panel. "Is it possible that there was a civilization on Mars thousands of years ago?"
  "So the evidence is that Mars was different billions of years ago, not thousands of years ago," Farley replied. "And there would be ... there's no evidence that I'm aware of..."
  Rohrabacher persisted: "Would you rule that out? See, there's some people ... well, anyway..."
  "I would say that is extremely unlikely," Farley said.

• Lance Mannion on David (the Biblical one) and "conservative Christian" cognitive dissonance.

The point is that even a man as flawed and sinful as David can find favor in God's eyes as long as he acknowledges God's greatness and answers to His will. God has been long in the habit of using sinners for His purposes. And as we are all sinners and we are all tools for him to use according to His needs, it's not for us to judge when He decides to use someone as flawed and sinful as Donald Trump. It's all part of the plan. It would seem then that God's plan includes spreading fear and loathing of Muslims and Mexicans, turning away war refugees, deporting people by the millions, breaking up countless families in the process, taking health care away from many millions more, leaving children, old people, the poor, and unfortunate to suffer and die, and in short, having us as a Christian nation ignoring Matthew 25.

• The Smiths -- not Morrissey's former group.  Why Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which is trying to buy Tribune Media, is a threat.

  The local TV news giant has been pushing a right-wing slant on local television stations across the country for years. Owned by the Smiths, a family of longtime Republican donors who have all the ambition of News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch but a much lower profile, Sinclair has mostly flown under the radar. But following the election of President Donald Trump, the network has begun adopting the playbook Roger Ailes used to turn Fox News into a conservative media goliath.
  
  Over the last few months, Sinclair has been requiring its stations to run more commentaries from pro-Trump personalities and expanding its reach to greater numbers of unassuming viewers in new local media markets. Now it's defending these clear moves to mimic the aspiring state media over at Fox with warped, brainwash-y logic: The conservative propaganda it pushes on its viewers is necessary because the rest of the media is biased.

  (Pam Vogel, Media Matters, via AlterNet)
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer's religious education.

  That is “what made it possible for him to see the character of the regime Hitler represented when so many others did not.”

  (Fred Clark, The Slacktivist, at Patheos, which I need to add to the blogroll.)
  
• Conscienceless.  (Undercover Blue, Hullabaloo)

  After decades of accusations from conservatives that the American left advances reprehensible moral relativism, this week we saw that the real sin was having morals of any kind. What the Trump family modeled for the world this week is what it looks like to have none. Watergate veteran John Dean warned during the Bush II administration of the rise of "Conservatives Without Conscience."

• AlterNet:

  I wanted to remind my fellow Americans that intelligent people, not so different from ourselves, have experienced the collapse of a republic before. It is one example among many. Republics, like other forms of government, exist in history and can rise and fall...A quarter century ago, after the collapse of communism, we declared that history was over—and in an amazing way we forgot everything we once knew about communism, fascism and National Socialism...

• Booman Tribune looks askance (three-fer!) (Walls and Bridges Interviews) 

  1. It is not going to be hard for Democrats to oppose Trump’s wall, and it doesn’t matter if it is a “bollard” wall or a solar energy plant that can power the entire southwest. There will be no votes for Trump’s stupid wall. Perhaps nowhere does President Trump more clearly demonstrate that he’s insane than when he talks about this subject. He wants windows on the wall so people will be able to see the drug dealers on the other side before they hoist 60 lb. sacks of dope over the top and onto their necks. In case you are in doubt about the lunacy of this talk, a typical bowling ball is 15 lbs. Could you throw four bowling balls all at once fifty feet into the air?

  2. Everything in the interview is like this. It’s all funhouse mirrors and mostly false assertions that are as incriminating as they are intended to be exculpatory. If the New York Times were to interview Trump tomorrow and ask all the same questions, all the details would be different but the overall impression would be the same. The president lies so much and has such a distorted idea of what’s happening around him that he literally doesn’t know or care what is true and what is not.
     
     What shines through it all, though, is his unapologetic intention to obstruct justice. He didn’t want Sessions to bow out of his appointment because he was compromised. He didn’t want Sessions to testify truthfully. He wanted Sessions to kill the investigation and he recused himself instead. For that, he cannot be forgiven.

  3. I believe, although cannot prove, that they had sent Manafort to Trump with a hard offer to refuse. Manafort would work on his delegate count for no pay. Michael Flynn was already compromised because he hadn’t notified the Pentagon that he was taking tens of thousands of dollars from the Kremlin to make appearances on the Russian Today (RT) network and badmouth the Obama administration. The Trump campaign was therefore compromised six ways to Sunday by the time the summer had begun.
     
     [...]
     
     The overall picture is clear. Russia wanted Trump to win and Trump wanted Russia’s help. The collusion was explicit, some of it is well-documented, and the defense is now that anybody would have done the same.

• Maneuverings that need watching.
• The People's Filibuster (Red Painter, Crooks and Liars)
• Working conditions of California port truckers.  

  Those willing to answer questions said they have never used truck leases as a way to mistreat drivers. Several insisted that truckers’ allegations have been manufactured as part of a union organizing campaign by the Teamsters. The union has for years helped drivers file labor complaints and lawsuits.

  Dunno. The Teamsters would be making a lot more noise.
• Echidne of the Snakes somewhat agreeing with Jennifer Rubin.
• And it's only Thursday.