Cup O' Joel

Quotes and notes from all around

[joelmathis]

My latest column for McClatchy, about Josh Hawley's reaction to the Durham report:

What Durham really demonstrated, Hawley told host Jesse Watters on Monday, is that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee tried to use the FBI against Trump in order to swing the 2016 presidential election.

“That’s what this report shows,” the senator said. “That one political party, the Democrats, tried to use the FBI to rig a presidential election and just about got away with it.”

That’s conspiratorial nonsense, of course.

But one particular Hawley statement stood out for its breathtaking audacity.

“You can’t interfere in a presidential election,” he said, “without consequences.”

Josh Hawley said that.

Josh Hawley.

The man who went on TV this week and said “you can’t interfere in a presidential election without consequences” has spent the last few years offering America a master class in the art of interfering in a presidential election without consequences

Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article275512826.html#storylink=cpy

[joelmathis]

Glad that doesn't happen in the freedom-loving United States

Washington Post:

Since the national security law took effect in 2020 — criminalizing any activity seeming to question Beijing’s authority and sending dozens to prison for actions like holding blank pieces of paper in public — more than 40 percent of documentaries, magazines and books involving “political themes” have vanished from Hong Kong’s libraries, according to Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao.

When asked about the removal of media relating to June 4 from public libraries on Tuesday, Hong Kong’s leader said libraries must comply with the law.

“These books are accessible by people in private book shops. If they want to buy, they can buy,” Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee told reporters.

[joelmathis]

The American Conservative gay-baits Matt Dugan

The American Conservative isn't real happy with the results of Pittsburgh's mayoral primary.

Here's the lede:

How does an effeminate public defender beat the 26-year incumbent for Pittsburgh district attorney by twelve points? A sizeable check from George Soros.

Just in case you didn't get the point:

These election results leave reasonable people – or people with a functioning self-protective instinct – who live in the city and surrounding suburbs with a choice. Will they allow themselves to be ruled by a lesbian-adjacent-student-body-president? Will they allow the crimes committed against their parents and children to be prosecuted by an Open Society DA?

No commentary really needed here. 

[joelmathis]

Off social media for now

I have deleted my Post.News and Mastodon accounts. My Twitter account is currently deactivated. I  am still on Substack, though I feel kind of pointless there. If I know me, I'll find my way back to social media. For the moment though, with everything in limbo with Twitter, without a sense of community or conversation in the new places, it feels like a good time to be a little less obsessed with social media. 

But I still need to shout my thoughts into the void now and again. Here is where I'll do it. 

[joelmathis]

My favorite books of 2022

This is not a post about Twitter.

[joelmathis]

test

[joelmathis]

You're either with the anti-Semites or you're not

Donald Trump belongs to the wrong group.

[joelmathis]

Gratitude. And shame.

How do we celebrate Thanksgiving when its meaning is up for grabs?

[joelmathis]

I am moving all my blogging activity to this Substack*. Please come follow me there - either on RSS, through the Substack newsletter or on my Twitter feed. I never figured out how to make Tumblr work quite right for me, so I think I'm signing off here.

*You will never be asked to pay a subscription fee. It will always be free.

[joelmathis]

I feel like I should like Jen Rubin. But I don’t.

[joelmathis]

The Democrats Are Fools for Boosting Trumpist Republicans

The party is spending big to help some of the most extremist candidates in the country win their GOP primaries. It’s a mistake.

I keep saying this.

[joelmathis]

"Texas Sun" is a great song that also gets played too much in coffee shops and other places that play decent recent music.

[joelmathis]

Is it obsession? Or strategy?

[joelmathis]

For the love of God, Dems need to stop supporting anti-democratic Republicans...

NYT:

Even as national Democrats set off alarms over the threats posed by far-right Republican candidates, their campaign partners are pursuing an enormously risky strategy: promoting some of those same far-right candidates in G.O.P. primaries in hopes that extremists will be easier for Democrats to beat in November.

This is too cute, dumb, and dangerous. Two reasons:

The possibility that the cute trick will backfire. Why promote an anti-democratic Republican to Republican voters? It might help entrench anti-democratic attitudes in the GOP -- not that the attitude isn't already entrenched -- plus there's always a chance that person could win. Usually it doesn't, which is why it's a popular technique, but ... why play with fire?

It's anti-democratic in another sense, Democrats are putting their thumb on the scale in Republican primaries, which are supposed to be about Republicans making their choices about who best represents them. It's a bad idea. I wish Democrats would stop.

[joelmathis]

We went to the farm to pick up our weekly veggie share. She cradled the beets like a baby.

[joelmathis]

It's ok if Dems and Republicans have different rationales for the same gun bill...

NYT:

Democrats, who wanted far more sweeping gun control steps, have noted that if passed, it would be the most significant legislation on the issue in decades. Republicans, fearful of crossing their anti-gun-control base, are focusing instead on the proposals they kept out of the agreement, including bans on weapons or ammunition and raising the age for purchasing firearms.

The paper presents this as an oddity, but maybe this is what bipartisanship looks like in a hyperpartisan age. Everybody still has to go back to their voters, after all. Telling the public "I did the thing you didn't want me to do" doesn't work. So Republicans are naturally going to emphasize different parts of the bill than Democrats.

[joelmathis]

Dems are going to fail on climate change again...

Russell Berman gives the outlook:

Although the country has never been a responsible actor on climate change, its peculiar inability to pass any significant legislative climate policy would set back its self-conception, international reputation, and economic mojo. At this point, not having a national energy and climate policy is like not having an internet policy in the 1990s—so strange that it makes the entire system look diseased and antique. 

Maybe it is! Also:

Even then, the United States will remain rich, well educated, and integrated into the global economy, although intensifying wildfires and other climate disasters will eat away at its housing stock, industrial base, and treasured Pax Americana. But the country will be worse off—less wealthy, less at ease, less free—than it could have been. 

The folks who run things aren't going to be the ones to feel this, though. They can always move somewhere else, away from the fires. Until they can't, that is.