Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Sunday, January 1, 2023

News bits: Starting the new year with a bang!

Let the banging commence!

From the Lying Liar Files: Those transcripts and tax returns the Democrats released are a veritable gold mine of nasty stuff. Out of curiosity, my wife, a trained tax preparation person, looked briefly at his tax returns. After just a couple of minutes she looked up from her computer and said, and I paraphrase:
  
“He cheated on his taxes! He cheated a lot!! He can’t do that.”

Welllllp, he did do that. Meanwhile, we all recall Trump proudly telling us all how rich he was and would donate his salary to charity. Welllllp, he did not do that, at least in 2020. The Independent reports:
Trump tax returns dispute White House claim that he donated salary during Covid

Despite his spokeswoman’s claim, returns show he donated nothing to charity in 2020

Donald Trump donated nothing to the Department of Health and Human Services during the height of the pandemic, despite claiming publicly to have done so, his tax returns revealed on Friday.
Trump is not pleased with any of this airing of the dirty laundry business according to The Hill:
“The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people. The great USA divide will now grow far worse,” Trump said in a statement issued shortly after House Democrats released six years of his personal and business tax returns.

“The ‘Trump’ tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises,” he continued [lying].
 His tax returns show he is a business failure and a felon tax cheat. What a colossal liar. 

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In other news, from the Failed Rule of Law Files, the WaPo writes:
Mark Meadows, who was chief of staff to President Donald Trump, will not be charged for voter fraud related to his 2020 registration and absentee vote in North Carolina, the state’s chief law enforcement official [Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat] announced Friday.

Meadows is “explicitly excepted from certain residency requirements as a result of his service to the federal government,” Stein added.

“The State Bureau of Investigation conducted an extensive investigation into the fraud allegations against Mr. and Mrs. Meadows concerning their registration and voting in the 2020 elections,” Stein said in a statement. “After a thorough review, my office has concluded that there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges against either of them in this matter.”
Once again, we see out two-tiered system of law at work protecting the rich and powerful. Even Democrats support and practice the two-tiered system. It is perfectly acceptable for Republicans to vote fraudulently and eliminate fair elections as much as possible. If Hillary or Hunter Biden had done the same thing that Meadows did, the howls of sanctimonious outrage from Christofascist Republicans would be deafening. But since Meadows is a prominent Republican Christofascist, there is no blow back from his fellow Republican Christofascists. 

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From the Lying Liar Files again, The Guardian writes: 
The conservative activist Ginni Thomas has “no memory” of what she discussed with her husband, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, during the heat of the battle to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to congressional testimony released on Friday.

Thomas, 65, recalled “an emotional time” in which her mood was lifted by her husband and Mark Meadows, then Donald Trump’s chief of staff, a transcript of her deposition with the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol showed.

Thomas has been a prominent backer of Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

The January 6 committee spent months seeking an interview with Ginni Thomas, who was known to have texted Meadows and contacted officials in Arizona and Wisconsin in the aftermath of Trump’s election defeat by Joe Biden. She was eventually interviewed behind closed doors on 29 September.

In opening remarks, Thomas said she entered Republican politics long before meeting Clarence Thomas in 1986. She said her husband had never spoken to her about court cases – “it’s an ironclad rule in our house” – and was “uninterested in politics”.
Hm. Mrs. Thomas claims to have “no memory” of what she discussed with her husband, never discusses court cases and, while being a long-standing Republican activist, is “uninterested in politics”. Hm. I think she thinks we’re stupid.

The arrogance in those lies is about as insulting as lies can get. She and her Christofascist husband must think we are all incredibly stupid. Lies, what can one say? They’re just innocent, patriotic free speech when they come from Republican elites. 


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From the Endless Abortion Wars Files the AP writes:
Cara Berg Raunick watched with bafflement as Indiana’s Republican legislators took less than two weeks to debate and pass an abortion ban that the governor signed quickly into law.

The women’s health nurse practitioner from Indianapolis was struck by just how frequently faith was cited in the arguments as reason to ban the medical practice. But Berg Raunick, who is Jewish, said those views go against her beliefs.

To her, a pregnant woman’s health and life is paramount, and she disagreed with legislators’ assertions that life begins at conception, calling that a “Christian definition.”

“That is a religious and values-based comment,” said Berg Raunick. “A fetus is potential life, and that is worthy of great respect and is not to be taken lightly, but it does not supersede the life and health of the mother, period.”

Arguments like this were central to an Indiana lawsuit filed in September against the state’s abortion ban, which is on hold amid multiple legal challenges. On Dec. 2, a judge ruled the ban violates the state’s religious freedom law, signed by then-Republican Gov. Mike Pence in 2015.

Critics of religious freedoms laws often argue they are used to discriminate against LGBTQ people and only protect a conservative Christian worldview. But following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, religious abortion-rights supporters are using these laws to protect access to abortion and defend their beliefs.
So, anti-abortion laws grounded in Christianity are now being challenged on religious grounds. Good. That is as it should be. If God can be relied on to make abortion illegal, God can also be relied on to make it legal. That is just fair and balanced. And, it is what the pro-abortion Bible says.

Some biblical Bible truths:

Hosea 9:10-16: God will punish the Israelites by destroying their unborn children, who will die at birth, or perish in the womb, or never be conceived (ooh, that perish in the womb thing sounds pro-abortion and that never be conceived thing sounds pro-contraception)

Matthew 24:19: Jesus did not express any special concern for unborn children during the anticipated end times: “Woe to pregnant women and those who are nursing” (guess little babies and fetuses are SOL in terms of getting to heaven ☹️)

Deuteronomy 28:18, 53: God stated his punishments for disobedience, including “cursed shall be the fruit of your womb” and “you will eat the fruit of your womb” (hm, that cursed fruit thing does not sound like a sanctity-of-life claim, but the eating fruit thing does sound rather pro-cannibalism 🤨)





Happy new year! 🙃

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