Thanks to Ted Cruz promoting it, "Antiracist Baby" is now the # Best-Selling children's book on Amazon. AND the #2...*and* #3 Best-Selling books!! (In different formats)
For those interested, you can get the book here.
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It’s hard to get into detail covering the fullness of the debacle that Republicans are causing for themselves in the hearings for Supreme Court nominee Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson – from Lindsey Graham petulantly storming out of the hearings for the second time (against a nominee he actually voted to confirm to the federal bench only one year ago...) to continued bizarre accusations of her supposedly be soft of children porn and terrorism. All that’s missing are charges that she tried to kill the Muppets and Mr. Potato Head.
But two exchanges stand out crisply and blatantly to represent the shamefulness of all their GOP efforts to egregiously smear without provocation a profoundly qualified black woman -- who this same Senate already confirmed a year ago even though all this same material was available at the time, but unmentioned -- merely for the reason (it appears) that she is a profoundly qualified black woman. At one point, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) tried to claim that Republicans had been “respectful” to Judge Jackson during the hearings – which is numbingly idiotic enough, but then you get to his reasoning, which just makes it worse. He said that the respect they’ve apparently shown is because Republican senators haven’t accused her of “rape or assault.” It’s not hard to grasp that the reason no Republican senator has accused Judge Jackson of "rape or assault" is not because they're "respectful" (which they aren't at all, since relentlessly accusing her of being soft of child porn and terrorism, among other things, is basically the opposite of showing respect). The reason Republican senators haven’t brought up such idiotic charges is because NO ONE ELSE in public life has accused her of rape or assault!! What Rand Paul has weirdly forgotten is that the only reasons Democrats brought up rape and assault charges when Brett Kavanaugh was nominated for the Supreme Court is because two women had accused him of it, one of whom even testified under oath. In fairness, this is sort of the standard of Republican “respectfulness” these days, after the January 6 insurrection and efforts to overthrow the government and Democracy, and four years of Trump fascism which the party enabled. The other exchange which stood out as exemplifying Republican handling their end of the hearings came when Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) had his turn to question Judge Jackson. For his part, Mr. Tillis read through a portion of what the Judge wrote on ruling about releasing prisoners during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He accused Judge Jackson of advocating that all prisoners during the pandemic could be released from prison into society. In response, she politely told the senator that "if you read two more sentences down," he would see that her ruling clearly states the exact opposite. Just two more sentences. Which means Mr. Tillis or his staff was too lazy to keep reading two more sentences when researching a Supreme Court nominee – or he did read two more sentences away, knew the truth, thought Judge Jackson would forget her ruling from just a couple years ago, and not respond. I’m going with the “too lazy” gambit. Here’s how she responded – "Senator, if you read two more sentences down, that is precisely what I focus on. This is a case, United States v. Wiggins, where I was setting up high analysis as to why I would NOT [my emphasis added] be releasing Mr. Wiggins in this case. “ The Judge then goes on to explain -- "What I said in that statement that you read was, it would seem as though something like a deadly pandemic rampant in the jails would justify releasing everyone, but – I go on to say in that very opinion – Congress has indicated that we have to take each case individually. We have to look at the harm to the community that might be caused by the release of individual people. We cannot just release everybody, I said in that opinion." By the way, this is what it's like trying to smear someone with fecal matter without first just looking down to see that the slop bucket you brought doesn't have anything in it. Which is a pretty good way at looking at how Republicans are handling this entire Senate hearing for a eminent, admired judge – praised by liberals and conservatives alike -- who has been confirmed by the Senate already four different times. Pro tip: when you’re holding a hearing for a Supreme Court nominee who you already approve a year ago for the federal bench, and the best you can offer are charges you’ve pulled from your butt that the person is soft on child porn and terrorism, then it’s clear to everyone that you have nothing. So, unless you’re trying to fundraise from your unthinking base in front of the cameras, it’s probably best to follow the advice of the founder of Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln: “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than speak and remove all doubt.” Or, you can just do what Lindsey Graham does and walk out of the room. As I mentioned yesterday, there have been big glitches with the website, and one of those is that my posting about Jon Stewart on David Letterman's show disappeared. So -- here it is again. Hopefully this time it will stay posted... From the David Letterman collection, this is from 1992 when Jon Stewart was a guest and still doing stand-up. And what's fascinating is that among his opening jokes are some about Russia having poor timing trying to attract tourists. A parent has pulled her pre-school child out of school after a video surfaced of the teacher leading her 4-5 year-olds in an anti-Biden chant.
On the video, the teacher asks the little children, “Who’s our president?” When they all answer together, “Biden,” the teacher then asks them, “What do we want to do with him?” And in unison the pre-schoolers yell back, “We want him out!” And just to be sure to little kids learned their lesson for the day, the teacher repeats the question and gets the same answer, only yelled back even louder. The mother became aware of this when she picked up her child. "The first thing she said to me when I picked her up was 'We want him out,'" Christina McFadden said. "That was the great message she learned that day. Her first history lesson." The school is a private religious-based institution, Turning Point Christian Church. Some great values there. The video was originally posted on the school’s own messaging app (yes, really), until it was taken down. Some great values there. Turning Point Christian Church is in Norco, California, which is in Southern California, about 25 miles east of Los Angeles in Riverside County. And just to add a fun fact to it all, this all took place on Presidents Day! Reports say that “The school has issued an apology.” However, the school’s idea of an apology differs from mine. I feel pretty confident in saying that it would get an “F” from the American Institute for Apologies that Nell Minow and I co-founded. “Earlier today a video was posted that has since been deleted as it did not share our school and church philosophy of honoring and respecting authority including those in government position. “We are sorry for any misunderstanding this could of (sic) created. With courtesy towards the families of our campus and the children in the classroom I am asking you to please not share with others or post the video on any social media platform,” Personally, I don’t see the word or even the concept of an apology there. Mostly regret that it was found out and made public. And a desire to bury it. What they did say, though, was so weak that it suggests the school and church’s “philosophy” do, in fact, share the same sentiments as the video. Among other things, there’s no indication that the teacher wasn’t even reprimanded, or put on suspension, let alone fired. In fact, Ms. McFadden has said that the school told her the teacher would be allowed to keep teaching because she was “repentant and has learned from her mistake.” Hallelujah! She repented! (For all we know, what she learned was just not to send your video to 14 sets of parents.) And again, to be clear, there is no apology there at all. Furthermore, on the school’s website they don’t even have the statement (I won’t call it an “apology”) posted on the News section. It’s like it doesn’t exist. They just want to bury it, even after it’s become national news. Some great values, there. Despite the request by Turning Point Christian School officials to hide the video, Ms. McFadden posted the video on both Facebook and TikTok. She said on her Facebook post that she thought was important other parents in the school were aware of what was being thought. She wrote that she wanted to bring awareness that “there are currently zero standards or guidelines of any kind that are being enforced in early childhood education classes. Zero.” And added that “This video was planned, practiced, recorded and the teacher was so comfortable with it she sent it to 14 sets of parents, She was so proud of this content what else did she teach my child this year?” I’ve intentionally not embedded the video here, but if you want to see it – and read Christina McFadden’s full Facebook statement, you can find them here. [UPDATE: The Facebook posting appears appears to have either been taken down or limited to select people. But you can see the video here.] One wonders if other parents will pull their kids out, which – given that it is a private school – could have a major impact. Ms. McFadden’s child started in her new school in February. All the more reason the lack of a serious apology stands out so much. However, the school officials must think that this video comes pretty close to sharing the school and church’s philosophy, and that the parents will be fine with it, given that the teacher sent it to 14 sets up parents. But then, if the school wrong about that, it could be a big problematic turning point for them… As readers may have noticed, the Weebly service that operates this website had another of its meltdowns over the weekend. I wasn't able to post for a while, and once that got "fixed," some material was still missing. I've just noticed a new problem related to this "fix." The home blog page is working mostly-normally. (The background wallpaper is gone, but all the links are fine.) However, when you go to the bottom of the home blog page, and click the "Previous" link, that's where it all goes haywire. On that next page you've clicked through to, there are now no longer links for “Previous” page and “Next” page. So, there is now no way for a reader to keep scrolling there through the blog any further, but can only read that one, home page and whatever new material has been pushed over to the next page as new material is added. Moreover, other than on the home blog page, you'll notice on this "previous" page that there is now no longer the "hyperlink listing" on the right side that shows all the months the blog has been active, nor is there the hyperlink list of all the different categories that have been associated with each blog post – so there is no way there for a reader to jump to any other month and read anything else in the blog except from the one, home page. You used to be able to do this from every page. For that matter, other than on the home blog page, everything on the right side of the next page is missing, like my bio and a notice/link about Amazon Associates (and graphic links to my books for sale on Amazon, as well as links for following me on Twitter and Facebook ) – and additionally, there is nothing at the bottom of the page, like the copyright notice and personal page information. In other words, other than from the blog’s home page, everything else on the site is pretty much inaccessible. (Some material can be reached through links in the sections at the top of the "previous" page, but that’s it. ) And the background wallpaper has disappeared completely from every page. Happily, there is an odd semi-workaround for this. When you're on the home blog page (as you no doubt are now) and find that list of months on the right side of the page displayed under "Archives" -- I have a screenshot below -- and click on the previous month (or click on any month other than the current one of March), then the page for that month (or any month you choose to click on) will appear as normal along with "Next" and "Previous" at the bottom of the page and all the sidebar material! While this works perfectly, it is also not something I expect most people to try on their own as a whimsy guess. It also means that most of March's content is missing. Here's that graphic of the Archive list of hyperlinked months I referred to -- I hope that this is a “known bug,” and that it can be fixed incredibly soon. Although that hope is held on a gossamer wing. I say that because Weebly has had many big problems the last few years, like when the Search engine went out for a year, and also that I can no longer schedule a blog post that has embedded code in it (like the Piano Puzzlers and Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me! and Al Franken podcast audios), but can only post such articles at a "Immediately" moment. This has been a known-bug to Weebly engineers, but tech support says there are no plans to fix it, which is terribly inconvenient. (As is another long-standing issue that if you write an article and save it to post later, it won't appear when you post it, but will show up in the timeline when it was initially written and saved. Well...gee, that's really stupid and useless.) There are others, most of which have occurred after Weebly was sold to a company called Square. I've been told by Customer Support (when I can reach them...) that Weebly is phasing out tech support for the blog feature, and that they also may even phase out the blog feature entirely in 2-3 years, though nothing has been decided. I've been searching for ways to port my site here to another service, though I'm not 100% sure if that's even possible since Weebly uses proprietary coding, though I think I can and think I've found a good company that can do such a thing. But it's a convoluted process, not inexpensive, and they may only be able to port over just the blog, not the full site with all the various sections. I haven't figured out yet what I'll do, if anything even can be done, other than hope for the best. (By the way, if anyone in the West Los Angeles area knows of somebody who is expert at porting websites, all recommendations are welcome. There is a "Contact Us" link in the top menu bar and also at the bottom of the home page.) For now, the site is running and I can post new articles. Hopefully the "Previous" and "Next" links will return -- along with full access to the site and its several thousand articles over the past nine years. I know that that can be fixed. (Since it all exists when you click on links to other articles under the sections at the very top of the page under the "ELISBERG INDUSTRIES" banner.) Whether Weebly will fix them, or when...ah, that's the question. Hopefully very soon, but -- who knows? I certainly apologize for all these issues that are unfortunately beyond my control and have worked hard over time to keep them in the background as much as possible so that they are unnoticeable. That isn't always possible, but hopefully it's been kept to a minimum. Just keeping you all informed. Updates as they occur. You've likely read about how the Senate passed by unanimous consent a bill to make Daylight Savings Time permanent. Well, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post had a fascinating story three days ago that put a totally different light on what happened. He wrote that it was basically an accident that got sneaked through. The bill that passed the Senate by unanimous consent without even debate turns out to have been a substitute amendment by Marco Rubio and before anyone knew what was being voted on, it got pushed through quickly by the temporary presiding officer -- Kyrsten Sinema.
Furthermore, even Vladimir Putin is involved. Milbank writes that other reporting "indicates Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), top Republican on the Commerce Committee, had planned to object to the 'unanimous consent' request to pass what he calls “bad legislation,” but decided not to at the last minute because he’s focused on more pressing matters, such as the war in Ukraine." The bill still has to pass the House -- where presumably there will be actual discussion first before voting on it. If you’re interested, you can read Milbank’s article on it here. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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