FairAndUNbalanced.com

• Good news in the blogging world. Manifesto Joe at Texas Blues, whose on-line presence has been obstructed by health and financial issues is preparing a comeback.
   
• Republican politics here in Missouri have been a bit unhinged for several decades. Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit reacts to a candidate hoping to run against Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill. Courtland Sykes has a deep dislike for career-crazed, she-devil banshees who don’t stay home to cook breakfast for their husbands. His words, chapter and verse.
   
• M. Bouffant at Web of Evil doesn’t like the way homeless people are treated. Neither should we.
   
• I’ve never thought of George Schultz as a peacenik. I mean, George Schultz? Frances Langum reports what Reagan’s Secretary of State had to say to the Senate Armed Services Committee about nuclear weapons and the President as God.
   
• The overwhelming majority of the public hated the Republican tax bill when it was signed by President Trump. Conservatives were sure they could change all that after it became law. Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger looks at polling and reports that it isn’t happening.
   
• driftglass is all over David Brooks again, accusing him of bothsiderism when both sides are not exactly equal. One example:
   
  It seems David once more takes the middle of the road as Republicans hold hostages: the weak the vulnerable. And, of course, the military. When Missouri’s own Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill proposed that members of the military be paid during the shutdown. Mitch McConnell said “I object,” and that’s all it took to block it.
   
  Okay, driftglass does have a point.
   
• Senate Democrats ended the shutdown by caving, because Democrats always cave. Well… Infidel753 has looked into the details and is skeptical. Maybe the minority party in the Senate did okay, after all.
   
• @bjork55 at Bjork Report lists a few groups: terrorists, organized crime, cybercriminals, Putin, the GOP. Which one doesn’t belong with the others? Trick answer.
   
• Jack Jodell at The Saturday Afternoon Post begins by quoting Charles Schumer and God in making the case for throwing Republicans out of elective office.
   
• At The Onion, Donald Trump vehemently denies that he never intended to fire, kill, and dismember Robert Mueller.
   
• At The Moderate Voice, Shaun Mullen’s take on Steve Bannon is not so much whether he can hurt or be hurt by Trump, as it is the fact that this racist, white nationalist, tribalist, whatever euphemism for evil personality, serves as an accurate reflection of pretty much everyone with whom he has associated.
   
• FlyingChainSaw at Stinque makes the case that, if my President one day ends up tweeting from some minimum security facility, it will not be for attempting “sex with child hookers, porn ‘actresses’ and unfortunate models”. It will more likely be for moving money around for organized crime and international adversaries of America.
   
• Perhaps this has some application to the current condition of modern conservatism. At The Journal of Improbable Research a study on the placebo effect finds that expensive fake medicine is more effective than cheap fake medicine.
   
• Noted author John Scalzi at Whatever has predictions about the Oscars. I suppose I am culturally deprived. I had to confirm with my loved one that the Oscars have not yet been held.
   
• North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz carefully explains to white evangelicals why people are through with them.
   
• This week’s note in Trumpian ‘Alternative Facts’ comes from The Guardian, as our President’s characterization of any negative coverage as “fake news” provides authoritarian rulers of other countries cover for their own atrocities.
   

 
A personal note:

My longtime friend, conservative T. Paine, once enlivened debate whenever he graced us with his presence. He broke my heart a while back when he announced that he would no longer participate. The atmosphere was too hostile toward him and his point of view.

Still, we published beginning paragraphs of, and links to, articles on T. Paine’s site. We often introduce, by the same sort of introductory referral, opinions that differ from those held by us and our readers.

I was saddened at news that critiques of Mr. Paine on Fair And UNbalanced were enough to provoke my old friend. He apparently asked Dave Dubya of Freedom Rants to leave and not come back. Well, it is T. Paine’s site.

Our original referral:

From T. Paine, at Saving Common Sense:

First, the asinine and cynically corrupt fools that participated in the Schumer shutdown of the government should be held accountable with the loss of their seats of power, if there were indeed any justice left in this nation. Why these folks would vote against a spending bill which funds all the pet projects that the Democrats adore and contains nothing of substance for which they loathe is beyond me.

They have chosen, under the “leadership” of Senate minority leader Schumer to place the desires of DACA people over that of all other Americans. The truly ironic fact that displays the cynicism of these folks that care more for illegal aliens and expanding their own political power through the immigration of more future Democrats is that congressional work on DACA was proceeding well already. There was no need to attach a non-related immigration rider onto this spending bill.

– More –

 

We may each come to a judgment on the degree of ferocity within Dave’s comments as our readers reacted:

Dave Dubya:

I’m trying to recall a few years back when Mr. Paine demanded the “asinine and cynically corrupt fools that participated in the Republican anti-Obamacare shutdown of the government should be held accountable with the loss of their seats of power”…

…Nope. I got nothing. Except IOKIYAR.

Ryan:

*Embraces Republican meme “Schumer Shutdown”

*Accuses Democrats of trying to help illegal aliens solely to get more Democrat voters

*Suggests the nuclear option

*Finds a way to mention Hillary Clinton negatively

*Suggests punishment from God for abortion

*Criticizes Schumer both for starting and ending the shutdown

The same old conservatism. The same old nonsense. The same old T. Paine.

Trey:

Dave,

Look back into his archives. He has a post about the 2013 shutdown. He blamed Democrats for that one, too. If only they would have listened to Republicans and just defund the ACA. It’s always the fault of Dems.

Dave Dubya:

Thanks, Trey.

You saved me the trouble of learning who gets the blame.

Whodathunk?

In the comment thread of this post I also learned this comforting notion from Mr. Paine: Unlike Obama, our current “foolish juvenile president” is a “stable” president.

Imagine that.

Common sense: Helping make America great again. You just gotta believe. And know who to blame, of course.

Dave Dubya:

Well, it finally happened. I’ve been asked to not contribute any further at TP’s blog.

I must say the case against me was damning, and the evidence clear:

It was “Paul” and Dave that were on Tom’s blog, and Dave on Fair and Balanced, so I am told, that were being nasty and typically untruthful on the latest posts.

That said, I would greatly appreciate it if you both would leave my blog and not return accordingly. I have no more use for the sophomoric name calling and hate that is part and parcel of both of your debating strategies. Please just leave. You can whine and lie about me, as JG already is, on Tom’s or other folk’s blogs.

Seems something I said was “nasty and untruthful”.

Or “so I am told”, for we must take second hand accusations as fact.

It also seems Mr. Paine couldn’t hack any more “lies” and “name calling” from “Commie Dave”. (Mr. Paine’s sidekick Majormajor gave me my nickname and accused me of lies, with no facts offered in rebuttal, of course.)

I get it. Conservatives are the sensitive kind. Or so I am told.

True to my liberal need for an explanation I reviewed the possible reasons for my being banned.

Was it that “our current “foolish juvenile president” is a “stable” president” part that crossed the line?

Perhaps. I’ll never know.

For the record, here are the actual words Mr. Paine and I exchanged on the matter:

==

TP:

Dave, I do find agreement with you regarding the completely asinine comments Trump has made regarding North Korea and Kim Jong Un. That has unnecessarily ratcheted up the war posturing and made millions of people throughout the world very nervous. It is dangerous and foolish.

I don’t think Trump is unstable, but he is juvenile and un-statesmen-like which is never a good combination when dealing with dangerous narcissistic tyrants like Kim Jong Un.

DD:

It’s interesting to know you feel a “foolish juvenile president” is a stable president.

That’s a lot of faith in the tantrum-throwing, anger-inciting, knee-jerk, whining Orange Julius.

==

I report, you decide.

Maybe it was my gentle ribbing of his sidekick Majormajor on his fear of the “secret society” and “deep state” that went too far. Go figure. It’s so unfair to hold them to such reality based standards.

Maybe I responded to MM’s questions with too many facts. He did seem annoyed that crime went down after cannabis legalization in Colorado.

Wait, I know what it was. I implied MM was a “very fine person” after he repeatedly posted stats on Black crime. Maybe that was the last straw.

Oh, well. I’ll have to find some way to move on through life, exiled from responding to their “facts”.

I guess I’ll have to find comfort when I “whine and lie about” poor Mr. Paine elsewhere.

My loss.

We have maintained FairAndUNbalanced.com for 10 years. We make no pretense at balance, but we do try to be fair. We invite comments reflecting all points of view.

We do have a comment policy of sorts. We remove spam, especially “comments” consisting only of unrelated links. Extreme profanity would have been excluded, but we have seldom had to enforce that rule.

Conversation can be rough. Thin skins tend to become, as Mr. Romney would put it, self-deporting. Purely personal attacks have sometimes been tolerated. But they have mostly remained in the province of occasional visiting conservative trolls. They have not been the rule.

My memory may have become a little vague over the years. I don’t recall losing any participant because of comments made on other sites.

Other blogs have the inherent right to their own standards.

That would include those who would close off opinions that might bruise the delicate sensibilities of site owners.

Have a safe, opinionated, fair, and unbalanced weekend.

 
From Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson:

It’s always good to be the candidate and the campaign treasurer for your own campaign. Just ask Paul Nehlen, the former Breitbart favorite running for Congress in the First Congressional District in the Republican Primary against House Speaker Paul Ryan.

According to the latest Federal Election Commission (FEC) filing, Nehlen’s campaign paid his wife Gabriela Lira $13,000 in the third quarter of last year, and reimbursed her additionally for expenses totaling $684.78. The $13,000 was split into eight transactions marked “staff payroll.” The payments began in July with the smallest amount being $1,000 and the largest amount being $3,000.

In response to an inquiry by Media Trackers, Nehlen defended the payments to his wife as a “meager stipend.”

“God blessed me with a wife who is strong in her faith, supportive of my efforts to Make America First Again, so I’m thankful for the Republicans who came before me passing laws to making it possible to make a meager stipend possible,” Nehlen wrote.

– More –
 

 
From Tommy Christopher:

The Trump administration has officially endorsed the notion that Democrats are accessories to murder.

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign released an ad this weekend depicting undocumented immigrants as criminals, and accusing Democrats of being “complicit” in “all murders by illegal immigrants” — a desperate attempt to salvage the failed messaging strategy on the Trump shutdown.

The ad has been widely criticized, albeit mildly by the likes of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), who called the ad “not productive.”

But veteran Republican pundit Jennifer Rubin pulled no punches on Sunday’s “AM Joy” show, calling the ad a “parade of lies and racism,” and adding that it indicates “the Republican Party has now been reduced to a single issue, which is race and xenophobia.”

Even Trump administration official Marc Short tried to distance the White House from the ad, saying it was made by an “outside group,” despite Trump’s own voice at the end of the ad saying he approved the message.

But by Monday morning, the Trump White House was ready to embrace the despicable ad.

– More –
 

 
From Jonathan Bernstein:

Now that Democrats have agreed to end the government shutdown, have they now proved they will cave the next time around? That’s a popular theory among political pundits right now, but it sounds upside down.

Republicans lost one of their legislative hostages by passing the long-term funding of the Childhood Health Insurance Program while committing to address how to salvage President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA. At least in the Senate. Granted, it’s not much more than Democrats had on Friday — before the government closed — but it’s something.

On the other hand, Republicans didn’t get anything at all.

– More –
 

 
From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:

Through social media and private email, I have been in contact with a handful of the school’s students. I have apologized to them for my harsh preaching, especially my rants against homosexuality. Why this sin in particular? Three out of the fifteen students are now gay. That’s right, twenty percent of the student body came out of the closet as adults, proving that all the anti-gay preaching in the world, complete with Bible verses, won’t change who and what people are.

Evangelical preachers continue to rail against what they deem sexual sin. Few people forsake their nature. Instead, they learn to hide who they really are. In the case of teenagers, they bide their time until they can leave home. Once free of their parents’ fundamentalism, they embrace their true sexual nature. Some of them lose their faith, while others find ways to reconcile the Bible’s anti-LGBTQ stance with who and what they are. I do know this: the three people I mentioned in the post have turned into loving, caring adults. It’s too bad they had to spend years being beaten over their heads with the Bible by their pastor and parents. That any of them wants to have a relationship with me is a testimony to their kindness and character. I wouldn’t blame any of them if they spit in my face and told me to go to hell.

– More –
 

Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

 
From Max’s Dad:

I see some old man taking a tour of the White House got to sit at the big boy desk and get his picture taken with his fake phone call….oh wait, thats an actual picture released by the White House allegedly showing the Coot in Chief “working”? This IS the funniest White House ever, well anyway 2nd funniest next to that zany Nixon White House.

This government shutdown, 100% the fault of an evil triumvirate of The Racist in Chief, a shitheel named McConnell, and a punk named Ryan, goes on and on because one Stephen Miller, the white supremacist in Trump’s ear, insists it go on

– More –
 

 
From T. Paine, at Saving Common Sense:

First, the asinine and cynically corrupt fools that participated in the Schumer shutdown of the government should be held accountable with the loss of their seats of power, if there were indeed any justice left in this nation. Why these folks would vote against a spending bill which funds all the pet projects that the Democrats adore and contains nothing of substance for which they loathe is beyond me.

They have chosen, under the “leadership” of Senate minority leader Schumer to place the desires of DACA people over that of all other Americans. The truly ironic fact that displays the cynicism of these folks that care more for illegal aliens and expanding their own political power through the immigration of more future Democrats is that congressional work on DACA was proceeding well already. There was no need to attach a non-related immigration rider onto this spending bill.

– More –