[guest post by Dana]

Here are a few news items to chew over. Feel free to share anything you think might interest readers. Please make sure to include links.

First news item

The Son of Man really doesn’t have a play to lay His head:

A priest in Bay Village says someone called police to report a homeless person. Turns out, it was actually a statue of Jesus.

The sculpture was created by Timothy Schmalz and depicts a man wrapped in a blanket and lying on a bench.

Within 20 minutes of the sculpture being installed at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, police were called, according to Alex Martin, the pastor at St. Barnabas. He tweeted that he spoke with an officer because someone reported a homeless person sleeping on a park bench.

We're glad to temporarily host this statue of Homeless Jesus to raise awareness of homelessness in Cleveland and remind us that all people are created in the image of God. pic.twitter.com/EKClQm7PFG

— St. Barnabas, Bay Village (@StBarnabasBV) October 12, 2020

Second news item

Shot:

"If you see anything, law enforcement is watching. US Marshals are watching … One thing I will say: law enforcement, they're on our side" — Trump on worries about voter fraud on Election Day pic.twitter.com/5WrP4rpOcG

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 17, 2020

Chaser:

Officials in multiple states are taking aggressive steps to protect voters from efforts by militias or other armed groups seeking to congregate near polling places on Election Day, as simmering online activity indicates that some groups are trying to register as campaign poll watchers for Donald Trump’s campaign…

The measures come as online accounts tied to neo-Nazi sympathizers and “alt-right” groups such as the Proud Boys have been generating posts that encourage supporters to join the campaign’s Election Day operations, according to two new reports this week. That includes sending out links to poll-watching registration sites for the Trump campaign’s so-called Army for Trump, an effort working to recruit thousands of supports to sign up as poll watchers for the campaign on Election Day.

Third news item

You pulled this crap because you knew your supporters would love it, and that’s not a good look for any of you:

Here is the video of Senator David Perdue mangling the pronunciation of Kamala Harris’s name. pic.twitter.com/aVJU451bDi

— Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) October 16, 2020

A smart politician wouldn’t give his opponent so much to work with:

My opponent, GOP Sen. David Perdue of anti-Semitic attack ad infamy, just mocked Sen. Harris' name as "Kamala-mala-mala-whatever" at a Trump rally.

We are so much better than this. pic.twitter.com/9AvoQK4RdN

— Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) October 16, 2020

Perdue’s comms director’s embarrassing attempt to cover for his boss:

Senator Perdue simply mispronounced Senator Harris’ name, and he didn’t mean anything by it. He was making an argument against the radical socialist agenda that she and her endorsed candidate Jon Ossoff are pushing, which includes the Green New Deal…Medicare-for-all, raising taxes, and holding up COVID relief for the people of Georgia.

Fourth news item

Aw, c’mon man! Uh, you do know that millions have already cast their votes, right?

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would take a position on “court packing” — the idea, favored by some liberals, that the Supreme Court should expand beyond its current nine justices — before the Nov. 3 election.

Biden has not laid out a clear opinion on the matter, but acknowledged during an ABC News town hall on Thursday that voters “have a right to know where I stand. They have a right to know where I stand before they vote.” The town hall Thursday evening was one of two different forums featuring Biden and President Trump.

Fifth news item

The kindness of strangers: (Read the whole thread.)

I am not ok. Feeling rock bottom. Please take a few seconds to say hello if you see this tweet. Thank you.

— Edmund O'Leary (@emerald1910) October 16, 2020

Sixth news item

One would be a fool to leave their heart in San Francisco:

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and even Sen. Dianne Feinstein have been deemed too problematic to be featured in the names of schools in the San Francisco Unified School District by a panel of 12 community members appointed by the superintendent.

Three weeks ago, the panel found that 44 of the 125 schools in the district might have to change their names after their review. KGO reported that panel members sought to rename schools currently featuring the names of, “anyone directly involved in the colonization of people, slave owners or participants in enslavement, perpetrators of genocide or slavery, those who exploit workers/people, those who directly oppressed or abused women, children, queer or transgender people, those connected to any human rights or environmental abuse [and] those who are known racists and/or white supremacists and/or espoused racist beliefs.”

I mean I guess Abraham Lincoln is "connected" to slavery, technically, kind of like Rosa Parks is "connected" to Jim Crow laws pic.twitter.com/mggUrdyaiu

— Patterico (@Patterico) October 16, 2020

Seventh news item

Exactly. So, what could you have been thinking?

“What the heck were any of us thinking that selling a TV-obsessed narcissistic individual to the American people was a good idea? It is not a good idea,” Sasse in a recent telephone town hall with his constituents. “I think we are staring down the barrel of a blue tsunami and we’ve got to hold the Senate and that’s what I’m focused on.”

Trump “mocks evangelicals behind closed doors,” mistreats women and “flirted with white supremacists,” Sasse said.

Trump mishandled the coronavirus pandemic, botched foreign policy and sought to profit off the presidency, the senator continued.

“His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity,” Sasse said.

Eighth news item

Okay then:

There have been many men on the court who seemed deep and were celebrated for their scholarly musings but were essentially, as individuals and in their conception of life, immature. But this is not a child, a sentimentalist, an ideological warrior. This is a thinker who thinks about reality.

She’s not what you expect when you open your handy box of categories. People who understand conservatism in a particular, maybe limited way—they don’t know what they just got.

Modern, a particular kind of Catholic, a woman, with a lived emphasis on people in community—this is not a “standard conservative.” In her independence from partisan politics, in her lived faith in higher persons, spirits and principles, this is rather a dangerous woman.

And she’s sane.

Ninth news item

Well, this isn’t good:

Millions of California ballots have been delivered to residents across the state as early voting begins for the 2020 general election, but some have gone to people who should no longer be registered to vote in the state, one group claims.

A new study from the Election Integrity Project California has found that close to 400,000 ballots have been sent to people who moved or died.

Just because:

“The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

Have a great weekend.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Stupid is as stupid does:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has lost the support of abortion rights group NARAL after she hugged Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and praised his handling of the hearings for Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett. The group said that the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee “offered an appearance of credibility to the proceedings that is wildly out of step with the American people. As such, we believe the committee needs new leadership.” Barrett is outspokenly anti-abortion and her nomination process was heavily criticized for being rammed through by Republicans just before the election. She will replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had voted in favor of abortion rights. Feinstein praised Graham at the end of this week’s hearings, Feinstein called it “one of the best Senate hearings that I’ve participated in.”

Oh, boo-hoo, you big, fat babies. (SWIDT?? NARAL…abortion…babies…) Civility and generosity are now something to disdain – especially when it crosses party lines. Or perhaps specifically to NARAL, when it lends further credibility to an already credible and legal process. Sorry, NARAL, just because you do not support ACB and are convinced that she will set women back a hundred years and force them all to wear granny-panties does not mean that the hearings are not credible – without or without Feinstein’s civility. Ask yourselves this: Why was Feinstein, a loyal abortion supporter who has herself criticized ACB, compelled to compliment Graham on the hearing? Maybe, just maybe she was compelled to tell him because it was true and because she is a mature woman who is able to remain gracious and humane during an ugly season in American politics. Shouldn’t that be applauded? Or are we so pathetic, so angry, so brittle, that to simply cross the political aisle TO PAY A COMPLIMENT AND OFFER A BIT OF HUMANITY is a deal-breaker? Who made that stupid rule? Look, I don’t agree with Feinstein about much of anything, but in this, I’m in her corner. The woman had an independent thought and with full agency, acted on it. Good on her.

If I was Feinstein, I think I would be more than just a little insulted by this group. They have essentially penalized a Democratic leader who has faithfully toed the party line and taken her professional obligations seriously, only to have her agency and actions put to some kind of pass/fail purity test. I feel like if I were the 87-year old Feinstein, who has been involved in politics for more than 40 years and found herself dumped for being truthful and kind, I wouldn’t hesitate to issue a well-deserved “Fuck You” to NARAL.

And about that wildly out of step with the American people claim? I’m pretty sure that about half the country disagrees and thinks the hearings and ACB are right in step with the American people. These kinds of sweeping declarations aren’t the convincing argument one might think they are, and they certainly don’t really lend any um, credibility to their argument.

Get out the smelling salts. You’ve been warned:

P.S. PUT ON YOUR DAMN MASKS *BEFORE* HUGGING IT OUT, PEOPLE!

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Refusing to go down the rabbit hole:

pic.twitter.com/TV2PCsRMLb

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) October 16, 2020

I’m reading a lot of complaints that Mitt is playing both sides, and shame on him for not being able to make a solid stand against X (that changes depending on whether the complainant is a Democrat or Republican). But here’s the thing, the two major parties have morphed into some unrecognizable carnival-mirror version of their former selves. Today’s parties would have been unrecognizable not that long ago. One can still hold their political views and values, yet take aim at targets ripe for the attack. And if supporters don’t like their party being attacked, maybe those targets ought to do something about their presentation, substance, goals, and alignments.

There is still a remnant of Americans trying to hold the increasingly elusive middle. And we’re dug in.

–Dana