#21 Miles ahead of you on the side of angels, bell boi.

final snip ...

But then, I'm black which means I'm a native of that other America. White conservatives, on the other hand, typically find it impossible to imagine themselves into any America other than the one they know - which is to say, into the lives and challenges of people who are not like them, unless one of those people happens to have a seat at the dinner table. Remember in the early 2000s how Dick Cheney, the former vice president, towed the conservative line on every litmus test issue, but broke ranks with his fellow travelers over marriage equality? It was absolutely not coincidental that his daughter Mary was a lesbian.

Yes, it's great that he was willing to go against his own in order to support his child, but make no mistake: that's not conscience and it's not principle. It's self interest. It's a statement that bad things don't matter until they touch you and yours.

And that, at bottom, is the statement David French just made.

It makes you worry for his daughter. His ideological predisposition will likely render him next to useless to her as she navigates the gauntlet of race in America. Yes, he can assure that she is loved, and that's not nothing. But practical advice or even a relevant explanation of what she's going through? Don't bet on it. How can you explain a country you've only just discovered yourself? His daughter will be forced to figure that out on her own. She will have no other option.

See, blindness is a choice some of us don't get to make.

snip...

French, who is white, went viral last week after his appearance on a podcast called the Fifth Column. Asked if he considers himself a conservative, he answered in the affirmative, but then went on to describe how, despite that political affiliation, he has "Absolutely changed in my perception of the lingering severity of race problems in this country." This sudden enlightenment fell on him, he explained, after he adopted a child from Ethiopia.

"This might sound super nave, but when we adopted our youngest daughter, I did not have in my mind that she was going to come to my community and have a substantially different experience as a child than my two older kids. But by golly, she had a substantially different experience. There was not a school that she went to where she was not called the N-word repeatedly."

He went on to tell a story about a time the abuse went beyond language. "There was a point," he said, "where I picked her up after a high school football game " this was in Nashville at a game at Montgomery Bell Academy, one of the highest end schools in all of middle Tennessee. This is a very wealthy school. We went to pick her up and she was shaking, and her friend, who was a Latina, was shaking as well and it was like, 'What happened?' And she said, 'A truck full of guys was screaming the N-word at us and drove straight for us and they just swerved away at the very last second.'"

French said that raising this African child caused him to realize, "all of a sudden," that he had "been in a bubble and that my white, educated, upper-middle class bubble in the South had really, intentionally, screened out racism."

snip ...

"Make me wanna holler, throw up both my hands ... " " Marvin Gaye from "Inner City Blues"

In the fifth chapter of the book of Jeremiah, the prophet scorns "foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see." As a self-described evangelical who writes frequently about religion, New York Times columnist David French is probably well acquainted with that verse. He is also likely to know the following proverb: "There are none so blind as those who will not see."

What French may not understand is how snugly those admonitions fit him.

Two months into his pontificate, a man named Robert Prevost picked up the phone from the Vatican and called his bank in South Chicago. He wanted to update the phone number on his account.

The teller asked the standard security questions, and he answered every one of them. Then her screen flagged his file: any further changes had to be made in person, at the branch, with a photo ID.

Coming in person would not be possible, he told her, in the polite tone of a man who knew the answer before he asked the question. The teller apologized.

He paused, then asked: "Would it matter to you if I told you I'm Pope Leo?"

She hung up on him.

#51 Worthless drivel?

Why, you're the -----------) of worthless drivel, STD.

#41 So says ...

#15 "Again Missippi seems to be outpacing the most liberal places in North America."

Would that be in education?

Cause I think your "metrics" are somewhat screwed up.

Bonus: What has four eyes yet cannot see?

Mississippi.

What is time?

#38 "He famously gave speeches warning Americans that dependence on foreign oil was a long-term national problem."

Gosh, Speaks, that sounds like what a leader might do under the circumstances.

Perhaps you might want to clue in Left Hind Turds as to that leadership quality.

He seems to have no idea what real leadership looks like.

Oh, and very Newsworthy post, Speaks.

Thanks!

#35 Left Hind Turds says, ...I loved Carter as a humanitarian and a person in general. He was an awesome person, but he sucked at leading."

I realize, Left Hind Turds, that the era of Trump has f*cked your thinking beyond belief (along with way too many of your fellow American citizens).

A person who is good and a humanitarian is displaying two of the most important ingredients in making a leader.

Of course, the "leader" you actually love, Trump, has neither of those two important leadership ingredients.

Too bad you (along with way too many of your fellow American citizens) can't see that simple truth...

What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

#34 "...who brought you the absolute worst inflation and an energy crisis that made people wait in lines for hours."

Actually, if you had any sense of history, you'd know that is not when "inflation" and "energy crisis" started in America:

The first OPEC oil embargo began in October 1973, when Arab members (OAPEC) cut production and banned oil exports to the U.S. and other nations supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War. It caused global oil prices to quadruple to nearly $12 per barrel by January 1974, triggering severe energy shortages and inflation until it was lifted in March 1974

#34 WTF is this "Regan" person?

#232 So?

#228 Nailed it, Donnerboy.

bj boi is just like a hammer:

Everything looks like a nail.

#20 My shower works AOK, and my toilets flush just as Al Gore intended.

Because you're incapable of operating a shower, and your waste product clogs every toilet you face, is no reason to blame Democrats.

But you do you.

#170 Your "beliefs" are "feelings."

And that's a "liberal schtick"?

Really, bj boi?

#12 "And on 21 Jan 2029, foreign interference in our politics will still bedevil the US."

Why, yes it will.

"What will stop it between 7 May 2026 and 20 Jan 2029?"

Stop it?

I, and I suppose many, many people, would like American politics to turn on a dime.

But it doesn't.

Nope. It is changed, one Congressional District (from red to blue) to another Congressional District (from red to blue).

It isn't exciting, turn-on-a-dime results... American politics does that rarely... 1974, 1980, 1992, 2006, 2008, 2010 (shellacking), 2018.

No, as I keep advising, look at the Powell Memorandum to the US Chamber of Commerce, and the concept behind the Overton Window.

If liberals and progressives are going to turn this ship of state around from the shoals upon which Trump/Republicans/"conservatives"/MAGA have stranded America...

... then we're going to have to do it together. Politics in America is a zero-sum game. My bet is on the Democratic Party and its candidates.

Anything else helps Trump/Republicans/"conservatives"/MAGA.

#6 The "Cat's Meow"?

An underappreciated and not-very-well known movie. But enjoyable

Thank you, Peter Bogdonovich.

#147 Oh, Clown, be very careful.

#142 He does provide a wonderful example of the depravity to which so-called "Christians" will twist their beliefs into claiming that Jesus was interfering with capitalism when he overturned the money-changing tables in Temple.

Republican Jesus would never do that.

#140 100% oops:

Tennessee: In 2024, the state House passed a bill (SB 1325) allowing faculty or staff to carry concealed handguns on campus after receiving police approval, a psychological evaluation, and 40 hours of annual training.

Iowa: Governor Kim Reynolds signed legislation in 2024 that allows school employees to carry weapons on school grounds, requiring they meet a "strict training regimen" and annual background checks.

Ohio: A 2022 law (HB 99) reduced the training hours required for teachers to carry guns from over 700 hours to a minimum of 24 hours, giving local school boards the authority to implement the policy.

Wisconsin: As of January 2025, Republican lawmakers proposed a bill that would make it legal for teachers to carry guns and waive fees for gun licenses and background checks for those who apply.

West Virginia: Lawmakers have considered similar proposals to arm teachers and retired law enforcement to address shortages in school safety personnel.

#8 Coriolanus says, "...and Congress will have to pass those taxes on the oligarchs."

100% yes, Yes, YES...

How about we start taxing the uber-wealthy who have, for the past 40 years, been able to dodge their financial responsibilities that provide them with a country that protects them and their money and their property?

Not to mention the fact that this country has given them, the uber-wealthy, a nation of publicly educated wage-earners who can afford to buy their products/services?

How about that?

Afterall, ingratitude is a Cardinal Sin.

#8 Coriolanus says, "...and Congress will have to pass those taxes on the oligarchs."

The only way that Congress will be able to pass those (much needed/much deserved) tax increases on the uber-wealthy is if the next Democratic president will have at his/her back a Congress that has absolute Congressional power

Absolute Congressional power in Washington DC = an absolute majority in the US Congress:

• An overwhelming majority in the US House (more than a sliver) = the larger the Democratic victory in US House elections, the more power they have as proven by the vote of the American people (Gerrymandering be dammed). Once there are 290 Democrats, any Trump veto can be overwritten;


• An overwhelming majority in the US Senate = the closer to 60 votes ensures that all Democratic-inspired legislation withstands any rightwing/GOP filibuster; the number 67 or greater ensures that both any presidential veto can be overwritten and any impeachment from the US House has a chance for conviction

That's what I am doing to help defeat MAGAism.

You?