It would be easy to do a drive by on something like this. It is just way too easy on so many levels. However, doing so presents a problem that is hard to ignore. However, first, we should probably do the payoff on the pun that you’ve been waiting for.

Good for her. pic.twitter.com/im3LDW3KYJ

— Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) June 15, 2022

Again, this is way too easy and considering the wild rumors about Boebert that we have seen lately it makes the tweet that much more cringeworthy. The self-own is the cruelest own of all. However, this brings two very important points to the forefront. First, these rumors are unsubstantiated. Secondly, let’s pretend that even half of them are true. Let’s say she did get an abortion in her past. Is that really so bad given where we want the country to be on choice?

The go to response would be that she is the ultimate hypocrite and that is certainly true, but maybe she had a genuine change of heart. Maybe she had a genuine conversion experience. Maybe a lot of things. What is much more likely is that none of it is true. Heck, the Ted Cruz rumors are bizarre and disgusting quite frankly. Either way, while she certainly has invited this kind of behavior with her own, it also is fair to say she doesn’t deserve all of that.

However, when you own yourself like you do with the tweet above I suppose you get what you deserve. In this case, I suppose someone like Kasparian would better land a jab than anyone from the male population. So, I will let that fastball sail high and outside and wait for the next pitch. It’s just not a really good look for anyone involved. Cheap laughs are fun, but it’s hard to get around the fact that they are cheap.

Oh y’all, Rudy Giuliani deleted his tweet claiming he refused all alcohol on Election Night 2020 and only drank Diet Pepsi.

Look if you are my friend, I pray that your life never comes down to testifying in a court of law that you depended on a drunk old guy who put shoe polish on his sideburns as being the source for your information. And if you ever do, I hope it’s Elvis and not Rudy Giuliani.

Okay, so now it’s revealed that Kimberly Guilfoyle, girlfriend of Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr, was paid $60,000 to speak at the January 6th rally, a speech that lasted less than three minutes.

Thelma, who doesn’t make that much money working on her feet for a year, was perturbed. She announced that she could also tease up her hair, get herself some store-bought ta-tas, shoot a pound of Botox in her lips and rent herself out for three minute speeches. She’d draw the line at having to date Donald Trump, Jr., but other than that …

Anyway, this revelation about Guilfoyle comes at a particularly awkward time for Republicans.  They discovered that several Democrats were paying money to family members from their campaign fund so the day before the hearing, they put forward a big ole bill saying you can’t pay your family.

Relatives who fall under the proposed ban would include spouses, parents, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren, and domestic partners as well as the spouses of campaign committee members.

And then the day after that, her comes Kimberly and her $60,000.

Thank goodness for the girlfriend/fiancé exception.

It’s a great time to be alive.

The powers that be have chosen to change the STAAR test. Naturally, it seems to have a bigger impact on English classes than any other content area. For one, our (I support English classes primarily) test scores were already lower than the other content areas. Secondly, they are adding even more writing to a test that was the only one to have writing as a component. Finally, they are removing the persuasive essay and don’t plan to tell us what it will be replaced with.

Taking a step back for a moment, I can see the wisdom behind this move. You want writing to be more authentic and having a set essay genre allows teachers to teach and reteach to the point where writing is formulaic. Yet, something is lost in the process. We used to teach our students about ethos, pathos, and logos. I’m not sure we are going to do that. Teaching great works of fiction is fun and does have some practical lessons in it, but that pales in comparison to to teaching kids about how people will try to sell to them and persuade them.

Ethos, pathos, and logos was the foundation of that lesson. From there we could move onto logical fallacies that advertisers often use and begin to look at the tricks those in politics use to persuade us. Ethos is very simply the credibility that someone has. Credibility is earned. It isn’t given away. At least it shouldn’t be.

As you might surmise, pathos is a potentially dangerous tool. It certainly is powerful when accompanied by facts, but it doesn’t have to be. That’s what makes it dangerous. The facts can strengthen an argument, but the key is the story. If the story rings true then it must be. We teach our students to do that. We teach them they can make stuff up because those grading the test are more likely to give them a good grade if they pull at the heartstrings. We are cultivating a whole generation of liars.

The normal arc of persuasion used to be that if someone proved they were reliable with their facts and knowledgeable of their area of study then they would develop credibility. With credibility they could simply fall back on their expertise. We would listen to them because they know what they are talking about.

The idea of “do your own research” sounds wonderful in a vacuum. It says that we shouldn’t rely on anyone’s credibility. Except we have to. No one is capable of going through the painstaking process of verifying everything. Ultimately, subject area experts do that in their area of study and work. We might “do our own research” but inevitably that ends up being a Google search where we find someone that reinforces what we already think. Maybe a YouTube video is involved. If so, so much the better.

So, we find ourselves listening to some jackass we’ve never heard of, never verified, never vetted, or scrutinized. He or she is somehow given credibility they have never earned. We are led by the nose by our heartstrings. We believe because it just feels true. We believe because it’s made simple for us. Simple is easy. Except none of it is really true. The truth is never simple. It might be brief. It might be succinct. The verbiage might be easy to understand, but it is never easy.

Those of us who are paying attention to the January 6th Committee woke up yesterday to the strategy of these public hearings; well, at least I did.  The committee is clearly taking direct aim at TFG, heaping loads of evidence on the facts that he KNEW that he didn’t win; he KNEW there was no fraud that would change the outcome of any state result; HE whipped up The Big Lie and repeats it continuously, even today.  We all pretty much knew or suspected that all this lay at TFG’s feet.

However, all this evidence is hard to use to get TFG convicted, much less even charged, so the committee is giving prosecutors a roadmap to get this sumbitch.  This roadmap is not going down the insurrection road; it shows the way down the wire fraud road.  Testimony revealed yesterday that using The Big Lie TFG raised a QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS for the “Election Defense Fund”, which, wait for it…doesn’t and has never existed.  The Election Defense Fund was supposedly to be used to fight election fraud lawsuits, but the money didn’t go to that activity.  It went, instead, to TFG’s Super PAC, doled out to his hotels, family, and even Jr.’s girlfriend.  That’s wire fraud.  So now we have not only The Big Lie, we have The Big Grift.

There is clear and ample evidence that TFG and his cronies defrauded millions of supporters, and the good thing about this crime is that the attorneys general in the states where the donors live can also prosecute TFG.  On top of all the possible federal cases you can name, this wire fraud charge is serious with heavy penalties and up to 30 years in the slammer.  The states have similar penalties.

The committee is drawing the roadmap with turn-by-turn directions, making it easy for the feds to go after TFG and Corruption Inc..  If Garland lacks the will to prosecute, I know a bunch of states with aggressive AGs who would likely be happy to perp walk TFG live on television.

One of the things that some loyal readers of this blog have asked me is to outline a battle plan for liberals, progressives, and Democrats. Admittedly, those are three different things and that’s one of the things that presents a problem. However, it is a fair question.

My first suggestion is easy and yet it hasn’t successfully been done. We have a list of problems people commonly agree on. At least we agree that they are problems. The first thing you do is list all of the things that you have done to fix those problems. That includes mostly legislation passed by the House. You include what the bill was for, how many Republicans voted for it, and what percentage of Americans were in favor of it. Usually, these things died in the Senate and that’s also something you have to mention.

Believe it or not, Congress has enacted 139 laws since January 3, 2021. So, Congress is always acting more than people think. Most of these laws are ones you’ve never heard of, but it always is a good idea to remind them of the good stuff you have done. How many Republicans voted for those measures? What percentage of Americans were in favor of those measures?

The picture you begin to see is the fact that Democrats (be they progressive, liberal, or moderate) are trying to address our nation’s problems. The way they are addressing them are popular with a majority of the American people. The other side is not. They are actively blocking those things even when a majority of the people want them.

The second thing we need to do is the harder thing. Hearts and minds are tough to change, but the conservatives in this country have managed to beat the drum on gas prices, supply chain issues, and inflation. They have pulled off two major coups. First, they have convinced enough people that these are the main issues of the day. Secondly, they have managed to successfully blame Joe Biden.

You can tell people that the president doesn’t set the gas prices. You can tell people that the president can’t control world markets. You can tell people that world markets are terribly complex and susceptible to numerous factors out of everyone’s control. Then, you are explaining. When you are explaining you are losing.

This one is hard because it requires resetting people’s priorities. If the price of gas is the most important thing in your life then you don’t have much of a life. If the availability of a particular product or rising costs of goods are the most important thing then you’ve lost them. In many cases it will be. Some people can’t be bothered to care about quality of life issues. They can’t be bothered to care about safety. They can’t be bothered to care about anyone else’s life and how it has been improved by something Democrats have actively done. You won’t capture everyone or even most. You can capture some.

From there, you simply circle back to what is currently being done to alleviate that problem. You also go back to the fact that the other side hasn’t done a damn thing or even suggested a damn thing. They’ll tell you something Biden has supposedly done wrong. Make sure to fact check those things. Did he actually do that? If he did then did it have the negative impact those people say it did? Again, we won’t capture the majority, but we can capture some. Some is what we need.