Weekly Roundup
The G7 Elite; What is it with the GOP’s obsession with child porn?; And who is the next loser?
PANEM by Owls Molloy is an opinion newsletter with lots of curated sources thrown in to back it up.
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The G7 Elite:
Thursday was the day of the G7 Elite, a special group of world leaders from Canada, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan within the larger context of the emergency summits taking place with NATO and the European Union, who gathered in Brussels to discuss further aid to Ukraine and to impose further sanctions on Putin’s Russian friends.
President Biden pledged $1 billion for humanitarian aid and other assistance to the Ukrainian people and the G7 reiterated the imposition of additional sanctions, this time on members of the Russian parliament and Russian defense companies, including blockages on gold transfers Putin and his friends might attempt through the Central Bank of Russia as a way to circumvent the economic fallout from the sanctions, while they again told China there would be adverse consequences if it helped Russia.
“…refraining from evasion, circumvention and backfilling that seek to undercut or mitigate the effects of our sanctions.”
And they were foremost determined to get ahead of recent intelligence that Russia may deploy chemical weapons on Ukraine that will cause catastrophic damage to and poison the population and environment of not only Ukraine, but nearby NATO member states as well.
“We warn against any threat of the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons or related materials. We recall Russia’s obligations under the international treaties to which it is a signatory, and which protect us all. In this regard, we categorically denounce Russia’s malicious and completely unfounded disinformation campaign against Ukraine, a state in full compliance with international non-proliferation agreements. We express concern about other countries and actors that have amplified Russia’s disinformation campaign.”
For me personally, it is the multiple denouncements within the G7 Statement of Russia’s disinformation campaign and full media censorship against not only allied countries, but also against its own citizenry, who are largely unaware of the events unfolding in Ukraine and the world crisis it has provoked.
All of the G7 countries have pledged to take in Ukrainian refugees, with the U.S. pledging to accept 100,000 refugees, and are urging other countries to do the same in an unprecedented show of international cooperation and support.
They have also pledged to monitor and sustain the global food supply, the energy supply, and protect against any cyber threats.
The scale of what the world has joined together to accomplish to help Ukraine and stop Vladimir Putin is nothing short of astounding, heroic, valiant, and bold.
Now, let’s do the climate crisis.
What is it with the GOP’s obsession with child porn?
It’s just weird. I mean, I know the likes of Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham need something they can latch onto to denigrate an upstanding, accomplished, fully-qualified black woman President Biden has nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States, but my sweet baby Jesus, this is just weird, and undignified, and embarrassing.
Because Senate Republicans could not attack Ketanji Brown Jackson’s actual qualifications for the SCOTUS seat being vacated by Justice Stephen Breyer, they decided a disingenuous misrepresentation of Jackson’s record by way of character assassination on deciding child pornography cases was the way to create the boogeywoman they needed to feed their rabid, gullible, batshit crazy base who hates women in any position of power.
It is the exact playbook they used to attack Hillary Clinton’s presidential run when they attached her to a fabricated child sex trafficking ring in the basement of a pizza parlor and called it PizzaGate.
A. Freaking. Pizza. Parlor. Ffs.
Fox “News” could not get enough of PizzaGate, and the mainstream media, as usual, jumped on the bandwagon.
So, these idiots decided to PizzaGate a nominee for the United States Supreme Court, and if ever there was a clown show to be had, it was this one, because not even their own people could pretend to take it seriously, at the National Review here and Fox “News” here and here and Politico here.
Because PizzaGate was then, and this is now, and we are at war, and America has really just lost all tolerance for this malarkey. This is the age of serious people who do serious things, and the GOP playbook of making a mockery of everything and turning it into an entertainment venue for clickbait will no longer work. Ketanji Brown Jackson will be confirmed. She is America’s first black woman on the United States Supreme Court. And she is formidable.
No pasty faced man obsessed with porn is going to stop it.
#WhenThereAreNine
And who is the next loser?
J.D. Crowe / jdcrowe@al.com is one of my absolute favorite political cartoonists. He is from the South and is so good at what he does the locals here have tolerated his newfangled liberal views for decades without much complaint. And what I love about Al.com is the disclaimer “This is an opinion column, cartoon, etc…” they include with every opinion piece, liberal or conservative, so as not to dupe their audience into thinking what they are reading is a factual news report. Though it clearly leans conservative, it is Alabama after all, journalistic integrity still exists here, on a conservative platform no less, and would do well as a model for how news could be done across the country.
So, today I am featuring his latest brilliant political cartoon, titled “Trump’s Alabama Endorsement Curse: Who’s the next loser?”. If you want a good laugh to balance out your day, you can
“This is an opinion cartoon.
Step right up! Who wants the Trumpster kiss of death?
Thanks but no thanks for your sycophant service, Big Luther Strange, Ol’ Roy Moore and ‘Woke’ Mo Brooks. You’re all losers. You weren’t losers when Trump endorsed you (Ha! Yes, you were) but for some reason you sunk into the loser hole soon after the Trump ring-kissing ceremony.”
Music Roundup:
“We are resolved in our support to the Ukrainian people in their heroic resistance to Russia’s unjustifiable and illegal aggression.” - G7, March 24, 2022
In honor of the world’s G7 leaders and the Ukrainian people who have taken up arms against the Russian invaders and given Vladimir Putin the fight he never expected, in Kharkiv, in Kherson, in Mykolaiv, in Kyiv, and especially in honor of those who have fought and died defending the city of Mariupol, which has sustained devastating loss and destruction, I’ve chosen a classic song for the weekend. This song is about people rising up together in the face of adversity to be heroes, even if for just one day.
Have a fabulous weekend, everybody.
“Heroes” by David Bowie
