How can this be? A search of Google for Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House of Representatives includes an Intelligencer story titled “26 Things You’d Rather Not Know about Mike Johnson.” I read it and although the title may have a fault (I couldn’t re-visit without money), the items were the most offensive positions he has taken in the past (Trump Won, Anti-Gay, etc._.)
“I never expected the music to swell and the credits to roll with Mike Johnson’s face in the center of the frame,” wrote Frank Bruni in a New York Times opinion piece.
Johnson, the House speaker, reversed a position that he’d previously held, banded with Democrats and infuriated some of the loudest members of his party — that’s Marjorie Taylor Greene you hear wailing in the wings — to pass a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan last weekend.
“…In an era this intensely and corrosively partisan, it’s especially important that we give warranted praise and appropriate thanks to people with whom we usually disagree. Tribalism discourages that, but a healthy democracy demands it.” Guess I’ll say thanks and wait to see what happens next.
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MIND BLOWING
Conjoined at the head, living a life as a transgender man with spina bifida, and facing the other direction an able-bodied sibling, Lori, who had musical talent and and pushed George on a stool that had wheels. A blanket over one of them provided privacy during intimacy. The Schappell twins, who died recently at 62, said that they never wanted to be surgically separated, and that they did not wish they had been born apart. Read more about these and other conjoined siblings via Google.
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HICKORY DICKORY DOC
It feels strange to read that the ACLU is on the other side in the Tik Toc issue. I’m unclear about which high road to favor. In the end I guess it’s follow survival.
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WHEN I WAS IN PHYSICAL REHAB a year or so ago, the occupational therapist stopped by my bed and asked if could walk. No, my foot was broken. Which foot? The right foot. The left? No, the right, whereupon she checked my veracity by looking herself. The day before when I reported to a nurse look alike that my heart was pounding, she asked me what did I want her to do about it.
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. According to the internet, 10% of Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.
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“ADL tracked 8,873 antisemitic incidents across the United States in 2023, the highest level recorded since ADL started tracking this data in 1979.” — U.S. Antisemitic Incidents Soared 140% percent in 2023, Thanks to Dr. John Persico Jr. for that tid bit.
MY INTERPRETATION
For some reason, I don’t see the unexpected widespread antisemitic sentiment, especially on college campuses, as being rooted in anti Jewishness, but the empathic horror and sympathy for those continuing to suffer in Hamas. Of course, contributing to a war on one side while offering aid to the other at the same time does seem a little crazy to me. And I still continue to secretly (or not so secretly) tend to suspect that both 9-11 and the “surprise” invasion of Israel were permitted to justify the resultant wars.