Stupid News and Commentary, and the Property Rights of Priests

CROSS-POSTED AT: Really? Seriously?

Hello, Mutts,

Good Saturday Morning from my office perched between two stadiums in Seattle. The Mariners are in town, so we will be crammed packed full of guests coming to see the games. It also means that I will be hearing the two irritating ass wipes on their loud horns haranguing the people coming to the games about how they are going to hell if they don’t accept Jesus Christ as their savior. If there was ever a time I could use an EMP generator…

I slept for most of the day and night yesterday. Stupid me, I stayed up on Thursday night binge-watching a Netflix show about a jail in Arkansas. I don’t know why, but I was glued to the screen for hours. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one — Netflix reports that this show skyrocketed to the number one streamer on Thursday, when it was released.

I was going to trace out the power drain on my 1994 F250 yesterday, but I slept. I have something that drains the battery overnight when I park it. It has a new battery and alternator in it, so I was going to use a test light on the positive battery cable and start pulling fuses to see which circuit is the offending one. I suspect it is the ignition switch — someone tried to steal the truck a few months ago, but discovered they couldn’t drive a stick. (yes, I have a straight six with a five speed manual — another unicorn of mine)

I guess I will deal with it when I get home this afternoon. The weather is supposed to be sunny with a high of 62° F.

The perfect fuck with a Ford weather.

But you didn’t come here to hear about me working on my old Ford 4×4 Pick ’em up, did you? You wanted to see what kind of nonsense I can make out of today’s news, didn’t you?

Buckle up, here goes… the first one is a doozy

Headlines That Caught My Eye This Morning

Item 1: Louisiana High Court: Priests Have a “Property Right” Not to Be Sued For Sexual Abuse

The legal system will never run out of ways to transform real-world harms into meaningless abstractions—all in service of insulating the wealthy and powerful from accountability.

This proving somewhat true when it comes to holding Donald Trump accountable for his crimes. Where an ordinary, average citizen would be locked up while awaiting trial on scores of felonies in four jurisdictions, a person like Donald Trump can ‘bail out’ of custody without actually putting up any cash or property, and remain out of jail with NO restrictions while he tries to find ways to delay or completely derail the courts from hearing his case.

Apparently, former presidents can’t be tried for criminal acts, and now priests have some kind of “property rights” that you and I don’t have that would prevent them from being sued for sexual abusing children.

Item 2: Trump tries to boost support for Truth Social as DJT stock tanks

I don’t know why anyone would want to own stock in a social media platform of any kind. I mean, look at Elon’s social media folly. He overspent on an over-valued, under-performing business that had never turned a profit, and ended up losing half of it’s purchase price within the first six weeks, and it has never recovered.

Truth Social was no exception. If Trump wasn’t on the platform, it would have died months ago. If Trump loses in November, then you can expect to see Truth Social die the complete death within a year.

Item 3: U.S. Moves Warships to Defend Israel in Case of Iranian Attack

Oh, the anticipation is killing me. C’mon, I want to see the Iranian response already. I’m betting it will be a dud.

Item 4: Manhattan court must find a dozen jurors to hear first-ever criminal case against a former president

Sooner or later they will. I’m betting on the ‘later’, because Trump will try to delay this trial by firing his lawyers. Whether the court goes along with that ploy remains to be seen. Just because Trump fires his lawyers doesn’t mean the court has to accept it. The court could just order Trump to use them anyways.

Item 5: Alex Garland’s ‘Civil War’ Is an Explosive Warning Against a Trump Takeover

I swear, people read way too much into things. I watch a lot of dystopian shows on TV. Does that mean we are headed for a post-apocalypse period of life?

Item 6: 6 in 10 U.S. Catholics are in favor of abortion rights, Pew Research report finds

This does not surprise me in the least. A solid majority of Americans are in favor of abortions being legal in most cases. A 2023 Gallup poll shows that 34% are in favor of abortion with no conditions, 51% are in favor of abortion under certain conditions, and only 13% are against abortion for any reason. This is why Democrats and Joe Biden are likely to win big in November. Even Donald Trump has figured out that he needs to temper his position on abortion, by saying it should be left up to the individual states to decide.

Item 7: Unprecedented’ and ‘stunning’ number of Trump administration alums oppose his reelection

I think with the exception of noted Nazi, Stephen Miller, virtually every other person who served under Donald Trump’s presidency has come out against a second term for Trump.

Remember when Trump insisted that he surrounded himself with “only the best people”? Well, the “best people” didn’t turn out to be the best people after all, and even they wouldn’t want to see Trump become president again.

That should tell you something right there…

Item 8: House finally passes surveillance bill after three stumbles

They past another “must pass” bill? They deserve another Participation Trophy!

and a couple of Attaboys.

The “Do Nothing Congress” of 1948 has nothing on the current House of Representatives.

Item 9: NPR in Turmoil After It Is Accused of Liberal Bias

Uri Berliner, a senior business editor on NPR is complaining that NPR has some Liberal biases. Let me rephrase that:

Uri Berliner, a senior conservative business editor on NPR is complaining that NPR has Liberals working for them. He would rather NPR be 100 percent Conservative, which is the complaint of partisans on both the Right and Left when it comes to describing different media outlets.

Conservatives refuse to watch or listen to the “Lame Stream Media” because the balance includes Liberal views as well as Conservative views. They want a completely 100 percent Conservative slant to their news. Liberals want a completely Liberal slant to their news. So one side watches FOX, NewsMax, and OANN, and focuses solely on Right-leaning news sources, and the other side watches MSNBC and CNN and will focus solely on Left-Leaning news sources.

I call them “news silos”, because people are only getting a narrow, biased viewpoint of what’s happening in the world.

NPR and the BBC both have voices from the Left AND the Right, and the presentation of news and events tend to be balanced. I get to hear not only the events themselves, but the events described by various views being presented.

I’m sorry that NPR isn’t Right-leaning. But it isn’t Left-leaning either.

Item 10 House Republicans fume over “messaging” votes

It seems that even some Republicans are tired of not getting anything done.

Item 11: Speaker Johnson’s perilous moment on Ukraine has finally arrived

Well, let’s get moving on it.

Item 12: Iranian special forces seize ship in Strait of Hormuz, state media reports

How “special” are these forces? Are we going to show them how special they are?

Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.

What In The Hell Did I Just Watch?

Unlocked: A Jail Experience – Netflix

At an Arkansas detention facility, a sheriff implements a radical social experiment to grant men who are incarcerated more agency.

I don’t know how I got hooked into binge-watching the entire series in one sitting, but I did get hooked.

Recommended Podcasts for Today

The Daily – The New York Times

Warning: this episode contains descriptions of violence.

A massive scam targeting older Americans who own timeshare properties has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars sent to Mexico.

Maria Abi-Habib, an investigative correspondent for The Times, tells the story of a victim who lost everything, and of the criminal group making the scam calls — Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico’s most violent cartels.

Guest: Maria Abi-Habib, an investigative correspondent for The New York Times based in Mexico City.

Background reading:

- How a brutal Mexican drug cartel came to target seniors and their timeshares.

For more information on today’s episode, visit https://nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

Global News Podcast – BBC

This week, we meet the 105 year-old man celebrating his thirteenth total solar eclipse. Also: The AI technology giving back a voice to the voiceless. And our intrepid reporter goes in search of the crookie.