We were so close, there was no room
We bled inside each other's wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace
Some came to sing, some came to pray
Some came to keep the dark away

So, raise the candles high (Up high)
'Cause if you don't, we could stay black against the sky
Oh, oh, raise (Raise) them higher again (Up high)
And if you do we could stay dry against the rain

(AP) -- Alabama executed a convicted murderer with nitrogen gas Thursday, putting him to death with a first-of-its-kind method that once again placed the U.S. at the forefront of the debate over capital punishment. The state said the method would be humane, but critics called it cruel and experimental.8 hours ago

"For some time when we have reached the end
With the velvet hill in the small of her back,
And our hands are clutchin' the sand,
Will our blood become a part of the river?
All of the rivers are givers to the ocean
According to plan, according to man.
There's a chance peace will come
In your life, please buy one."
- Melanie Safka, "Peace Will Come (According to Plan)", 1970

... if we truly want to seek peace in our time, then we must first become its agent within the context of our own lives. She first recorded "Peace Will Come (According to Plan)" in 1970 and released it as a single. It was a staple in her playlist when she toured.

Some critics dismissed Melanie and other artists in the folk-rock genre as dreamers, but I'd contend that she was aspirational and an eternal optimist. Peace is always one of our choices, she reminds us, and she's challenging us to therefore choose wisely.

The guy asked a citizen of Singapore a dozen times if he was a Chinese citizen, was he a member of the Chinese Communist party. This, after they guy told him quite succinctly that he was a citizen of Singapore.

Palestinian hospitals, schools, houses of worship, as well as entire neighborhoods have been destroyed.  Gaza is now on the brink of starvation.  Over 22,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed. This has morphed from a war against Hamas into a war against the Palestinian people.

In stunner, House GOP bid to impeach Mayorkas fails

After Republicans tanked the border security bill, Tim Scott says he voted against a stand-alone bill for Israel/Ukraine aid because: We should first secure our southern border.

When the news broke about the special counsel's hit job -- his snide, unwarranted, obviously politically motivated slurs about President Biden's memory -- I found myself thinking about my mother. What year did she die? It turned out that I didn't know offhand; I knew that it was after I moved from Princeton to CUNY, because I was regularly commuting out to New Jersey to see her, but before the pandemic. I actually had to look into my records to confirm that she died in 2017.

I'll bet that many readers are similarly vague about the dates of major life events. You remember the circumstances but not necessarily the precise year.

Orange moron said in Harrisburg last night that if Biden is re-elected, he change the name of Pennsylvania.

`Where's Her Husband?' Trump Lashes Out At Nikki Haley's Spouse During South Carolina Rally

Ezra Klein and Nate Silver Are Wrong
February 19, 2024 at 2:48 pm EST By Taegan Goddard 212 Comments

Several high profile pundits -- including Ezra Klein and Nate Silver -- are convinced Democrats will lose the presidential election if Joe Biden is the nominee.

They point to polls which show Donald Trump with a small edge over Biden nationally and in several key swing states.

It's true Biden's approval rate is historically low and that it's increasingly correlated to his re-election chances the closer we get to the election. It's also true that a majority of voters tell pollsters Biden is too old.

But those same polls also show Biden doing better than any other possible Democrat who might replace him on the ticket.

More practically, since the primaries are well underway, any Biden replacement would have to be chosen by delegates at the Democratic convention in August.

Modern political conventions are supposed to be highly-choreographed campaign kick offs with the party unified behind their nominee. Throwing the convention open to choose a new nominee would be pure, unscripted chaos.

It also means Democrats would be effectively ceding the general election campaign to Trump for the next six months until they have a formal Biden replacement.

That makes no sense at all.

Biden has weaknesses as a candidate that rightfully cause Democrats some jitters. But given Trump's unparalleled list of weaknesses, Biden is a dream candidate.

Stewart's return last Monday night was greeted by much criticism, so I expect him to double-down tonight and let everyone know how wrong they are.

• The Alabama Supreme Court has declared that frozen embryos are people. I'd not be surprised if this judicial express train to Cuckootown goes even further and deems assistive reproductive technology to be the latter-day equivalent of practicing witchcraft.

• It's interesting how in a matter of just a couple weeks, FBI informant / Russian mole Alexander Smirnov quickly devolved from House Oversight Chair James Comer's "primary witness against the Biden crime family" to "not a big factor in our investigation."

• More often than not lately, Fox News doesn't even try to hide its white racist tendencies. How long before the folks at "Fox & Friends" start telling their 90%+ white audience that the reason Democrats receive 90% of the Black vote is because they give out coupons for a free KFC 2-piece chicken combo?

• Trump campaign events aren't rallies anymore in the traditional sense. Rather, they're shameless self-pity parties that revel in the candidate's self-perceived grievances over finally being held to legal account for his horrific personal and professional behavior.

• And finally, from our "If the Law Assumes That, Sir, Then the Law Is an A$$" file, Justice Alito is asinine to assume that a legal case with LGBTQ overtones will be judged fairly by jurors who openly equate homosexuality with original sin. That's how San Francisco Supervisor Dan White only served five years in prison for voluntary manslaughter after murdering gay colleague Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone in cold blood in Nov. 1978.

In the interview they claimed that "Parents send their kids to school to be educated, not indoctrinated into ideology." Pelley asked, "What ideology are they being indoctrinated into?" They didn't answer the question. Instead they replied that "children in America cannot read."

Sooo, which is it? If America's kids can't read, WHY THE H3LL ARE YOU WORRIED AB0UT BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY????

I grew up in a house full of books. My father and I were not friends, but I give my parents credit for never saying there was a book that I couldn't read. When I was elementary school age, I read biographies all time. I wasn't particularly interested in the books on your shelves. They were over my head. But as I got older, I started reading some of my father's books. The was much variety. He was a Naval officer so there was a lot of military history. But he also had Hunter's Thompson's Hell's Angels, Portnoy's Complaint, Slaughterhouse Five, The Sand Pebbles, Taipan, etc. etc. As I said a variety.

And no one ever pointed to a book and said any given book was off limits. I read many of them. Some of those same books are now on my own bookshelf. When my father died, my mother told me to take whatever books I wanted. And I did.

What is wrong with these people? What exactly is it that they are afraid of?

The incredible lunacy of these women is that I'm sure every one of their kids have a cell phone. Access to the internet. So taking books out of libraries is ridiculous. And, c'mon, really, how many kids are getting books from the school library these days? This is all theater for these people. A solution looking for a problem.

My sister's name is Melanie. She was named for Melanie in GWTW.

A Race Between Two Presidents and Two Americas
January 25, 2024 at 4:00 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

"Each of them has sat behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, signed bills into law, appointed judges, bartered with foreign leaders and ordered the armed forces into combat. They both know what it is like to be the most powerful person on the planet," the New York Times reports.

"Yet the general election matchup that seems likely after this week's New Hampshire primary represents more than the first-in-a-century contest between two men who have both lived in the White House. It represents the clash of two presidents of profoundly different countries, the president of Blue America versus the president of Red America."

and

Video shows Indiana lawmaker flashing holstered gun to students who were advocating for gun control

Trump New York business fraud case verdict delayed to later in February

Let's be clear--the special counsel isn't a dummy and we should be very careful not to take the bait after Comey pulled this in 2016. Hur, a lifelong Republican  and creature of DC, didn't have a case against Biden, but he knew exactly how his swipes could hurt Biden politically.

Eight years ago, Jon Stewart left the show with the self-awareness that his brand of comedy had run its course or would need some re-tooling to continue.  His return this week recalled the 2010 Colbert/Stewart palooza of bothsiderism and can't- we-all get-along-ism.  Colbert moved on, Stewart is stuck in time.

To be funny, political satire and parody needs to be grounded in truth and be based on real-time happenings. News flash. Biden and Trump are not young.  But they are not the same because of that fact.  Grandpa jokes are not knee-slappers. Ageism is not hilarious.  

This is a video entirely generated by OpenAI's new text to video model, Sora. They released this video as a demo today.

Prompt: A stylish woman walks down a Tokyo street filled with warm glowing neon and animated city signage. She wears a black leather jacket, a long red dress, and black boots, and carries a black purse. She wears sunglasses and red lipstick. She walks confidently and casually. The street is damp and reflective, creating a mirror effect of the colorful lights. Many pedestrians walk about.