REALITYCHEX.COM - Constant Comments - Hold My Beer, Traitor Edition

The Ledes

Wednesday, July 2, 2025

New York Times: “The Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who emerged from the backwoods of Louisiana to become a television evangelist with global reach, preaching about an eternal struggle between good and evil and warning of the temptations of the flesh, a theme that played out in his own life in a sex scandal, died on July 1. He was 90.” ~~~

~~~ For another sort of obituary, see Akhilleus' commentary near the end of yesterday's thread.

The Wires

Help!

To keep the Conversation going, please help me by linking news articles, opinion pieces and other political content in today's Comments section.

Link Code: <a href="URL">text</a>

OR here's a link generator. The one I had posted died, then Akhilleus found one, but it too bit the dust. He found yet another, which I've linked here, and as of September 23, 2024, it's working.

OR you can always just block, copy and paste to your comment the URL (Web address) of the page you want to link.

Note for Readers. It is not possible for commenters to "throw" their highlighted links to another window. But you can do that yourself. Right-click on the link and a drop-down box will give you choices as to where you want to open the link: in a new tab, new window or new private window.

New York Times: “The New York Times Company has agreed to license its editorial content to Amazon for use in the tech giant’s artificial intelligence platforms, the company said on Thursday. The multiyear agreement 'will bring Times editorial content to a variety of Amazon customer experiences,' the news organization said in a statement. Besides news articles, the agreement encompasses material from NYT Cooking, The Times’s food and recipe site, and The Athletic, which focuses on sports. This is The Times’s first licensing arrangement with a focus on generative A.I. technology. In 2023, The Times sued OpenAI and its partner, Microsoft, for copyright infringement, accusing the tech companies of using millions of articles published by The Times to train automated chatbots without any kind of compensation. OpenAI and Microsoft have rejected those accusations.” ~~~

~~~ Marie: I have no idea what this means for "the Amazon customer experience." Does it mean that if I don't have a NYT subscription but do have Amazon Prime I can read NYT content? And where, exactly, would I find that content? I don't know. I don't know.

Washington Post reporters asked three AI image generators what a beautiful woman looks like. "The Post found that they steer users toward a startlingly narrow vision of attractiveness. Prompted to show a 'beautiful woman,' all three tools generated thin women, without exception.... Her body looks like Barbie — slim hips, impossible waist, round breasts.... Just 2 percent of the images showed visible signs of aging. More than a third of the images had medium skin tones. But only nine percent had dark skin tones. Asked to show 'normal women,' the tools produced images that remained overwhelmingly thin.... However bias originates, The Post’s analysis found that popular image tools struggle to render realistic images of women outside the Western ideal." ~~~

~~~ Marie: The reporters seem to think they are calling out the AI programs for being unrealistic. But there's a lot about the "beautiful women" images they miss. I find these omissions remarkably sexist. For one thing, the reporters seem to think AI is a magical "thing" that self-generates. It isn't. It's programmed. It's programmed by boys, many of them incels who have little or no experience or insights beyond comic books and Internet porn of how to gauge female "beauty." As a result, the AI-generated women look like cartoons; that is, a lot like an air-brushed photo of Kristi Noem: globs of every kind of dark eye makeup, Scandinavian nose, Botox lips, slathered-on skin concealer/toner/etc. makeup, long dark hair and the aforementioned impossible Barbie body shape, including huge, round plastic breasts.

New York Times: “George Clooney’s Broadway debut, 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' has been one of the sensations of the 2024-25 theater season, breaking box office records and drawing packed houses of audiences eager to see the popular movie star in a timely drama about the importance of an independent press. Now the play will become much more widely available: CNN is planning a live broadcast of the penultimate performance, on June 7 at 7 p.m. Eastern. The performance will be preceded and followed by coverage of, and discussion about, the show and the state of journalism.”

No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals or by the law of the land. -- Magna Carta ~~~

~~~ New York Times: “Bought for $27.50 after World War II, the faint, water stained manuscript in the library of Harvard Law School had attracted relatively little attention since it arrived there in 1946. That is about to change. Two British academics, one of whom happened on the manuscript by chance, have discovered that it is an original 1300 version — not a copy, as long thought — of Magna Carta, the medieval document that helped establish some of the world’s most cherished liberties. It is one of just seven such documents from that date still in existence.... A 710-year-old version of Magna Carta was sold in 2007 for $21.3 million.... First issued in 1215, it put into writing a set of concessions won by rebellious barons from a recalcitrant King John of England — or Bad King John, as he became known in folklore. He later revoked the charter, but his son, Henry III, issued amended versions, the last one in 1225, and Henry’s son, Edward I, in turn confirmed the 1225 version in 1297 and again in 1300.”

Page Links

Thursday

Apr202023

Hold My Beer, Traitor Edition

Marie: For those of you too busy to check out Thursday's Comments, or even too busy to run through all the recently-linked stories, I'm republishing here a comment by Akhilleus that will get you caught up on what some of our fine public officials have been doing:

By Akhilleus

Hold My Beer, Traitor edition

While it may seem as if the Incroyables and merveilleuses on the right are all locking arms in a Palais Glide of the ghastly, they take pains (and pain is the word) to break up the group’s gallop to Dante-land every so often to flaunt their own personal idiom of idiocy, a kind of “Hold my beer. Watch this!” demonstration of Who Is the Biggest Asshole.

We have a Supreme Court completely corrupted by its right-wing partisans, notably the single most corrupt Justice in US history who is allowed to get away with pretty much any ethical violation he chooses, deigning only to give the most flimsy and laughable excuses for his criminality, excuses that, were they to be offered to him in his role as a judge, he would slap down hard and hit the defendant with a contempt citation to boot.

We have the fascist Florida governor going mano a mano with a mouse, again, after having his authoritarian ass kicked. And in an attempt to prove his manliness now sez only eight out of twelve jurors are good enough to execute someone. Interestingly, this is supposedly in response to the Parkland murderer getting life instead of death (it’s not; it’s all about appealing to the right’s love of vengeance and blood). Funny, though…one would think if the Parkland murders (executed with Republican authorized weapons) were such a great concern, something would be done about gun violence. But no. The gun violence is fine. They just want to be able to kill that guy later.

Over here we have MTG, screaming about a Democrat having SEX WITH A CHINESE SPY!!! Aieeee! Of course, with no evidence. In fact “with no evidence” should be their collective middle name. Actual SEX with underage girls by Matt Gaetz, however, is perfectly fine.

Speaking of Gaetz, he came out the other day sniffing that there should be no assistance for poor people, including help with feeding children, unless these moochers have a job. This from a rich kid who has never had a job and does nothing in the job he has now, bought for him by his rich daddy.

But don’t forget My Kevin’s plan for fiscal sobriety: child starvation. Seems reasonable, right?

And in another Hold My Beer moment, MTG goes to town on supporting an openly racist knucklehead who has given away military security secrets to show off for other racist knuckleheads. MTG sez he’s a hero.

Then there’s Lauren Boebert…yeah…permanently pencilled in under Hold My Beer.

And talking about what passes for heroism on the right, the goobernator of Texas is chomping at the bit to pardon a guy who murdered a BLM protester. Because what’s wrong with killing people who say African-American lives matter?

Gym Jordan, instead of doing his job (as for another fact, NONE of these fucking people EVER does their job), moves his committee to New York for a show trial to help out the most corrupt and criminal president* in US history (seems to be a pattern here with all these Most Evers).

Abortion bans in all red states, going down from 15 days to 6 days, pretty soon it’ll be a half hour. And leave us not forget that abortion is a perfectly legal and often essential medical procedure. These bans are not based on science, medicine, or law. They are 100% the result of the religious beliefs of a single group being forced on the entire country.

And, as Marie points out, one of the other corrupt wingers on the Court is likely getting ready to uphold a blanket ban on mifepristone, probably in the dead of night (another trend) put in place by a Trumpy judge who effectively lied to get his job.

Other Trumpy judges are doing just fine in this Palais Glide of the ghastly. Another one is working hard to help Gym Jordan fuck over Alvin Bragg, because Trump.

In KKK land, Tennessee, black Democrats are expelled for being uppity, a putsch organized by a speaker who himself is embroiled in scandal. But no biggie there. He’s white. And a he.

In Wisconsin, a newly elected Supreme Court Justice is threatened with impeachment before she even takes her seat. Because democracy is just not their cup of tea.

Elsewhere, Party of Traitor stalwarts are giving the big thumbs up to child marriage and the big thumbs down to child labor laws. “Hey! You twelve year old kids! Git married then git to work!” How’s that for grooming?

Books are banned. When people complain, Rs simply defund the entire library system.

It’s a never ending game of Can You Top This? Can you be a bigger asshole than me?

Sure! Hold my beer…

Update. Marie: For those of you who aren't up on 1938 popular British dances, Patrick has provided us with a demonstration of the Palais Glide:

Comments Off

Permalink

Email Article

Reader Comments (3)

Akhilleus, thanks for the tour d'horizon. It has the bones on which one could hang a campaign speech.

Here's a clip of old Scot gliding

https://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/video/palais-glide.html

April 20, 2023 |

Patrick

Old Scot Gliding is what 55% of my ancestors were involved in.
40% were from England and the other percentages from Scandinavia
and Romanian gypsies.

Thanks Patrick for the update.

April 20, 2023 |

Forrest Morris

Thanks, AK. I'm sure it's been said a thousand times, but probably needs to be said a thousand more: There is a cognitive dissonance between authoritarian religion and democratic governance. If you believe in the former, no number of votes in the latter will convince you that what your pastor claims is wrong has become right. So, the other side is by definition illegitimate before it even gets started, and doing whatever is possible to overturn that illegitimate, non-Godly will of the electorate is not shameful in the least; rather, the assault on others' human rights in the guise of freedom of religion is the modern equivalent of Medieval Crusaders heading to Jerusalem to reestablish the correct superstition and slaughtering populations of nonbelievers on the way. It's likely that they felt great about it.

April 21, 2023 |

Jack Mahoney

Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.