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Sunday 28th of July 2024

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Christmas Aren't we forgetting the true meaning of this day? You know, the birth of Santa.  Bart Simpson, in “Miracle on Evergreen Terrace” episode of The Simpsons © 2023 Kwiple.com
Christmas The best stocking stuffer is a human leg. Norm Macdonald  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Christmas Last Christmas I got no respect. In my stocking, I got an odor-eater. Rodney Dangerfield © 2023 Kwiple.com
Cocks of the walk say No one's going to outwork me in this race. No one's going to outsmart me in this race. Nikki Haley, on the race for 2024 Republican presidential nomination © 2023 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Liberalism In theory, one might argue that liberal, open societies should have open borders. In practice, tbat would rapidly spell the end of liberalism in most such societies, especially those with a high standard of living. Timothy Garton Ash, Homelands: A Personal History of Europe © 2023 Kwiple.com
Liberalism In which half of the West is liberalism more vulnerable: the US or Europe? Well, the raw individual clout of Trump unites and fuels America’s hard right. What serves the equivalent role in Europe  is a sense of demographic and cultural siege. The difference is that Trump will one day be gone. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, November 28, 2023 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Nukes  The atomic bomb was the turn of the screw. It made the prospect of future wars unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass and beyond there is a different country. J. Robert Oppenheimer © 2023 Kwiple.com
Populism The hardest thing to convey about the Trump phenomenon, especially to intellectuals, trained to think in terms of philosophical doctrines, is how secondary the content of it has become. European populism is about something.  American populism is, to an amazing extent, about someone. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, November 28, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Post-2022 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,737,128 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,357,904 people — 1 state (California) 2022 population: 39,995,077 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,997,539 people 19,997,539 / 1,357,904 = 14.7, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth nearly 15 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth less than 7% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2022 population = 579,495, therefore: 1 Senator per 289,748 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 69 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.4% of a Wyomian's  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Rights Although the New Deal Court eventually repudiated Lochner, the fact remains that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are for the most part negative rights against  government interference rather than positive rights to  government-provided goods and services. Linda Greenhouse, New York Review of Books, December 21, 2023 [In Lochner v. New York, the Supreme Court decided that a New York law that established  maximum hours bakers could work violated their right to contract under the 14th Amendment] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Selfie I have so many fabulous friends who happen to be gay, but I am a traditionalist. Donald Trump  [Presumably referring to Roy Cohn, his mentor] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Selfie I'm the one who got rid of Roe v. Wade and everyone said that was an impossible thing to do. Donald Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say  In every single war that America has fought we have never asked for land afterwards ‐ except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom we went in for. Kevin McCarthy, 8:36 PM – Nov 26, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot She saw the votes on the board and said, “Fuck it, I'm just gonna vote for it just so I can go on TV and talk about it.” A former staffer's explanation of why Nancy Mace voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives even though he had directed millions of dollars to her 2020 election campaign [Mace is a poster child for the old adage, If you want a friend in Washington, get yourself a dog.] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Social media Tapping a "Like" button is not friendship; it's a data point. Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, July/August 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Technology My advice to anyone who wants to preserve a digital work is to print it. Robert Darnton, New York Review of Books, December 21, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Terrorism They are heavily armed with M16 rifles, pistols, butcher knives, and often all three, and they take obvious pleasure in causing pain: beating people; breaking anything  breakable; stealing; torching cars and homes;  destroying food, water tanks, and solar panels; and shooting in the air — and sometimes not in the air. They have a standard formula that has been repeated in village after village: “You have twenty-four hours to leave. If you don’t, we’ll be back to kill all of you.” David Shulman, New York Review of Books, December 21, 2023, describing the 593 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers and shepards in the West Bank in the first half of 2023 alone, which are ignored by police and Israeli army occupiers © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpism For a sense of how person– rather than idea–centered US populism has become, ask yourself: if Trump proposed a truce with China,  or embraced green taxes, or even softened his line on immigration somewhat,  how much of his core support would he lose? Given that he has already championed the Covid-19 vaccines that much of his base mistrusted, without alienating them, I suspect the answer is “less than we  think”. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, November 28, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I mean, our race, the size of our feet, the color of our eyes, these are things we’re born with and we cannot change.  Homosexual behavior is something you do, it’s not something that you are. Mike Johnson © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I would encourage the other side to not so lightly throw around the idea of “innocent Palestinian civilians.” I don't think we would so lightly throw around the term “innocent Nazi civilians” during World War II. I would challenge anybody in here to point to me which Palestinian is Hamas and which one is an innocent civilian. Brian Mast, equating Palestinians with Nazis and implying all of them, including children, are personally responsible for atrocities committed by Hamas, days after admitting it was he who eliminated the provisions for food, medicine and other humanitarian aid from a proposed bill about aid for people in Gaza Strip © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say If you put this to the American people, and they weigh the two needs, I think they are going to say standing with Israel and protecting the innocent is in our national interest, and  a more immediate need than IRS agents. Mike Johnson on his bill to rob the IRS of $14.3 billion earmarked for it to reduce tax cheating by large corporatiions and the very rich and thereby reduce the national debt by $100 billion in the next decade — in order to pay for $14.3 billion in additional military aid to Israel to help it pay the costs of slaughtering Palestinians © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing. One. That I can go campaign on and say we did. One. Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me, one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, “Well I guess it's not as bad as the Democrats!” Chip Roy, bemoaning Republicans' failure to build a border wall, get Mexico to pay for it, overturn the 2020 election, shut down govern- ment, and for passing a spending bill with Dems © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say The only question is: Is God going to allow our nation to enter a time of judgment for our collective sins? Or is he going to give us one more chance to restore the foundations and return to Him? Mike Johnson peeved by the number of young people who “identify as something other than straight” © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say We have to blur some faces of persons who participated in the events of that day because we don’t want them to be retaliated against and to be charged by the DOJ. Mike Johnson, December 5, 2023, who tried to overturn the 2020 election, here obstructing justice by trying to prevent online slueths who've helped identify hundreds  of Capitol rioters from seeing the faces of rioters in previously unreleased footage of the attack on the Capitol, while simultaneously making himself an accessory after the fact to multiple federal crimes, in announcng he's releasing doctored versions of all footage of the attack in an attempt to counter the narrative of the January 6 commission report © 2023 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats say I said I want to be a dictator for one day. You know why I wanted to be a dictator? Because I want a wall, and I want to drill, drill, drill. Donald Trump, doubling down on wanting to be a dictator © 2023 Kwiple.com
 
War War is what happens when language fails. Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride   © 2023 Kwiple.com