Choosing Optimism Over Despair

A viral video of a student making racist gestures and imitating a monkey toward a Black woman at Ole Miss has resulted in a fraternity removing one member from its chapter at the school over the incident. Via TIME: The Phi Delta Theta General Headquarters said in a statement that it was aware of the widely shared Ole Miss video and that “the racist actions in the video were those of an individual and are antithetical to the values of Phi Delta Theta and the Mississippi Alpha chapter.

The Federal Election Commission issued an advisory opinion last week allowing candidates to raise unlimited money for issue-advocacy groups working on ballot measures in elections in which those candidates are on the ballot. In an election where abortion is a hot-button issue, this gives Biden a significant advantage. Via the New York Times: The opinion, issued in response to a request from a Nevada-based abortion rights group, could significantly alter the landscape in the fall in terms of the capacity that candidates aligned with these groups have to help them raise money. The decision applies to all federal candidates, but with a presidential election taking place in six months, the biggest attention will fall to that race.

Sen. Tim Scott promoted another BIG Lie about the issue of abortion on Meet the Press by callously claiming all Democrats want to murder babies after they are born. All Republicans supporting traitor Trump have to lie about almost every topic since diminished Donald is so corrupt and immoral, but saying that anyone that isn't a right to life fanatic supports infanticide is truly sick.

Above, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-er Duane Eddy performs The Theme from Peter Gunn. The king of twang died of cancer at age 86, just four days after his birthday last week. The Bipartisan Report reports almost nobody is showing up for TFG despite his whiney pleading. Lucian Truscott presents, Hope Hicks, escape artist. Adventus visits Versailles. PM Carpenter gives historians a history lesson: we do live in a time unlike any other. Bonus Track: Because we are all about the music, Spotify has the artist Keith Haring's mixtapes. Round-up by Tengrain who blogs at Mock, Paper, Scissors.

Former President Trump knows that abortion is an important issue, so he's denying things he has said about stripping women of their bodily autonomy. The twice-impeached former President is very proud of overturning Roe and has bragged about it numerous times. In a recent interview with Time, the outlet reported that Trump said he "would let red states monitor women's pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans." And he keeps bragging that he's for states' rights on the issue; we all know what that means for abortion rights. Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to deny that thing he keeps saying. "I never said that "some states may choose to monitor women's pregnancies to possibly prosecute for violating any abortion bans." This was made up by Democrats and the Fake News Media," Trump insisted.

Lauren Boebert is a truly comical character, one you could endlessly laugh at for her Jerry-Springer-Show life and serial inanity, if she didn't, ya know, actually get to vote on stuff that affects our lives. But here we're going to laugh at her anyhow. Whether in hearings, watching plays or really anywhere, she's so comically stupid, so good at humiliating herself again and again, it feels like it should be added as a wonder of nature.