I could have begun today with any number of responses to the tacky shoe salesman’s horrific TruthSocial post about the murder of Rob and Michele Reiner. I’m choosing an X/Twitter post by Christianity Today Editor-in-Chief Russell Moore.
Sure, as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, I think that Moore would be honest enough to admit to his own leadership that lead to certain behaviors becoming “normalized.”
Moore was also one of the first of the NeverTrumpers.
Trump is, by far, the most visible reason that this behavior that Moore refers to has become “normalized.”
But Trump didn’t vote for “us,” “we” voted for Trump. Twice.
As another pundit points out across the fold.
David French of The New York Times writes about the new lost cause (same as the old one, if you ask me).
...When I see young people radicalizing on the left and right, including through their greater tolerance for political violence, I see the fruit of our own intolerance and polarization.
Consider this — in 2014, one year before Trump began his first presidential campaign, a Pew Research Center poll found that 82 percent of Republicans viewed the Democratic Party unfavorably or very unfavorably. The same poll found that 79 percent of Democrats had unfavorable or very unfavorable views of the Republican Party. Ominously, the percentage of Republicans and Democrats who viewed the opposing party very unfavorably had more than doubled in the previous 20 years.
Animosity breeds hyperbole, and vice versa. I know that politics ain’t beanbag, but we’ve all seen a steady escalation in political rhetoric. Every election is the most important of our lifetime. The fate of the nation hinges on every trip to the ballot box.
Why does the young right think “they” stole the glorious past? Well, because that’s the effect of teaching them that the other side makes everything worse. I can think of times when I lost perspective, when my words went too far. Partisanship was corrosive to my soul.
Jordain Carney and Calen Razor of POLITICO look at the Senate’s efforts to pass some sort of ACA subsidizes at the beginning of the new year.
At a meeting convened by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), the senators discussed a two-year extension of the Obamacare tax credits that would be coupled with a new income eligibility cap and fraud prevention language. The subsidies at issue were beefed up under former President Joe Biden. [...]
The meeting included roughly 20 senators, including many of the same members of the Senate Democratic Caucus who voted to end the shutdown last month. Among them were Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Dick Durbin of Illinois and Jacky Rosen of Nevada. In addition to Collins and Moreno, several GOP senators attended the meeting including Finance Chair Mike Crapo and HELP Chair Bill Cassidy.
With the Senate scheduled to leave Thursday for the year, senators also discussed extending open enrollment for health care plans under the Affordable Care Act.
The group still has some sticking points to work through, including whether to incorporate restrictions on abortion funding — a must-have for many GOP senators.
María Martín and Florantonia Singer of El País in English wonders if Noble peace Prize winner María Corina Machado will be able to return to her home in Venezuela after a daring escape from there to Oslo.
According to her collaborators, Machado will spend some time abroad, capitalizing on the attention from the award to place Venezuela at the center of the global stage. It is not known whether this will be weeks or days, or whether Chavista regime will allow her to return when she wants to. In recent interviews, the opposition leader has repeatedly said that she plans to come back. “I won’t say when or how it will happen, but I will do everything possible to be able to return and also to put an end to this tyranny very soon,” she told reporters in Oslo. “I will return when the security measures are in place, whether or not Maduro remains in power,” she added.
In her speech, read by her daughter in Oslo, María Corina Machado maintained the expectation of imminent change in Venezuela. “The world has marveled at what we have achieved. And soon it will witness one of the most moving sights of our time: our loved ones coming home.” It is still difficult to imagine under what circumstances. It is not clear what will happen next, and there are more questions than answers. Will there be a regime change soon, as she predicts? What happens if it doesn’t occur and she cannot return? Will her leadership falter in exile as has happened to so many others?
Finally today, Mike Barnes of The Hollywood Reporter writes about the life and death of Anthony Geary, who shot to superstardom on the ABC soap opera General Hospital thanks to one of the most controversial storylines and scenes ever to...rise...on television.
Anthony Geary, the thoughtful General Hospital actor who as the complex Luke Spencer raped and romanced Genie Francis’ Laura Webber Baldwin on the way to an unprecedented eight Daytime Emmy Awards and soap opera superstardom, has died. He was 78.
Geary lived in the Netherlands and died Sunday of complications from a scheduled operation in his adopted country three days earlier, the website TV Insider reported. “It was a shock for me and our families and our friends,” his husband, Claudio Gama, said. “For more than 30 years, Tony has been my friend, my companion, my husband.”
I remember any number of scenes with Geary as Luke Spencer from my days of curling up with Mom on her bedroom floor as she popped in the VCR tape of a General Hospital episode that had aired earlier that day but my favorite Geary moment is actually a blooper from a famous episode of General Hospital where...well, Geary got starstruck.
And believe it or not...we have completed the circle for today.
Have the.best day that you possibly can!
