May 062023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Proud Boys seditious conspiracy convictions moves the accountability needle closer to Trump & Co.

Thom Hartmann – Divorce Illegal!?! We Told You GOP Wanted To Turn Women Into Property

Farron Balanced – Pathetic Marjorie Taylor Greene Only Reported SIX Donors From Her Own District

Armageddon Update – BYE, TUCKER!

Cat Obsessed With Baby Brother Thinks He’s Also A Baby

Beau – Let’s talk about Brandon, books, budgets, and Biden….

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May 052023
 

Today, Virgil and I have been married for 39 years. No, I won’t see him until Sundey (but you can bet he’ll call,) Now, next year, being a leap year, the day will be on a Sunday. And it will be 40 years. I think that’s cool. (Incidentally, tomorrow’s radio opera will be Puccini’s “La Boheme.” If you were ever curious what inspired “Rent,” this is it. It’s easy to listen to, very melodic [Della Reese recordsed one of the arias with English words as “Don’t you know”] The four acts average maybe 20 minutes each of actual music, though of course with intermissions the broadcast will be longer, and besides the music there’s usually applause. If you don’t know of a local station, cpr.org/classical, kcme.org [both mountain], and wfmt.com [central] are always available.)

Also – Robert Reich is trying to give away the chair which was his official chair when he served in the Cabinet. It’s huge, and looks comfortable, if one is tall enough (I’m not tall, but I seem to have long femurs for my height – I would love it but have no room for it.) Any takers?

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Pro Publica – What You Need to Know About Stillbirths
Quote – Every year, more than 20,000 pregnancies in the U.S. end in a stillbirth, the death of an expected child at 20 weeks or more of pregnancy. Research shows as many as 1 in 4 stillbirths may be preventable. We interviewed dozens of parents of stillborn children who said their health care providers did not tell them about risk factors or explain what to watch for while pregnant. They said they felt blindsided by what followed. They did not have the information needed to make critical decisions about what happened with their baby’s body, about what additional testing could have been done to help determine what caused the stillbirth, or about how to navigate the process of requesting important stillbirth documents.
Click through (they’ll offer you the newsletter but you can just click on “No, thanks, I’m all set”). Back in the day, there was an expression, “Just the same, only different.” That’s the case with miscarriages and stillbirths. And, with the increased push for men to control women’s bodies, it’s more an more important to understand both. I am way past menopause, but every woman of childbearing age – and all the men in throir lives – need to know this material. So I’m bookmarking it.

Southern Poverty Law Center – MALE SUPREMACY IS AT THE CORE OF THE HARD RIGHT’S AGENDA (caps are theirs)
Quote – The hard right, in other words, wants to revive an older social order, before the Civil Rights Movement, women’s and gay liberation movements, and other social and political transformations upset what was a thoroughly white-dominated, patriarchal society. Gender, then – how it is understood, practiced and described in our laws – is clearly of central concern to the hard right. Their goal is to uphold male supremacy, a movement that scholar of right-wing movements Chelsea Ebin describes as “a complex system that serves to assert, support, and promote the supposed superiority of men,” and subjugate women, trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people.
Click through for details. I’ve been yelling this for years – glad to see someone else yelling too. If we don’t know our enemy, we will lose battles and eventually lose the war. Never forget Hillary. Never forget “Sure, I’d vote for a woman – just not this woman.” I never want to need to say “I told you so,” nor do I want it to need to be said “She told us so” after I’m gone.

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Apr 192023
 

Yesterday, when I turned on Colorado Public Radio on the computer, what was playing wa Alan Hovhaness’s Symphony #50, which has the subtitle “Mount St. Helens,” and yes, he wrote it literally during the 1980 eruption – he was living within view of it. CPR – both the news side and the music side – are going all out for Earth Day. Today’s newsletter from Mother Jones included a few pointed paragraphs on people who are progressive enough to vote for Biden but not progressive enough to support a housing project of the kind needed to make replacing fossil fuels actually work, because NIMBY (“Not in my backyard.”) I can’t give you a link, since those remarks are in the newsletter only, but I can link to the lead story by a different author with the same theme. It made me think that maybe part of the problem of getting a strong progressive political majority is a kind of Catch-22 – really good education and money tend to go together. But people without money need a really good education in order to see the quakity of and the need for progressive policies. And for those who have both the educatin and the money, the money tends to corrupt. Here’s one ver short quote from the newsletter – “Some on the left continue to be quite acrobatic in their defense of blocking housing, ignoring all evidence that this mostly benefits rich homeowners.”

In other news, Fox and Dominion settled for about $785 milliom.  For anyone who (like me) is disappointed by this, I have ne word – Smartmatic.

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Short Takes –

CPR News – Gov. Jared Polis signs bills protecting access to abortion and gender-affirming care in Colorado
Quote – Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday signed a set of health care bills enshrining access to abortion and gender-affirming procedures and medications, as the Democrat-led state tries to make itself a safe haven for its neighbors, whose Republican leaders are restricting care. The goal of the legislation is to ensure people in surrounding states and beyond can come to Colorado to have an abortion, begin puberty blockers or receive gender-affirming surgery without fear of prosecution. Bordering states of Wyoming and Oklahoma have passed abortion bans and Utah has severely restricted transgender care for minors.
Click through for details. This is the right thing yo do, but it can’t be denied that it will also strengthen Colorado’s medical community, and also bring dollars to the state. It makes me proud of my state and my Governor. But…

CPR News – Colorado Catholic health clinic joins forces with D.C. law firm to challenge state’s new abortion-access law
Quote – In a lawsuit, Bella Health argues that the new law targets religious clinics’ duty to help pregnant women in need — which they say is a violation of their constitutional rights. They say those duties include helping women continue their pregnancies after they take mifepristone, a pharmaceutical drug used in medication abortion, and later change their mind. “We opened [the lawsuit] because of our belief that life is a precious gift from God, worthy of protection at all stages,” said Dede Chism, a nurse practitioner and co-founder and CEO at Bella Health and Wellness, in a release. “When a woman seeks our help to reverse the effects of the abortion pill, we have a religious obligation to offer every available option for her and her child.”
Click tthrough for the other side of the story. I don’t normally use the same source twice, but in this case, the story is not complete without both. This part makes me ashamed of the misogyny and stupidity of – some of us – some people, and no state can claim not to have them.

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Oct 012022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Stewart Rhodes/Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial kicks off in DC. Here’s what to expect.

Meidas Touch – Pete Buttigieg BRINGS THE HOUSE DOWN with epic response to GOP political stunts

The Lincoln Project – Making America Fascist

The Alt-Right Playbook: The Cost of Doing Business This is thr first new chapter in two years. And it’s a hard hitter. (And, sadly, long.)

Parody Project – NO SURPRISE (Student Debt)

Beau – Let’s talk about women’s rights, republicans, polls, and reality….

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Sep 282022
 

Glenn Kirschner – NY judge tells Rudy Giuliani to pay up or get locked up; Ginni Thomas to testify to J6 committee

Meidas Touch – MAGA Republicans MOCK Marco Rubio in new MEGAVIRAL Supercut by MeidasTouch

The Lincoln Project – Kevin’s Plan

MSNBC – The Rachel Maddow Show 9/26/22 Part 1 and Part 2of the fascism segments

Liberal Redneck – Stacey Abrams, Heartbeats, and Georgia

Beau – Let’s talk about the Electoral Count Act of 1887 being clarified….

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Sep 162022
 

Yesterday, The New Yorker’s newsletter informed me that Andy Borowitz has a new book out. It’s called, “Profiles in Ignorance.” In fact, so many newsletters were so informative today on interesting but less-than-earthshaking news the=at I was spoikled for choice. Elijah Cummings potrait was unveiled Wednesday (there’s a grammatical error in this one – it should be “lay in state,” not “lied in state.”) Heather Cox Richardson has a good overview of presidential (including their staff) lawlessness through the years. Axios has a story on the “Twitter Whistleblower,” about whom Beau of the Fifth Column says, “If we were scuba diving together, and he told me my bears was on fire, I’d blieve him.” And The Nib has an extended graphic story on the fraudulent lending practices of the nineties. And, in a story which is all over but can wait, the potential railroad strike appears to have been averted.

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The 19th – The Affordable Care Act’s biggest gender-based protections are under threat
Quote – After a federal court decided that HIV prevention medication does not need to be covered under the Affordable Care Act, experts fear that many other reproductive health services — screening for sexually transmitted infections, breastfeeding counseling and even contraceptive care — could now be threatened. The ruling’s scope — including the nuances of how it could affect people’s insurance plans — will be addressed at a hearing [today]. If upheld, the case could ultimately reverse one of the most significant reforms established by the ACA, with particular impact on the law’s gender-based health protections.
Click through for full article. These are the same “I’ve got mine, screw you” jerks who think they shouldn’t have to pay union dues, when in fact without the union their pay would be 50% less (and they’d have no weekends.) I think if they don’t want to be a part of the community, we should accomodate them in that by kicking them out.

Mother Jones – The Stigma of “Late-Term Abortions” Is the Point
Quote – As Laurie Bertram Roberts, who runs the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund, puts it, the seemingly arbitrary 15-week mark “was right there where people start getting a little bit like, ‘Well, why would someone need an abortion that late?’” The reasons why people get them are often not all that different from “early-term” ones; in fact, many patients want to get their abortions earlier—but stigma, paired with the ever-growing net of restrictions pushed by lawmakers who claim to want to “protect women,” creates barriers that push people further into pregnancy before they can get care. Jessy Rosales knows from experience.
Click through for the full reprint. Yes, it’s from 2021, but still needs to be pointed out. As Molly Ivins said, “No pregnant woman ever waddled by a Planned Parenthood and said, ‘Gee, it’s a nice day, I think I’ll get an abortion’.”

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Aug 302022
 

Yesterday, I woke up having slept through the night. I obviously needed that, but it’s not without disadvantages, chiefly related to the race to the bathroom. And I have never given birth – my heart really goes out to you ladies who have. I also made the appointmeny for my annual checkup, ordered a prescription renewal, and received a grocery delivery. That may sound busy, but actually was pretty quiet.  The order had a few omissions, but no substitutions, so I was pleased.

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Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance – The Week Ahead
Quote – There are a lot of unknowns when it comes to whether DOJ is going to indict the former president. The one clear piece of information we have is that DOJ is treating this as a serious criminal matter that will require a decision on whether to prosecute before it is complete. The case isn’t over just because DOJ has now retrieved the documents. We learned this in the legal memo DOJ filed last week. That memo accompanied the redacted search warrant Magistrate Judge Reinhart released last week. As Attorney General Garland has said repeatedly, DOJ doesn’t try its cases in the press. It speaks in court and through its pleadings. So, when DOJ files a pleading of this magnitude, it’s worth paying attention.
Click through for article. Glenn Kirschner is irate about this, and it’s definitely fishy. Vance probably is too, but she provides less heat and more light here. The hearing is Thursday, September 1.

Slate – The Men Just Keep Talking
Quote – Long after the time had passed for male GOP officials to stop, to just stop, pretending they know or understand anything about female anatomy, reproductive organs, medical emergencies and basic preventative health care, they have continued to talk. They have continued to talk and talk and talk even when the massive blowback after the Dobbs decision proved it was an error;… Every time a Republican man opens his mouth to talk about women’s bodies, ten new female voters get their wings. Yet somehow, they cannot seem to stop themselves!
Click through for story. And, if that doesn’t make you angry (or not angry enough), also check out this one.

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Aug 132022
 

Yesterday, I was hoping for a sort of calm day – but no such luck. I found out Virgil has been moved again, and did not reach anyone to confirm whether I may visit Sunday  (I sent an email, and receuived an automated out-of-office message after 5 pm.) So I’ll need to follow up on that today. We shall see. I worked off some of the frustration by rearranging a couple of small tables,which doesn’t sound like a lot of exertion – but was for me.  (one was heavier than it looks.)

Cartoon – (Yes, there’s an offensive term here – but TC’s point was tha Republicans ARE offensive.

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Mother Jones – An Obscure Law Is Sending Oklahoma Mothers to Prison in Droves. We Reviewed 1.5 Million Cases to Learn More.
Quote – In Oklahoma, failure to protect is the only child abuse charge levied predominantly against women, and it is disproportionately charged against women of color. People charged with the crime there are less likely to have a previous felony record than defendants in firsthand child abuse cases—a sign of just how much more dangerous abusers are than those accused of failing to stand in the way of their abuse. Since 2009, when the latest version of the state’s law went into effect, at least 139 women have been imprisoned solely for failure-to-protect charges. At least 55 are still incarcerated.
Click through for details. Actual failure to protect arguably should be punishable. But the way this law is administered appears to me to be proof that, like abortion bans, the law is not about protection of chilren but rather is a tool to control women.

Crooks and Liars – Bannon Goes There: ‘Deep State May Try To Assassinate Trump’
Quote – Steve Bannon … joined the odious Sandy Hook denier Alex Jones’ BannedVideo podcast to “announce” that the deep state may want to try to assassinate Trump. “I do not think it’s beyond this administrative state and their Deep State apparatus to actually try to work on the assassination of President Trump. I think everything’s on the table. I think his security ought to be at the highest it’s ever been,” Bannon said
Click through for story. My instant reaction is “He’s become a liability, so they are going to assassinate him to start a Civil War.” And I didn’t have to go far down the comments before finding another person with a similar thought. So I actally agree with Steve on the security.

Bonus – Mother Jones has the actual warrant here 

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