Open Thread – Page 152 – Politics Plus

Open Thread May 18, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:02 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 182023

Yesterday, like most of the rest of the world, I learned about Martha Stewart being on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition. Having cordially disliked Ms. Stewart for decaded for personal reason (she stiffed my cousin’s boyfriend), I can’t be impartial, so I’ll leave it at that. It’s not that important. But Jesse Watters saying the quiet part out loud – yes, he really said that the GQP needs to be able to blackmail the FBI – that’s noteworthy.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Daily Beast – GOP Oversight Chair Says He’s Lost Track of His Biden Corruption Informant
Quote – On Wednesday, Comer—the chairman of the House Oversight Committee—held a much-hyped press conference in which he promised to expose the preliminary findings of four months’ worth of scrutiny into the Biden family’s business dealings. Publicized as a “judgment day” for President Joe Biden, the conference ultimately proved anticlimactic, largely consisting of Comer throwing around vague, unsubstantiated accusations and failing to link the president to any of his relatives’ alleged “influence peddling.” But on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures, Comer offered up what appeared to be a partial excuse: The probe’s primary informant had flown the coop.
Click through and try to keep a straight face. IMO it’s not hard to see that this “informant” never existed.

Crooks & Liars – Ukraine Sending Messages On Their Bombs Too (hanky alert?)
Quote – This has been going on for a while now but seems to be getting a lot more organized…. As always, check out any organization first before sending your $50 or whatever…. Thousands of messages have been sent, ranging from the sardonic to the bitter, among them one from Valentyna Vikhorieva, whose 33-year-old son died in the war. “For Yura, from Mom,” Ms. Vikhorieva asked an artillery unit to write on a shell. “Burn in hell for our children.”
Click through for story. I don’t know whether ths will hit everyone the way it hit me, but I put up an alert just in case. The funds raised are going to support Uktaine and that’s a good thing. But the human suffering and the waste of life represented just got to me.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 5/17/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:06 pm Open Thread, Politics

May 172023

Glenn Kirschner – Georgia DA Willis files 22-page smackdown of Trump’s motion to quash/throw out grand jury report

The Lincoln Project – Wrongump

Thom Hartmann – Hate or Fascism: Which Came First? History Of Fascist Hate Revealed

Randy Rainbow – Welcome to DeSantis!

This Baby Goat Is Smaller Than A Cat

Beau – Let’s talk about the SCOTUS shadow docket case that could make waves….

Open Thread May 17, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 172023

Yesterday, Crooks & Liars (probably along with every other news outlet, paper or on line, TV and all kinds of video) published some details of Noelle Dunphy’s lawsuit against Rudy Giuliani. It definitely needs a barf bag warning. She does have receipts too. If only there were a way to know exactly what is missing from these Republicans (and somehow put it into them) that they think they can do anything imaginable (or unimaginable to normal people) with absolutely no consequences whatsoever. Sigh. In the short takes, I am sharing two articles about Jordan Neely, because they are so different in their outlook and details. This was not a case of a bad cop, but I’m not inclined to expect much if any accountability – certainly not without a lot of protesting demanding it.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

New York Magazine “The Cut” – The Cost of White Discomfort
Quote – In the wake of Jordan’s murder, Kenneth Jones’s and Tema Okun’s definition of the “right to comfort” haunts me: “The belief that those with power have a right to emotional and psychological comfort … I have a right to be comfortable, and if I am not, then someone else is to blame.” When Daniel Penny was not comfortable on the F train, he single-handedly decided that Jordan was to blame.
Click through for article. This rage is justified. Is any other white person as humiliated as I am that people with our skin tone are so fragile as to kill out of discomfort – and so privileged to get away with it? White Americans who whine about the excessive privilege of the British royal family need to look in a mirror and see their own. (But they won’t. That would be uncomfortable.)

The New Yorker – The System That Failed Jordan Neely
Quote – There are more than two hundred thousand residents of New York City living with severe mental illness; roughly five per cent of them are homeless. That’s thirteen thousand people with schizophrenia, major depressive and bipolar disorders, or other significant mental- or behavioral-health diagnoses, all of whom regularly spend the night at a shelter, in the subway, on the street. They’re the ones you recognize—the people whom, for the past fifty years, every mayor has either tried to help, harass, or hide from view. Rudy Giuliani’s cops were known to chase people out of midtown, forcing them into the Bronx and Queens. Michael Bloomberg largely avoided public initiatives that addressed mental illness. Bill de Blasio allocated almost a billion dollars for a mental-health plan, but it was criticized for failing to track outcomes or prioritize treatment for those who needed help the most.
Click through for details. What we had before Ronald Reagan became Governor of California (and then President) was far from perfect, but it was better than this. Constantly reading about people, many in disadvantaged groups besides being mentally ill, killed publicly with no consequences – particularly since the disadvantage is often the cause of the illness (e.g. lead in drinking water) and is itself the result of apathy or malice on the part of the demographic doing most of the killing. It’s like beating someone up, and then killing them because their bruises make us uncomfortable.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 5/16/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:09 pm Open Thread, Politics

May 162023

Glenn Kirschner – Republican billionaire & Clarence Thomas’s bestie Harlan Crow says he won’t provide info to Senate

MSNBC – Fred Guttenberg on gun control: ‘stop listening to the liars’

Ring of Fire – DeSantis Hit With Lawsuit Over Bogus ‘Election Fraud’ Arrests

Parody Project – Should Old Offenses Be Forgot?

Rescue Kitten Begs To Go To Sleep So She Can Snuggle Her Dad In The Morning

Beau – Let’s talk about a Tuberville quote and readiness….

Open Thread May 16, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 162023

Yesterday, Andy Borowitz was doing straight news again: “Florida Teacher Arrested for Showing Disney Movie Featuring Boy Character with Girl’s Name.” Actually, I kind of wish the news from Florida were that mild. Joyce Vance has the real details.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The 19th – Meet the women working to grow local food systems on U.S. island territories
Quote – Through working on their presentation, the students learned of a national initiative … called the National Farm to School Network, and it’s a nonprofit organization that works to connect local farms with school cafeterias — a model that both bolsters local food systems and provides healthier school lunches for kids — a win-win for farmers and their communities. But the network didn’t reach the U.S. Virgin Islands, and [teacher Sommer] Sibilly-Brown remembers one of her students asking: If the program was national, why didn’t it reach their territory? “That question has been the question that has driven my work,” Sibilly-Brown said. “If we are the United States, why not here?”
Click through for story. Good for them. But this is another huge reason why our territories should be granted statehood. Far too much of the country thinks residents there are “not American.” And that just isn’t right.

In The Public Interest – Should we talk about the government?
Quote – I would also argue that some of the criticism of government—from the left and right–makes it harder for it to do the things that can only be accomplished if we do them together– through public action. In my book, The Privatization of Everything, I argue that, while people are understandably skeptical of “government,” many of the things Americans don’t like about government actually stem from too much corporate influence in politics. It’s important we continue to make that distinction clear.
Click through for full discussion. In a free and democratic society, the government is all of us. So, yes, we should talk about it. If you don’t provide cnstructive input, you really have no right to complain when you don’t like the result.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 5/15/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:49 am Open Thread, Politics

May 152023

Glenn Kirschner – NY Prosecutor who investigated Trump’s crimes SCHOOLS Jim Jordan on subpoenas AND the rule of law

MSNBC – U.S. faces as nationwide teachers shortage

Farron Balanced – Charges Against George Santos Are WAY Worse Than Expected

Armageddon Update – Grab ‘Em By The Money!

Rescue Wolf Kept Crying For His Mate… (hanky alert)

Beau – Let’s talk about the GOP budget, veterans, and the diner….

Open Thread May 15, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:05 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 152023

Yesterday, I had a chance to read the story from Friday about charges having been dropped against Courtney and Nicole Mallery, the black ranchers in the county I live in who were charged with – something – essentially for being the victims of deliberate and premeditated harassment. It took too long, but it has finally happened. I thought y’all would want to know.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Daily Beast – The Texas Mall Shooter’s Radicalization Is No Surprise
Quote – This past Saturday, May 6, a gunman opened fire outside of a mall in Texas, slaughtering eight people, including children. (The shooter was killed by police at the scene.) The sheer brutality of this massacre was captured profoundly in the statement of a witness who tried to find a pulse on a little girl—only to turn her over and reveal that she had no face. This time the shooter wasn’t white. He was a 33-year-old man of Hispanic heritage, which immediately allowed some far-right pundits to play off any suspicions that this might again be related to white supremacist rhetoric. But as should be obvious by now, white supremacy can be upheld by non-white people (just as white nationalists can be superfans of someone who practices Orthodox Judaism, like Ben Shapiro).
Click through for full opinion. He goes back to 2017 (Canada) and examines the phenomenon of non-white white nationalists. The line between delusion and self-hatred is evidently perilously thin.

Southern Poverty Law Center – Buffalo Massacre: A Year Later, White Supremacist Propaganda Continues to Spur Violence
Quote – The “great replacement” theory is a central tenet of white nationalism. Steeped in racist and antisemitic narratives, it falsely asserts there is a concerted and covert effort to replace white populations in white-majority countries with immigrants of color. The conspiracy theory has inspired many other attacks carried out by white extremists against people of color, immigrants, Jewish people and Muslims. Once a fringe idea propagated by hate groups and other extremists – frequently in online message boards – the “great replacement” theory and ideas akin to it have been normalized and dragged into the mainstream, in part, with the help of conservative political figures, media personalities, lawmakers and lobbying groups.
Clicl through for retrospective. To paraphrase Chesterton, sometimes it isn’t news we need so much as to be reminded.

Food For Thought