Open Thread – Page 191 – Politics Plus

Open Thread December 16, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:43 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 162022

Yesterday, I pretty much didn’t do anything. Didn’t even have any profound thoughts. I did notice that Weather Underground thinks I may get some snow tonight, but it’s only a maybe, and even if it happens, there shouldn’t be very much. I did work on some cartoons a bit.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

Robert Reich – The Fed is Dead
Quote – The Fed [met Tuesday. Wednesday], presumably, it will [have raised] interest rates again in its continuing attempt to stem inflation by slowing the economy. But the Fed’s rate hikes aren’t working. Despite seven straight increases in just nine months, totaling a whopping 4.25 percentage points — a pace not seen since the Fed’s inflation fight in the 1980s — price increases are still hovering near four-decade highs. The Consumer Price Index measure climbed 7.1 percent in November compared to a year earlier. The Fed’s rate hikes are slowing the economy, but not prices. Why not?
Click through for full facts. We have Robert Reich, and we have Paul Krugman, and both know what they are talking about. I cannot grasp why Democrats aren’t paying attention.

Mediaite – Rachel Maddow’s Podcast ‘Ultra’ is Headed to Hollywood as Steven Spielberg Acquires Film Rights
Quote – The show has consistently been among the top ten podcasts on Apple, in the weeks since its premiere. Now, it’s in the hands of Spielberg. Although the Hollywood legend is not set to direct the film, he will produce the movie adaptation alongside Bridge of Spies producer Kristie Macosko Krieger. According to Deadline, the talks to purchase film rights to the podcast became a bidding war in recent months with Maddow taking meetings with high-level Hollywood execs in an attempt to find the show, which she wrote and hosted, a perfect home.
Click through for details. I am tickled about this. Withe Spielbergs’s name (and I expect him to do a great job), this story will reach many people who would never otherwise even know it existed. I can’t wait to see who gets cast for Coughlin

Food For Thought

Video Thread 12/15/2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:52 am Open Thread, Politics

Dec 152022

Glenn Kirschner missed another day (I hope he’s alright), and I can’t find him on Political VOices Netwrok either. So here is Lawrence with Neal Katyal, who aregued the right side of Moore v Harper before SCOTUS last week.

The Lincoln Project – Marjorie Taylor Greene Says The Quiet Part Out Loud

Meidas Touch – Top Democrat [Ted Lieu] FACT-CHECKS Republicans on their Vile and Deranged Conspiracy Theories (repetetive, but not terribly long)

Parody Project – Ambrose

Woman Rescues A Very Angry, Growly Feral Kitten And Earns Her Love

Beau – Let’s talk about Republicans assessing Biden….

Open Thread December 15, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:49 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 152022

Yesterday, I started the day by writing messages in the few seasonal cards I still don’t send electronically (because I don’t have an email address.) I had tried to finish them the night before, but my shoulder wouldn’t allow me to. After a night’s rest, it was a different story, and I quickly got it done. I got them tothe mailbox for today’s pickup – and, somehow, also mahaged to put out trash and recyclables.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

ProPublica – Inside Google’s Quest to Digitize Troops’ Tissue Samples
Quote – Mostly unknown to the public, the trove and the staff who study it have long been regarded in pathology circles as vital national resources: Scientists used a dead soldier’s specimen that was archived here to perform the first genetic sequencing of the 1918 Flu. Google had a confidential plan to turn the collection of slides into an immense archive that — with the help of the company’s burgeoning, and potentially profitable, AI business — could help create tools to aid the diagnosis and treatment of cancer and other diseases. And it would seek first, exclusive dibs to do so.
Click through for more information. I can see great benefits from digitizing this data. By a private corporation, however,not so much. And Goolge knows that. Why else avoid publicity?

The Daily Beast – Inside the Jury Room for the Trump Org Criminal Trial
Quote – “I constantly fought my knee-jerk belief that of course anything with the name Trump on it is crooked,” one juror told The Daily Beast this week. “I shocked myself in mid-November when I realized that I wasn’t sure I could find the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation guilty. We talked in the jury room about having to put on blinders and look just at these two companies. One of the guys started calling Trump ‘Joe Smith.’ From there on we referred to ‘Mr. Smith’s company.’” After a six-week trial, it took the jury just two days last week to come back with guilty verdicts on all nine counts issued against a pair of Trump Organization affiliate companies. Jurors were convinced the companies had blatantly committed fraud, but they still felt compelled to carefully consider each criminal charge to be absolutely sure the facts lined up with legal definitions, according to this juror who exclusively spoke to The Daily Beast.
Click through for details. Every trial lawyer in the country – even the world – should read this, and every law professors should make it required reading . The general public, and even lawyers, have some very inaccurate notions about how juries think and decide. In fact, the jury of 12 ordinary people (6 in some civil cases) is probably the most trustworthy piece of every justice system. When jurors go into that room to deliberate, they are as serious as a heart attack, and they work hard to stifle any preconceived notions and to evaluate the evidence, and decide with their heads, not with their emotions.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 12/14/2022

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

Dec 142022

Glenn Kirschner (with Barbara McQuade on Political Voices Network. Sorry, but he skipped a day.)

MSNBC – Litman: ‘Inconceivable That 1/6 Cmte. Would Make Criminal Referral And It Not Be Trump’

Farron Balanced – Biden Admin Wants To Make Marjorie Taylor Greene The Face Of Republican Party

Parody Project – Addicted to Trump

Puppies So Happy Someone Showed Up In Middle Of Night To Save Them

Beau – Let’s talk about McCarthy’s first agenda item….

Open Thread December 14, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:06 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 142022

Yesterday, Colorado Public Radio reported that the 3rd District recount is finished, and the winner is still Boebert, by 546 votes (instead of 550). I had actually received an email from Adam Frisch quite late the night before so I knew that. We had a teensy bit of snow – not enough to require winter shoes or even a winter coat – so went to the mailbox to get my MRD. I also received confirmation to visit Virgil Sunday.

Cartoon

Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – This ‘Sneaky’ DeSantis Power Grab Might Be His Cruelest Yet
Quote – As part of DeSantis’ ongoing MAGA crusade against progressives, his administration is simultaneously using different state agencies to cut off what is referred to as “gender-affirming” care that helps trans people realize their identities. When a far-right state legislator failed to pass an anti-trans bill earlier this year, the governor resorted to backroom bureaucracy to get the same result. It’s the latest instance of DeSantis implementing increasingly cruel policies as he builds a national reputation in the run-up to a possible 2024 run for the White House. But it also illustrates what political commentators say distinguishes DeSantis from his presumptive primary foe, former President Donald Trump. DeSantis knows how to operate the machinery of government effectively—as a weapon against the marginalized.
Click through for dtails. The cruelty is the point.

PolitiZoom – Elon Musk Gets Mercilessly Booed AND LOL -New Yorkers Welcome
Quote – I’m not really sure what kind of reception Elon Musk expected from a Dave Chappelle audience in liberal San Francisco, but the famously thin-skinned Twitter agent provocateur probably did not expect a scathing 10 minute long chorus of lusty boos – which is exactly what he got.
Quote – The Young Republicans who met there this weekend, whether to take full advantage of New York’s vibrant dining and entertainment venues or to stick a thumb in America’s possibly most Democratic urban area, would likely have not caused much of a stir if not for the all star line up of sedition and fascism friendly line of guest speakers, whom were most assuredly not selected with the purpose of insuring a peaceful three days:
Click through to San Francisco and/or New York City. You would think, for all their compkaining about “coastal liberals,” this should not surprise them.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 12/13/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:52 am Open Thread, Politics

Dec 132022

Glenn Kirschner – January 6 committee debates criminal referrals for Trump, Meadows, Eastman, Clark and Giuliani

Robert Reich – UC Workers in Richest State in Richest Country Strike For Living Wages

MSNBC – Russia Providing ‘Unprecedented’ Support To Iran, Biden Administration Says

Mrs Betty Bowers – The War on Christmas 2022

This Little Kitten Cannot Miss Out On An Adventure With Her Pittie Brother

Beau – Let’s talk about the Committee’s referrals….

Open Thread December 13, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:59 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 132022

Yesterday, I started the day with Joyce Vance’s newsletter. Sorry I can’t make a link for it that cuts the first part, but you don’t have to scroll far toget to the tird paragraph where she starts on he coming seditious conspiracy trials, including how thwy have been affected by the Rhodes convictions, and then she discusses sentencing – both how it’s decided and why it takes so long. Then she finishes with a (forwarded) tweet which really spoke to me. After having read about the card Virgil got last week and how much it meant, it may speak to you too. I’m using it as today’s FFT, so you don’t even need the link to see it. Also today, Talking Points Memo released a boatload of tweets from Mark Meadows, andI’m sure you’ve heard that, since it’s being shouted from the rooftops. There is way too much for a short tape, and you’d probably rather read it directly anyway.

Cartoon 13 abel tasman RTL

Short Takes –

PolitiZoom – Hottest New Red State Christmas Gift – “The Karen Collection”
Quote – Each and every politically incorrect ™Karen Doll, whether you choose ™Dog-walker Karen, ™Storm the Capitol Karen, ™ QAnon Karen or our most popular item, ™Bar-B-Q Karen (pictured above) is guaranteed to not indoctrinate you child with liberal values such as tolerance and love for all of humanity, but rather instills in them the hatred and narrow world view that you as parent desperately want to pass on to them.
Click through for details. As someone who has made character Barbies, I doff my hat to the creativity, ingenuity, and just plain scavenging that made these possible.

BBC News – Base editing: Revolutionary therapy clears girl’s incurable cancer
Quote – Alyssa, who is 13 and from Leicester, was diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in May last year. T-cells are supposed to be the body’s guardians – seeking out and destroying threats – but for Alyssa they had become the danger and were growing out of control. Her cancer was aggressive. Chemotherapy, and then a bone-marrow transplant, were unable to rid it from her body.
Click through for the story. I am amazed and speechless. Doug Hofstadter (who wrote “Gödel, Escher Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid”) once joked about a mainframe which was frequently going down when there were too many users, “We just need to find out where the maximum number of users is stored, and then go in and increase it.” Of course it doesn’t work that way. This appears to me just as magical as his jest.

Food For Thought