Video Thread 3/31/22

 Posted by at 11:40 am  Open Thread, Politics
Mar 312022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Federal Judge Finds, by a Preponderance of the Evidence, that Trump Committed Crimes Against the US

Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican PArty

MSNBC – Sen. Whitehouse: Three New Supreme Court Justices Being Told What To Do By Donor Front Groups

Robert Reich – The Oligarchy’s Ultimate Political Weapon

Al Franken – Critical Race Theory – An ACTUAL Explanation

Liberal Redneck – Trump’s January 6th Burner Phones

Beau – Let’s talk about Trump, a judge, DOJ, and a ruling…..

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Open Thread March 31, 2022

 Posted by at 7:22 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 312022
 

Yesterday, I made and got confirmed my reservation to see Virgil on April 10 – the first available Sunday, Sunday being the safest day of the week for driving. I also managed to get the recyclable and trash bins out to the curb for pickup tomorrow, which surprised me a little bet, because the previous day I had pushed my mobility limits. While I was doing that, the “neighborhood cat” came around and accepted a few salmon treats. He can be picky, so that was nice. He is definitely not starving, but I still try to figure out his likes and dislikes. Sadly, looking at my iris bed, it doesn’t look like my TomCat iris is coming back this year. In fact, it looks like I’ll only have one stem of Baboon Butt Blood (sorry – when that varietal came out it was named “Baboon Bottom” and I got into a bad habit with it). I may be able to recover the others, or soe of them, by separating and fertilizing, but it’s by no means certain, even if I can muster up the energy to do it, which is also doubtful.

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Short Takes –

Mother Jones – We All Know Teachers Are Underpaid. But Who Imagined It Was This Bad?
Quote – Perhaps most jarring of all was the teacher in California who said that, in order to support her family financially, she has become a surrogate mother. Twice. “I’m literally renting out my uterus to make ends meet,” she wrote.
Click through for stats and stories. This may be the most devastating thing Republicams have done to the United States. It may not grab headlines like an insurrection, but its effects are far more widespread and far more long lasting.

The Hill – Biden signs bill making lynching a federal hate crime
Quote – “Hundreds of similar bills have failed to pass. Over the years, several federal hate crime laws were enacted. … But no federal law — no federal law expressly prohibited lynching. None. Until today,” Biden said to applause.Biden noted that civil rights leaders and lawmakers have been working for more than 100 years to pass a bill making lynching a hate crime. The president called lynching a “uniquely American weapon of racial terror.
Click through for story. It’s about time.

Women’s History – Wikipedia – Milunka Savić
Quote – In 1912, her brother received call-up papers for mobilization for the First Balkan War. She chose to go in his place—cutting her hair and donning men’s clothes and joining the Serbian army. She quickly saw combat and received her first medal and was promoted to corporal in the Battle of Bregalnica. Engaged in battle, she sustained wounds and it was only then, when recovering from her injuries in hospital, that her true sex was revealed, much to the surprise of the attending physicians.
Click through. Please. I can’t possibly do justice to this feisty lady in one quote (if I had to try, it ought to be “I will wait.”

Food For Thought:

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Video Thread 3/30/22

 Posted by at 12:01 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Mar 302022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Congress to Hold Navarro & Scavino in Contempt, Refer them to DOJ for Prosecution. Will DOJ Indict?

American Bridge – Fox News confronts Republican about GOP tax hike plan

Political Voices Network – John Fugelsang (on the Stephanie Miller Show with a guest host.)

Farron Balanced – Mo Brooks Says Trump STILL Asks Him To Overturn 2020 Election

Ojeda Live – Lindsay Graham’s SCOTUS Hearing Antics Through the Years

Service Dog Wasn’t Playful — Until He Met His Kitten Sister

Beau – Let’s talk about a question about gender….

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Open Thread March 30, 2022

 Posted by at 6:52 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 302022
 

Yesterday, I went to my doctor’s office to get the form filled out that the DMV gave me Mondey (of course after calling to see whether they could fit me in. Frankly I think they went out of their way for me. I do try not to be a Karen.) I took the form to the DMV and it worked like a charm. In fact, they offered, because my driver’s license was supposed to renew within 6 months anyway, to renew it for another five years. Of course I was thrilled. (I do try not to be a Karen.) Now all I have to do is make an appontment to visit Virgil – the earliest Sunday he is available is April 10th (and, frankly, I feel safest driving on Sunday) I know that because the visitation staff has gone out of their way to let me know what days he (his “pod”) is scheduled for. (I do try not to be a Karen.) So back to what passes for normal starting today. Yay!

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Short Takes –

Politico – CAWTHORN’S ORGY CLAIM FALLOUT
Quote – The first-term conservative said he received invitations along the lines of: “‘Well, hey, we’re going to have kind of a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come’.” The 26-year-old described his response on the podcast “Warrior Poet Society”: “I’m like, ‘What did you just ask me to come to?’ And then you realize they are asking you to come to an orgy.” Cawthorn also claimed to have seen other people who are “leading” efforts to eradicate drug addiction using cocaine in front of him.
Click through for story. I wouldn’t doubt the orgies, but I definitely doubt that anyone would invite Maddy. Unless they wanted to make him the goat (no, not the GOAT, just the goat, as in scape.)

PolitiZoom – REVEALED: Trump’s Last Official Call Jan 6 Was To Pence, Then A 7 Hour, 37 Minute Blackout On WH Logs. What’s Being Covered Up?
Quote – That immediately begs the question, what happened between the hours of 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. on January 6 and how was Trump communicating with people? He has already stated through a spokesman Monday night, “I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term.” Right. What’s being covered up? Seven hours is one whole lot of a longer time than the infamous 18-minutes of Watergate.
Click through for details. I thought “Shades of Nixon” – but at 7:37 Trump makes Nixon’s 0:18 and a half look like Amateur Hour.

The National WWII Museum – Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
Quote – Within the United States, Sophie Magdalena Scholl is not the best-known resistance fighter, but her story is a powerful one. She was a key member of the Weiße Rose (White Rose)—a resistance group run by students at the University of Munich who distributed leaflets and used graffiti to decry Nazi crimes and the political system, while calling for resistance to the Nazi state and the war. On February 22, 1943, she was beheaded for treason at just 21 years old.
Click through for full details. If you hear someone allude to the “White Rose” (or the “White Rose Society”), this is what they are talking about. Beau does occasionally (he also has a Tshirt with a white rose, so he can allude to it without saying it.)

Food For Thought:
The video this quote is from will be on the Video Thread tomorrow. But this is so succinct I just wanted to meme it.

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Video Thread 3/29/22

 Posted by at 11:45 am  Open Thread, Politics
Mar 292022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Ginni Thomas’s Pipeline to the White House, a Compromised Supreme Court and the Coming Subpoenas

Thom Hartmann – Did Tulsi Gabbard Just Expose Herself? (I won’t say “I told you so” because I don’t remember whether I ever voiced my doubts. I do, however, remember that I had them.

MSNBC (h/t Colleen) – Ali Velshi – When Biden Said Putin ‘Cannot Remain In Power’, He Was Right. And He Should Stick To It [IMO ali is 100% correct morally, and 100% wrong strategically. Blinken’s “clarification was in order to save all of our lives.]

ELTA Sports – The narration is in Chinese but the song is mostly in English (some Ukrainian) and this seems to be the only video wih the complete performance, the full staning ovation, and some slomo closeups at the end. (background here) 

The Ring of Fire – Trump Jr Launches Conspiracy Theory About Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Mental Health

Picky Kitten Refuses To Give Up His Bottle

Beau – Let’s talk about a free library to satisfy your curiosity….

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Open Thread March 29, 2022

 Posted by at 6:54 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 292022
 

Yesterday, I made it to the DMV on time and didn’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes for my appointment.  However, they were not satisfied with my documents and gave me an additional one. I don’t, thank God, have o wait another four weeks to come back – I can return today. So, another day I will need patience from you on my comment replies. Sigh.

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Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – Wheels Of Justice Turning In Two Prominent Portland Proud Boy Cases
Quote – On Wednesday, notorious Proud Boys brawler Tusitala “Tiny” Toese was arraigned on multiple felonies related to the violence he led at a Portland rally on Aug. 22, 2021, and order detained without bail. Then on Thursday, the man who opened fire on a group of protesters in a park on Feb. 19 near his residence, killing one person and wounding four others before he was himself shot, was also arraigned in Multnomah County Circuit Court on multiple counts after he was released from his subsequent hospitalization.
Click through for a lttle good news. It contains two of the most beautiful words in the English language – “without bail.” (and if that unusual first name sounds familiar, it was the name given to Robert Louis Stevenson by the Samoan people after he moved there. It means “teller of tales.”)  TC would have been glad for this development.

Denverite – DPD verdict: Protesters awarded $14 million in lawsuit over police response to George Floyd rallies
Quote – “This was, as far as I know, the first case of George Floyd protestors injured by police to go to trial around the country,” said Tim Macdonald, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “So hopefully what police departments will take from this is that a jury of regular citizens took these rights very seriously. And they’re prepared to tell the police what they did to peaceful protestors is not acceptable.” … The verdict is likely to carry weight in future civil rights cases stemming from the protests, including others in Denver, said Jason Williamson, executive director of NYU’s Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law, which tracks cases like the one in Denver.
Click through for full story. More good news. Our Declaration of independence states that governmentsmust draw their authority from “the consent of the governed.” Does this not also imply that police should get their authority from “the consent of the policed”?

Wonen’s History – Wikipedia – Mary Anning
Quote – Mary Anning (21 May 1799 – 9 March 1847) was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist who became known around the world for the discoveries she made in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis in the county of Dorset in Southwest England. Anning’s findings contributed to changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth…. Her discoveries included the first correctly identified ichthyosaur skeleton when she was twelve years old.
Click through for bio. Another unsing scientist among women. There’s really nothing that we can’t do.

Food For Thought:

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Video Thread 3/28/22

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Mar 282022
 

Glenn Kirschner – NY DA Alvin Bragg Refuses to Indict Trump: Candidates for NY Governor Pledge to Remove Bragg

Lincoln Project – Be Not Afraid

The Republican Accountability Project – What the heck happened to the GOP?

Ojeda Live – You May Be in the MAGA Cult: Top 5 Signs

Farron Balanced – Georgia Voters Sue To Keep Marjorie Taylor Greene Off Ballot

Cracked – If Wine Were Honest

Beau – Let’s talk about direct NATO/US involvement….

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Open Thread March 28, 2022

 Posted by at 6:13 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Mar 282022
 

Yesterday, I checked and double checked everything I need to go to the DMV today. I am not looking forward to that (I am looking forward to it being over, though.) I may actually not have to be there forever. I had to make an appointment – the earliest I could get was for today… but I made the appointment back in February. So that line may supersede the traditional line of people in person. Yes, I will definitely mask. If I am slow commenting, please be patient. Thanks!

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Short Takes –

Daily Kos (David Neiwert) – Michigan militiamen hoped their kidnapping plot would spark nationwide ‘Boogaloo’ civil war
Quote – The defendants, … all members of the so-called “Wolverine Watchmen” militia, are leaning heavily on claims that the government entrapped them into the plot to abduct Whitmer from her summer home and put her on “trial,” for which they now face federal kidnapping-conspiracy charges. The trial’s outcome could have broad ramifications for how federal authorities tackle the rising tide of right-wing domestic terrorism, as well as ongoing prosecution of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrectionists.
Click through for story. Their lawyers are (maybe I should say “were”) going for an entrapment defnse, but these dudes are making that well-nigh impossible. I am not getting the impression that any of them have the tiniest particle of remorse, either. “FOFA,” as the saying goes.

Daily Beast – Madison Cawthorn Committed the One Unforgivable Sin of Politics
Quote – But Cawthorn did something far worse, at least for his own political prospects, and it may cost him his seat: He left his constituents—and then was forced to return to them, hat in hand, after the courts predictably struck down the state’s new map, and eliminated the district he left to run in, on Feb. 23…. The numerous candidates challenging Cawthorn in the GOP primary, slated for May, do not intend to let voters in North Carolina’s 11th District forget it. One of them is Michele Woodhouse.
Click through for the twists and turns. Irony may be dead to humans – but Karma remembers. Really, this could not have happened to a nicer guy.

Women’s History – Wikipedia – Fatima al Fihri
Quote – Fatima bint Muhammad Al-Fihriyya (Arabic: فاطمة بنت محمد الفهرية القرشية) was an Arab woman who is credited with founding the al-Qarawiyyin mosque in 859 AD in Fez, Morocco. She is also known as “Umm al-Banayn”. Al-Fihri died around 880 AD. The Al-Qarawiyyin mosque subsequently developed a teaching institution, which became the University of al-Qarawiyyin in 1963.
Click through for bio, including some historians’ doubts. Personally, I consider it far more credible for white male historians to doubt the existence of a successful woman than for male Muslims to invent (or accept if invented) an oral tradition about a powerful, successful woman. (Many people doubt the accuracy of oral tradition in any culture … but those who have studied it, while admitting there can be details which change, have found the substance to be pretty darned reliable.)

Food For Thought:

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