Open Thread – Page 263 – Politics Plus

Open Thread March 4, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:34 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 042022

Yesterday, I mentioned emptying my mailbox. I don’t think I said that I was expecting a package today which might be small enough to fit into the mailbox if it weren’t full. Well, that package came yesterday. So did four other packages from three different carriers. So did the one bill I still get by mail (I had seen it in Informed deliviery and already paid it at the website, so it can stay in the mailbox as long as it takes before I decide to bring it in.) What’s that saying – “it never rains but it pours”? I found it amusing. Apparently supply chain issues are unwilling to mess with me.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

ProPublica – Let’s Recall What Exactly Paul Manafort and Rudy Giuliani Were Doing in Ukraine
Quote – It’s all detailed in a wide array of public documents, particularly a bipartisan 2020 Senate report on Trump and Russia. I was one of the journalists who dug into all the connections, as part of the Trump, Inc. podcast with ProPublica and WNYC. (I was in Kyiv, retracing Manafort’s steps, when Trump’s infamous call with Ukraine’s president was revealed in September 2019.) Given recent events, I thought it’d be helpful to put all the tidbits together, showing what happened step by step.
Click through for full summary. No new details – but it may be the first time it’s all been put together into one conected narrative.

The Guardian (opinion) – It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network
Quote – This weekend, British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr said on Twitter, “We failed to acknowledge Russia had staged a military attack on the West. We called it ‘meddling.’ We used words like ‘interference.’ It wasn’t. It was warfare. We’ve been under military attack for eight years now.”
Click through for full editorial. Some of us have bbeen saying this for a long time. I remember it coming up in discussions about what constitutes treson under the Constitution. It’s really good to see it being expressed by a respected person in a respected news outlet.

Women’s History – Wikipedia – Lois W
Quote – Her marriage to Bill W. began to be challenging due to the combination of a series of ectopic pregnancies and his drinking problem. Lois began to work on programs to help families of alcoholics after Bill had gone through rehabilitation at Towns Hospital in 1934 and cofounded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in 1935. The same 12-Steps of recovery used by AA were adopted by Al-Anon or Al-Anon Family Groups.
Click through for full bio. Lois would have been 131 today (she used to say her birthday was “the strongest day of the year.” It’s hard to forget that.) One ectopic pregnancy can be fatal – a series of them just beggars the imagination. So she had to be strong.

Food For Thought:

Video Thread 3/3/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:48 am Open Thread, Politics

Mar 032022

Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump’s Election Crimes & the Legal Rights of We The People as Crime Victims

Lincoln Project – CPAC: Day 2

Truth Matters – A Prayer for Ukraine. I did not put hanky alerts on any of these Ukraine-related videos, but I think I should say that, when Zelensky spoke to the UN, the translator got audibly choked up.

Guardian News – Ukrainian president speaks after Kharkiv missile attack: ‘Everything has changed’

Yevgeny Yevtuchenko’s poem “Babi Yar” read in Russian by Yevtuchenko himself, and translated and read in English by the owner of this YouTube channel. The English begins at 3:32.

Mrs Betty Bowers – Intro to Political Jargon 101

Beau – Let’s talk about Pamela Moses and Tennessee….

Open Thread March 3, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:42 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 032022

Yesterday, I read up on the SOTU. Other than Lauren Boebert humiliating, not so much herself, but certainly her district, and the number of other Republicans who claimed they couldn’t be bothered (and in reality probably didn’t want to cheer for Ukraine and also didn’t want to be caught not cheering), it looks to have been pretty positive. I do cite Heather Cox Richardson on it below. I did go out to the mailbox, which I hadn’t done for a couple of weeks (i can get away with that becaue I have Informed Delivery notofications, and because most packages are brought to my door. There was quite a lot of paper mail. Almost all of it went straight into the recycling polycart. Two envelopes and a pocket calendar made it into the house – and one of the envelopes needn’t have. Also, I put together a couple of cartoons for this month. Only three to go,now, and all in the second half.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

DU – As the Tanks Rolled into Ukraine, So Did Malware. Then Microsoft Entered the War.
Quote – Last Wednesday, a few hours before Russian tanks began rolling into Ukraine, alarms went off inside Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center, warning of a never-before-seen piece of “wiper” malware that appeared aimed at the country’s government ministries and financial institutions. Within three hours, Microsoft threw itself into the middle of a ground war in Europe — from 5,500 miles away. The threat center, north of Seattle, had been on high alert, and it quickly picked apart the malware, named it “FoxBlade” and notified Ukraine’s top cyberdefense authority. Within three hours, Microsoft’s virus detection systems had been updated to block the code, which erases — “wipes” — data on computers in a network.
Quote from comment – We shall fight them on the hard drive, we shall meet them on the motherboard, the coaxial of evil shall not prevail. If this sounds familiar … look at the FFT.)
Click through for more. DU is quoting Yahoo News, and you can go there from DU’s link. I don’t mind Yahoo news so much, but the people it attracts I don’t care for.

Letters from an American – March 1, 2022
Quote – Biden offered a “Unity Agenda for the Nation.” He outlined “[f]our big things we can do together”: beat the opioid epidemic, make the way we address mental health equal to the way we address physical health, support our veterans, and end cancer as we know it…. “In the battle between democracy and autocracy, democracies are rising to the moment, and the world is clearly choosing the side of peace and security,” Biden said. And Americans “will meet the test. To protect freedom and liberty, to expand fairness and opportunity. We will save democracy.”
Click through for full letter. I didn’t find any surprises. Of course, it’s far from certain that the unity we need can be achieved, when so many people stand to benefit from preventing it. Somewhat counter-intuitively, Putin’s invasion may help. I would certainly not count on it. We have much work to do just for the midterms.

Womens History – The New Yorker – The Ambassador Caught Between Ukraine and Trump
Quote – Q – Was there intelligence that Putin could invade Ukraine? A – Well, I retired from the State Department back in 2020, so I don’t have access to the intelligence anymore. But, yes, I’m sure that there were all sorts of privileged communications. One of the things that the Biden Administration has done, which I can’t remember seeing before, is quickly declassifying intelligence and sharing it with the world. I’m sure not everything was declassified, but an awful lot of it was, and it took away some of the element of surprise.
Click through for interview by David Remnick. Masha, as she is called, is one of the four damning witnesses, along with Alexander Vindman, who testified at the first impeachment. A third, Fiona Hill, has also bene quoted at length this week. Funny how that works.

Food For Thought:

Video Thread 3/2/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:01 pm Open Thread, Politics

Mar 022022

Glenn Kirschner – Steven Van Zandt Conversation Part 3: “Let’s Make Two Senate Republicans An Offer They Can’t Refuse”

Meidas Touch – Ukrainians are FEARLESS!

Lincoln Project – Mother Russia (I would think this would leave a mark – if only Republicans had any shame.)

MSNBC – Malcolm Nance: Zelensky Showed His True Character When Russia Invaded

Robert Reich – The Hidden Link Between Corporate Greed and Inflation

Truth Matters – The Perpetrator of a War Crime

Beau – Let’s talk about SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson….

Open Thread March 2, 2022

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

Mar 022022

Yesterday was a fairly quiet day. I got a little knitting done … but didn’t really push.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Down With Tyranny – Democrats Seem To Think Trump Stole The Documents To Hide Stuff– I Think They’re Naïve And Wrong
Quote – People who think Trump stole the material because he was trying to hide his own misdeeds in office– as many members of Congress I spoke with have told me– are barking up the wrong tree. Trump was peddling the plans for Fort Ticonderoga, 2022 version.
Click through. I fear he is correct, both about what Trump** is doing, and also about the fact that most Democrats are not devious enough to even think of it. (Crooks and Liars also has the story, reprinted.)

There Are Many Words for Vladimir Putin. Is “Strongman” One?
Quote – But Nina Khrushcheva, an international-affairs scholar at the New School and the great-granddaughter of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, tells me she isn’t so much concerned about whether the word is euphemistic as she is that it’s misplaced: “Putin was referred to as a ‘strongman’ back in the 2000s when he was a baby lamb compared to today…Putin now has gone far beyond being a strongman. He is a full-blown despotic, ruthless megalomaniac on par with Stalin and Mao, and proud of it.”
Click through for discussion. I think the term they are all looking for is “toxic masculinity.” That does not imply (contrary to Republican whining) that all musculinity is toxic any more than the term “Counterfeit money” implies that all money is counterfeit.

Womens History – Wonkette – Meet Alice Hamilton, The Patrician Woman Who Saved Your Grandpa From (More) Lead Poisoning
Quote – Hamilton was deeply committed to helping the poor. So she moved into Jane Addams’s Hull House. Living with the poor, she became interested in the problems of workplace health and safety — for good reason. Workers lived atrociously unsafe lives on the job. Many jobs were exercises in seeing how long you could live before you died or lost mental or physical capacity due to the poisons you ingested or absorbed. This is entirely besides the dangers of being burned or decapitated or electrocuted on the job. A poor worker in an American factory was one who might well not live long. Hamilton became an expert on industrial medicine, which wasn’t that hard because it was barely studied in an America utterly indifferent to the question.
Click through for story. This is written – how should I say it – more respectfully than Wonkette’s usual style. But then, the subjuect is more worthy of respect than Wonkette’s usual subjects.

Food For Thought:

Video Thread 3/1/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:42 am Open Thread, Politics

Mar 012022

Glenn Kirschner – NY Prosecutor Hoffinger Takes over Trump Case After Veteran Prosecutors Resign. Who is ADA Hoffinger (Meaning no disrespect, this sound to me like “set a thief to catch a thief.” Not that she will have necessarily participated in every dodge white collar criminals use or might use – but she will certainly be familiar with them)

Meidas Touch – Defeat Putin (Stand With Ukraine)

Lincoln Project – #PrimetimePropaganda (it didn’t take me long to get bihind with tht Lincoln Project again. They are on fire.)

Ring of Fire – National Guard Troops Furious About Being Used As Political Props Along Texas Border

MSNBC – Ukrainian President Zelenskyy Hailed As Hero For Democracy

Ukrainian National Anthem

Beau – Let’s talk about orders, tradition, and cops….

Open Thread March 1, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:03 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 012022

Yesterday, I managed to track down a prescription which needed to be renewed for another year, and thus needed a new number. I don’t have it in hand yet – but I have plenty of time, and told her I’d wait till she had 90 days in stock. So I can at least quit worrying about that one now.

Cartoon – 01 0301Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Mother Jones – In 1871, Congress Crafted a Law to Break the Klan. Today, It’s Targeting Trump.
Quote – Since Trump came to and left office, the Klan Act has fueled a wide range of litigation, including three voter-suppression cases, a lawsuit against perpetrators of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, two over the highway assault in Texas, and seven cases against perpetrators of January 6. Some target Trump himself. Most recently, Ukraine expert Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman sued Trump and three close associates under the Klan Act for reprisal and intimidation surrounding his testimony during Trump’s first impeachment.
Click through for story and history.What might a January 6 law look like, if we could managa to get one passed?

The New Yorker – Russia’s Last Independent TV Channel Covers the Invasion of Ukraine
Quote – Dzyadko was bringing his audience up to date on antiwar protests. People in fifty-two cities across Russia had demonstrated against the invasion on Thursday. OVDInfo, an organization that tracks political persecution in the country, was reporting 1,960 people detained; most were facing fines, but several had been sentenced to jail time or were facing criminal prosecution. Authorities have blocked access to the OVDInfo site for Russian Internet users, and have branded the organization itself a “foreign agent.” To avoid a fine, Dzyadko had to mention that OVDInfo had been designated a “foreign agent.” TV Rain itself is also a “foreign agent”;
Click through for more. Masha Gessen is the person whose advice inspired me to stert the “Everyday Erinyes” series – her quotation appears in each one. She is an authority on autocracy, and sadly, much of her knowledge is from personal experience. The Nib happens to have a graphic interview with her up also.

PolitiZoom – Furkids: Looking Out My Back Door
Quote – While I knew the song they chose, I never really knew the lyrics before the Furkids related them to me…. I asked them if they understood the lyrics and was told “Dat wus sum gud catnip dey had!” I decided not to pursue the subject any further as they were several little ones present.
Click through for some pure (admittedly) escapism. The format is, you start the vodeo, and scroll down slowly following the lyrics and the pictures selected to accompany them. It goes fast. The only time-consuming part is the time it must have taken to put it all together. If you get through it and don’t at least smile even once … check your pulse.

Food For Thought: