Politics Plus

Yesterday, I got my grocery deliviery and managed to get it all put away – not just the perishables. They were out of some things, but they didn’t attempt to substitute, for which I am most grateful. And i won’t run low on anything they didn’t have – I was ordering ahead.While I was in the living room waitig at the laptop, I decided to start going through TC’s old cartoons for September, and I found about 2/3 of the are usable. The ones which, for one reason or another, aren’t, I went theough a history site and found events to use to make new ones (a few days I am spoiled for choice.) That is quite a relief actually – getting that done, I mean. It was unbelievably humid here – for a while I thought I was back in the tropics. But it stared raining and cooled down. i wish that meant we were not in drought conditions, but alas, it doesn’t.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

I normally feature a video clip daily by “Beau of the Fifth Column,” and I have one today. It’s factual, and timely, and good information. But I also wanted to share a second one, and decided to do so here. This one is also relevant and factual, but it also pokes well deserved fun at MAGAts, anti-vaxxers, who don’t liev in really rural areas – I’m afraid it cracked me up.
Click through to watch.

Wonkette – Massachusetts Schoolchildren Saw Goody Johnson … Wait, No, They’re Calling For Her Pardon
Quote – Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was 22 when she was among those convicted of being in league with the devil and sentenced to death. She was never executed, but her conviction for being a witch remains on the books in Massachusetts. More than 300 years later, an eighth-grade civics class and a state senator are trying to do right by Johnson and finally get her an official exoneration. Of the 30 people convicted of witchcraft, Johnson is the only one the state of Massachusetts still legally classifies as a convicted felon and a witch.
Click through for the story It always makes me happy when a school class or group takes on an injustice.I realize not all the kids are all right, but many more are than not, and the experience of this accomplishment is a wonderful thing for them to have to prepare for the responsibilities of adult citizenship.

Democratic Underground – David Rothkopf: The reality of what we’re getting from our government right now.
I’m going to quote heavily from this because it’s from an (unrolled) Twitter thread, which makes it hard to see how heavy quoting would violate copyright. And also because the vastness of what it covers is such a big part of the message. But I cant quote it all. So you may still want to cleck through.
Quote – Right now, the administration is conducting a massive operation in Kabul that has resulted in the evacuation of 50,000 people in eight days. It is also overseeing a life and death battle against COVID that has already resulted in over 200,000,000 Americans receiving the vaccine.

It is also in the midst of negotiations in support of the passage of a vitally needed $1 trillion infrastructure bill, the biggest the US has passed in decades. It is also, at the same time on Capitol Hill involved in negotiations to pass a $3.5 trillion budget package. Taken together these two congressional initiatives would lead to the biggest investment America has made in itself and in projects vital to our national security and well-being in more than half a century.

The Department of Justice is working on hundreds of cases related to the attempted coup against the United States government on January 6th while actively conducting programs to reduce the future risk of domestic violent extremism. DoJ has also made it a priority to combat a nationwide voter suppression campaign by the GOP and abuses in the country’s police departments. Elsewhere the government has mounted an unprecedented campaign to battle the climate crisis, its consequences and to undo widespread efforts to put our environment at risk. Part of the effort to get out of Afghanistan involves ramping up programs to help Afghans who aided us find refuge in our country–programs that were shut down, stopped cold, under the Trump Administration.

At the same time, the administration is also trying to undo the damage done by their predecessors at the southern border and the Vice President has been instrumentally involved in seeking to restore programs that would reduce migrant flows at their sources in Central America.

in addition, the administration has been appointing judges at a faster clip than its predecessors and doing so in way that is bringing unprecedented diversity to the nation’s courts after years of efforts by the opposition to pack those courts.

What is more it is not just doing all these things–all these big, complex, urgent, essential things–at once, but it is doing them against scorched earth opposition that does not care who dies, whether they tell truth or lies, or whether the national interest is protected.

Because you likely have never seen this kind of display of government management virtuosity before. It’s hard to see the big picture sometimes for all the headlines…but this is the reality of what we’re getting from our government right now.

Food for Thought –