Open Thread September 9, 2023

 Posted by at 6:07 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 092023
 

Yesterday, the sealed Special Grand Jury report from Georgia was released, and woo-hee! It’s not surprising that clickbait-headlining Meidas Touch calls it a bombshell, but when Glenn Kirschner also uses the word bombshell, that’s noteworthy. By the time you read this, it’s probably all ove the place, with names like “Lindsay Graham” and “Michael Flynn” being screamed. But I had to look around to find the fullest version with the least patwall and the most respect. I chose PBS, and here you are. I assume this news has completely overshadowed Nancy Pelosi’s announcemnt that she will run for another two-year term. However,t the Federal Judge denied Mark Meadows’s motion to remove his Georgia indictment to Federal Court was denied, and that mayhave seeped through.

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Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – This Gloria Johnson Ad Should Make Sen. Blackburn Very Nervous
Quote – But Johnson is running on more than just gun reform. The ad continues with her saying that she had to sleep in the hallway as a child to avoid being shot because her father “brought the KKK to justice.” She goes on to note that politicians don’t like her much “because I speak my mind. And when it’s bullsh*t, I call it bullsh*t.”… Tennessee is so ruby red that it hasn’t elected a Democrat for statewide office in nearly 20 years. But I think this is the kind of message that just might do the job.
Click through for article. It’s mostly a video, much of which is quoted in the text, and in which keywords are shown in large type, so it’s not tough to follow. We surely could use her in the Senate – and, given what we’ve seen in the Tennessee State House this year, I’m not worried that she might not be replaced there by another Democrat.

Robert Reich: Election season has come. Here’s what you need to do to stop Trump from winning

Robert Reich: The Terrifying Road Ahead (same article, different link)
Quote – This particular week after Labor Day also marks the start of a terrifyingly high-stakes ride for America — five months until the beginning of the primaries, eight until Trump’s trial for seeking to overturn the 2020 election, 10 until the Republican convention in which Trump is almost certain to be nominated, 14 until the presidential election of 2024. All the while, Trump and House Republicans will be throwing up every conceivable distraction and roadblock — threatening to or actually closing the government, impeaching Joe Biden, and holding more hearings on “woke” capitalism, Hunter Biden, the alleged “weaponization” of the Justice Department and the FBI.
Click either one for full opinion. The second link is to Substack so you’ll need to click. The first is at The Guardian, kindly sent me by Evelyn B. IIRC the Guardian has a paywall but not on the first visit within whatever their timeframe is. So – your choice. (The Wall Street Journal poll he alludes to is the one I mentioned yesterday which Trump** helped pay for).

Food For Thought

 

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Open Thread September 8, 2023

 Posted by at 6:06 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 082023
 

Yesterday, Peter Navarro was found guilty of contempt of Congress. Yay! Now we just need a decent sentence. Numerous other stuff happened in various court filings in multiple cases also. I won’t even try to list them all. If I find a comprehesive list, i’ll definitely pass it on.

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Robert Hubbell – One more time with feeling: Ignore the polls!
Quote – [M]ajor media outlets and respected commentators treat the polls as if they are meaningful and predictive. They are neither. Instead, they are clickbait wrapped in statistics that misleads by confusing precision and truth. If someone tells you that the universe will end in 3,198,642,971.25 years, that is a “precise” prediction. Whether the prediction is “true” is a different question entirely. So, too, with the polling…. For those of you tired of reading my response to such polls, I apologize for the repetition. You may want to set aside this newsletter and start afresh with tomorrow’s newsletter. To those of you who need reassurance, read on! Because we will see many similar polls over the next fourteen months, I will use the WSJ poll as an example of how pollsters can distort the truth and why we should generally ignore the polls.
Click through for article. It appears that the stakes just keep getting higher and higher, which makes it very tempting to follow polls closely. But he makes good points. Also, it’s not really possible to think productively or do the things that need to be done, and that’s even if the polls are in good faith. I recently saw a story about a poll published by the Wall Street Journal hich came up with a low approval rate for Biden. What the publication did not include, and that the author of the article critiquing it did, was that the participants included two Republicans for every Democrat polled (and a sample size of only about 1,000.)   Remember this poll for tomorrow’s OT.  This is Substack so you’ll need to do a little clicking to read it all.

HuffPost – A 2024 Trump-Biden Rematch Isn’t Boring. It’s Something Entirely New.
Quote – The likely 2024 Biden-Trump contest should be viewed less as a rerun and more as the rare reboot that actually ups the stakes: Compared with each man’s first successful run for the presidency, both are taking positions that repudiate past governing commitments of the American state in ways that we probably haven’t seen before. In pursuit of a national hand in economic policymaking, Biden is rhetorically attacking the neoliberal paradigm that has dominated American domestic and foreign policy for the past 40 years. His Democratic predecessors Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did so too at times, but Biden is also enacting actual policies that turn the page on this era. Trump, on the other hand, is running to turn the presidency into something akin to a monarchy. He has deemphasized the old conservative “tax and spend” discourse in favor of an all-out attack on government depth. Yes, he still embraces cutting taxes for the rich and slashing government spending. But the policy that he and his allies are emphasizing most in pursuit of conservative aims is placing the administrative state and its 2 million-plus workers, including law enforcement and investigatory bodies, under his direct control by gutting civil service protections and the independence of agencies. If you can’t cut the size of government, you can at least make it bend to your wishes, or so the thinking goes.
Click through for (IMO well-founded) opinion. The thought that an election, or any other event, upon which one’s life depends, could possibly considered boring, simply boggles my mind. But here we are.

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Open Thread September 7, 2023

 Posted by at 5:56 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 072023
 

Yesterday, I ran across an article in the Colorado Public Radio newsletter about a fish in the Denver Zoo who was successfully treated for enteritis. I would put a story like this in the Video Thread, but there is no video. So I mention it here so that those who cherish the animal rescue videos will see it. We all should have access to health care that well thought out. Also, I did manage to get my trash and recycling carts out.  Doing so raised my pulse from Tranquillo to Allegretto, but that was not as bad as taking the stuff to the carts the day before, which pushed me all the way up to Allegro.

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CNN – ‘Let’s give it a try,’ recalls Russian pilot who defected to Ukraine in his military helicopter
Quote – The pilot, named by Ukrainian officials as Maxim Kuzminov, explained in the interview how he planned his defection and why he felt compelled to do so. “I contacted representatives of Ukrainian intelligence, explained my situation, to which they offered this option: ‘Come on, we guarantee your safety, guarantee new documents, guarantee monetary compensation, a reward,’” the pilot said, in a recording released Monday. The head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, Kyrolo Budanov, revealed in August how Ukrainian officials had been able to help the pilot to defect.
Click through for story. As W. S. Gilbert pointed out in “Iolanthe, “Every boy and every gal/who’s born into this world alive/Is either a little Liberal/or else a little Conservative.” And that does not appear to be genetic – look at all the families divided over this breach. So, attractive as the idea is, getting all of one to live in one part of the world and all the other in another part, that would not last a generation. Somehow, we need to find ways to live together. But there will likely still be times when defection becomes inevitable

KGET.com – What was inside the illegal medical lab found in California? Photos show blood vials, disease samples
Quote – According to court documents, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested what they could and determined that at least 20 potentially infectious viral, bacterial, and parasitic agents were present, including E. coli, malaria, and the virus that causes COVID-19. For the first half of 2023, the process of cleaning the Reedley location was stuck in court. Electrical issues were highlighted, including adding outlets for running refrigerators and freezers. There were also unmarked, highly-flammable chemicals being stored there. Officials were worried about the risk of a possible explosion, which prompted Reedley Fire Chief Jerry Isaak to send a letter to Zieba.
Click through for details, such as they are. This would be Devin Nunes’s former district. I can certainly understand not wanting something like this in one’s backyard.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread September 6, 2023

 Posted by at 6:06 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 062023
 

Yesterday, quiet again, and a little cooler. My big project was getting trash and recyclables out to my carts so that today I can put them out for pickup tomorrow. That’s not what I consider a rewarding job. No new object to admire. No new space to walk in or put things in (the trash/recyc containers are just as big emoty as ther are full). Changing a light bulb at least provides more light. But taking out discard has to be done, or they will take over everything. I did get it done before sunset, though. The recyc cart is going to be heavy today – I may pull instead of push, but it’s still heavy. The trash cart will be no problem.

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The Daily Beast – Ignoring Bad Faith Right-Wingers Doesn’t Work Anymore. Debate or Debunk Them.
Quote – I had seen this type of attitude so many times before. My earlier career was as a conservative political media consultant. I spent years trying to get Republicans to think seriously about public policy and be respectful of people who weren’t straight white Christians. Finally, I realized it was a doomed effort because the current GOP is more interested in identity politics than in serving the public. I decided to critique Republicans from the outside rather than the inside. I took a major financial hit as a result, but I enjoy having a clean conscience.
Click through for article. This may work on those who are less practiced, and it’s probably worth trying. But those seasoned operative who just keep moving the goalposts so smoothly that it’s almost indetectable are not so easily debunked before an audience of cultists.

ProPublica – Why the Destruction of a Black Neighborhood Matters to Me — and Should Matter to Everyone
Quote – As a high school sprinter in Virginia’s Tidewater region, I often participated in meets at Christopher Newport University’s Freeman Center, which had one of the few indoor tracks in the area. I won 500-meter races against top runners, and my high school was team champion. Track and field was a huge part of my identity. I looked forward to crossing the Monitor-Merrimac bridge over the James River to Newport News, and I saw the opportunity to display my skill at Christopher Newport as a way to impress colleges and earn an athletic scholarship. It wouldn’t be until 20 years later that I understood the underlying irony. The construction of Christopher Newport, where Black athletes like me competed alongside our white counterparts, had displaced Black homeowners whose hopes and aspirations were dashed by racism.
Click through for investigation. Republicans have no inerest in protecting black, brown, LGBTQIA children from anything whatsoever. Their only interest is in protecting straight white children – males from anythng which might undermine their privilege, and females from anything which might interfere with their subservience to patriarchy.

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Open Thread September 5, 2023

 Posted by at 5:48 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 052023
 

Yesterday, The New Yorker’s “Name Drop” was most appropriate for Labor Day. The first two clues were news to me, but I did get it on the third one. Also, Steve Schmidt quoted a big chunk of Theodore Roosevelt’s Labor Day speech given in 1903. I’ll spare you the need to look for “continue reading” and just link to the speech in the Educational Video inc.’s Speech Vault. It contains the quote “The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us,” which was worked into a rug placed in the oval office in 2010 (yes, during the Obama Administration.) I don’t know whether it is still there (or possibly there again.) The speech is remarkable – and should be trotted out more often by Democrats, if only to emphasize that we are the ones who have preserved this orignally Republican platform.

Cartoon – 05 great fire of london

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Wonkette – Matt Schlapp’s CPAC Team-Building Exercises Sound Fun, If You’re Into Exorcisms
Quote – Oh. My. Lord. They have been on Twitter posting pictures of their favorite saints and begging those saints to rain down hell on the Daily Beast. It’s so deranged. “Our Lady of Guadalupe, strike down the BEAST,” tweeted Schlmatt. “St Michael the Archangel take down the beast,” tweeted Schlmercy, with a bit less flair and punctuation. We guess all this has put people in the mood to spill more Schlapp Schlecrets to (natch) the Beast. Now Roger Sollenberger is bringing us the story of that time last year when Matt Schlapp got a priest to come in and do exorcisms to get all the demons out of the CPAC offices.
Click through for details. Remember it is Substack now. If Matt Schlapp could exorcise himself, he would disappear in a puff of smoke.

Liberals Are Cool (on tumblr)
Quote – To remind everyone, January 6th wasn’t Trump’s Plan A. It wasn’t even Plan B. Plan A was to steal the 2020 election with Putin’s help, just as he’d done in 2016. Blackmailing Ukraine for dirt on Biden was part of that effort. But it didn’t work twice.
Click through. This is a Twitter thread, rolled on a thread reader, reposted on Tumblr, which was shared on Democratic Underground. It’s not long and it’s all important.

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Open Thread September 4, 2023

 Posted by at 6:08 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 042023
 

Yesterday, it was just quiet. Which is just fine with me. I had time to work on cartoons a little, finished a sweater I’d been working on, checked my oxygen (94), mended a box I want to use for charity pickup – just little stuff, much of which I’d been procrastinating.

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Short Takes –

Harvard Business Review – Frontline Work When Everyone Is Angry
Quote – Summary – It probably won’t surprise you to learn that incivility on the front lines of business is on the rise. After all, as the pandemic wore on, we saw in real time how frontline workers went from being seen as “essential” to being seen as, essentially, punching bags. What might not be obvious is that incivility doesn’t affect only workers who experience it directly — it also affects those who witness it, with consequences for businesses and society. Christine Porath has studied incivility for more than 20 years, looking at the experiences at work of people around the world. Her research shows that business leaders have the power to improve things, both for workers and for society as a whole.
Click through for story. We laugh at “Karen”s – but it isn’t funny if you are the one on the receiving end of the Karening. One thing we can do is offer a word of thanks (especially if they are working outside in awful weather conditions) or a small compliment. And certainly a smile, if nothing else, helps.

Crooks & Liars – Labor Shortages So Bad, Even GOP Considers- Gasp! – Immigration
Quote – The way Republican state Sen. Michael Crider sees it, those moves have worked: Companies such as Amazon and Walmart have built new warehouses and fulfillment centers in his district just east of Indianapolis. But it didn’t take long for him to realize how all those new private-sector jobs could further strain short-handed local governments, particularly school systems, by luring away bus drivers and teachers’ aides.
Click through for details. Yes, unemployment still exists (it even increased a small fraction of a percent last month.) But there are also areas where there are serious labor shortages too.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread September 3, 2023

 Posted by at 5:59 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 032023
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was Richard Wagner’s “Tannhäuser,” from Beijing’s National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA). The events of the opera have a definite historical date – during the lives of the real people Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide, but it’s far from historical. As it starts, Tannhäuser has been living in the Venusberg (which means “the mount of Venus,” and yes, the double meaning in English also exists in German) where the goddess Venus has been keeping him satisfied for at least months if not years. The “Venusberg music” is supposed to be a bacchanale (orgy), but I certainly don’t think “orgy” when I hear it and I doubt anyone here would. Now, Saint-Saëns bacchamale from “Sanson et Dalila” is hot. Richard Strauss’s “Dance of the Seven Veils” from Salome is wicked hot. The Venusberg music is inspiring and even noble, but not hot. But Wagner’s (IMO very odd) attitudes toward sexuality don’t really come out until later. Anyway, Tannhäuser decodes he wants to go home where there are other minstrels and a girl, Elisabeth, who loves him, and he arrives just on the eve of a big singing contest, in which he is expected to participate. His entry is too erotic for everyone else, and when it comes out he has been in the Venusberg, all heck breaks loose, and Elisabeth’s uncle (the local feudal lord) in particular, but everyone really, demands he travel to Rome and get absolution from the Pope. He goes to Rome, and the Pope tells him that his staff (a piece of pretty old, very dead wood) is as likely to bear green leaves as he is to be forgiven (terrible theology, BTW). He comes back, travelling with a bunch of ordinary Pilgrims, whose chorus is very familiar outside the opera house, as is Wolfram’s song to the Evening Star, which he sings not long before Tannhäuser gets back. Tannhäuser tellsWolfram what the Pope said, Elisabeth dies (the salvation of men through the deaths of women is a very common 19th century romantic trope, it’s not just Wagner, but Wagner kind of did beat it to death), and green leaves burst out of his staff (very glad I never had to build that prop). It really is beautiful musically, which certainly saves the ridiculous (even offensive) story line. Wagner is not known for realism – his one comedy, Die Meistersinger, does actually show people with real feelings and quirks, and if you can get past the magic love potion, so does Tristan und Isolde, but mostly his characters – humans, gods, giants, dwarves, witches, dragons, birds – seem a little off. But one can get carried away by the music in spite of that.

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Zip Recruiter – Professional Troll
Quote – As of Aug 25, 2023, the average hourly pay for a Professional Troll in the United States is $67.39 an hour. While ZipRecruiter is seeing hourly wages as high as $141.59 and as low as $5.29, the majority of Professional Troll wages currently range between $16.35 (25th percentile) to $129.57 (75th percentile) across the United States. The average pay range for a Professional Troll varies greatly (by as much as $113.22), which suggests there may be many opportunities for advancement and increased pay based on skill level, location and years of experience.
Click through. It likely wil come up with information on your area. Someone at Democratice Underground found this … and found it scary. I concur.

MSN/Axios – AG Merrick Garland denounces election worker threats as DOJ charges over a dozen people
Quote – The DOJ announced Thursday that two men in two separate cases in Arizona and Georgia had pleaded guilty to threatening election officials in Arizona and Georgia in separate cases, brought by the the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force — which has now brought charges in 14 cases…. “The Justice Department will continue to investigate and prosecute those who target election officials and election workers as part of our broader efforts to safeguard the right to vote and to defend our democracy.”
Click through for a bit more. I’m glad they are taking this seriously, and hope there are not people failng to report for fear nothing – or worse – will be done.

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Open Thread September 2, 2023

 Posted by at 6:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 022023
 

Yesterday, Mary Trump (Mary L. Trump, to distinguish her from her grandmother) wrote about the Supreme Court, in an essay on Substack she calls “The Lowest Court, Part 2.” She remarks, not just on the ethics issues, but on the contempt shown by the court for the people, which really is reminiscent of France before the Revolution. If you were to tell me that Alito, or Kavanaugh, or even Roberts had said “Let them eat cake,” I’d probably believe it. If you want to look deeper, here’s the link – just remember to look for the “continue reading” and click it.

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HuffPost – Biden Administration Reveals First 10 Drugs For Medicare Price Negotiation
Quote – All told, the 10 drugs on the list accounted for $50.5 billion in total spending in Medicare’s outpatient prescription drug program for the period between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s about one-fifth of what the program, known as Part D, spent on all prescription drugs during that period. The announcement represents the first step in a process set to unfold over the coming year, with the government collecting data and public input, and then exchanging price offers with manufacturers over how much Medicare will pay for the named drugs.
Click through for details. Not surprisingly, the article bears the subtitle “It’s the first step in a process that will mean lower prices in 2026 ― unless the drug industry and its allies find a way to block it.”

The Daiy Beast – How One Citizen Fought Back Against a Cop’s Road Rage
Quote – While driving home in his Ford Mustang, [New Mexico motorist Mario Rosales] legally passed a pickup truck, and the other driver started tailgating him. Road rage can be deadly, so Rosales grew concerned. No matter which way he went, the truck stayed in his rearview mirror. Rosales eventually reached his home in Roswell, New Mexico, hoping the truck would keep going. Instead, the vehicle blocked Rosales in his driveway, and the stranger behind the wheel started yelling and cursing at him. At this point Rosales was not just concerned. He was scared for himself and his family members in the house.
Click through for the story, which has a happy ending – this time – finally. Too many do not.

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