Open Thread August 16, 2023

 Posted by at 6:04 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 162023
 

Yesterday, Talking Points Memo’s Morning Memo, naturally, was all about Monday’s late night Georgia indictment. It was handed down at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, and released to the reporters “a few minutes before 11:00.” The Axios alert reached me at 9:17 p.m. Mountain, which was about 20 minutes after its public release. Not bad – but bare bones. But the Talking Points Memo morning memo is filled with information, pictures, quotes, tweets, plans, and names. It’s also very compact – it reads fast. Well worth clicking “Continue reading” for.

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The Daily Beast – Trump’s Bid to Sink the Manhattan DA’s Case Has Already Made It Stronger
Quote – For months, critics of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.’s case have called it weak because the case criminally charges Trump with faking business records—a lowly misdemeanor only bumped up to a felony on a technicality. Except that Trump’s ploy to move the case to federal court gave a judge there the opportunity to take the first swing. And he used that opportunity to make it clear that the case against Trump is far more serious than it otherwise seems—and that the burden for proving that Trump’s alleged falsification of business records are felonies is low.
Click through for story. It appears Karma is on the case.

NBC News – Parents can’t challenge Maryland school’s gender identity policy, court rules
Quote – The policy, which the Montgomery County Board of Education adopted for the 2020-2021 school year, permitted schools to develop gender support plans for students to ensure they “feel comfortable expressing their gender identity.” The policy directs school personnel to help transgender and gender-nonconforming students create a plan that addresses their preferred pronouns, names and bathrooms, and bars staff from informing parents of those plans without a student’s consent. Lawsuits are pending challenging similar policies in other states. The Maryland case was the first to be argued before a federal appeals court.
Click through for details… This is a good thing because the school’s policy is the right one and the parents in the case are Christofascist. I can see how the headline could be read the other way, though. And I could wish it had been decided on privacy rights rather than on standing to sue.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread August 15, 2023

 Posted by at 6:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 152023
 

Yesterday, it was still cool – a high of 73F. It’s supposed to be warmer today, but still only in the high 80s. Also yesterday, Andrew Weissman said this on MSNBC: “The exact words because this is the provision that the court has to find to release someone on bail in Georgia, is that the defendant poses no risk of intimidating witnesses.” The reference is to the specific lehal language used in the Georgia criminal code. Federally and in most states, the burden of proof is on the government, but Georgia is different. I can tell you this caused a virtual party at Democratic Underground, with a plethora of jokes of various degreess of taste.  And also yesterday – last night, really – after 9 p.m. my time – an alert came in that Trump** and 18 others had been indicted by a grand jury in Georgia.  (I had heard earlier that they didn’t keep a 5:00 quitting time, but sent everyone to dinner and then re-convened into the night.)  The alert didn’t name the 18 others, nor were they listed in the linked story at the time, but Axios usually develops these stories, so they may (or may not) be there now.

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CNN – Exclusive: Georgia prosecutors have messages showing Trump’s team is behind voting system breach
Quote – Investigators in the Georgia criminal probe have long suspected the breach was not an organic effort sprung from sympathetic Trump supporters in rural and heavily Republican Coffee County – a county Trump won by nearly 70% of the vote. They have gathered evidence indicating it was a top-down push by Trump’s team to access sensitive voting software, according to people familiar with the situation. Trump allies attempted to access voting systems after the 2020 election as part of the broader push to produce evidence that could back up the former president’s baseless claims of widespread fraud.
Click through for details. The nitty-gritty details of evidence are almost never anywhere near as much fun as the sweeping descriptions of the crime. But in order to prove stuff- prosecutors must dig through them.

Daily Kos (MargaretPOA) – Of Course Republicans are Angry. They Have Been Out Gamed… AGAIN.
Quote – As usual, Republicans acted on the assumption that Democrats would behave as dishonestly and unethically as they, themselves and so would never in a million years appoint a Special Counsel, even though the Democrats are as aware as anybody else that there is no evidence of wrongdoing because there was no wrongdoing. Republicans thought that they were safe to loudly and publicly demand a Special Counsel because they would never get one because they, themselves would never grant that if their positions were flipped. The fact that Republicans have long used a partisan DOJ to do their dirty work means that they can’t imagine an independent DOJ.
Click through for all the reasons – the quote is the first one. I like it because we all know it’s so, but it’s said so concisely and still in enough detail to be satisfying.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread August 14, 2023

 Posted by at 6:01 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 142023
 

Yesterday, I saw Virgil and we were able to play cribbage. I think I’ve mentioned that the deck is not new, so it’s sticky, and there are at least a half dozen cards, 0maybe as many as 10, that bend in half, both of which make it hard to shuffle and also hard to deal, which can result in some strange happenings. For example, I had a hand with two 7’s, two 3’s and one 5 (including the starter.) Well, that’s a nice hand, but I don’t recall seeing anything quite like it before. But several hands later, I  got the exact hand again, And several hands after that, I got a hand with two 9’s, 2 aces, and a five – which is essentially the same hand, just different denominations. And a few hands after that, I got that exact same hand again. Very strange. All in good fun, of course. I guess a little weirdness never hurts.

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The New Yorker – Can “Cop City” Be Stopped at the Ballot Box?
Quote – I reached out to Mayor Dickens to ask whether he believes that Atlanta voters should be able to decide, after all the conflict and concern expressed in the past two years, whether to build the training center in the South River Forest. A spokesperson, in an e-mail, disputed the notion that a referendum could repeal a city ordinance. This initiative, he wrote, “would violate the constitutional prohibition on the impairment of contracts. That said,” he added, “we welcome public dialogue and engagement around our goal to build the most progressive Public Safety Training Center in the nation.”
Click through for story, of which, if you aren’t aware, it is not Freya’s fault. I would point out that “”progressive” does not mean the same thing in training police that it does in politics. In police training, it appears to mean something like all the latest gadgets to more effectively vcontrol people. Also, IANAL, but the theory that a referendum cannot revoke a city ordinance appears to me to be in violation of the people’s right to petition the government for redress of grievances, a right guaranteed by the First Amendment. It’s an empty right if the government in question claims in advance that there can be no redress.

al dot com – ‘Get them off their fannies:’ Gov. Kay Ivey on how to grow Alabama’s workforce
Quote – According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Alabama has a labor participation rate of 72.1 percent. Only three states rank lower even as the state’s workforce of about 2.3 million represents a new high mark. Still, ranking near the bottom nationally in labor participation somewhat offsets the fact that Alabama is 7th nationally with a 2.2 percent unemployment rate. The unemployment rate, of course, only includes those looking for jobs. “Today, over 2.1 million people are employed in Alabama,” Ivey told the chamber audience. “That’s the most in state history, y’all.
Click thrugh for details. If you have so many job openings that you can’t fill them all, even with people who are not looking for work (and probably NOT “sitting on their fannies”), woudln’t it be a good idea to make your state more friendly to potential workers? Like with reproductuve rights and other health care, and diversity and friendliness? What am I missong? (Heck, they can’t even keep both Senators in the state. Tuberville has moved to Florida – not that he isn’t a good fit there.)

Food For Thought

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Open Thread August 13, 2023

 Posted by at 5:58 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 132023
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was “La Sonnambula,” by Vincenzo Bellini. Bellini, along with Donizetti was at the top of composers working in the bel canto style, and this is an opera full of beautiful ornaments, and beloved by both Maria Callas and Joan Sutherland – both of whom had ranges which included solid low ranges, which is the kind of singer for whom the star role was written (when it’s sung by those who basically just sing soprano, some of the low notes are adjusted a bit.) I’m not familiar with the soprano in this production, which was recorded in Liège, Belgium; the only name I recognize is that of René Barbera, whom I heard in Santa Fe years ago – maybe as many as ten years ago. The story is easier to wrap your head around if you can get into the frame of mind at the time – sleepwalking? What’s that? The plot turns on the heroine sleepwalking into and collapsing in the hotel room of a man not her fiancé, being found there by her fiancé’s jealous ex-fiamcée, and almost losing him as a result. But it does end happily. A phrase from this opera is the epitaph of Bellini, who died young: “Oh, lovely flower, I did not think that you would fade so fast” (but in Italian.) Off to see Virgil now, will let y’all know when I get back.

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SPLC – Florida sets up formerly incarcerated people to vote, then arrests them
Quote – [John Boyd Rivers] was among 41 formerly incarcerated people, also known as returning citizens, who were arrested in 2022 and 2023 for voter fraud in Florida following the 2020 election. Nearly half took plea deals, fearful of facing the unknown of a jury trial and guilty verdict. To date, only Rivers and one other have been tried in court. He drew a split verdict: not guilty of knowingly registering to vote while ineligible but guilty of willful, fraudulent voting.
Click through for story. Administrative incompetence is one thing. A deliberate set-up is quite another. As always, the cruelty is the point.

Robert Reich – Donald Trump, Samuel Bankman-Fried, and the rule of law
Quote – A prominent billionaire is arrested on criminal charges. At his arraignment, the presiding judge releases him pending trial on condition he not to try to influence potential witnesses and orders him not to speak with the media about the pending trial. He repeatedly violates the order. Eventually, the judge has had enough. He revokes bail and orders him jailed pending trial. I’m not referring to Donald J. Trump…. No, the person I’m referring to is Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried — whose wealth had soared to $28 billion before the collapse — had been under house arrest at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California since his arrest in December on fraud charges stemming from FTX’s implosion.
Click through for full article. Yes, I realize if Trump** is put into pre-trial detention, there will likely be some violence. And I’m in favor of preparing for that as much as necessary to minimize the damage. I’m not in favor of just letting it go. Letting it go would be neither just nor prudent.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread August 12, 2023

 Posted by at 5:58 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 122023
 

Yesterday, Merrick Garland appointed a Special Counsel to investigate Hunter Biden. Since the Trump**-appointed prosecutor apparently doesn’t know how to handle a plea bargain, this may be a good move.

Has anyone read, and if so, do you remember, the story “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”? Originally a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it was made into a movie in 2008 with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett (so there’s that.) The premise is that Benjamin Button doesn’t get older like the rest of us – he gets younger and younger. Well, I was reading some comments a Democratic Underground about how immature TFG is and how he is getting worse, and someone referenced “The Curious Case of Benjamin Butthurt” and added a picture of a TFG-faced infant screaming in a playpen. Fortunately there wasn’t anything in my mouth – I would have lost it.

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ALERT: If you have Ophidophobia (fear of snakes) just quit right here.

Short Takes –

CNN – First a snake fell from the sky. Then a Texas grandma found herself inside the chaos of a hawk after its prey
Quote – Many times in her life, Peggy had watched this exact same scenario play out in nature: Hawk sets its sights on its prey, swoops in to attack, drops it on a barbed-wire fence, then goes back to claim its prize. But she never imagined she’d play the role of fence. Four times, the hawk dove and bobbed at its prize – and at Peggy – before it finally scooped up the reptile and flew off, she said.
Click through for story. Thi is just wild, in multiple senses.

Colorado Springs Gazette – Cyclist hospitalized after rattlesnake bite in popular Colorado Springs park
Quote – One person was hospitalized Tuesday after being bitten by a rattlesnake while riding a bike in a popular park in Colorado Springs, the Colorado Springs Fire Department reported Wednesday. Just before 4:40 p.m., fire crews were dispatched to Ute Valley Park in the Rockrimmon area for the reported bite. Crews with American Medical Response took the patient to Penrose Hospital by 5 p.m., CSFD said. Officials said the bite victim was “successfully” treated due to personnel’s “rapid response” times. “This is an important reminder that rattlesnakes are very present in Colorado Springs,” the department said.
Click through for more (mostly about precautions). I’ve never seen a rattlesnake in our neighborhood – nor heard one -but I’m about as far from the park this happened in as one can be and still both be in Colorado Springs. It just fascinated me, all the snake news all at once. And I’m still trying to visualize a snake striking a moving bicycle going by.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread August 11, 2023

 Posted by at 6:02 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 112023
 

Yesterday, (OK, actually the day before but I didn’t get the email from Joyce Vance until after midnight) Trump** advised the court that he wanted his very own SCIF built at Mar-a-Lago. He claimed it would be cheaper than his (and his SS) travel expenses to and fro (it wouldn’t.) But the main reason, IMO, is that if there were a SCIF on his property, he would think that gave him the right to keep any and all classified documents tht he touched. (Building it would also delay the proceedings indefinitely.) For a guy who has no balls when it comes to courage, he has balls the size of church bells when it comes to arrogance. Also yesterday (really) I took in a grocery order which contained everythingI had ordered – but cost $25 less than predicted the previous night when I placed it. I’m still a little confused, but I’ll take it. The thing that made me the happiest was – let me backtrack a little – this spring they came out with a new flavor of unsweetened seltzer in their house brand which I really, really like. Apparently so did everyone else, since for about three months I haven’t been able to order it – it’s been labeled “pickup only.” Finally this week it was available for delivery, but with a noet, “low inventory.” I ordered 2 12-packs, hoping to get one anyway, and received both. It’s called “blackberry citrus,” and it really does taste like that, only not sweet. Yum.

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Here’s an “Oregon leads the way” story.
AP News – Post-GOP walkout, Oregon elections chief says lawmakers with 10 or more absences can’t run next term
Quote – Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade made the announcement in a news release to clear up confusion over how reelection rules would affect those senators. Under Measure 113, which was approved by voters in 2022, lawmakers with more than 10 unexcused absences were supposed to be disqualified from being reelected for the following term. But some Republicans raised questions over the measure’s vague wording, sparking confusion over what the consequences of the walkout would be for boycotting senators. “My decision honors the voters’ intent by enforcing the measure the way it was commonly understood when Oregonians added it to our state constitution,” Griffin-Valade said.
Click through for story. Now that’s the kind of Secretary of State I want (and at this point have, though that hasn’t always been so.) There are some very spunky SoSes out there, mostly women.

Colorado Public Radio – ‘Hank the Tank,’ the California bear behind 21 home invasions, has been moved to Colorado
Quote – Tweet from Governor Jared Polis: “Today, wildlife biologists for the @CaliforniaDFW captured a large female black bear, who will be transferred to @animalsanctuary upon a one-time permission from @COParksWildlife and @coagriculture1. We welcome “Hank the Tank” (turned out to be Henrietta the Tank) to Colorado!”
Click through for more details. While in the service, I worked with a Master Sergeant named Henrietta, and she preferred to be called Hank, so I’m very comfortable with “Hank the Tank” being female. (P.S. I also love my governor.)

Food For Thought

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Open Thread August 10, 2023

 Posted by at 6:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 102023
 

Yesterday, Ohio’s victory was all over the news (as it should be!) Steve Schmidt in his Substack quoted the same Garfield speech which Heather Cox Richardson quoted Sunday (and which I quoted from her quote on Tuesday.) Steve quoted slightly different parts of it, and between them, they made me want to look up the whole speech. And I found it quickly in the Library of Congress. Garfield, besides being an anti-racist, was an interesting fellow. He was not just ambidestrous, but “could write a sentence in Latin with one hand while simultaneously writing the same sentence in Greek with the other.” (The History Channel thinks that may be a slight exaggeration, but whatever he did, it definitely impressed people.) When one looks at all the Americans who have been assassinated, and I don’t mean Presidents only, but other leaders, I have to wonder how many of these killings were done for money, and how much of that money came from greedy plutocratss. I’m not a historian, and I’m not a trained researcher, but I can look into history as far as a couple thousand years and see at least some assasinations which were quite convenient for the wealthy of the time. I wish someone who is a historian would take this on.

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HuffPost – Alabama Boaters Charged After Attack On Black Co-Captain Spurred Riverfront Brawl
Quote – [A] massive brawl in Montgomery, Alabama, … began when white boaters attacked the Black co-captain of a riverboat…. The incident began at around 7 p.m. on Saturday after the riverboat, The Harriott II, attempted to dock in its usual spot but was blocked by a pontoon boat. The riverboat, which was carrying more than 200 passengers, waited nearly 40 minutes for the smaller boat to move, Albert said…. Multiple videos show the moment [Damien] Pickett[, the co-captain of The Harriott II] is attacked, which led to an all-out brawl as others, including workers with The Harriott II, came to Pickett’s defense. That included a 16-year-old identified as Aaren, who was seen on video jumping into the water and swimming to Pickett to defend him.
Click through for details – such as they are. I have to say it’s nice to here that the white attackers were arrested and charged (although – misdemeanor?) in Alabama, particularly after other recent news from there. Illegal parking on land is problematic enough – illegla parking on water – well, let me put it this way. Boaters who aren’t aware that harbors and docks have assigned parking for good reason may not be competent to be on a boat at all.  I might just add that earlier reports, including the video showing Aaren, identified Pickett as a “deckhand.”  I mean, either way, he was doing his job – but thats a heck of a thing to call a captain.

The Daily Beast – ‘Green Jim Crow’ Is a Ridiculous Insult to Black Communities
Quote – Black and Brown communities face the brunt of failed climate action and lackluster environmental policy. But there are those who believe it’s actually government efforts to ease the effects of calamitous effects of climate change that are to blame for the hard times of lower income communities. They’re calling it “Green Jim Crow.”… Though there are some compelling arguments in [self-described left-leaning environmental and civil rights lawyer Jennifer] Hernandez’s study—such as the proposed new housing map designed to increase the use of public transit only serves to reinforce segregative housing policies of the past—the premise of the idea is simply wrong.
Click through for article. I hadn’t heard the term, but, since everything with Republicans and racists is projection, I can’t claim to be surprised. This verbiage was bound to be picked up by them, since it solves nothing.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread August 9, 2023

 Posted by at 6:06 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 092023
 

Yesterday, Katie Porter sent a fundraising email as unique as her whiteboard. She talks about her kids liking Mom’s cooking, and her jugglimg of cooking, and then offers to send her recipes to anyone who gives any amount through the email (If you didn’t get it, I’ll be happy to forward it,)  AND – by the end of the day, voters in Ohio destroyed the GOP trap proposition bigly.  Congratulations, Ohio!

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The Daily Beast – Watch Out for Renewed GOP Assaults on No-Fault Divorce
Quote – Conservative commentators are joining the calls to end no-fault divorce. Steven Crowder bemoaned the fact that Texas law permitted his wife to divorce him just because “she didn’t want to be married anymore.”… The earliest divorce laws in this country required the party seeking divorce to prove that the other party had committed one of the enumerated types of marital “fault” that the legislature had deemed sufficient to justify allowing the marriage to be dissolved. Every divorce law included adultery as a ground, and some states also had grounds like abandonment, neglect, imprisonment, or extreme cruelty. These grounds represented the legislature’s determination about what types of marital breakdown were dealbreakers. But the fault-based system had other features, as well. The party filing for divorce had to be “innocent” of marital fault themselves—if each party proved the other had committed marital fault, the law said that the parties had to stay married under the doctrine of recrimination. In other words, the worse the marriage, the longer it should last.
Click through for article. Republicans – authoritarians – want so badly to prevent women from hving any freedom that they don’t appear to realize that this would trap men too. I’m old enought to remember the so-called joke, “My wife is married, but I’m not.” That won’t fly any more.

ProPublica – Bullied by Her Own Party, a Wisconsin Election Official’s GOP Roots Mean Nothing in Volatile New Climate
Quote – Margaret Rose Bostelmann’s ideals are clear from one glance at her well-kept ranch-style house in central Wisconsin…. But her fellow Republicans have exiled her and disparaged her, sought to upend her career and, on this day in July, brought the 70-year-old to tears as she discussed what she’s been through over the last several years because she refuses to support false claims that Trump won the state in the 2020 presidential election…. Now a suit filed in June by a Wisconsin man who promotes conspiracy theories about election fraud seeks her removal from the commission. Citing her estrangement from the county party, the suit claims she’s not qualified to fill a position intended for a Republican.
Click through for details. So, Liz Cheney is not a one-off. But – there are certainly not enough of them to be or become a national party.

Food For Thought
They won their special elections by 78% and 92% – and now they have national name recognition.

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