Open Thread for September 28 2021

 Posted by at 7:24 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 282021
 

Yesterday, I did finish organizing my evening meds. I also placed a grocery order to be delivered today. I even worked a little bit on that front panel I mentioned last week. It rained a little, which is now supposed to continue for a few days.

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Short Takes –

The Hill – Biden administration moves to preserve DACA after court ruling
Quote – A federal district judge in Texas ruled in July that the 2012 DACA program violated the Administrative Procedures Act. The decision left intact the program’s benefits for some 600,000 people otherwise unable to obtain legal status after being brought to the U.S. as children. But it blocked any future applications, leaving thousands of young immigrants in limbo.
Click through for story. The delay from July to now is because it was appealed. But this is good news.

The Daily Beast – Arizona Dems Threaten Sen. Kyrsten Sinema With No-Confidence Vote
Quote – “The Arizonans who did the work to elect Sinema have had enough of her betraying the voters who put her in office. It’s time for her to show the bare minimum of accountability and stop obstructing the agenda that Democrats, including her, campaigned on and were elected to deliver. Sinema is setting her political future on fire. If she doesn’t change course drastically and soon, it will be too late,” Kai Newkirk, a Democratic organizer in Arizona, told The Daily Beast.
Click through if you like – It doesn’t go into the consequences of such a vote.

The Guardian – John Hinckley, who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan, to be freed from restrictions
Quote – The US district court judge, Paul L Friedman, said in Washington during a 90-minute court hearing that he would issue his full ruling this week. “If he hadn’t tried to kill the president, he would have been unconditionally released a long, long, long time ago,” Friedman said. “But everybody is comfortable now after all of the studies, all of the analysis and all of the interviews and all of the experience with Mr Hinckley.”
Click through for details. Actually, he probably was never quite as insane as present-day MAGAts are. But I would still be nervous if I lived nearby.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 27, 2021

 Posted by at 6:42 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 272021
 

Yesterday was fairly quiet. I organized my morning meds for the next two weeks (which I should have done Saturday … but that’s why I keep an extra) and I’ll organize the evening meds today (which I should have done Saturday, but that’s why I keep two extras.)

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Short Takes –

PoliticusUSA – Sidney Powell Implicates Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Justice Alito In Plot To Overturn The Election
Quote – Sidney Powell is not a reliable narrator, but her point, if true, is that the purpose of the 1/6 attack on the Capitol was to buy time so that Justice Alito could intervene and block the certification of the election.
Click through for actual wording. Isn’t this … interesting.  And then there’s this.

Crooks and Liars – Biden White House Won’t Assert Executive Privilege To Help Donald Trump
Quote – This was the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War and we need answers. Let’s see where this goes….with the subpoenas flying fast, I suspect we will get our answers about Executive Privilege pretty quickly, especially when they start wanting to talk to Donald Trump and his kids directly.
Click through for what details exist. IANAL, but those who are point out that (a) he can claim executive privilege regarding what happened during his administration, and (b) though he can claim it, it is not automatic, as some things are not subject to it, and that is not his decision to make.

AP News – In redistricting, big say for big cities in DC power balance
Quote – Robust growth in the liberal strongholds of New York and metropolitan Chicago are poised to give Democrats an edge as their political maps are redrawn to adjust for changes in population over the past decade. While both New York and Illinois are losing congressional seats, their urban booms mean the newly drawn districts are likely to favor Democrats, adding to the party’s national total and making up for probable losses elsewhere.
Click through for more information. I certainly hope this analysis is on point. (I have hopes for my state as well, but those are unrelted to this.)

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 26, 2021

 Posted by at 7:04 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 262021
 

Yesterday, the opera was Pelleas et Melisande by Debussy. The libretto is symbolists, so Debussy was a good choice to complse it. I decided to make one last stab for this year at a cotton knitting project, and started on it. I may end up postponing finishing it until next year, but I hope I can finish the fron panel at least, which is based on the idea of a “Log Cabin” quilt block. The back, collar, cuffs, and hem are plain.

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The Hill – Executive privilege fight poses hurdles for Trump
Quote – “For example a former president’s privilege claim is deemed much stronger if the current president supports it,” she added. “We’ve never been in a situation where there was a prior claim that was not supported by the incumbent, because presidents, when it comes to their turn to be the former president, they want to be able to do that same thing.”
Click through. To be pellucidly clear, he can claim executive privilege for any douments prio to noon on Jan. 20 But it isn’t a matter of claim and have. Some things are not subject to executive privilege. Like crimes. Someone other than he must look at the documents and determine whether they are subject to executive privilege or not (and most, if not all, won’t be.) And, of course, for anything after noon January 20, executive privilege cannot even be claimed. And President Biden has publicly stated he will not claim or support executive privilege for Trump**. Snicker.

Reuters – Germans vote in close election to decide Merkel successor
Quote – After a domestic-focused election campaign, Berlin’s allies in Europe and beyond may have to wait for months before they can see whether the new German government is ready to engage on foreign issues to the extent they would like. The splintered political landscape means a three-way coalition is likely. Final opinion polls gave the Social Democrats a narrow lead, but the conservatives have reduced the gap in recent days and many voters were still undecided.
Click through for details. We knew she was retiring – and now it’s here. She helped us survive Trump** as much as anyone outside could. I wish her the best in her retirement, as well as a worthy successor.

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-india-mumbai-narendra-modi-da976c8f8aa7ca02c2193b56c3408a08
AP News – Mystery solved: Biden gets proof of family ties to India
Quote – “And although we never admitted it … I’ve found out that there was a Capt. George Biden who was a captain in the East India Tea Company in India,” Biden said. He appeared to be referring to the British East India Company, a commercial power for centuries that controlled trade in colonized India and parts of southeast Asia. Biden, who frequently talks of his Irish ancestry, quipped that the British connection was “hard for an Irishman to admit.” Biden, who has told versions of the anecdote to Indian audiences before, said Capt. Biden “apparently stayed and married an Indian woman” but he’d never been able to nail down further details.
Click through for story (though not complete genealogy.) Nikke Haley and Bobby Jindal, eat your hearts out.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 25, 2021

 Posted by at 7:22 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 252021
 

Yesterday was another day with the portable heater on. I guess that’s the new normal, so I’ll have to find something else to talk about. Hopefully something less whiney.

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Short Takes –

The Hill – CDC panel authorizes COVID-19 vaccine boosters for high-risk people, those over 65
Quote – The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 15-0 to recommend a booster dose for Americans age 65 and older and people in long term care facilities. ACIP also fully recommended giving a single booster dose to people between the ages of 50 and 64 with certain high-risk conditions, by a vote of 13-2. The panel did not define what the qualifying underlying conditions are, but the CDC is expected to make that determination.
Click through – but some questions are not even being addressed. For instance, if your initial course was Moderna, should you be getting a Pfizer booster? Also, How long should you wait? An article in The Atlantic included a wide range of estimate – just about in the middle was eight months from the first shot. For me, that’s next year. But for those of you who got the first jab in February, that’s coming right up. I’d like to hear something official.

Mother Jones – Inside the Private Facebook Groups Where Anti-Vaxxers Plot to Get Religious Exemptions
Quote – Medical exemptions can be hard to come by—they require a documented diagnosis of one of the very few conditions that prevents someone from getting vaccinated. Religious exemptions are easier: They rarely require proof that an employee belongs to an organized religious group that opposes vaccines. (Few faiths do.) Rather, the onus of explaining the religious beliefs is left to the individual—and the employer must then decide whether the belief they describe is sincere, explained Poonam Lakhani, an employment attorney with the Prinz Law Firm in Chicago. “That’s a really difficult line for the employer to walk.”
Click through for story. If they would mask up (with N95 or stronger) and take dailt rapid CoViD tests (which are actually more uncomfortable than the vaccine), or else stay in quarantine, they could go unvaccinted for all I care. But they won’t. Free-dumb.

Washington National Cathedral – Reimagining the Confederate Windows
Quote – Washington National Cathedral today announced that it will replace its former stained-glass windows featuring Confederate iconography, removed in 2017, with racial-justice themed windows created by world-renowned artist Kerry James Marshall, described by The New Yorker as “a virtuoso of landscape, portraiture, still-life, history painting, and other genres of the Western canon.” The Cathedral’s commission represents Marshall’s first time working with stained-glass as a medium, and the windows are expected to be his first permanent public exhibition anywhere in the country.
Click through for more. I googled his work and I think his style is a natural for stained glass. It appears to be based more on shape than on line. There has also been a poem commissioned for this project.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 24, 2021

 Posted by at 6:55 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 242021
 

Yesterday, it was (IMO) cold again. I turned on my portable heater. Eventually it warmed up some. If the forecast holds, it’ll be perfect for my drive on October 1, but the forecasts haven’t been holding that long as a rule. I can only hope.

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HuffPost – The Senate May Actually Produce A Bipartisan Violence Against Women Act Bill
Quote – Senate and White House aides involved in months of negotiations on a VAWA reauthorization bill tell HuffPost that despite the relative silence on the subject, they’re feeling optimistic about unveiling bipartisan legislation ― and soon. “We are encouraged by the progress in the Senate and are looking forward to a bipartisan bill being introduced this fall,” said a White House official familiar with talks on a VAWA bill.
Click through for the story. I’m not holding my breath, but I am somewhat hopeful.

The Hill – Debt ceiling fight pits corporate America against Republicans
Quote – The debt ceiling battle on Capitol Hill is pitting corporate America against congressional Republicans in a test for business groups that have historically aligned with GOP lawmakers on economic issues. Senate Republican leaders are digging in on their opposition to raising or suspending the debt limit, prompting sharp warnings from lobbying groups that represent some of the biggest U.S. corporations.
Click through for details. Republicans may kowtow to bug business … but apparently there’s not one in a hundred who actualy understands how business works. But I guess that shouldn’t be surprising.

Crooks and Liars – ‘Epik Hack’ Is Right Wing’s Worst Nightmare
Quote – “It’s massive. It may be the biggest domain-style leak I’ve seen and, as an extremism researcher, it’s certainly the most interesting,” said Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University who studies right-wing extremism. “It’s an embarrassment of riches — stress on the embarrassment.”
Click through for the story to this point. I assume no one here wants (I certainly don’t) to track any of this down personally and get any of these sites into their browser history, but if you do, Twitter is the place to start looking.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 23, 2021

 Posted by at 6:44 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 232021
 

Yesterday, it was cool again.  Or maybe I should say what most people would call cool.  My body does not recognize “cool” as a thing.  It recognizes three temperature ranges – uncomfortably hot, comfortably warm, and freakin’ cold.  So I wrapped up in a warm winter bathrobe – over my clothes – and finally got my hands to the point where I could no longer use tham as an icepack.   I never did get my feet to that point.  This explains why I am not really ready for fall.  But it is what it is.  It may get warmer for at least a few days.  We’ll see.

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Short Takes –

I’m quoting this comment in full because it puts things in perspective. It’s from Bernardo de La Paz at Democratic Underground.
Which is more likely?
A) It takes time to get it all right because you get only one chance with the main case against an ex-President.
B) The case is huge because more stuff is being discovered.
C) A and B.
D) Garland is corrupt.
E) Garland is incompetent despite being nominated to the Supreme Court and to Attorney-General.
F) Obama and Biden are incompetent or worse because Garland is incompetent or worse and they nominated him to the Supreme Court and to Attorney-General.
If you choose to click through, you can click through again and see all the comments, not just the reactions to this one, but also reactions to the original tweet.

The Hill – House passes bill to prevent shutdown and suspend debt limit
Quote – Democrats are nonetheless attaching the debt limit suspension through Dec. 16, 2022, to a must-pass bill to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1 in an attempt to pressure Republicans to drop their threats. It’s also unclear if the reconciliation package would be ready in time to be used as a legislative vehicle for addressing the debt limit.
Click through if you like. It’s the same old Republican tactic We’ve seen this movie way too many times already.

Wonkette – Border Patrol / Slave Patrol, Tomato / Other Tomato
Quote – At least one officer of the federal government cosplaying a slave catcher used a whip against the migrants. One officer on horseback yelled, “This is why your country’s shit, because you use your women for this.” The people that Customs and Border Protection officers were attacking were returning to the US with supplies for a group of thousands of people who have been living under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas. People living there say they are just trying not to starve to death.
Click through for details. You may have seen this elsewhere (maybe not as bluntly.) DHS could be useful if its mission were turned around to focus on domestic terrorism – provided its focus was on white terrorists.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 22, 2021

 Posted by at 7:28 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 222021
 

Yesterday, I observed that, although a high on 90°F had been forecast, it never actually made it above 66°F. Forecasts for the rest of the week have also been lowered around 10°F. So maybe it will cool off before the end of the month. Not that I’m really mentally ready for that, but it’s not my decision. My next visit is scheduled for October 1, and I’d be happy with cool weather for that day.

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Crooks and Liars – Five Oregonians Hospitalized After Taking Ivermectin For COVID
Quote – The Oregon Poison Center has managed 25 cases involving Oregonians intentionally misusing ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19 between Aug. 1 and Sept. 14. Five of those cases involved hospitalization, and two people were so severely ill that they had to be admitted to an intensive care unit. Although the Oregon Poison Center also serves Alaska and Guam, the vast majority of ivermectin cases it has managed this year have come from Oregon.
Click through for stats. Sadly no state – and no county – and no town – and even no nation is idiot-free

The Hill – Five things to watch as Biden heads to the UN
The five are: 1. Do France tensions carry over
2. How does COVID-19 loom over the event
3. Do leaders announce any new climate initiatives
4. What is the Afghanistan fallout?
5. Biden looks for reset on foreign policy priorities
Click through for reasons. The missing question marks on #1 through #3 are The Hill’s omission, not mine.

Tampa Officials Shocked To Learn Evicting Black People For Basically No Reason Miiiiight Be Considered Racist
Quote – So it turns out the Tampa, Florida, police department has been encouraging landlords to evict their [usually Black] tenants, in the name of “crime prevention.” Because, as we all know, making people homeless is a great way to reduce crime.
Click through for complete story, in Wonkette’s inimitable style. You might consider cushioning your head first, since you may feel like hitting it against the wall.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 21, 2021

 Posted by at 7:29 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 212021
 

Yesterday, I slept in a couple of hours – no cool dreams, but I awoke to a day cool enough to shut off all the fans again. Of course. I surely could have used that kind of weather Sunday. Today is supposed to stay cool-ish, and then back to the fans for another week. Of course that’s not carved in stone. Incidentally, today is the day the US celebrates the Chinese Moon Festival (China celebrates for 3 days). If there is an Asian grocery near you, you might want to see whether they have any extra Mooncakes. Yum.

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Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – Eric Trump Has A Fit On Fox News Over Getting Subpoenas ‘Every Single Day’
Quote – Eric Trump complained on Sunday that the Trump Organization and the Trump family is facing an onslaught of investigations and that they are forced to respond to subpoenas “every single day.”
Click through for complete whine. No extra charge for projection. But, if he’s telling the truth about receiving tham, that os good news indeed.

The Hill – Drug companies on verge of sinking longtime Democratic priority
Quote – The bill at the center of the fight, H.R. 3, would allow Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs by tying them to the lower prices paid by other high-income countries. The measure is projected to free up around $700 billion through the money it saves on drug purchases — covering a big chunk of the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion spending plan.
CLick through for background. This is the kind of story that often geets overlooked, but shouldn’t.

The 19th – ‘We’re seeing shock.’ Texas abortion clinics are now operating as trauma centers
Quote – When patients arrive at [Whole Woman’s Health in Fort Worth], she said, they are aware of the realities of the new law: Abortion past six weeks is now illegal, with no exceptions for rape and incest. Still, they can hardly process that there’s little the clinic can do to help them…. For patients they can’t treat, clinic staff offer to schedule appointments with providers out of state. To date, not a single patient at Whole Woman’s Health in Fort Worth has taken them up on it. Most are taken aback by the offer, Sadler said. They’ve already had to take time off of work, find child care and transportation, even leave meals for family at home just to make it through the door at her clin
Click through for more. The 19th is (as you might guess by reading the 19th Amendment) woman-centered, and this article puts a face on the issue which most publications don’t.

Food for Thought –

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