Politics – Page 294 – Politics Plus

Open Thread March 27, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:25 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 272022

Yesterday, the radio opera was Don Carlos (which is how it’s spelled when it’s done in French. The Italian is Don Carlo.) There are more differences in the two versions than just the;anguage, however. The French version (which was the original) can be more than an hour longer – it includes scenes deleyed from the Italian version, and, os course, a ballet. The Paris Opera House would not stage any opera which didn’t have a ballet. In both cases, the enotions of the principals are depicted against the background of 16th century Spain. including the Spanish Inquisition which is seen) and the war in what is now Belgium to keep Spain (and therefore the Inquisition) in power over all French speaking people, including the Huguenots (French Protestants. Most of the principals actually lived, but they were not (especially Carlos) much like the way they are portrayed. Carlos and the one character who did not actually exist, Rodrigue, talk a lot about freeing the Huguenots from Spanish rule, but it doesn’t happen, as the Inquisition disposes of both to prevent it (Rodrigue is shot dead by an Inquisition hack, and Carlos is whisked away to – somewhere – by the ghost of his dead grandfather.) Those parts seem very timely to me. Verdi was always deeply interested in political freedom (he even served in the first Parliament of united Italy freed from Austrian rule.)

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Short Takes –

PolitiZoom – White House Assembles Tiger Team To Plan Contingency If Putin Uses Chemical Warfare, Or Worse Nukes, On Ukraine
Quote – Joe Biden has arrived in Europe for an emergency NATO summit, the G7 summit and a meeting of the European Council in Brussels on Thursday. It’s safe to say that with things the way they are in Europe at this moment that these are all groups that are thrilled to see the return of sane US leadership and engagement in Europe after the train wreck and colossal embarrassment that was the former administration.
Click through for more, including a lot of speculation. It’s good that the West is being pro-active, not reactive. I don’t say we won’t make any mistakes, but I’m fairly confident we will not make stupid ones.

Bill strengthening election security policies advances in Colorado legislature
Quote – The measure was crafted in response to Mesa County’s Republican Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, who is under indictment for allegedly compromising her county’s voting machines while searching for proof of fraud in the 2020 election. Critics had focused on a provision in the original bill that tried to prevent misinformation and disinformation. A prominent First Amendment attorney warned it could be problematic to try to regulate speech in that way, a concern also raised by the Colorado GOP, who said it was unconstitutional. The main sponsor of SB22-153, Democratic Senate President Steve Fenberg, said he doesn’t believe banning officials from spreading misinformation about elections violates free speech, but acknowledged the provision would likely be unenforceable in practice. He also didn’t want controversy over the idea to detract from the overall measure.
Click through for story. Republicans will be Republicans, but Tina Peters was a bridge too far even for them.

Women’s History – Wikipedia – Ana de Mendoza y de Silva, Princess of Éboli
Quote – Ana de Mendoza de la Cerda y de Silva Cifuentes, Princess of Eboli, Duchess of Pastrana (in full, Spanish: Doña Ana de Mendoza y de la Cerda), (29 June 1540 – 2 February 1592) was a Spanish aristocrat,[1] suo jure 2nd Princess of Mélito, 2nd Duchess of Francavilla and 3rd Countess of Aliano…. It is possible that Ana was the mistress of Philip II, King of Spain…. [She] form[ed] an alliance at Court with the King’s undersecretary of state… [and T]were accused of betraying state secrets which led to her arrest in 1579. Ana died 13 years later in prison on 2 February 1592.
Click throuch for bio. Many considered her the most beautiful woman in Europe, eyepatch and all (most little girls then didn’t play with swords, to that is also a revealing detail.) “A character mased on her” appears in the opers Don Carlos (and often steals the show). A spicier biography is here. I realize this makes her sound larger than life, but she is still a legend in Spanish-speaking areas.

Food For Thought:

SOUND OFF! 3/26/22 – War on the Working Class

Posted by Freya at 3:58 pm Politics

Mar 262022

Lately it seems as though the 1%-ers have declared war on the working class. Not only are unions being weakened with “right to work” laws and workers’ rights being eroded, but voter suppression is rampant in blue-collar districts. Lily-white districts that traditionally vote Republican have easy access to the ballot machines, while polling places in largely non-white and/or working class neighborhoods face closure, limited hours, and a dearth of working machines. We are headed straight for another Gilded Age, with an oblivious quasi-nobility living it up while the workers on whom they depend starve. The 1% are slowly strangling the goose that lays their golden eggs.

One of the great weapons that workers and unions have is the walkout, the strike. Employees refuse to work, forcing companies to make concessions, such as better working conditions or higher pay. We have unions to thank for a lot of the working classes’ gains, at least in part – gains that include 40-hour work weeks, overtime pay, OSHA regulations, child labor laws and paid leave.

In comparison with workers in other parts of the world, US workers are bad off. For example, we are the only developed nation that has no maternity leave requirements. Mothers must return to work soon after giving birth or risk losing their jobs. Child care is very expensive, so many a working mom has to do her duties with a baby on her hip – literally. Not every working mother has the option of working from home.

In numerous states, corporations have used injunctions, which judges pass and police enforce, to trample workers’ Constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. These injunctions limit the number of people who can attend a picket, where they can demonstrate, or even if they can walk out in the first place. Read the Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment, and you will see that these judges – who are obviously in the deep pockets of the Fat Cats – are gladly pissing all over the very heart and soul of this nation. The police who intimidate the protesters are violating their oath to protect and serve, degenerating into Gestapo terrorists who give law enforcement a rotten image.

These companies are raking in millions or even billions of dollars in revenue, and instead of using that to pay their workers decent wages, they are greasing the filthy palms of corrupt judges to destroy the rights of the working class, hire cops to harass workers and guard scabs, or create vicious and nasty smear campaigns against those who oppose them. Many right-wing editorial cartoonists and essayists gladly vomit their anti-union hogwash onto computers or drawing tables, and brainwashed MAGA ninnies believe it.

As if that is not bad enough, many companies hire scabs, who ride for free in buses and get police escorts to the factories and businesses. Jack London had plenty to say about scabs, which you can read here.

By weaponizing police and the courts to their advantage, powerful corporations have proven that they care not in the least about their rank-and-file workers. The cigar-puffing CEOs regard the working class as just another resource to exploit for gain. In their ivory towers the 1% are completely insulated from reality. The glasses of champagne they raise contain the blood of the working stiffs who made their obscene wealth possible.

The United States cannot continue like this, or we will become scarcely different from a lot of developing nations that have a tiny rich elite ruling over hordes of starving, rag-clad serfs. The 99% must rise up and fight back. We need to enlighten those who have been hypnotized by right-wing baloney and open their eyes so they can see they have been working and voting against their own interests for years. We need to get out the youth and nonwhite vote, and battle against voter suppression. We need to campaign for workers’ rights and against the unconstitutional, un-American tactics of greedy corporations. We need to expose these tactics wherever and whenever they are being used. Letters to the editor, getting muckraking journalists on the case, peaceful demonstrations – we cannot let such evil schemes go unchallenged.

Unless we of the 99% fight back, we will be crushed.

Video Thread 3/26/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:16 pm Open Thread, Politics

Mar 262022

Glenn Kirschner – Prosecutor Pomerantz Says Evidence Proves Trump Committed Felony Crimes But DA Bragg Won’t Indict

Meidas Touch – Ted Cruz gets HUMILIATED during Confirmation Hearing

Thom Hsrtmann – Should Clarence Thomas Be Impeached Or Recuse Himself?

Rebel HQ – Richard Ojeda Goes OFF On Partisan Hack Mitch McConnell

Puppet Regime – Ukraine Edition: Kim Jong Un Will Not Be Ignored!!

Abandoned Cat Was Antisocial Until A Tiny Kitten Forced Him To Play With Her

Beau – Let’s talk about Ukraine political parties and the mirror….

Open Thread March 26, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:35 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 262022

Yesterday, I didn’t get my groceries. However, I did get my refund approved. The amount of the refund was $144, out of an order which (before delivery charges, which I didn’t expect to get refunded) was $177. Fortunately, there was nothing I neded urgently -I basically wanted to stock back up. But I can definitely wait. It was just frustrating. And I will say they were prompt. The interval between the email that said they were looking at it and the one that said it was approved was 14 minutes. I applid and was approved on Wednesday, and by yesterday the credit was already showong on my card. So that was good. Unfortunately, the car didn’t start. So I put in an online request for “roadside assistance,” which is covered by my insurance policy.And he came so fast (I was expecting a call with ETA, but the call that came was “I’m here”) I hadn’t gotten out to the living room. I won’t say it started right up – but when he got everything adjusted just right, it started right up. I ran it for an hour (sitting in the car with a small knitting project and listening to a CD), so it should be fine Monday.

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Short Takes –

NM Political Report – Advocates call for end to Trump-era policy that prevents asylum seekers from crossing border
Quote – Nonprofit groups have called for an end to the Trump era policy, called Title 42, which prohibits asylum seekers from crossing the border. Trump initially said he was implementing the policy in order to protect the U.S. from the spread of the respiratory disease just a few days into the pandemic. Rodriguez said that, by now, the U.S. has the means to prevent disease spread among individuals who cross the border and with the numbers of cases in a downward trend and mask mandates lifting, the policy is even less defensible now than it was two years ago.
Click through for details. This is not just a bad policy. It is a violation of international law. I don’t say it might not have been justified as a temporary measure in a pandemic But two things – there needed to be quarantine accomodations so people would not have to live in misery, and also, temporary means temporary.With proper testing facilities we could have dealt with a lot of this two years ago, before it even started to become the humanitarian crisis it now is.

Mother Jones – Why Josh Hawley Is Smearing Ketanji Brown Jackson as Soft on Pedophilia
Quote – In trying to paint Jackson as a pedophile sympathizer, Hawley is tapping into the same thing as Posobiec: the recurring impulse of reactionaries who are on their back heels to try to reset an imperiled position in the culture wars. It’s a mini-version of the pedophile conspiracies QAnon, Pizzagate—which, uncoincidentally, Posobiec was a key early proponent of—and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, when numerous false child sex ring accusations were leveled at daycare centers.
Click through for more examples and reasoning. I had this penciled in for today before I saw Nameless’s article yesterday, but kept it because it doesn’t detract from his, but does offer additional information about motivations (and evidence that we are not the only ones looking at how dumb he is.).

Women’s history – Wikipedia – Rebecca Latimer Felton
Quote – Rebecca Ann Latimer Felton (June 10, 1835 – January 24, 1930) was an American writer, lecturer, feminist, suffragist, reformer, white supremacist, slave owner, and politician who was the first woman to serve in the United States Senate, although she served for only one day. Felton was the most prominent woman in Georgia in the Progressive Era, and was honored by appointment to the Senate. She was sworn in on November 21, 1922, and served just 24 hours. At 87 years, nine months, and 22 days old, she was the oldest freshman senator to enter the Senate.
Click through for bio. This is not the “first woman U.S. Senator” we would have liked to see. But she is the one we got. And I think her story has some educational points. But I promise to get positive again for the rest of the month (what’s left of it.)

Food For Thought:

I Had It w/ My Senator, So I Sent Hawley This Letter

Posted by SoINeedAName at 2:39 pm Politics

Mar 252022

Watching some of the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson (can only watch briefly, or I’ll blow a gasket), I finally had it with all the clowns, but especially my own senator – Joshua “I-Support-Traitorous-Insurrectionists” Hawley. So this morning I faxed him this letter:

Friday, March 25, 2022

Mr. Josh Hawley

212 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510

RE: MERITLESS TO THE POINT OF DEMAGOGUERY

Mr. Hawley:

Your toddler-esque (bordering on infantile) behavior during the Senate hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation was aptly characterized by fellow Republican Andrew McCarthy in the “National Review” as a “smear” that was “meritless to the point of demagoguery”.

Let’s take a look at the FACTS that would lead to such a withering criticism from a fellow right-wing idealogue like McCarthy that was published in a dedicated radical right-wing magazine.

[I] Taking Jackson’s Remarks out of Context

From a Tweet by you on March 16:

“Judge Jackson has opined there may be a type of ‘less-serious child pornography offender.’ … ’A ‘less-serious’ child porn offender?”

The FACTS: She opined no such thing. She was simply asking questions about it.

[II] Mischaracterizing the USSC’s Work

From another Tweet by you on March 16:

“As a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Judge Jackson advocated for drastic change in how the law treats sex offenders by eliminating the existing mandatory minimum sentences for child porn.”

Two critical FACTS you chose to elide:

[1] The USSC is bipartisan, as no more than four members of the seven-member USSC can be from one party.

… and

[2] The recommendations you criticized were unanimously approved.

[III] Distorting Judge Jackson’s Record

In your long Twitter thread of March 16, you list a number of cases purportedly claiming that Judge Jackson did not meet sentencing recommendations.

Not only are you wrong on the FACTS, but you chose to ignore the 2021 USSC report of 2019 that only 30 percent of non-production child-porn offenders received a sentence within the guideline range.

In addition to ignoring the FACTS, you also chose to ignore what U.S. probation officers had recommended in these cases.

Additionally, you yourself have voted to confirm at least three federal judges who also engaged in the same pornography sentencing practices for which you criticize Judge Jackson.

Your entire toxic pornography obsession consisted of very weakly-presented misinformation that relied on cherry-picked elements of Judge Jackson’s record that were taken out of context, distorted and mischaracterized. And it fell like a house of cards under the slightest of scrutiny.

Bottom line: You should be ashamed of yourself. I know that the good citizens of Missouri are ashamed to have you as a senator for our state.

GROW UP!

Respectfully,

[NAME]

[CITY]

PS: After your raised-fist salute to the traitorous insurrectionist on January 6, 2021, rest assured that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s lyrics from his Tony Award-winning smash Broadway musical “Hamilton” apply to you:

“WELL, HE’S NEVER GOING TO BE PRESIDENT NOW!”

Video Thread 3/25/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:43 am Open Thread, Politics

Mar 252022

Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump Flips (Politically) on Mo Brooks. Could it be that Mo Brooks has Flipped on Trump?

Meidas Touch – Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson takes Senator Cotton to School!

Lincoln Project – Josh Mandel: Ohioans or Trump?

Robert Reich – Why Abortion Bans Aren’t Pro-Life

Armageddon Update – Havin’ Fun Yet?

Shirley Serban – Song for Ukraine and the World – Give Us Peace / Dona Nobis Pacem

Beau – Let’s talk about Rule 303 Belorussian style….

Open Thread March 25, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:32 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 252022

The night before last,as I was checking email before heading to bed, I found an email that said mu order had been delivered at 7:45 pm. I went to the porch, as=nd there were some grocery bags – but it was far from my full order. All it was was Gatorade and carbonated beverages and nowhere near all of those – and what was left also included substitutions. Needless to say, that did not leave me oin the best of moods, but I did manage to sleep anyway. Today I shall be on the phone with them – trying not to scream. Later: Well, they must not be prepared for screaming – or else they are prepared, and their preparation consists of having customers fill out a refund request on line. So that’s done. But it took a good part of the day. Also, I looked through April cartoons, and there are a bunch that need to be made. But thatwill have to wait until next week. Today, I really need to make sure my car startts, and if not, get a jump and let it run, because I will need it badly Monday.

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Short Takes –

Colorado Public Radio – Black and brown riders say Colorado’s stop sign bill would keep them safer from cars and police
Quote – That encounter was years ago, but it’s still on top of Alpian’s mind. It’s a key reason why he supports a bill in the Colorado Legislature that would allow cyclists to roll through stop signs at empty intersections and treat stoplights like stop signs. Bill sponsors and cycling advocates say the proposed legislation to allow what’s often referred to as “Idaho stops” — named after the first state to enact the law — would help cyclists limit the amount of time they spend at intersections. Statistics show those are the most dangerous places to be on a bike. Data from states with such laws, including Idaho and Delaware, suggest the change helps reduce crashes.
Click through for an improvement I never thought about. I biked a lot as a teen, and yes, there are places and situations where a cyclist would be safer without the need to conform to a law meant for motorized vehicles. Keeping cyclists safer would also lessen the likelihood of a motorist accidently causing harm. It would even beneft police by lightening their workload slightly. I hope it doesn’t get shot down because it helps black and brown people most. That is less likely here than in some states, but, sadly, not impossible.

The Conversation – How fairy tales shape fighting spirit: Ukraine’s children hear bedtime stories of underdog heroes, while Russian children hear tales of magical success
Quote – Folklore is important for understanding people’s cultural narratives – story lines that describe something unique to the culture’s history and its people. They help to define a cultural identity and, in subtle ways, shape future choices…. Most adults don’t walk around thinking about the fairy tales they heard as children. However, these early stories, experienced through the magnifying glass of childhood emotions, shape our understanding about the world. They determine the repertoire of our actions, especially in times of crisis.
Click through for article. Yes, this is something I don’t think gets enough attention. I have also heard it said (more accurately, read about) western European fary/folk tales giving boys the idea that they are entitled to a princess. Some of them of course mature out of that. But you only have to look around to see what happens to those who don’t

Women’s Histpry – Foreign Affairs – Revenge of the Patriarchs: Why Autocrats Fear Women
Quote – Generally, movements seeking to topple autocratic regimes or win national independence are more likely to prevail when they mobilize large numbers of people; shift the loyalties of at least some the regime’s pillars of support; use creative tactics, such as rolling strikes, in addition to street protests; and maintain discipline and resilience in the face of state repression and countermobilization by the regime’s supporters. Large-scale participation by women helps movements achieve all these things.
Click through for article. This is not the kind of women’s history we like to see – but, unlike Republicans, we do not put our heads into the sand because truth makes us uncomfortable. (Also while we’re on the subject of women, RIP Madeline Albright.)

Food For Thought (Pat B):