Open Thread for June 18, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 182021
 

My settled routine is more or less back, which is a blessing. It enables me to stop and knit a little, or bead a little, or eve play a computer game a little. And those little breaks keep me going. There’s pretty much good news today. It’s all in the nature of clawing one more step forward from having been pushed two steps back … but it’s all good nonetheless. Happy Juneteenth (observed) to all.

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Short Takes

The Hill – Supreme Court upholds ObamaCare in 7-2 ruling
Quote: “We do not reach these questions of the Act’s validity, however, for Texas and the other plaintiffs in this suit lack the standing necessary to raise them,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the majority.
Click through to see which Trump**-appointed Justice(s) voted the right way. You know at least one did, just by the numbers.

Sojourners – JUNETEENTH: ‘HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS’
Juneteenth is, of course, tomorrow. But it has been announced that the Federal Government will celebrate it today. So here is a very personal yet also historical article about the first one.
Quote: The next day, Friday, June 19, when Granger arrived, the more than 1,000 enslaved people working in Galveston’s ports, houses, hotels, cotton fields, and barber and smithing shops would have witnessed thousands of Black men in blue uniforms as far as the eye could see as their liberators…. It was the beautiful presence of authoritative Black bodies that made these words real.
Click through for the full story.

Crooks and Liars – Teachers Push Back On GOP ‘Critical Race Theory’ Nonsense
Quote: Teachers across the country have spoken out against bills like [Texas] S.B. 2202, with thousands gathering in more than 20 cities last weekend for a National Day of Action organized by the Zinn Education Project, which publishes educational materials based on Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and other writings. Several thousand educators have also signed a pledge stating, “We, the undersigned educators, refuse to lie to young people about U.S. history and current events—regardless of the law.”
Click through for more detail. Howard Zinn rocks, so if you haven’t read his “people’s histry” you may want to look it up.

Food for Thought

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Video Thread 6/17/21

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 172021
 

Glenn Kirschner – NYT Reports that NY DA Vance Has Weisselberg’s Personal Tax Returns. The Flip on Trump is Near

Meidas Touch – more Lev Parnas

The Lincoln Project – How To Get Back To The White House: A Guide For Donald Trump

Thom Hartmann – Secret Plans of Boogaloo & White Supremacists Revealed

What Biden said about his meeting with Putin, in 3.5 minutes

Cory Ryan Forrester turns an ambulance chaser parody into something much better.

Beau – Let’s talk about 750 million refugees coming to the United States….

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Open Thread for June 17, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 172021
 

Yesterday was another boring day. Not even any internet outage – and my ISP (CenturyLink) is getting terrible press for outages, including days-long outages, all over the place, including as close as Denver. I hope it stays boring!

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Short Takes

The New Yorker – The Political, Legal, and Moral Minefield That Donald Trump Left for Merrick Garland
Quote: The array of politically sensitive Trump-related cases currently before the Garland Justice Department is startling. The Attorney General is overseeing the prosecution of the more than four hundred Trump supporters who were arrested in connection with the January 6th Capitol riot; the department’s response to a Republican-led recount of 2020 election returns in Arizona; its response to Republican-led efforts to restrict voting, based on Trump’s false claims of election fraud; the reinstatement of consent decrees designed to prevent police abuses; the criminal investigation of Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant Rudy Giuliani, for illegal lobbying; and a criminal investigation of Hunter Biden, the current President’s son, which was launched under Barr. Hanging over all these cases are demands from Democrats that Garland investigate whether Trump committed federal crimes while in office.
Click through fo the full article.

The Hill – Five takeaways from the Biden-Putin summit
I’m just going to list all five and let you follow up on the ones you want to.
– A return to pragmatism
– Capitol riot rears its head
– Biden praised as ‘not Trump’
– Putin relishes occasion
– Questions linger about details
Click through for details.

I can’t possibly cut this feelgood story. Everything in it is necessary for the effect so-
* Here’s my feelgood story of the day LOL Back in 2012, I went to game 4 of the world series in Detroit. The Giants clinched that night and while I was rooting for the Tigers, what a great thing to actually be there in the park and see the final out of a world series.
* I recently found a pin they gave out at the game. A State Farm sponsored world series 2012 pin. I looked on ebay and they were only selling for a few bucks, but I figured, I have no use for it. So I listed it for 99 cents + $8.55 for priority mail shipping.
* Well it sold for only 99 cents. No big deal, someone will enjoy it! I figure it is some Tigers fan, though I didn’t think they would want to be reminded of that World Series lol
* Buyer sent me the money including the shipping. ebay sent me his address and it turns out he lives only about 4 miles from where I work, and more or less on my way home. So I say, hey, if you want, I’ll just drop it off on your porch and refund your shipping cost. He says, sure that’s fine, but you don’t need to give me a refund.
* I pulled up at his house and there is a guy pulling weeds in a flowerbed. I get his attention and hand it to him, and he smiles and says “Hey, I work for Ford too!” We chat for a second, I tell him I’m a Red Sox fan and hope he’ll enjoy the pin because it was just collecting dust in a drawer.
* He reiterates again not to refund the shipping cost, that I can keep it.
* THEN he tells me his son is severely autistic. He didn’t buy the pin for the Tigers. He bought it because his son autistic love is ANYTHING State Farm related, and to make him happy he lets his son buy some small State Farm item every day on ebay.
* So needless to say I’m absolutely thrilled now to know it is really going to bring some joy for his autistic son.
* I left and went home, and despite what he said, immediately refunded his shipping and told him to use that $8.55 for the next State Farm prize for his son.

Food for Thought

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Video Thread 6/16/21

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 162021
 

Glenn Kirschner – Sen. Warren, Rep. Swalwell & Others Demand Presidential Crimes Commission. Here’s How WE Can Help  Here’s the petition link.  You can get to it from the link he gives but it’s not exactly intuitive.

Meidas Touch – with Lev Parnas

Now This News – Biden Says Trump’s ‘Phony Populism’ Isn’t the Future of America

Now This News – History of Biden’s Comments on Putin

Robert Reich – The Truth About the U.S. Border-Industrial Complex

Rob Rogers – Critical Race Theory

Beau – Let’s talk about whether the US is fundamentally racist….

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Open Thread for June 16, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 162021
 

Boring here yesterday – and that’s a good thing. I like boring.

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Short Takes

The Hill – White House unveils strategy to battle domestic extremism
Quote: “That means tackling racism in America. It means protecting Americans from gun violence and mass murders. It means ensuring that we provide early intervention and appropriate care for those who pose a danger to themselves or others,” the White House wrote. “It means ensuring that Americans receive the type of civics education that promotes tolerance and respect for all and investing in policies and programs that foster civic engagement and inspire a shared commitment to American Democracy.”
Click through for the full story. This is still in the contemplation stage, so we’ll have to wait to see what comes of it.

Mother Jones – Conservatives Are Hellbent On Attacking Critical Race Theory. They’re Whitewashing Structural Racism.
Quote – When asked about the most troubling thing politicians get wrong about critical race theory, Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Anti-Racist, told MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson it is the notion that critical race theory attacks white people, rather than interrogates structures of racism.
Click through for full article. It would appear that it is actually the Colonel Jessups of the world who “can’t handle the truth ” (If you say “2 +2 = 5” and I say “No, it’s 4”, that is not a personal attack. But that is how they are taking this.)

Huffington Post – Key House Dem Demands Answers About Prominent White Nationalist In The Air Force
Quote – The inquiry from Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), who chairs the military personnel subcommittee, concerns Airman 1st Class Shawn McCaffrey, a well-known white nationalist. McCaffrey graduated from boot camp in March, as HuffPost reported earlier this year, even as the military received a historic stand-down order so it could address the problem of extremism in its ranks. “I will be contacting Air Force leadership to find out why this individual ― who has his own author page on a website for far right extremists, describes himself as an ‘activist,’ and co-hosted a weekly podcast in which he attacked Jews, women, LGBTQ+ people, the U.S. armed forces, and many others using unacceptable slurs ― remains on active duty and under review given the very public and abundant evidence of his extremist ties,” Speier said in an emailed statement.
Click through for details. So many good people in Congress and we only hea about thr dorks.

Food for Thought

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Video Thread 6/15/21

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 152021
 

Glenn Kirschner – America Is Back:

The Lincoln Project (released yesterday)

The Franklin Project – Good leaders keep us on track. Good citizens keep them in check.

Now This News – Ohio GOP Backs New Restrictive Voting Bill – MY SOS tells it like it is.

Puppet Regime – Authoritarian Airlines

Liberal Redneck – Flag Day

Corey Ryan Forrester – an a capella country song for Pride month (NSFW)

Beau – Let’s talk about Trump vs McConnell in 2022….

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Open Thread for June 15, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 152021
 

Well, still a little bit of tenderness and temperature around the injection site – but my actual normal temperature is so low that slight increas is probably right around normal. I’m now feeling confident and won’t mention it again unless something negative happens. So – now one to go. And now to business.

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Short Takes

New York Times – Warnings of Democracy in Peril
Quote: [Senator Angus] King [I-ME] said the only reason voters lacked confidence in the voting system was that Republicans — especially Mr. Trump — told them for months that it was rigged, despite all evidence to the contrary, and now continued to insist that there were abuses in the process that must be fixed. “That’s like pleading for mercy as an orphan after you killed both your parents,” he said.
Click through for the full article. There is a paywall but you get one or two free articles a month.

The 19th – Barack Obama: Women have found themselves “in an impossible situation” – from a socially distanced interview
Quote – I’m just incredibly proud of the kind of human beings Sasha and Malia have become. Of course, like all of us, they followed the protests around our country. They got involved. And we had conversations about all of it. My advice to them is the same as it is to all young people, which is that protesting — raising public awareness, putting a spotlight on injustice, making the powers that be uncomfortable — that kind of civil disobedience couldn’t be more important. Throughout our history, that has often been the only way to get the political system to pay attention to marginalized communities. But eventually, I tell them, movements have to be translated into laws and policies — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands. Basically, my advice is to reject the false choice between participating in protests and politics. Do both!
Click through for the rest of what made it in to the interview.

Rolling Stone – Al Franken – Tax the Rich! Also the Very Affluent! But Mainly the Rich!
Quote: Biden is eager for the infrastructure bill to be a bipartisan effort, however, and has been negotiating with Republicans to find a deal everyone can feel good about. But if the Obama years are any indication, Republicans will only feel good if a Democrat in the White House fails. So we shouldn’t hold our breath. Democrats can pass an infrastructure bill through the fast-track reconciliation process if they need to, which only requires a simple majority of 51 votes to pass, which still may prove difficult but is a lot more doable. Because Mitch McConnell naturally doesn’t like any of Biden’s big plans one bit.
Click througfh for a very clearly explained article.

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