Open Thread July 22 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 222025
 

Yesterday, as is usual for me on Mondays when possible, I relaxed a lot. I did order a grocery delivery for the evening, and received most of it, and put away most of what I received.

It’s been a long time since I heard from Margaret Atwood. She has written a new post called “The Woman Thing, Part 1”. Her starting point is pretty much where she left off earlier – the French Revolution (or Revvie.) That’s because she has been invited to create a video audiobook, has agreed, and has chosen “A Tale of Two Cities.” But I expect her to move on from there and provide insights few people could.

Joyce Vance takes on misogyny. We tried our best to warn people about all of this too. Someone in the comments, probably close to my age, says it is exhausting to think about having to do it all over again. Yes, it certainly is.

https://www.borowitzreport.com/p/obama-posts-video-of-trump-actually
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-barack-obama-ai-video_n_687dff31e4b0502d85e56715

This by Steve Schmidt is the big truth bomb of the day. Not that anyone should be surprised. Allow me if you will to compare humans to pit bulls. Pit bulls are basically big sweet goofballs. But pit bulls can be trained for dog fighting to be vicious killers. The people in charge of ICE detention are like pit bulls trained for dogfighting – all their grievances, both real and imaginary, have been catered to and they have been assured that nothing in their lives they don’t like is their fault, and that they have been terribly wronged. I dont suppose they have been taught much if anything in the way of specific torture techniques, but they are filled with anger and it’s not difficult to translate that into cruelty – in fact, it’s harder not to. Encouraging them to focus on wanting revenge (rather than actual improvements in their lives) has turned them into dogfighting pit bulls. Or, to use a different analogy, if anyone remembers, like those entities in Star Trek episodes who fed upon human misery and needed it to survive. I don’t know how to untrain them, or if it is even possible, but decent people need to know about evil things being done in our name.

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Open Thread July 21 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 212025
 

Yesterday, an email from the Dekleptocracy Alliance (AKA anticorruptionaction.org) pointed out that Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, has a $200 million contract with the Pentagon and is “is now being embedded inside our most sensitive military infrastructure.” It is an email only, so I cannot link to the full letter, but it does go on, and it doesn’t get better. It’s just an email, not a post, and there is no link to the full text; if there were, I would have posted it. Also, Trinette came by, to take care of some stuff that I can’t. And Virgil’s aunt called to say his stepfather had passed away. This was not unexpected, as he was 100 last December. I can’t call Virgil, but when he calls me I shall tell him. He’s been expecting it and I’ve been telling him that when it happened his aunt Donna would let me know.

If this reminds you of the opening of LesMiz – you are not alone. That was the first thing I thought of. “Look down, look down, sweet Jesus doesn’t care.” Rümesa Oztürk is Muslim, but the principle is the same.

I know there are hundreds and thousands of stories much like this. But one person’s story can speak louder than the numbers. You can be confident ProPublica is looking into as many as they are aware of.

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Open Thread July 20 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 202025
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was the second opera about Manon Lescaut. This one is called simply “Manon” and is by Jules Massenet. This is the version in which after des Grieux, her lover, has been kidnapped by his father and enters the seminary to become a priest (leaving Manon pretty much no choice except to hook up with the rich dude), she visits him in his church and you can guess what happens. The other two don’t spell that out. Also, in this version, she doesn’t even make it to Louisiana but dies en route to the ship which was to take her there. As I said last week, the stories are similar but not the same. About the music video  today – John D. Cundle is a Canadian who has produced and posted quite a little library of upbeat videos, many aimed at us in a friendly way. This is just one. It’s not satirical, although he also does satire. I also watched one about corruption, in which he appeared as “Judge Clarence.” I don’t know how much more pointed one can get than that.

This is about the Superman movie I discussed recently.  MAGA was all up in arms to boycott is as “woke,” and they may be doing so,  considering their attitude toward non-humans, including people they consider to be non-human.  I don’t see them responding in the way this article describes.

(Not paywalled, but you need to close a popup) This from the 19th is on Instagram. It is good news about a workaround.

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Open Thread July 19 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 192025
 

Yesterday, Talking Points Memo published Maurene Comey’s farewell letter to her colleagues at SDNY, fro BlueSky where it had been posted by some one from Lawfare. Whatever you may think of her father, the message is on point and worth a look. It’s in hte second section of their newsletter.

There is another national protest scheduled for a week from today. This one is sponsored by Families First and being publicized by Care in action. Families First is specifically trying at this point to protect domestic workers, many of whom are immigrants, documented or not. Yes, the Apricot Antichrist wants to rip children’s nannies away from them, Quelle surprise. The link to find an event is here. Also there are some photos for the most recent one here.

The F* News refers to Amanda Marcotte (of Salon), but doesn’t link to her – I don’t know why – maybe because Salon is paywalled if you go there too often – but I found the article and archived it. So if anyone wants to go straight to the source, here it is.

I cannot honestly say this article is encouraging. But it is honest and frank, and probably pretty much correct. Democratic leaders need to deal with the fact the most voters are not like good Democrats, who follow the facts enough to know that middle class and poor people are better off under Democratic leadership than under what passes for Republican leadership, and therefore it is in the best interest of anyone not a billionaire to vote in Democrats. On the contrary, far too many voters are far too easily swayed by appeals to their guts.

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Open Thread July 18 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 182025
 

Yesterday, I hope everyone who is willing and able found a protest to join, and did so safely (and had a great sign. And got home safely.) The Senate passed the bill to kill public radio and television, and sent the bill back to the House.

This story, newly released by The 19th, took a lot of time, multiple lawyers, even more proofreaders, and an unknown (but definitely non-zero) number of fact checkers to put together. I don’t know how alone I am in this, but I have a tendency these days to look at , for example, the UK, Germany, New Zealand and others and think they are ahead of us when it comes to eliminating misogyny. This story makes me seriously question whether anyone at all is at all ahead of us. That’s ugly, but we need to know the truth.

Other than the remark about Joe Biden’s intentions, which no one but Joe really knows, but I seriously doubt Hubbell’s guess, this is a real problem and good advice. I’m not sure exactly how an unimaginative person can be expected to acquire imagination (though I’d guess it isn’t something that can be done quickly, least of all instantly.) But we can learn to listen to people who have it without shooting them down as fantasizers.

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Open Thread July 17 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 172025
 

Yesterday, I had a good night’s sleep the previous night. I suspect because, though heaven knows I have plenty of stuff to worry about, major changes in my medications aren’t among them. Also, this from John Pavlovitz caught my eye, and since it’s in the periphery of politics rather than being actually political, I decided to put it in as an extra. It just makes sense that authoritarian men (and women) are weak, since they need the assurance of authoritarian power. Egalitarians would naturally be stronger, because by definitions they (we) have faith in their (our) own judgment.

This from Lever News has a few popups, including, ironically, one for a popup blocker. But they all closed and I could read the whole article. However, I went to archive.is for those who don’t like popups – and, also ironically, the archived version has a frozen popup – it only hides most of the title and part of a photo, and the article is intact. Either should work.

This is from the “Wolves and Sheep” Substack, which is not part of but does have a relationship to Bowers News Media, to which I do subscribe. It doesn’t state much, if anything, which isn’t obvious if you think about it. But who has time to think in this chaos? And there’s alwaus a need for Captain Obvious, because the obvious, exactly because it is obvious, can be difficult to see as obvious, as opposed to being a given (and therefore safe to ignore.) I for one am grateful that someone – someone on our side – is not ignoring it.

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Open Thread July 16 2025

 Posted by at 6:06 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 162025
 

Yesterday, after blood work last week, I saw my doctor again. Everything is pretty much smooth – even my blood pressure was 120/78. I don’t get readings that good at home. So my next appointment is in May ’26 for an annual. Also, I don’t know whether I have mentioned that, in Colorado, the names of the four seasons are Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Construction – but I certainly found that to be true today. Getting to the clinic I had to cope with four constructions sites – and that’s not counting the one I’ve been coping with since I’ve been using this location. One was only about half a block from my house. I did make it in time – and came home a different way – also with construction going on. So I’ll be giving Trinette a heads up, since this coming Sunday is the one she’s due to come over.

I found this Intercept article to be illuminating. Not just because I was not aware of the existence of the phrase it addresses (although I am aware of how much and how compulsively Republicans distort the meaning of any verbiage they think they can distort to produce anger and fear), but mainly because the response by Mamdani provided such a good example of how to resist that particular technique – and the kind of knowledge one needs to have (or get) in order to grasp what is really going on and do it right.

At this point in the coup, I’m ready to suggest that no Republican office holder should be allowed to go anywhere or do anything without eliciting some kind of Democratic response. f they are taking away people’s lives, livelihoods, and every smidgen of joy from anyone they don’t like, they really do not deserve any smidgen of joy in their own lives. Too bad about their families. They are hurting others’ families.

A lot of the time I don’t even bother to read emails with “notes” from Substack. For some reason I did – and one of them was this. You’re welcome to read all the responses – but the point of the short video is that all it takes to turn a Republican in a Democrat is an open mind, a tutorial on fact-checking, and applying that tutorial. Yeah, I know, the open mind is the hardest part. But it can happen.

Robert Reich is asking everyone who gets his emails to share this video as widely as possible. I’m not sure it will get through to any of those who need it the most, but I’m sharing it anyway, because why not do what he requests.

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Open Thread July 15 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 152025
 

Yesterday, Wonkette decided to quote La Marseillaise in its “TABS” email (the first of the day with links to other sources and just a little snark in the description) and threw in the clip from “Casablanca.” That scene is always a gut-punch for me, yet somehow in a good way, sort of like grand opera. (The young actress whose tears in the scene are so memorable was in real life a refugee. Those tears were real, and may not even have been scripted.) Also yesterday, this came out from Colorado Public Radio. Not that it’s news that we have crazy people in Colorado (particularly in the same Congressional District that Tina Peters is in.) Personally I would say he should never have been granted bail. And finally, July 17 – the 5th anniversary of John Lewis’s death, is July 17 (Thursday). National protests will be held. Here’s a link to find and RSVP to one.

This is good advice from Robert Reich – although I don’t think I’m quite capable of following it to the letter. I don’t feel I’m on the front line, but in more of a supporting role (which is nothing new. Most of the time I was in the Marine Corps the only women allowed in combat zones were nurses, and the Corps has no nurses, or for that matter, doctors. Medical personnel serving Marines are in the Navy.) The first Woman Marine assigned to a combat zone had been my platoon leader in basic training, and she had an administrative specialty, which is a command specialty, but not a combat specialty. Still a support role.) Support is important, but is less likely to make those filling it feel gung ho. But it is something i can do.

Joyce Vance writes primarily about measles and measles vaccinations here. But measles is only one part of the picture of disease, and disease itself is only one part of the picture of public health. There are also things like guns, floods, fires, toxic chemical exposure both knowingly and unknowingly (in which I would include recreational drug use), transportation crashes, other hazardous products, and more. I can’t imagine authoritarians caring a rodent’s posterior about any of them.

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