Animals – Page 56 – Politics Plus

Open Thread February 15 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:12 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 152025

Yesterday, my email included a Valentine from Eric Swalwell’s dog, Penny. That was a refreshing break from the rest of it. I can’t even begin to go into all the crap that’s going on. Of course, that’s the plan, and to a degree it’s working. But I’m slogging on. I do want to share that I watched most of a short video sharing, on the basis of an interview with someone who knew the family, that Dork Vader’s parents were Nazis (technically Nazi sympathizers in Canada) who apparently were too chickens**t to move to Germany, but instead moved to South Afrika because they also supported the Afrikaaners (in other words were racist.) My browser kicked me off before it finished, so I don’t have the link, but it was on the “Occupy Democrats” channel, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. For one more upbeat (or at least humorous) item, here’s Andy.

Joyce Vance provides enough information to charge Patel criminally with lying to Congress. But it’s foregone that this DOJ will not do that. And she also singles out DOJ employees who have spines and are, therefore, sadly, no longer part of DOJ.

I seldom share petitions, in large part because Freya does such a good job of it I don’t feel I need to. But this one is one that shouldn’t be missed

I couldn’t decide between these two stories, so I’m linking to both. In a way they’re related. One is about the Forest Service and the other about the Park Service, and, since one is from The F*News and the other from Wonkette, both have sardonic (a word you may be seeing a lot here) headlines. Also, both deal with the nightmarish, 1984 like, concept that we must all be identical or we’re not American, when the exact opposite is more in line with who we are supposed to be, as Americans, and as humans.)

Open Thread February 14 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:55 am Holiday, Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 142025

Yesterday, having gotten my Windows 8.1 back on the internet Tuesday with the help of a technician (I knew it was an ethernet cable that wasn’t plugged in, and I even knew which cable but I had no idea where it should go), I went to the 8.1 first to deal with emails. I had 99, and in under an hour I got it down to 44, and that included not just deleting, but unsubscribing where appropriate and signing all petitions – and even adding back in a couple of thanks for signing emails. It is so much faster than the Win10 – and my browser there doesn’t keep bumping me out of the Net. There are a few things I like about 10, like being able to make the mouse pointer both large enough for me to see it and changing to contrasting colors so it jumps out. And there are some things it can do that the 8.1 can’t. But it is so slow. The technician couldn’t get my second and third phone handsets working, but he did explain why (essentially my phone lines are inside the walls) and what I can do about it – several options – and I went with the cheapest and easiest, ordering some new equipment, even though that means I have to wait a bit. It will give me more and better control in the long run. In other news, Josh Hawley said something which was not only intelligent, but Constitutional, and even moral. To reach it at this link you need to scroll down past the second Aaron Ruper Xeet five paragraphs – the one with the quote begins with “This culminated in…” I think you’ll find it worth it. Hawley said it in a Xeet of his own, and I won’t go there, nor make you go there. Finally, for Valentine’s day, the Holocaust Museum has love stories to share. Here’s one.
https://statuskuo.substack.com/p/the-last-guardrail

This from The F* News is more about Musk than Trump** – and possibly more scary, although that’s close to a toss-up. This certainly lays out the grounds for calling Musk “Dork Vader.” The cartoon below is from Steve Schmidt – I don’t know whether he made it, but he owns it, since he is not just allowing but encouraging anyone who sees it to spread it widely.

Doktor Zoom at Wonkette takes on the confirmation of RFK Jr sardonically, as is to be expected. In a separate Substack, Andy Borowitz advises that the NAFD (National Alliance of Funeral Directors) publicly applauded the confirmation. I don’t know about them (assuming they exist, which, Andy being Andy, is not terribly likely), but I do know and am embarrassed to say that the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) is happy with the confirmation (I unsubscribed when they wanted me to ask my Senators to vote to confirm Bobby. ANH has some good ideas, but also some terrible ones, and don’t know – and clearly a lot of member don’t know – where to draw the line.

Open Thread February 13 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:54 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 132025

Yesterday, VoteVets sent me an email containing their nickname for Elon Musk: “Dork Vader.” Who says military people have no sense of humor? And I did manage to get through my emails, though I had to speed through a lot of them.

All I can say is that, even if you already thought that ICE was nothing but a bunch of malicious bully Keystone Kops, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. But then, what else could anyone expect from this administration?

Cutting federal funds for medical research is personal to all of us, since any of us could at any time be stricken with some disease or condition which is the subject of research, on which our very lives might depend. But it’s also personal to Joyce Vance in a different way. I’ll let her explain.

Open Thread February 12 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 122025

Yesterday, I learned that Deb Haaland who was Interior Secretary under Biden is running for Governor of New Mexico. Katie Porter has already endorsed her. Now I have too (for what that’s worth.)

I’m an unpaying subscriber to Andy Borowitz, and that means that, at least on Sundays, I don’t get the whole story. Last Sunday, his post was a letter from Richard Nixon to Elon Musk from hell. I was able to read his introduction, but nothing of the letter. I thought at the time, “I’ll bet that’s priceless.” Well, Robert Reich certainly thought so. He shared the whole thing. It’s NSFW, as you’d expect from Nixon. Enjoy it.

This is John Pavlovitz at his most powerful. Giving us permission to hold individual voters accountable. Not that we need it from him – unless we are not yetgiving it to ourselves. Sometimes good people are held back by also being nice people. We can stop that now. (Healso dais, in a separate post, that it’s OK to be exhausted.)

The F* News also had a lot to say, in this case mostly about litigation and the ways in which both very different sides are reacting an responding to it. Given that in the current administration, and the makeup of the House and Senate, any halfway decent national news is more likely to come from the courts than from anywhere else, concentrating on the courts is probably a good idea. I mean, you’ll get the poisonous news that way too,but with a potential antidote as well

Open Thread February 11 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:54 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 112025

Yesterday, I started the day with only 80 emails (of course more same in, but gradually.) A lot were responses from petition recipients – including 5 from just one Senator (I expect my other one will catch up eventually.) There was also one good laugh in there – Andy Borowitz’s news that Yambo has declared himself the Principal Ballerina of the Kennedy Center, purging most existing ones and blaming DEI for so many being women. I got the total down to 36 pretty quickly, and that included a few from Sunday.

Straight from The Root, a story from Black History which oddly is about a white woman. Weird, I know. But true.

Joyce Vance goes over a lot of what is happening and bring us closer to Autocracy (or Leucandrocracy). She encourages us all to stay strong, and ends with a little quote I had not heard before, but which I like so much I have put into today’s cartoon. Kudos if you knew it. Double Kudos (or Kudoi, which is the plural) if you also knew who first said it. In a separate email, she reported that The Democracy Index has been launched. I figured it would take some time from the planning stage.

Open Thread February 10 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:02 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 102025

Yesterday was the first day this year that the sun waited until 5:30 to set. So I stayed with Virgil till closing. I checked out there at 3:26 and made it home before 5 pm (20 minutes before, to be precise.) That does include putting the wheelchair into the back of the car, putting my car key back on its keychain, grabbing something for dry mouth, putting the driver’s license away, starting the usb sound player, switching glasses and grabbing sunglasses, etc., before leaving the parking lot, as well as stoplights and fire trucks along the way, and changing glasses again at home. Yes, I know trifocals exist, but I loathe them almost as much as I loathe contacts. We had an unusual day with cribbage today – all the best hands were in the cribs. That started with Virgil getting two double runs of three in the crib on the first hand he dealt, and just continued. It wasn’t every deal, but often enough to defy the odds, and pretty evenly distributed between us. Virgil’s pretty good but was having some back pain. He plans to see a medical person about it when that is possible. He says hi to all. I forgot to take out my home-frozen meal from the freezer yesterday or even this morning, so I had to thaw it in the microwave before I could heat it in the microwave. (When people get older, they start thinking more about the hereafter. I often go into a room and ask myself “Now, what am I here after?”) Also I should mention that I saw some advice for all of us to freeze our credit with all three bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) unless we are currently applying for any kind of a loan, secured (mortgage or car loan) or unsecured. It is free at all three, but Equifax is the easiest one to do it with – the other two tend to route you to paid subscription signups when you are looking for the free one – so Experian is the only one I have completed. I may need to use a different browser on the others, but I will get it done.

The Contrarian is already so much of a brain trust that I seldom know whether a given post is written by someone who is a staff member or by a guest expert. Regardless, Michael Podhorzer has a great point here. Labor unions – “civilian” (i.e. non-government workers) labor unions in particular, but also the ones for government employees and for people who are somewhat in between, such as public school teachers and nurses. He goes into detail which I won’t, but I do want to say, let’s not cross any picket lines – including virtual ones. Let’s punish Amazon for firing duly elected union leaders. Let’s penalize Starbucks for their egregious anti-union pushing (they ought to change their name to Ahabs – since that’s who they are more acting like.) King Soopers (which is Kroger) in Colorado has actual picket lines right now. I was willing to cut them some slack because Albertson’s frivolously sued them for deal breaking when the proposed merger failed – I say frivolously because it was the courts which really stopped the merger, as well they should have. But I’m not about to cross a picket line for them. If anyone knows of some I didn’t mention (I know they exist), please share in a comment.

I apologize for this being a video. I first saw it quoted, with a link to BlueSky, which I saved, but which now does not have the transcript of the letter. YouTube at least has that. And the video is not quite three minutes.

Open Thread February 9 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:04 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 092025

Yesterday, the radio opera was Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman”, which I’ve discussed before. It was the choice of Ryan Speedo Green, who picked it because of the performance of George London in the title role. London started singing professionally in 1945, debuted at the Met in 1951, retired in 1967, and died in 1985 after his third heart attack, so I mostly missed him. (I know a lot of earlier singers from my mother’s 78 rpm record collection and of course newer ones from my own listening and collecting. And that includes a couple of the other principals in today’s recording who worked longer and lived longer.) But Speedo was just the right age to hear his recordings while studying … and to enter a competition and get financial help from a foundation London founded, continued by his widow after he died. I’ve also discussed Speedo’s story, which I find incredibly inspiring, so I’ll shut up now. Off to see Virgil, will check in upon return.

Straight from the Root – a list (not inclusive) of companies which continue to support DEI – in fact, some are doubling down. Many are not useful to me, either because I don’t use what they sell, or because I have rejected them for some other reason, but that’s me. Also, they’re all huge. But you can always look up any company on the internet and see whether they have a DEI statement in their “about us” section.

Dennis Donovan at Democratic Underground shares a post from Norm Eisen (cofounder of “The Contrarian”) – it’s a few days old, but I haven’t seen it elsewhere (which may be just me – I had to skip a lot to get through all those emails.)

This is a 23 minute video (with not bad CC – a couple of clunkers easy to mentally correct) and I can’t – not that I would want to – make you watch it. But in addition to advice, it also has some hope. So I thought I’d add it to Sunday.

Open Thread February 8 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:06 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 082025

Yesterday, I had more than 100 emails come in, so I was overwhelmed even though I started the day with no new emails. I hope this doesn’t keep up. I also lost 3 hours waiting for a grocery delivery (at least when it came it had no substitutions and nothing missing, which helps.) Tomorrow I go to see Virgil. No snow or other potentially dangerous weather is expected. It should be cold, but that’s not a problem. The visiting room is kept so cold I always bundle up anyway. But of course I will check in upon return.

I’m squeezing this Joyce Vance article in today so it won’t spoil Sunday or have to wait for Monday. I hop eit will be helpful (and I hope the same for the next link.)

I previously shared Robert Reich‘s “What You Can Do,” so now that he has a “Revised and Expanded” version up, I thought I should share that as well. If he’s changed his mind about anything, there’s probably a reason, and we should know it.

Wonkette’s Doktor Zoom speaks about things schools are doing or trying to do to protect children from the horrors of the current Administration. Some things are easier to protect kids from than others, of course – somethings are harder that\n others to protect anyone from. But kudos to those who are doing their best.

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