Assassinations – Politics Plus

Open Thread June 17 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:58 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 172025

Yesterday, A federal jury found that Mike Lindell defamed Dominion Voting Machines (in the person of its former CEO Eric Cooper.) The headline said he was found guilty, but defamation is a tort, as opposed to a crime, so I don’t think guilty is the correct legal term. The award was $2.3 million. I doubt Lindell has that much any more than he has the $62.7 the case was filed for. Lindell has, of course, been shown up for the liar that he is, but I’m not holding my breath for MAGA to be convinced of that.

After referring to Evan Hurst’s “The Moral High Ground” Substack, I came a cross to a specific article there which sounded good, so I checked it out, and here it is.

I’m sharing “The Week Ahead” on Tuesday, not because I don’t think everyone’s heard about Senator Padilla – the could only have been missed by political illiterates – but because she explains why Judge Breyer scheduled a hearing over the California National Guard case, and I’ve seen a lot of people who are literate politically but legal procedurally not so much asking why and noting that it seems like a concession to the regime. Since there is sound reason, and also since there are still people who are incensed at the Biden DOJ because the Clementine Caesar is not behind bars right this minute, I thought I should share that. Being furious with people who are on our side doesn’t help either our mood or our motivation. And prosecutorial and judicial decisions can look wimpy if one doesn’t know the reasons – and I’m as guilty as anyone. Yes, I’m discovering that I have a little authoritarian in me too – it’s not dominant, but it’s there. Anyway, the short answer in this case is that he is looking to the long run. But Joyce has the details as to why. (It does require a scroll down to get to it. I don’t know why she would expect a response from either Tuberville or Britt.)

The F* News has the skinny om the Boelter arrest (and more.) I already have come to the conclusion – for some time now – that religion is not the problem that people without it think it is. There is a problem, yes, but it’s not so much the religion as it is the misuse and abuse of religion. This is not an original thought of mine. For just one example, G. K. Chesterton said it, not in my exact words but still pretty clearly (and eloquently), in the Father Brown story “The Sign of the Broken Sword.” It’s actually been said a lot, but you may not see or hear it unless you are looking for it.

Belle GOP regrets

Dog/Cats

Open Thread June 16 2025

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

Jun 162025

Yesterday, I saw Virgil and we played cribbage. Though it was Father’s Day, there was only one inmate in the visiting room whose visitation included a child. That doesn’t mean necessarily that he was the only father who was visited – visiting is also allowed on Friday and Saturday – I just prefer Sunday because the traffic is calmer. There was a little bit of rain on my way back (maybe even a little hail – but if so, very small – maybe pinhead size.) And neither the rain nor the hail lasted long at all.

Evan Hurst is a staff writer for Wonkette, but he also has his own Substack called “The Moral High Ground.” (And there’s always a link to it at the end of his pieces, including this one.) I think everyone who is progressive has moral reasons for that stand, but we don’t always appeal to them when discussing politics – and I’m not saying we should, but maybe we should think about it. As you can tell even just from the title, “moral” doesn’t necessarily imply “respectable word choices.” And that, I think, is a good thing.

Yes, I learned about these shootings on Saturday, but I wasn’t about to put this in Sunday’s post. I will only add to Joyce that Melissa Hartman was not just a representative, but also a former Speaker of the Minnesota House. So much for “Minnesota nice.” (Or maybe that only applies to the DFL party.)

Open Thread October 22 2024

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

Oct 222024

Yesterday, The technician came to install what was necessary for the phone and internet to work. He arrived exactly at the start of the time window I was given, and I think finished up a little early. So I am actually typing on a windows 10 desktop. I don’t promise to stay on Windows 10 (not, I suppose, that there’s any difference readers could see), but most of my information is now on both computers (technically, on separate portable hard drive of which each has one, and yes, I did that in advance and it took forever,) so I can start transitioning in earnest. Also, I received 2 emails from the Election Department – first that my ballot was received, and the second that it had been counted. Yippee: I can put up that “I voted” sticker now11/

Heather Cox Richardson writes about control of the Senate – why it’s so important, how it is determined, how the 2024 election could affect it, what the Republican Party is doing to influence the election, how events in the 1890’s led to the passage of the 17th Amendment, and why the events of that decade resemble events today.

Recently, I started a subscription to the newsletter of “The F*cking News” whose motto is something like “If you prefer your news delivered with profanity, this is the news for you.” I can take or leave profanity, but I do like the attitudes and world views which lead journalists to use profanity, so I thought I’d give it a go. This report which headlines my first newsletter from them (and also the page to which it links – they are apparently using old print newspapers’ quaint habit of putting multiple unrelated articles on the same page) doesn’t have much profanity but it is chock full of attitude, and presents demonstrable facts from a perspective of the appropriate reaction to them.

PHP is a programming language used to build websites. We have it at all through our hosting partner, BlueHost. In order to update it, we have to go through Bluehost. During his life, TomCat was the only one who had access to our account there. I (JD) am now the only one. I have been to BlueHost and investigated updating our PHP to 8.3 or even to 8.1. I found instructions to do so - in fact, I found two conflicting sets of instructions. I went through one set of the steps and got the message that Our site could not handle 8.3, but that it had successfully updated to 8.1. I then went back here to see what it looked like. But I couldn't get in - either as an administrator or as a reader. It was just gone. I had to reach BlueHost by phone. It was determined that Politics Plus is in fact not compatible with any version of PHP newer than the one we have. BlueHost therefore uninstalled it for me, and the site came back to normal. Of course, like everyone else, I care about security. But I also am aware that TomCat elected to use different providers for several of the services that BlueHost provides, for instance backups. We are backed up daily - but not by BlueHost. However, out PHP is through Bluehost. I feel that if they are not worried about the older version, I am not going to worry about it. I believe that our security here is all or mostly through WordFence, whom I trust.