Open Thread June 30 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 302025
 

Yesterday, I saw Virgil and we played cribbage. The drive down was clear and sunny, with the sun high enough not to be a glare issue. But when I left, it was pouring in the parking lot, and by the time I got to the car I was drenched. And I stopped for gas because I has planned to, and really, really didn’t want to run out of it in the rain. Of course that was under cover of canopies. Thankfully, it didn’t last all the way home, but gradually tapered off. By the time I got to the county line I was wishing for my sunglasses, and put them back on at the next red light. Also yesterday, I saw this – has anyone else seen this information anywhere? It seems important.

Emil Bove’s hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee was last week. John Thune intended to “start” voting on the Big Brutal Bill Friday. That may or may not have occupied the Senate all weekend – but while they might work overtime for that, I doubt they’d work overtime for a confirmation hearing. So I figure today to be the first possible day for Bove to face the full Senate. If it hasn’t happened yet, so much the better. Here is advice from Joyce Vance on how to present your objections to him to your Senator(s.

This from The F* News regarding not just Mamdani but specifically how politicians are reacting to him after his primary win is IMO relevant to what David Hogg is trying to accomplish (Mamdani was endorsed by Hogg and may even have been recruited by him). I think it’s pretty clear that party leaders who will congratulate but not endorse him are not taking that position on account of his youth. I don’t think they are even pretending to. Not that they should. Honesty is the best policy, as usual. But it does show we are not as united as we may appear to be because in opposition to Trump**(*) and MAGA, we are united.

This link goes to a donation page at Act Blue which appears to be the only way to see a 16-minute documentary video based on an investigation by More Perfect Union into why a Kentucky county which had voted Democratic for 144 years instead voted GOP in 2024. The report won an emmy, so it’s not just me who thinks it’s worth watching. A donation is not required to do so.

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Open Thread June 19 2025

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

On Tuesday, Joyce Vance wrote about the legal status of the Minnesota shootings, and I want to link to it without discussing the content. In the email, there was an understandable conflation of the Hoffmans and the Hortmans, but it has now been fixed at the site. Also yesterday,  Tucker Carlson, while interviewing Ted Cruz, actually made sense.  Watch out for airborne pigs.

I can see I’m going to have to start paying more attention to The Lever Report. This is pretty scary.

I can’t summarize this from HuffPost any better than by quoting the first two paragraphs: “The first U.S. pope is a citizen of Peru, and the first U.S. bishop he appointed is a refugee from Vietnam. And next week, that bishop is urging his fellow priests to stand in solidarity with migrants by showing up to immigration court proceedings. – There may be a pattern here.”

The Reich on the Left is, as usual, right. This is important.

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Open Thread May 21 2025

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

Yesterday, As I was going through my emails looking for news, my radio station began to play Gustav Mahler’s “Resurrection” symphony. And it put into my mind another comparison between Jesus and the Mango Monarch. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection.” Trump**(*) said, “I am your retribution.” It might make a decent meme, but I don’t think I could stand the process of looking for the right pictures – of either of them actually – Christian art can be (not always , but you’re bound to trip over it) so saccharine I’d worry about getting diabetes.

This by Dan Froomkin is also from last week. It’s from Substack, but if you look at the URL, you will see it’s a bit different from the usual Substack URL. I don’t know whether Froomkin or Substack made that decision, but I concur with it.

Also from last week, this one from the F* News. You may know about the MRFF (Military Religious Freedom Foundation) – I did – or not, but you may not know about The Orders Project – I did not – and both are doing excellent and important work. Also, there were very few comments when I read it, but 50% of them expressed relief to learn they exist – and we all need some relief – not complacency, I don’t mean that, but we don’t need to feel like everything depends on us alone either, when in fact there are other people doing work, and in many cases work which is critical but for which we may not be suited.

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Open Thread April 14 2025

 Posted by at 5:56 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 142025
 

Yesterday, John Fugelsang in his podcast had as guests God and Jesus from the “The God Pod” podcast. Like John himself, The God Pod is apparently serious but doesn’t take itself  seriously. I think it will make you laugh; it did me. It’s under 10 minutes and I wished it was longer. Also, Trinette was by to take my recyclables out (and trash if I had enough, but I didn’t.)Some weeks I have more that I need help with … but much or little, we enjoy each other’s company.

I hate to break it to pro-lifers, but – oh, wait, that’s not true. I am delighted to have the opportunity to break this to pro-lifers. There is another situation in which a fetus, or even a baby, is not a person. See today’s cartoon. It doesn’t appear that the medical people are using this as a defense, although they may well be and it didn’t get into the article. But this whole case is a strong argument for not letting celibate men (which, by the way, Scripture does not call for) decide the morality of reproductive matters with no input from women or even from married men.

I would file this CPR story under “No s**t, Sherlock” – but it seems to have escaped a lot of younger people, including highly educated ones, whose education may be somewhat deficient in history. In an autocracy, you don even need to f**k around to find out. Doing your job to the best of your ability appears more than enough.

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Open Thread April 5 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 052025
 

Yesterday, Meidas Touch Substack posted a (just over 20 minute) video of a conversation between Ben Meiselas and Gavin Newsom. If you have raised your eyebrows over a few remarks he’s made or things he’s done lately, this might be a good place to come for clarification (though you may still not agree). I didn’t find a transcript, but there is a text summary and a large load of comments.

Colorado Public Radio (although just about everyone has the story) provides evidence that bipartisanship may be on its last legs and gasping for breath, it’s not dead yet. And if it’s saved, it may well be women who save it.

This from Democratic Underground (originally from the Atlantic) has been around for a couple of months. It doesn’t appear to me to have aged at all, so I’m putting it out now.

This from DU, on the other hand, is new. It puts us, and particularly our government, to shame.

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Open Thread March 17 2025

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

Yesterday, I hadn’t heard from Trinette, so I called her, and she’s fine – and out of state at a family gathering of some kind. And she sounds good. She has the same kind of post-nasal drip cough from allergies that I chronically have, which is annoying, but not dangerous (and by the ime of day I called, it would be gone for the day, and it was, for both of us). She was going to call or email, but with traveling (she drove) and all, time just got away from her. I’m just relieved to know she’s alive and well.

As Wonkette says, “[Y]ou can’t negotiate with bullies.” You also cannot appease them. If you try, they will simply take you for a sucker, and easy mark, and demand more and more. Columbia apparently is entering the FO stage of FAFO – and make no mistake, appeasement and attempted appeasement count as FA. Just ask Neville Chamberlain.

I would hope that this, as reported by Joyce Vance, would lead to any not-already-purged prosecutors resigning in protest. If there are any such. On the other hand, their loss would be incalculable. I don’t really know what to hope for. Other than impeachment – and that’s a whole nother can of worms. Really other than “Didn’t anyone besides me and holocaust survivors see this coming?” I don’t know what to say.

Belle setups

Cat & chicks+

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Open Thread February 25 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 252025
 

Yesterday, I had not even finished with Sunday’s emails, and then I slept in even more than I planned to, because, after being drowsy all day, I still had some difficulty getting to sleep Sunday night. So a lot of them from both days went into my files without being read first. Also, just for my own satisfaction, I looked up “musk” (little “m”) at Wikipedia. I’m old enough to remember when natural musk was still in use and notable mainly for its unpleasant odor. But the etymology was new to me, and amusing.

I’ve been seeing a fair amount of articles headlined that the Mango Monster was recruited as a Russian agent in the 1980s, which in itself is pretty old news. When I did a search (I use DuckDuckGo) I found that many of the articles dated from 2017 or 2021 – I did say this was old news. In order to fins a new (within 3-4 days or so) take, I had to use the search term “Krasnov.” Before sharing one of these, I checked the reputation of the outlet on Media Bias/FactCheck. Yahoo news is listed as having a Left-Center Bias (based on the subject matter of articles) and high credibility (meaning MBFC could not catch them in any false “facts”.) I take the Bias score with a grain of salt, based on my belief in and understanding of the saying “reality has a liberal bias.” But the point is the fact checking and the credibility. I also looked at Snopes on the story – they can’t actually prove – or disprove – any of it so there’s that. I probably don’t need to say that all of this took some time. But I wanted to get it right. I also decided to use the meme from “Know Your Meme” as today’s cartoon. I cannot argue with it.

It’s Tuesday, a bit late for Joyce Vance’s The Week Ahead – but then, with all the chaos, looking at the week ahead is no longer a matter of looking at schedules, but more of a guessing game of “What fresh hell will this be?” (apologies Dorothy Parker.) So I thought it worthwhile.

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Open Thread January 16 2025

 Posted by at 6:07 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 162025
 

Yesterday, I learned from Steve Schmidt a word which is new to me – “capitulant.” I had to look it up to see whether it existed, and it does (although auto-corrupt doesn’t believe it LOL). But it is actually a noun designating a person or group who capitulate. It appears in Steve’s title that he is using it as an adjective. I don’t know why he didn’t just say “capitulating” instead. Also, I don’t know why so many people are losing their minds afbout the Smith report saying “evidence sufficient to convict.” The first rule of being a prosecutor is “if you don’t have sufficient evidence toc convict, don’t indict.” And Smith is an experienced prosecutor and a good one. From the moment he issued an indictment it should have been obvious that he had the evidence. And also, since apparently our pictures are going to keep getting stretched, I am trying out today using a squished version of our logo and see whether it stretches into something more normal. Since I forgot to put up all our authors pictures in December anyway, if it does, I’ll squish those and put them in on January 31 this year also. (And this time I’ll put that on my calendar.) Also, it appears that a ceasefire agreement has been reached in Gaza. That is a big deal, and it came out mid-afternoon, so y’all probably are already aware of it. But just in case anyone missed it.

This is the Wonkette article from which I posted a link to a graphic from yesterday. I said then it was packed with information, and I was not just whistling Dixie. You may prefer to save or bookmark it and digest it slowly than attempt to react to it right away.

So – Why Greenland? Crooks & Liars has the bottom line – and that’s what it essentially is – the bottom line. We may need to resist this one more loudly before we wake up one day to find that the Apricot Antichrist has invaded with no advance notice.

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