Cartoon – Page 107 – Politics Plus

Open Thread for June 30, 2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 302021

Last night’s opera, “Doctor Atomic,” was about the making and the first testing of the atomic bomb. You may say, “Well that sounds like a weird choice of subject,” and I won’t disagree. But it works. And it even manages to show respect to the indigenous Americans in and around the area of Los Alamos. The character of Pasqualita, the Oppenheimers’ housekeeper and nanny, is given an absolutely gorgeous aria representing Native American prayer and respect for the land. Meredith Arwady, a true contralto (they are not all that common), made her Met debut in this role in this production. Though serious, the opera is not without humor. For one thing, Edward Teller is present as quite irreverent (probably accurately), and for another, the character of General Groves is given lines from the actual general’s journal expressing his discomfort with the weight control program he was involuntarily placed on. And, of course, just about everyone’s favoriet line – “With respect, sir, anyone with two good eyes could havefound Los Alamos just by following the trail of beer cans from Santa Fe.”

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Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – Fox News Host Celebrates FL Building Collapse As ‘Shining Moment’ For DeSantis
Quote – “Another thing I gathered from watching these press conferences is the leadership of Ron DeSantis,” she said. “We’ve seen him be a leader so many times, time and time again. This is also another shining moment for him. And I can’t sing his praises high enough.”
Click through if you can stand to. I haven’t addressed this in part because structural engineers were discouraging speculation about the cause(s). But this is so Republican!

Raw Story – Right Wing Watch reinstated after YouTube experiences massive backlash – Well, this came rapidly.
Quote – “We are glad that by reinstating our account, YouTube recognizes our position that there is a world of difference between reporting on offensive activities and committing them,” said PFAW in a statement on their website.
Click through for more.I am saving both links (YouTubr and Vimeo) – for now, the newest ones are on Vimeo only.

PolitiZoom – WATCH: MAGAs Left Trump’s Ohio Rally In Droves Because He Wasn’t ‘Radical’ Enough For Them
Quote – This could be some kind of a turning point, the MAGAs deciding that Trump just isn’t crazy enough for them anymore. Trump’s going to have to go waterskiing and jump a shark, literally. The phrase, “jumping the shark” “is an idiom used to describe the moment of a misguided attempt at generating new publicity for something once, but no longer, widely popular; the attempt serves instead to highlight the irrelevance of what it intends to promote,” according to Wikipedia.
Click through for more (and I also have a pdf – PolitiZoom doesn’t seem to like all browsers, so if you can’t get through, let me know and I’ll send it). Maybe we were wrong to snicker; maybe we should have panicked (or at least gone into alert.) Because if he isn’t radical enough for them, there are others who are.

Food for Thought

Open Thread for June 29, 2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 292021

The opera last night was “Marnie” – based on the same bool as the Hitchcock movie. It premiered in 2019 to good reviews and good audience response too. So it’s very new. (I’m a fan of the mezzo-soprano for whom it was written, Isabel Leonard, and was lucky enough to get to see her in person in another new opera, “Cold Mountain,” when it premiered in Santa Fe.) I’m sure the movie left out things that were in the book, and the opera has left out things from both, but it’s still a plenty twisted story.

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Short Takes –

The New Yorker – Out-of-Practice Trump Forgets to Strand Rally Crowd in Parking Lot
Quote – “People have come to expect that, at the conclusion of one of our rallies, they will be marooned in the middle of nowhere for hours, often in inclement weather,” Harland Dorrinson, a Trump aide, said. “On Saturday night, we didn’t get it done.” Dorrinson said that the entire Trump team would be conducting a postmortem of the rally to find out why attendees were able to leave the event without incident.
Click through for details. Andy, it’s harder to strand a crowd when it’s small to begin with and much of it gets boored and leaves early.

Daily Beast – YouTube Permanently Bans Right Wing Watch, a Media Watchdog Devoted to Exposing Right-Wing Conspiracies
Quote – “What are we going to do?” he asked. Launched in 2007, Right Wing Watch has posted thousands of clips of prominent right-wing figures making controversial comments, perhaps most famously including televangelist Pat Robertson and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. In fact, Right Wing Watch’s exposure of Jones’ false and conspiratorial rhetoric was key to YouTube and other social-media platforms eventually removing his channel InfoWars from their sites. Notably, many of the right-wing outlets and personalities that Right Wing Watch chronicles are not currently suspended or banned from posting content to YouTube, while RWW has been booted for merely exposing their comments and content—something Mantyla noted as being particularly ironic.
Click through for full story. This is NOT good news. They are still on Vimeo, at least.

Independent – GOP senator says roads and bridges are ‘a woman’s problem’ because women ‘do the shopping’
Quote – “My wife says that roads and bridges are a woman’s problem if you will,” said Mr Cassidy. “Because oftentimes it is the woman – aside from commuting to work – who’s also taking children to schools or doing the shopping…. And the more time that she spends on that road, the less time she spends doing things of higher value,” he added.
Click through for absolutely not satire. Yes, Senator, women are human beings, and human beings need roads and bridges. (And your wife sounds brainwashed.)

Food for Thought

Open Thread for June 28, 2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 282021

I’m trying to get little smarter about finding the news,since letting it come to me is not always enough any more. We’ll see how it goes in the long run. We can be glad Colleen is recovering even though the recovery is not yet complete. I also heard from Carrie B last night, and she has a couple of spots on her face which she worries may be cancerous, and is stalled waiting for a referral to a dermatologist. Prayers for her please.

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Short Takes –

Axios – Bill Barr on Trump’s election fraud claims: “It was all bullsh*t”
Quote – Barr said that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had been urging him to speak out against Trump’s false claims since November but would not do so himself. McConnell did not want to upset Trump as he needed Trump to campaign in Georgia. “Look, we need the president in Georgia,” McConnell said, according to Barr. “And so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”
Click through for as much of this profile in cowardice as they are willing to print from a book not yet released

Insider – 14 years after a sexual assault in Tampa, a man has been charged with rape because he entered his own DNA into a genealogy database
Quote – DNA evidence was collected at the time but did not find any matches, and the case remained unsolved for more than a decade. In 2020, however, detectives revisited the case and began to search genealogy testing databases, including GEDmatch and FamilyTree, two services often used by people who are researching their ancestry, to find potential matches…. Florida was the first state to establish its own forensic genealogy unit in 2018. Similar units have since been created in California and Utah to solve cold cases.
Click through for more. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, even to Florida.

The Guardian – Rattlesnakes everywhere: the odd consequences of California’s drought
Quote – Surprisingly, disease-carrying mosquitoes, which most people associate with wet times rather than dry, thrive in cities during times of drought when waters recede and grow still. Webb explains that human-made structures like pipes, pits and ponds are prime spots for stagnant water to become a breeding ground for the insects. “Fish and other animals that live in these systems die and the mosquitoes have free rein”.
Click through for details, and a multitude of consequences, obviously, of climate change. And yet, some still deny it.

Food for Thought

Open Thread for June 27, 2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 272021

Yesterday was strange – not that nothing happened around the nation and the world, but that so many of the things that did happen were so odd. We can blame climate change for some of it, but not for all, certainly. I think I remember that Colleen’s delayed surgery was for carpal tunnel or somethiing of the sort – if so, she may be recovering just fine but not feel up to commenting yet. I hope that’s the case, but also hope to hear soon.

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Short Takes – News of the Weird today!

WFAA – ‘Once you see one, you’ll see another’: Have you seen one of these worms in your yard? They’re toxic. Here’s how you deal with them.
Quote – “The way this flatworm harms our ecosystem is it eats earthworms, which are necessary for our forests, our crops…our gardens to survive,” Morgan-Olvera said, “In order for it to digest earthworms, it secretes a chemical, or a neurotoxin, and that can cause an allergic reaction on your skin if you’re handling it.”
Click through for full story, including what – and what not – to do.

NBC News – Vehicles stuck on Detroit freeways after torrential downpour
Quote – [I]t was predicted that the city would get close to two inches of rain Friday night, but nearly seven inches fell. “The intensity of these storms exceeded the design standards for pump stations and combined sewer overflow facilities serving the Detroit region,” Brown said at a press conference on Saturday. There was so much rain that there was nowhere for the water to go, he explained, other than flooding streets and basements.
Click through for more. (But there’s no such thing as climate change. Right.)

NextShark – Australian Woman Who Woke Up From Surgery With Irish Accent May Be Stuck With It for Life
Quote – This week, Yen underwent a brain scan which confirmed “nothing wrong.” But she was diagnosed with Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS), a rare medical condition that may be triggered by neurological or psychological damage, according to speech pathologist Kirrie Ballard. “Foreign Accent Syndrome is a legitimate disorder. It’s described as a person’s speech changing, so that it sounds as though they’re speaking in a different accent to their habitual accent,” Ballard told 60 Minutes.
Click through for the story. Bizarre, but true. And it says a lot about how we humans treat each other – none of it good.

Food for Thought

Open Thread for June 26, 2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 262021

Colleen was expecting to get released after her surgery around 3 or 3:30 pm. i’m hoping she did – but I also realize that there are many benign reasons whay that may not have happened. My day here was quiet enough. I hope everyone will be kind to b=me and overlook typos, duplications, and whatnot for a week starting monday, as the Met streams 7 American operas, one each day, for the week. I’ll try not to slack off, but I may be a wee bit short on sleep by Sunday.

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Short Takes

The Hill – Department of Justice sues Georgia over voting law
Quote – The suit was announced alongside another initiative from the Justice Department to battle rising threats made against local election officials. A memo from Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco establishes a task force across the FBI, as well as DOJ’s criminal division, the civil rights division, and the national security division.
Click through for the full article.

The Hill – Chauvin sentenced to 22.5 years prison for murder of George Floyd
Quote – Per state guidelines, the maximum sentence for unintentional murder in the second degree is 40 years, but because Chauvin has no previous criminal record, the presumptive sentence is 12.5 years, with an acceptable deviation range of 10.67 years to 15 years. But because Cahill agreed with the prosecution’s aggravating factors motion, the judge had the discretion to increase the sentence.
Click through for more, and of course it’s also being reported elsewhere.

Politico – Graham: Biden made GOP look like ‘f—ing idiots’
Quote – “If he’s gonna tie them together, he can forget it!” Graham said. “I’m not doing that. That’s extortion! I’m not going to do that. The Dems are being told you can’t get your bipartisan work product passed unless you sign on to what the left wants, and I’m not playing that game.”
Click through if you don’t mind thir format which makes it a bit tough to be sure you’re still in the same article. (Personally, I’m all for any Dem who can make the GOP look like – what he said.)

Food for Thought

Open Thread for June 25, 2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 252021

I know all our thoughts are with Colleen, but there’s still some news too, and some commentary. Thank God It’s Friday. I guess.

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Short Takes

Washington Post – States across the country are dropping barriers to voting, widening a stark geographic divide in ballot access
Quote – Seventy-one new laws easing voting rules are poised to benefit 63 million eligible voters in 28 states, or about one-quarter of the U.S. voting population, according to the Voting Rights Lab report, which tracked policy changes as of June 13. Thirty-one new laws in 18 states create more barriers to the ballot box, affecting 36 million eligible voters, or 15 percent of the national voting population, the report stated. Legislative debates over restrictions are underway in key states such as Texas and Pennsylvania, leaving open the possibility that new limitations affecting millions more voters still will be enacted this year.
Click through if you don’t mind fighting a paywall. Bottom line, it’s somewhat bleak,but not all break.

CNN – Why Democrats were desperate to win Joe Manchin’s vote for an already-doomed election bill (opinion)
Quote – See, now all 50 Democrats will vote to move forward with election reform legislation and all 50 Republicans are expected to oppose that move, Democrats can then go to their base ahead of the coming 2022 midterms and say something like: Every single Democrat wanted to make elections more fair and open. And every single Republican stood in opposition to that effort.
Click through for full analysis. He may be right, or there may be more, but this theory falls in well with Auntie Maxine’s vide vote request.

Crooks and Liars – Ohio Republican Who Forged His Father’s Signature To Vote Twice Calls It ‘An Honest Mistake’
Quote – “It was there with a pile of other paperwork,” Snodgrass said of the absentee ballot. “I was sleep-deprived and not thinking clearly. But I’m not going to run away from it. I was simply trying to execute a dying man’s wishes,” he added, saying that it would be wrong to characterize what he did as “just Trump voter fraud.”
Click through for a little more. Sadly they must be saving his picture for the poster for IOKIYAAR.

Bonus Headline: Americans Shocked to Learn That Giuliani Had Law License (Borowitz) You can click through also.

Food for Thought

first they came for Rudy Giuliani’s law license, and I did not speak out- because I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t catch my breath. also, fuck that guy

— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) June 24, 2021

Open Thread for June 13, 2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 132021

One down, one to go (Moderna)! I didn’t even bleed, so refused a BandAid (having heard an anecdote about someone who thought she was reacting to the shot only to rememner she had not removes the BandAid, and it was the problem.) I also didn’t even feel it. But enough of that now. If you notice a theme today, you are correct.

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Short Takes

The Hill – Garland sparks anger with willingness to side with Trump
Quote: The progressive watchdog group Revolving Door Project is tracking court cases that the Biden DOJ inherited from Barr and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Among those cases, which are largely lawsuits filed by advocacy groups and congressional committees, the new administration has sided with the previous one in about a dozen.
Click through for more … but not, alas, for the number of suits that “about a dizen is out of. I’d like to know that, as well as the res of all of them.

Mark Karlin for Daily Kos – This is his letter – it’s an open letter – so I can only presume he sent a hard copy.
Quote: You of all people know that you are in an increasingly hot seat because many Democrats are fearful that once again a Republican president may be getting away with lawlessness due to a Democratic tepidness that doesn’t want to look back, and to your role as head of the Department of Justice that wants to defend institutional precedents — even if they were grossly and repeatedly violated by Trump, Sessions and Barr.
Click through for the whole letter.

Bad News, The DOJ Is Just The Start

PolitiZoom – Bad News, The DOJ Is Just The Start. This is yet another takeon what is happening in the DOJ. Again, I have a pdf if anyone needs one.
Quote: Actually, I feel kind of sorry for Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco. They thought that they were being brought in to clean up a train wreck, only to arrive on the scene to learn that after the wreck, two 777’s collided overhead at 30,000 feet. And the scary part is that they’ve only turned over the first shovel full of wreckage.
Click through or let me know and I’ll email a pdf.

Food for Thought:

Video Thread 6/9/21

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 1:00 pm Open Thread, Politics

Jun 092021

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ Holds Press Conference on Colonial Pipeline Case – Remains Silent on Insurrection Investigation (Glenn’s frustration is showing – not least in that he [I assume accidentally] allowed his ending to also start this video.)

Meidas touch – We saw this ad when it posted to their YouTube channel – I of course included it in this thread at the time. Now push has come to shove.