Open Thread for October 3, 2021

 Posted by at 7:02 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 032021
 

Yesterday, when I got up, I had internet. Yay! That meant I could have opera. Every Saturday all year round, someone broadcasts a full opera. But it isn’t always my local station, whoch only broadcasts the New Yorkk Metropolitan Opera, roughly November theough May. The rest of the time it is broadcast on WFMT out od Chicago. They mke it available to any station who wants to broadcast it too, but it costs money which my local station doesn’t have. But it can be streamed on WFMT. So I did. Not, of course, before coming here to make sure everyone knew I was all right.

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Short Takes –

Mother Jones – Trump Extremists Brought Numerous Guns on January 6, Evidence Shows
Quote – Kellye SoRelle, a lawyer who represents the Oath Keepers organization and is close with Rhodes, told Mother Jones in an interview that an Oath Keeper member transported a cache of firearms by truck from North Carolina to the Comfort Inn Ballston shortly before the assault on the Capitol. The member who transported the weapons then stayed at the hotel to oversee the stockpile, SoRelle said. (That Oath Keeper member has not been charged; although Mother Jones corroborated various details from SoRelle’s account, we were unable to confirm that member’s identity.) SoRelle herself may be a subject of growing scrutiny from federal prosecutors; as Mother Jones was first to report recently, the FBI seized SoRelle’s personal phone on September 7 as part of an ongoing “seditious conspiracy” investigation focused on January 6.
Click through for what details there are. It actually sounds like we only know about a fraction of the guns which were there. Film at Video Thread (or at the link.)

The Hill – Where Things Stand With The Democratic Agenda: A Pause, A Reset And Maybe Hope
Quote – Afterward, Biden told reporters he was in no rush to pass his agenda, saying that whether passing both bills takes “six minutes, six days or six weeks ― we’re going to get it done.” In a sense, this week’s drama represents a triumph for progressives and party leaders over centrists. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the Democrat who has been most vocal in opposition to the Build Back Better bill, still has a lot of leverage ― but not as much as he did before.
Click through for the story and analysis. The Hill is about as liberal as Joe Scarborough … but even The Hill is talking about “hope” like it’s the good thing that it is.

Wonkette – David Brooks Actually Right About Thing, Wants To Build Back Better Too
Quote – David Brooks is actually right this time. Sort of. He’s about the most right David Brooks is capable of being. Brooks published a column yesterday about the Build Back Better reconciliation bill titled “This Is Why We Need to Spend $4 Trillion.” It seems fair to say that if David Brooks, a man who cannot figure out how to politely say “It’s ham” to a friend bewildered by sub shop options, can figure out that this bill is actually necessary, anyone ought to be able to.
Click through for the rest of the take. This is by Robyn Pennachia

Food for Thought –

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Personal Update for October 2, 2021

 Posted by at 9:25 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 022021
 

Good morning, all – I’m alive, but my imternet died.  I called a friend whose internet works and asked her to sent an email, and she was able not only to do that but to get to my provider’s troubleshooting website (she doesn’t use the same one) and learn there was an outage in my are ant they hoped oet it fixed by 11 pm/  They didn’t.  They didn’t get it fixed by midnight.If they had, I would have gotten something up.  At that point, I really needed sleep, and jusa got up.  Thankfully, it is back!  I will have at least a partial Video Thread, because I alreadt=y had some picked and ready.  I also already had the cartoon picked, so here it it.

I am fine, Virgil is fiune, and returns all greetings.

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Open Thread for October 1, 2021

 Posted by at 7:28 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 012021
 

Yesterday, I put everything physically in place to go quickly in the morning. I’m not expecting to need to take off my sweater then I leave. After tomorrow, it’s supposed to warm up some here, but not, for the next week, to ever break 80°F.

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Short Takes –

The Hill – Jan. 6 panel subpoenas 11, including Pierson, other rally organizers
Quote – Each of the 11 individuals is identified by the committee as having been involved with the Women for America First-sponsored rally where Trump spoke on Jan. 6. “You assisted in organizing the rally held on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, in support of then-President Trump and his allegation of election fraud. President Trump spoke at the January 6th rally shortly before the attack on the Capitol, urging the crowd to ‘fight much harder’ and to ‘stop the steal,’” the committee wrote in letters to each.
Click through for names. Note that the Congressinal select committee, while it has powers, does not have judicial powers. It can’t indict, or try, or convict, or sentence. The best it can do is to refer its findings to those who can do those other things.

Wonkette – Huzzay! We Shan’t Have A Government Shutdown Tonight! Probably!
Quote – This is where we reassure you that for years now, Congress has passed continuing resolutions to keep the government funded at current levels, often on the day a shutdown would otherwise kick in, and the only times there’s been an actual shutdown have been when the threat to force a shutdown was telegraphed well in advance. Then again, this is 2021, so we can’t completely rule out the possibility that once the CR is passed by the Senate, the entire House side of the US Capitol may be spirited away by Tralfamadorians in flying saucers, leaving President Joe Biden without a bill to sign. But that seems at least only a 30 percent possibility at the moment.
Click through for story. Every publication has its own house style (some more distinctive than others), and also individual writers’ treatments of the house style. This article is by Doktor Zoom. By the time you see this, you will know whether or not a CR has been passed.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 30, 2021

 Posted by at 7:01 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 302021
 

Yesterday, I focused on getting prepared to go see Virgil tomorrow. I also heard from Pat B that she will be missing tomorrow. I promise a post, but I don’t promise a full one. I also promise a video open thread, but it may be short as well.

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Short Takes –

HuffPost – Alabama Wants To Use Its COVID Relief Funds To Build New Prisons
Quote – Sandy Ray, the mother of an inmate killed in a state prison in 2019, came to the Statehouse Monday and showed lawmakers a photo of her son’s battered face following an altercation with guards. New prisons might help, she said, but there needs to be broader changes, otherwise it’s, “still going to be the same problems in the new buildings.” “They are still killing people in the prison system and it’s worse than it was in 2019 when my son died,” she said.
Click through for story and rationales.

Mother Jones – In California’s Water Wars, Nuts Are Edging Out People
Quote – Irrigating the valley’s farms takes 89 percent of the region’s water (compared to just 3 percent for residents). Embedded in what’s essentially a desert, San Joaquin’s vast agriculture industry relies on two sources for this liquid sustenance: snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountain range that forms the state’s eastern spine, and underground aquifers that have developed over millennia. Farm operations receive the great bulk of the melted snow, shunted through a complex of dams, canals, and aqueducts. But because of climate change, the annual Sierra Nevada snowpack has shown a declining trend for years—and will likely dwindle further over the next several decades, a growing body of research suggests.
Click through for details. This is a serious story, and I hope y’all will pardon my frivolity, but what drew me to this story was the applicability of the title to the entir country. (Wing) nuts are edging out (normal) people everywhere one looks.

NM Political Report – Chipmunk subspecies only found in the White Mountains could be listed as endangered
Quote – The three units proposed for critical habitat include Nogal Peak, Crest Trail and Sierra Blanca. The lands are both federal and tribal. The tribal lands belong to the Mescalero Apache Tribe. The critical habitat includes Ski Apache Resort in the Sierra Blanca unit. According to the notice published in the Federal Register, the chipmunk has been seen at Ski Apache Resort on Lookout Mountain and the summer activities at the ski resort, including maintenance, can negatively impact the chipmunk. The Fish and Wildlife Service has had conversations with the Mescalero Apache Tribe, according to the notice.
Click through for more. Greedy and powerful people don’t give a tinker’s dam about unintended consequences … which is why we have to.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 29 2021

 Posted by at 7:02 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 292021
 

Yesterday, my grocery delivery came quite promptly (in the first hour of a four-hour window) and I got everything put away quickly except the shelf-stable beverages – and I did get those in, and have room to store them, they’re just heavy. Also, we heard from WWWendy. Please check out yesterday’s open thread for her comment.

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Short Takes –

The Hill – Biden sidesteps GOP on judicial vacancies, for now
Quote – There’s no Senate rule that requires Biden get buy-in from GOP senators on who he nominates. But a Senate precedent known as the “blue slip” gives home-state senators tremendous sway over who gets nominated for district court vacancies in their state and the power to block nominees they oppose.
Click through for explanation. In politics, everything is a gamble, but this seems reasonable.

Democratic Underground – Schmidt: The “TRUMP COUP MEMO” should be an occasion for a giant, collective, national time out.
Quote – There now exists in the public realm, documentary evidence, a written plan to kill it off and replace it with something new. It was written by the Presidents atty and presented to the President. Trump took that paper and turned it into a weapon, a poisoned shiv and stuck it into the rib cage of American Democracy. He twisted it, crazed with rage that he had been rejected and repudiated.
Click through for the full thread – that’s what this is, a Twitter thread unrolled for easy reading. Schmidt knows whereof he speaks.

Twitter Threadreader – Harrowing account of effect of UNVACCINATED on hospital ICU capabilities
Quote – In August my dad was living independently in rural New Mexico, as he has for years, in a beautiful place with a view of the mountains. He got vaxxed against Covid as soon as it was available, wore masks, and was waiting out the pandemic like the rest of us. Then, he had a fall.
Click through for (tissue alert) story. This is another Twitter thread opened for easy reading. In case it gets taken down before you get to it, there is another copy here which won’t.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 28 2021

 Posted by at 7:24 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 282021
 

Yesterday, I did finish organizing my evening meds. I also placed a grocery order to be delivered today. I even worked a little bit on that front panel I mentioned last week. It rained a little, which is now supposed to continue for a few days.

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Short Takes –

The Hill – Biden administration moves to preserve DACA after court ruling
Quote – A federal district judge in Texas ruled in July that the 2012 DACA program violated the Administrative Procedures Act. The decision left intact the program’s benefits for some 600,000 people otherwise unable to obtain legal status after being brought to the U.S. as children. But it blocked any future applications, leaving thousands of young immigrants in limbo.
Click through for story. The delay from July to now is because it was appealed. But this is good news.

The Daily Beast – Arizona Dems Threaten Sen. Kyrsten Sinema With No-Confidence Vote
Quote – “The Arizonans who did the work to elect Sinema have had enough of her betraying the voters who put her in office. It’s time for her to show the bare minimum of accountability and stop obstructing the agenda that Democrats, including her, campaigned on and were elected to deliver. Sinema is setting her political future on fire. If she doesn’t change course drastically and soon, it will be too late,” Kai Newkirk, a Democratic organizer in Arizona, told The Daily Beast.
Click through if you like – It doesn’t go into the consequences of such a vote.

The Guardian – John Hinckley, who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan, to be freed from restrictions
Quote – The US district court judge, Paul L Friedman, said in Washington during a 90-minute court hearing that he would issue his full ruling this week. “If he hadn’t tried to kill the president, he would have been unconditionally released a long, long, long time ago,” Friedman said. “But everybody is comfortable now after all of the studies, all of the analysis and all of the interviews and all of the experience with Mr Hinckley.”
Click through for details. Actually, he probably was never quite as insane as present-day MAGAts are. But I would still be nervous if I lived nearby.

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 27, 2021

 Posted by at 6:42 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 272021
 

Yesterday was fairly quiet. I organized my morning meds for the next two weeks (which I should have done Saturday … but that’s why I keep an extra) and I’ll organize the evening meds today (which I should have done Saturday, but that’s why I keep two extras.)

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Short Takes –

PoliticusUSA – Sidney Powell Implicates Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Justice Alito In Plot To Overturn The Election
Quote – Sidney Powell is not a reliable narrator, but her point, if true, is that the purpose of the 1/6 attack on the Capitol was to buy time so that Justice Alito could intervene and block the certification of the election.
Click through for actual wording. Isn’t this … interesting.  And then there’s this.

Crooks and Liars – Biden White House Won’t Assert Executive Privilege To Help Donald Trump
Quote – This was the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War and we need answers. Let’s see where this goes….with the subpoenas flying fast, I suspect we will get our answers about Executive Privilege pretty quickly, especially when they start wanting to talk to Donald Trump and his kids directly.
Click through for what details exist. IANAL, but those who are point out that (a) he can claim executive privilege regarding what happened during his administration, and (b) though he can claim it, it is not automatic, as some things are not subject to it, and that is not his decision to make.

AP News – In redistricting, big say for big cities in DC power balance
Quote – Robust growth in the liberal strongholds of New York and metropolitan Chicago are poised to give Democrats an edge as their political maps are redrawn to adjust for changes in population over the past decade. While both New York and Illinois are losing congressional seats, their urban booms mean the newly drawn districts are likely to favor Democrats, adding to the party’s national total and making up for probable losses elsewhere.
Click through for more information. I certainly hope this analysis is on point. (I have hopes for my state as well, but those are unrelted to this.)

Food for Thought –

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Open Thread for September 26, 2021

 Posted by at 7:04 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 262021
 

Yesterday, the opera was Pelleas et Melisande by Debussy. The libretto is symbolists, so Debussy was a good choice to complse it. I decided to make one last stab for this year at a cotton knitting project, and started on it. I may end up postponing finishing it until next year, but I hope I can finish the fron panel at least, which is based on the idea of a “Log Cabin” quilt block. The back, collar, cuffs, and hem are plain.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The Hill – Executive privilege fight poses hurdles for Trump
Quote – “For example a former president’s privilege claim is deemed much stronger if the current president supports it,” she added. “We’ve never been in a situation where there was a prior claim that was not supported by the incumbent, because presidents, when it comes to their turn to be the former president, they want to be able to do that same thing.”
Click through. To be pellucidly clear, he can claim executive privilege for any douments prio to noon on Jan. 20 But it isn’t a matter of claim and have. Some things are not subject to executive privilege. Like crimes. Someone other than he must look at the documents and determine whether they are subject to executive privilege or not (and most, if not all, won’t be.) And, of course, for anything after noon January 20, executive privilege cannot even be claimed. And President Biden has publicly stated he will not claim or support executive privilege for Trump**. Snicker.

Reuters – Germans vote in close election to decide Merkel successor
Quote – After a domestic-focused election campaign, Berlin’s allies in Europe and beyond may have to wait for months before they can see whether the new German government is ready to engage on foreign issues to the extent they would like. The splintered political landscape means a three-way coalition is likely. Final opinion polls gave the Social Democrats a narrow lead, but the conservatives have reduced the gap in recent days and many voters were still undecided.
Click through for details. We knew she was retiring – and now it’s here. She helped us survive Trump** as much as anyone outside could. I wish her the best in her retirement, as well as a worthy successor.

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-india-mumbai-narendra-modi-da976c8f8aa7ca02c2193b56c3408a08
AP News – Mystery solved: Biden gets proof of family ties to India
Quote – “And although we never admitted it … I’ve found out that there was a Capt. George Biden who was a captain in the East India Tea Company in India,” Biden said. He appeared to be referring to the British East India Company, a commercial power for centuries that controlled trade in colonized India and parts of southeast Asia. Biden, who frequently talks of his Irish ancestry, quipped that the British connection was “hard for an Irishman to admit.” Biden, who has told versions of the anecdote to Indian audiences before, said Capt. Biden “apparently stayed and married an Indian woman” but he’d never been able to nail down further details.
Click through for story (though not complete genealogy.) Nikke Haley and Bobby Jindal, eat your hearts out.

Food for Thought –

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