GOP Fascism – Page 2 – Politics Plus

Open Thread September 17, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:03 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 172023

Yesterday, the radio opera was “La fille du régiment,” by Donizetti. This is a cute and funny opera, which is known outside the opera world for two reasons. For one, it is the opera which contains the aria which gave Luciano Pavarotti his nickname, “king [or admiral] of the high C’s.” (In this recording, it was, as it often is, encored. And then, just for a little more fun, in Marie’s singing lesson, they substituted “La Vie en Rose” for Donizetti. (It really isn’t possible to go over the top with this opera, since it’s over the top to begin with.) The other is that it is the opera in which Ruth Bader Ginsburg was given her first speaking cameo. {I’ll spare you the search – the link on her name is to the review, and here are links to video of the beginning and the end of the cameo. She wrote her own lines and spoke in English. Her reference to Marie’s birth certificate is not in the libretto, but is a poke in the eye at “birtherism.”) The comic plot centers on Marie (the daughter of the regiment) who was found as a baby and adopted by the regiment and raised as a tomboy. All grown up now, she falls in love with a local boy, Tonio, while the regiment is atationed in the Tyrol, and he with her. But the Regiment has sworn that she may only marry a member of the regiment. So Tonio signs up – just as a noblewoman (the Marquise of Berkenfeld) discovers that Marie is actually her illegimate daughter (though she says “niece” at first), and sweeps her away. Her mother hopes to get her married to the son of the Duchess of Krakentorp (which is where RBG comes in.) This would be a horrible fate, but it is sabotaged by Marie herself, her lover, the rest of the regiment, and especially the senior sergeant of the regiment, Sulpice (a charming role for a baritone – they are so often stuck playing the bad guy.) So all ends well. While I was listening, and checking my email, Robert Reich also cracked me up. He apologized profusely for missing his regular Saturday column, listing all the reasons why (all beyond his control, but he insisted he should have foreseen them) and ended by saying his New Year’s resolution is “to stop blaming myself for events over which I have no control, and to recognize when I have no control.” Right. Good idea, Bob. Good luck with that.

Cartoon – 17 new Norton (+JNY)

Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – Plans For A Trump Dictatorship Are Already Drafted
Quote – There’s enough precedent — both historical and current — to show how dangerous this moment is, and what lies on the other side of the tipping point. It would be checkmate for democracy, perhaps permanently. I don’t think this will happen, at least not this time around. But the blueprint for seizing the reins of power has been in plain sight for some time. Then last week, an article in the Associated Press (AP) put it on the front burner.
Click through for details. It links to the AP story, should you want to pursue it further. Sorry it’s such a downer. But if we don’t know, we can’t fight it.

NBC News – Rep. Mary Peltola’s husband dies in plane crash in Alaska
Quote – “We are devastated to share that Mary’s husband, Eugene Peltola Jr. — ‘Buzzy’ to all of us who knew and loved him — passed away earlier this morning following a plane accident in Alaska,” Peltola’s chief of staff, Anton McParland, said in a statement. Responding to requests for comment, the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board said in separate statements that a single-engine plane crashed after takeoff around 8:45 p.m. Tuesday near St. Mary’s, a small city in western Alaska.
Click through for story. I suppose there are things happening which affect more people, but what hurts an at-large Democratic Congresswoman from a state with two Republican Senators and IIRC a Republican Governor hurts us all.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 8/5/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:00 pm Open Thread, Politics

Aug 052023

I think I can see why Glenn is doing posts a bit fewer and farther between. I hope y’all are OK with the substitutions]
Talking Feds – Trump Indictment Reveals TERRIFYING SCENARIO We Narrowly Avoided

The Lincoln Project – Whining GOP, Indictment Number Three

Thom Hartmann – How Dictators Manipulate Your Brain Using Science!

MSNBC – ‘Deranged and deluded’: Republican strategist slams ongoing GOP ‘stolen election’ conspiracies

Pittie Is Terrified Of Kittens

Beau – Let’s talk about an old car and Smith’s indictment of Trump….

Video Thread 7/27/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:42 am Open Thread, Politics

Jul 272023

Glenn Kirschner – 8 SEARCH WARRANTS were obtained in investigation of Trump’s documents/obstruction/espionage crimes

The Lincoln Project – #HitlERA

PoliticsGirl – Dear White Women

Parody Project – Pence Man

Summer Campers Find Out They’re Going Home With Rescue Puppies

Beau – Let’s talk about the Michigan elector claims getting strange….

Open Thread July 26, 2023

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

Jul 262023

Yesterday, Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letter from an American” for the previous night turned out to be a bit unsettling. Netanyahu has managed to push a measure through the Knesset limiting the power of the courts (to check excesses by the executive. It look like “Fascist Jewish State” is no longer an oxymoron. The letter also highlights, I’m sure without intending to, the superiority of the Political Compass, with its four directions, over the left-right distinction to describe political positions. Heather has to say “hard right” when what she really means is “authoritation right,” which I realize is longer, but has an exact definition, which “hard right” does not, and is therefore more clear. Also, as if that wasn’t enough, she touches on Abbott’s war crimes, Gym Jordan’s House Judiciary Committee, and Russia both bombing Odessa and raising the upper limit draft age. Here’s the link in case anyone wants a deeper dive (and hopefully isn’t too depressed already.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Common Dreams – Heatwave Chevron? As US Bakes, Former Meteorologist Names Heatwaves After Oil Companies
Quote – “I’m naming heatwaves to highlight this worsening climate problem and perhaps save lives by getting the public to focus on this weather threat,” [Guy Walton] wrote in an April blog post. “This year I’m naming major heatwaves after oil companies to shame them in the process and to identify culprits that are exacerbating these deadly systems.” Heatwaves are the deadliest type of extreme weather event in the U.S., according to The Weather Channel, killing more people on average each year than tornadoes or hurricanes put together. Yet they do not receive names like hurricanes or wildfires, and some experts have argued that changing this might help people take them more seriously and save lives.
Click through for story and evidence. The concept is not original to him – Seville in Spain has been doing it – but IMO it’s a good idea whose time has come.

The Inquirer – Why are Texas and Florida building their own large, sadistic armies?
Quote – This crucible of blood and bone is playing out against the cold slashing metal of barbed wire strung out along the Rio Grande River that divides the United States from Mexico in west Texas. The actors are a new breed of troops, accountable not to Washington but to an ambitious Republican governor in Austin, enforcing his Fox News bromides with brutal force.,,, In a story first broken by the Houston Chronicle’s Benjamin Wermund, based on a whistleblowing email from a state trooper complaining of inhumane conditions at Eagle Pass, and then amplified by the Times’ reporting, we’ve learned the past week that troops under the massive Texas state border operation dubbed Operation Lone Star are committing shocking acts that arguably add up to domestic war crimes.
Click through for details. The obvious answer to the question in the headline would appear to be that two governors (two for now, anyway) want to be absolute monarchs in their states and are forming armies to enforce that. But we can’t rule out the possibility that, unchecked, we could be looking at potential insurrection. And a possible shooting Civil War – again.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 7/16/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:51 am Open Thread, Politics

Jul 162023

Glenn Kirschner – Trump files brief in Georgia Supreme Court demanding they STOP DA Fani Willis from indicting him

The Lincoln Project – Blood in the Water

Talking Feds – Merrick Garland’s RARE Appeal of January 6th Sentences in BAD NEWS for Trump

MSNBC – Rep. Raskin: Trump’s devolved GOP into ‘authoritarian cult’

Hyperobject Industries – A Love Letter from Darth to Exxon

Rescue Kittens Love To Ride Around On Dad’s Shoulders

Beau – Let’s talk about Biden’s briefing booboo…. 😀

Video Thread 6/4/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:01 pm Open Thread, Politics

Jun 042023

Glenn Kirschner – Trump can’t find classified document he stole; DA Willis goes all RICO; Pence cleared of wrongdoing

The Lincoln Project – DEE/DUH-Santis

Thom Hartmann – Did An 80 Year Old WWII Warning Predict America’s Descent Into Fascism?

Armageddon Update – Ai, Ai, OH NO!!!

Baby Owl Goes Everywhere With Her Family

Beau – Let’s talk about Trump’s Day 1 promise….

Open Thread May 22, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:13 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 222023

Yesterday, I had an uneventful drive both ways and enjoyed (as I always do) my visit with Virgil. We played Scrabble again – finished three games and almost finished a fourth (which we knew we wouldn’t finish whwn we started it, so we relaxed the rules to save time – accepted foreign words not in common use and some acronyms – I was wishing we’d done that sooner, because at one poit in one of the first three games I had 2 F’s along wirh an A and an O, and oh, how I wanted to use “FAFO.”) Anyway, Virgil returns all greetings. When I got back I noticed I have some deep purple irises blooming in a flowerbox at the far corner of my front yard. I’m supposed to have one more day before it starts raining again, so maybe I can get out there and brng a couple in. Only one iris has showed up in the bed by the porch, and right now it has zero buds, and isn’t very tall, but looks healthy otherwise. I scraped a little dirt away to try to get some sun on the rhizome, which hs necessary for them to bloom. We had had so much rain last week that the earth was still soft, and so much dryness today that I could use my fingers without getting muddy. I don’t know whether I did it soon enough or well enough – we’ll have to wait and see. I do want to share a delightful graduation photo of Mary Trump’s daughter Avary, which she posted oon Twitter and someone shared at DU. Mary Trump’s father was a decent human being,unlike the rest of the family that we know of, so of course she is too and I assume her daughter as well.

Cartoon – 22 abraham-lincoln

Short Takes –

Media Matters – Conservative pundits are increasingly open about who they think should be killed
Quote – The two stories illustrate a growing trend in right-wing media to argue that the deaths of marginalized and criminalized populations are not only justified but actually desirable, whether those killings are carried out by the state or by vigilantes. Bloodlust is nothing new in right-wing media. From the proto-fascist Father Charles Coughlin through Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, conservative pundits and writers frequently fantasize about violence aimed at their political opponents or marginalized people. In 1989, Donald Trump, who was a media personality for decades before entering politics, called for the execution of the wrongly convicted Central Park Five, a group of Black and Latino teenagers railroaded into false confessions by the New York Police Department. The conservative ecosystem made a celebrity of Kyle Rittenhouse — who killed two people and injured a third during an August 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin — and tried to justify the killings of Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, and Eric Garner.
Click through for article. I think I agree that it’s getting worse, but for me it’s just an impression since I, as the saying goes, “don’t watch Fox for the same reason I don’t eat out of the toilet.”

https://crooksandliars.com/2023/05/republicans-take-next-step-book-ban-laws
Crooks & Liars – Republicans Take Next Step In Book Ban Laws: Jailing Librarians
Quote – Terrorizing librarians is the obvious point. If they face terrible consequences from putting any books on shelves that someone might find “harmful,” they’re more likely to avoid any risk of that in the first place. Or to put it another way, the censorship will stop before the material is on the shelf.
Click through for story. I knw, I know, this has been going on for centuries And it’s stil awful, and it’s never going to be anythng other than awful.

Food For Thought