GOP Fascism – Page 4 – Politics Plus

Open Thread January 12, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:56 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 122023

Yesterday, there was news about Damar Hamlin. I didn’t report when he was moved from the hospital he was originally in to one nearer home, because he was still hospoitalized. But now, after probably every test they could come up woth, he has been released from the hosppitsl entirely.

You may see a theme in the short takes today. I am beginning to see some thoughtful reporting about what Republicans are threatening to do, and what they can’t, or, if they can, why it cannot have the effects they claim it will. However, if they are able to get control of all three houses (Representatives, Senate, and White), it will be a different story. Campaign 2024 begins now.

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Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – Democrats Have Little to Fear From GOP House Investigations
Quote – [McCarthy] announced Republicans’ intent to investigate everything from active criminal investigations being conducted by the Justice Department to “the withdrawal of Afghanistan [sic], to the origins of COVID, and to the weaponization of the F.B.I.” A resolution to create a special House Judiciary Committee “select subcommittee” to get this laundry list of investigations done will be voted on later this week. The intention to make this committee the Republican answer to the Jan. 6 Committee was made clear by Rep. Chip Roy’s disclosure that Speaker McCarthy has promised the select subcommittee at least as much funding and staffing as was given to the Jan. 6 committee.
Click through for details. The advice contained in this artocle is good, but probably unnecessary. No elected Democrat is going to be stupid enough to blow off a request from a lawfully formes committee just because it is made up of idiot and the request is laughable. None of us has anything to hide.

Crooks & Liars – No, House GOPers Can’t Block Additional IRS Funding
Quote – Maybe these Republicans would have been happier if they’d done high school theater when they were kids, and gotten it all out of their systems. Because there’s no way, no how they get to stop this IRS funding. They just have to be seen trying to stop it to make their donors happy!
Click through for exactly why not. (Not that you don’t already know this if you have ever seen Schoolhouse Rock.)

Food For Thought

Video Thread 1/3/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:52 am Open Thread, Politics

Jan 032023

Glenn Kirschner – Signs of hope and optimism that 2023 will be the year of accountability

Thom Hartmann – Did Corporate Personhood Turn Democracy Into Fascism?

Ring of Fire – Fox News Tries To Blame Pete Buttigieg For Southwest Airlines Disaster

Shirley Serban – Queen Parody Song for New Year 2023 – Another One Bites the Dust

This Dog Wouldn’t Leave Her Bed Until Her Foster Mom Brought Her Home

Beau – Let’s talk about what is and isn’t history….

Open Thread November 13, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:57 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Nov 132022

Yesterday, the radio opera was Charles Gounod’s “Romeo et Juliette,” recorded in China. Juliette’s opening aria, “Je veux vivre,” has been sung by finalists on many, many Miss America telecasts (I don’t know whether that still holds – I haven’t watched any pageants for a long time.) In any medium, this is a difficult story to tell, in large part because the protagonists are so very young – Juliet is not yet 14, and Romeo not much older. Any 13-year-old who can manage to sing that music, and project it throughout an opera house, should not be allowed to do so, because that much that young will harm the growing voice. (Anyone remember Charlotte Church? Hear of her lately? Well, in 2022 she appeards as”Mushroom” on The Masked Singer and took second place.) I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I have always thought the DiCaprio-Danes movie version came closest to nailing it – I thought at the time it was because they looked so young, but looking back, while their appearance helped, what really sealed the deal was their youthlul blocking and body language. Through most of history children were expected to behave like miniature adults; it’s only in the last hundred years or so that some cultures have recognized there are actual stages of development from child to adult, and it isn’t realistic for a child or a teen to behave adultly. If they try, they are going to appear awkward.

Also, late breaking from Axios: “Wins in Arizona and Nevada kept President Biden’s party in charge of the upper chamber while control of the House still hangs in the balance.” To be clear, add Wornock and we will actually have 51-49.

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Short Takes –

The Warning – American politics remains broken
Quote – American politics was broken before the Tuesday election. It remained broken on Wednesday morning. The MAGA extremist threat did not dissipate by failing to achieve its aims. The GOP/MAGA class of 2022 was a dangerous group of unfit extremists that has no parallel in modern American history. Collectively, their presence on US ballots from sea to shining sea amounted to indisputable evidence of national decay irredeemable cynicism, factionalism and cowardice.
Click trough for partial analysis. My feeling is that gross Republican misjudgment saved the election for us, and that the fact that control of both houses is so close should be terrifying. So I’ll be using the scary closer for a while yet.

Washington Post (gift link) – She decoded Nazi messages and helped win World War II. Now she’s 101.
Quote – The goal of the WAVES women was to save American lives by sinking German subs before they could attack Allied shipping. At first, news of a destroyed U-boat was cause for celebration. But it became more painful as the war dragged on and its human cost became more evident. Once, Parsons helped decode a congratulatory note to a German sailor at sea upon the birth of his son back home. A few days later, she learned the father’s submarine had been sunk, with no survivors. “To think that we all had a hand in killing somebody did not sit well with me,” she said. “I felt really bad. That baby would never see his father.”
Click through for full story. I’m still trying to feature some good news daily if possible. I am sure Pat B and I (both sea service veterans) are not the only ones who can appreciate her work. It can’t have been easy.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 11/11/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:56 am Open Thread, Politics

Nov 112022

Glenn Kirschner – Republican controlled House can NOT stop DOJ criminal investigations of Trump & his co-conspirators

The Lincoln Project – Who We Are

Ojeda LIVE – The MAGA-ploy in Wisconsin

MSNBC – Symone Sanders: People Need To Give Stacey Abrams Her Flowers

John Fugelsang – Jimmy Carter can Stop Trump!

Beau – Let’s talk about a future message from your daughter…. (Not what you’re probably thinkng, not aimed at us, but… hanky alert.)

Open Thread October 27, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:55 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 272022

Yesterday, the weather report said (my paraphrase of a graph) “There might be snow tomorrow [today now], but don’t hold us to that; it might just be a little rain.” Snow for Hallowe’en in Colorado used to be like rain at 5:00 pm on a Florida summer day – you could practically set your watch (time or calendar) by it. But that hasn’t been true for a while now. So we’ll see. Otherwise, a quiet day.

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Short Takes –

Letters From An American – October 23, 2022
Quote – In 1876, “Redeemers” set out to put an end to the southern governments that were elected in systems that allowed Black men to vote. “Rifle clubs” held contests outside Republican political rallies, “Red Shirts” marched with their guns in parades. Their intimidation worked. Democrats took over the South and created a one-party system that lasted virtually unbroken until 1965. Without the oversight that a healthy multiparty system provides, southern governments became the corrupt tools of a few wealthy men, and the rest of the population fell into a poverty from which it could not escape until the federal government began to invest in the region in the 1930s.
Click through for full letter. I learned about “Reconstruction” in school, but I never heard the word “Redemption” in that context. That they should use that word for what they actually did seems to me blasphemous. “Redemption” means “buying back.” Buying involves paying a price. They paid no price – they extorted a price from the powerless.

The Daily Beast – Florida Puts Raging MAGA Moms on Book-Banning Council
Quote – In the name of “curriculum transparency,” Florida’s Republican-controlled state government has appointed several anti-gay and anti-mask conspiracy theorists to take charge of a new effort at public schools: banning books. This hastily assembled censorship council—tasked with retraining public school librarians to abide by new restrictions—is the latest ploy in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ crusade to upend the state’s education system. But the council was also staffed under suspicious circumstances, with the state Education Department ignoring its own call for official candidates from local school districts and instead filling most of the slots with right-wing activists who have a history of proposing book bans. One was even nominated by a religious activist with close ties to the DeSantis administration a week before the department publicly called for candidates, according to government emails, hinting at secret coordination between them.
Click through for details. You can read or listen, your choice. Should Florida just change the name of its high schools to “Hitlerjugend” and be done with it?

Food For Thought

Video Thread 9/19/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:44 am Open Thread, Politics

Sep 192022

Glenn Kirschner – Judge Cannon, classified document denier; Governors Abbott & DeSantis & kidnapping by inveiglement

Meidas Touch – MAGA Republicans’ Trafficking Stunt BACKFIRES when Residents Welcome Migrants with Open Arms

The Lincoln Project – Big Problems (This one ends rather oddly – long black screen with music. Not sure what the point is. It’s plenty scary without that.)

MSNBC – Massachusetts AG Candidate Blasts Gov. DeSantis’s ‘Political Stunt’

Liberal Redneck – Immigrant Shipments

Beau – Let’s talk about the GOP needing more time for marriage equality….

Open Thread August 14, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:45 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 142022

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Almira” by Georg Friedrich Händel. It was his first, and he was so young when he wrote it that the libretto was in German (which is why I used the German spelling of his name – He was in fact 19), with recitatives in Italian (because he was at the time in Italy, studying Italian opera). The Early Music Society of Boston presented it in Bremen. It was 4 hours 30 munites long (in 1705 they didn’t have many other forms of entertainment to choose from or take up their time.) It’s about three couples, where the men are in love with the wrong women, and it’s complicated by Almira’s father’s dying wish, but everything gets sorted out at the end, through a twist much like Figaro’s birthmark. The music seems quite mature. The human brain may not fully develop until about the age of 25, but it appears that talent and creativity develop faster than logic and reason. If that’s an excuse for poor choices made by our ancestors, particularly in the areas of politics and gocernment, it should be no excuse for us. We live longer, and know better. But I digress. In 1712 Handel arrived in London, preceding George I by two years, where he remained the rest of his life, becoming a naturalized British citizen as George Frederick Handel. King George I latched on to him (as had Queen Anne) – though he had 6 opera coompanies, he also did a lot of work for the throne. There was a popular little verse abou him (similar to being a subjet of a meme today): “Some say compared to Bononcini that Mynheer Handel’s but a ninny. Other aver that he to Handel is scarcely fit to hold a candle. Strange that such difference should be twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.” As you see, it had a more lasting impact on the languange than most such verses Also (burying the lede), I got an email response confirming my visit to Virgil who is now in Pueblo (much closer). So I’ll be late commenting.

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Short Takes –

Robert Reich – The Worst Memo in American History
Quote – We almost take for granted big corporate money in American politics. But it started with the Powell memo. In 1971, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asked Lewis Powell, then an attorney in Richmond, Virginia (and future Supreme Court justice) to report on the political activities of the Left. Richard Nixon was still president, but the Chamber (along with some prominent Republicans like Powell) worried about the Left’s effects on “free enterprise.” … Powell urged businesses to mobilize for political combat.
Click through for what and why. The United States Chamber of Commerce is not your friend. This was the start of the path to Citizens United.

The New Yorker – State Legislatures Are Torching Democracy
Quote – Longtime Ohio politicians have been shocked by the state’s transformation into a center of extremist legislation, not just on abortion but on such divisive issues as guns and transgender rights. Ted Strickland, a Democrat who served as governor between 2007 and 2011, told me, “The legislature is as barbaric, primitive, and Neanderthal as any in the country. It’s really troubling.” When he was governor, he recalled, the two parties worked reasonably well together, but politics in Ohio “has changed.”
Click through for full reporting. Jane Mayer is very good at this, and in fact Steve Schmidt recommended this article. The trend may not surprise you, but how far it has come and how fast may.

Food For Thought