Open Thread August 1, 2023

 Posted by at 6:07 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 012023
 

Yesterday, as I had predicted, I slept in hard. And woke up feeling pretty good, both physically and attitude-wise. Today is a new month, and I already have all the cartoons checked – Of the 31 TC had for this month in 2015, 29 are usable, and I have already made the other two.  On to September!

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Wonkette – DA Fani Willis Said The Fun Will Begin In August. Guess What Month Starts Tomorrow, Donald Trump?
Quote – Just as last week’s indictments were coming down, news was coming out of Atlanta that they were starting to put up barricades around the courthouse. Why? Because it’s Fuck Around And Find Out Summer! Plus, Willis had already said the fun was going to start in August. Now, there are a couple more fun new developments on that front…. And speaking of Fani Willis, she talked to reporters this weekend, and here is what she said:
Click through for article. It is Substack, so click on “continue reading” when it pops up, scrolling down first if necessary. I figure if we must have news involving TFG, we may as well have a little fun with it. Also, Substack videos can be weird, so I made a rough transcript of the one near the end: “First, [I made] a commitment to the American people but most importantly the citizens of Fulton County that we are going to be making some big decisions over the election investigation and that I would do that before September First 2023. [With what we’ve] accomplished over the last two and a half years, we’re ready to go.”

Common Dreams – What Florida Students Could Learn From PragerU Kids
Quote – A cartoon Booker T. Washington distorting the history of the Civil War. A narrator explaining that embracing climate denialism is akin to participating in the Warsaw Uprising. An instructional video telling girls that conforming to gender stereotypes is a great way to embrace their femininity. A dramatization of the supposedly civilizing, benevolent era of British colonial rule in India. These are just some of the episodes of PragerU Kids—an offshoot of right-wing propaganda organization PragerU—that Florida has just approved for use in its public school classrooms, reflecting and potentially accelerating the state’s hard conservative turn.
Click through for details. The title does not mean what I first thought it meant, which would have been something like, “PragerU kids may be baby MAGAts, but there is still something positivie to be learned from them.” Instead, it means something more like “Horrible things that Florida could be learning from PragerU propaganda if someone doesn’t put a stop to it.” You mey remember during the Vietnam war we mocked the remark “We had to destroy the village to save it.” But – if one thinks, not of the people of Florida en masse but of Floridas educational structure – this may be a time when that is actually true.

Food For Thought

Share

Video Thread 7/25/2023

 Posted by at 12:01 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jul 252023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Has Mark Meadows flipped on Donald Trump? Here’s an important new data point

The Lincoln Project – They Would Be Ashamed of Him

Thom Hartmann – Russia Behind FAKE Hunter Biden Laptop Story? Shocking Revelations Revealed! [File under No s***, Sherlock]

Dog Obsessed With Water Goes to Waterpark (He’s a “yellow labmarine.”)

The Never Again Trump Song [parody of “Harrigan” by George M. Coham]

Beau – Let’s talk about Tupac….

Share

Open Thread July 22, 2023

 Posted by at 5:56 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 222023
 

Yesterday, I found a video (and partial transcript) of Jamie Raskin explaining exactly how Hunter Biden received no special treatment from the DOJ. I know everyone here knws this, but in case tou ever need to explain it to anyone else, I’m sharing the link. (Besides, Jamie Raskin is easy to listen to.) Speaking of easy listening, I probably don’t even need to say that Tony Bennett died at 96. Virtually no one missed that story. He was much and very widely loved.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

National Public Radio – ‘Active club’ hate groups are growing in the U.S. — and making themselves seen
Quote – These men, dressed in tactical gear and masks, were members of so-called “active clubs” — a term that may be relatively new to American audiences. They are a strand of the white nationalist movement that has grown quickly during the last three years and that has recently taken their message of hate into more public view. These decentralized cells emphasize mixed martial arts training to ready their members for violence against their perceived enemies…. “These clubs are decentralized and they’re forming on their own,” said Morgan Moon, an investigative researcher at the Anti-Defamation League, which estimates that there are active clubs now in at least 30 states. “We’re starting to see [the active club model] pop up in Europe as well as Canada now.”
Click through (and note they have filed this under “national security.”) To everyone who is counting on “the next generation” or “the younger generain” or “future generations” to end bigotry and misogyny, fuggedaboudit. Bigotry – or the lack thereof – can be taught, but it can’t be programmed. We are all born with a tendency toward, or against, bigotry – and that tendency may or may not match outr parents’ tendencies. If it doesn’t, sooner or later, each of us will find either his or her inner bigot or his or her inner lover of diversity.There are plenty of people like Stephen Miller, and Paul Gosar, and RFK Junior. And these renamed hate clubs are finding them young.

Letters from an American – July 19, 2023
Quote – In the 1980s, government officials threw out that understanding and replaced it with a new line of thinking advanced by former solicitor general of the United States Robert Bork. He claimed that the traditional understanding of antitrust legislation was economically inefficient because it restricted the ways businesses could operate. Instead, he said, consolidation of industries was fine so long as it promoted economic efficiencies that, at least in the short term, cut costs for consumers. While antitrust legislation remained on the books, the understanding of what it meant changed dramatically.
Click through (as always, click continue on the popup). Look at that Bork quote again. You might as well say thzt legislation against murder, rape, theft, and the like is inefficient because it restricts the way individuals can operate.

Food For Thought

Share

Open Thread July 15, 2023

 Posted by at 5:51 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 152023
 

Yesterday, for about a second, I considered referring to Saturday morning cartoons in connecion with having selected two short takes involving children. But there is nothing cartoonish about either of these children, nor about the situations in which they have found themselves. And I really hold MAGA – which means, ultimately Trump** – responsible for both. Not that the NRA and poisonous homophobes didn’t help … but both have become attached to and more or less claimed MAGA as their own. I’m not trying to be depressing. It just kind of turned out that way. Also, yesterday, the House passed a defense bill with restrictions on medical care, and PCCC emailed a video of Katie Porter using her whiteboard as a JeoparDOD board (I bumped another satire to get it into today’s video thread, so any Darth Vader “fan”s will have to wait a day.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – Armed 8-Year-Old Arrested After Carjacking And Police Chase
Quote – Maj. Saba Coleman said officers responded to a robbery call in the 000 block of West Fairview Avenue shortly after 11 a.m. Officers soon learned a child had carjacked someone at gunpoint. She said officers tried to pull the stolen vehicle over shortly after in the area of East South Boulevard and Norman Bridge Road, but the driver refused to stop and a pursuit ensued. Coleman said the fleeing vehicle crashed into another vehicle in the area of West Fairview Avenue and South Court Street. No injuries were reported.
Click through for story. Frankly – it’s a miracle he’s alive.

The Daily Beast – A Mom Who Is Actually for Liberty Shames Tennessee School Board
Quote – Those are some of the things that Tennessee mom Lindsey Patrick-Wright says were shouted at her sixth grader, Pippy, at West Wilson Middle School in Mount Juliet this year. Patrick-Wright recited the list during the public comment session at the Wilson County School Board meeting over the weekend. She later told the Daily Beast she left out one comment. “My mom says it’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!” Patrick-Wright says Pippy replied, “Well, I’m a lesbian, so I don’t want Adam or Steve.”
Click through for details. In all honesty. the headline isn’t quite accurate because these people have no shame. But she certainly would have shamed them if they had any. I left out the actual list because of its ugliness. But it’s there at the site.

Food For Thought

Share

Open Thread July 9, 2023

 Posted by at 6:07 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 092023
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Il Proscrotti” by Saverio Mercadante, an opera I had never heard of. Don’t look so astonished – there are plenty of operas i have not heard of, just as there are plenty of plays and books I have never heard of. I doubt anyone could be aware of everything that exists in even the smallest category. In this case, the reason is that it was written and premiered in 1842, enjoyed one performance, and was not performed again until 2022 (and that is the version we heard a live recording of today.) It’s set in Scotland during the Protectorate (Cromwell’s regime), and is one of those tales where a husband is presumed dead, and his wife decides, or is encouraged, or is forced, to remarry, and then he shows up. Culture is full of them. In this case, it’s complicated by the original husband being a royalist whereas the replacement is a puritan. (I really do not get why Christian talibans through the ages – and there have been many – want people to have no food or heathcare or fun. The Romans were smarter – they knew that “Bread and circuses” were key to keeping the populace compliant.) Mercadante I have heard of – He wrote a number of operas, including a version of “Francesca da Rimini.” Rachmaninoff wrote one too, although the Zandonai one is much more popular.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Huff Post – Top Oklahoma School Official Says Teachers Can Talk About Race Massacre — If They’re Careful About The Race Part
Quote – Teaching kids about the Tulsa Race Massacre is completely fine, according to Oklahoma school Superintendent Ryan Walters. Teachers just need to make sure no one is “made to feel bad” about it…. “I would never tell a kid that because of your race, because of the color of your skin, or your gender or anything like that, you are less of a person or are inherently racist. That doesn’t mean you don’t judge the actions of individuals,” Walters said. “Oh, you can. Absolutely, historically, you should. ‘This was right. This was wrong. They did this for this reason.’ But to say it was inherent in that because of their skin is where I say that is critical race theory. You’re saying that race defines a person.”
Click through for the rest, if you can stand to. You cannot make this stuff up.

The 19th – House Republicans are baking abortion restrictions into spending bills — and avoiding public votes
Quote – The policies backed by House Republicans are wide-ranging. One provision would ban the Department of Defense from covering paid leave or travel costs for service members and their families who need to seek fertility treatments or abortions outside where they are stationed – a measure that disproportionately impacts Black people, who are overrepresented in the military. Another provision would reverse a decision by the Food and Drug Administration that allowed pharmacies to distribute mifepristone — one of the drugs used in medication abortions — via telehealth and allowed certain pharmacies to dispense the pill to patients with a prescription.
Click through for the story. The subtitle of the piece is “Democratic leaders say they will act as a “firewall” on reproductive rights even during looming negotiations to fund the government.” Sowe can continue to breathe.

Food For Thought

Share

Video Thread 7/4/2023

 Posted by at 12:09 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jul 042023
 

In lieu of Glenn’s June recap – not a lwayer, but a legal discussion.
MSNBC – Ending affirmative action: the result of a 50-year Republican passion project

The Lincoln Project – Other Than His Crimes

CBS – Man arrested near Obama’s D.C. home for alleged threats

Parody Project – Fourth of July Special – A New Verse for the National Anthem

Foster Dog Refuses To Leave Her Crate For Weeks

Beau – Let’s talk about Trump, Smith, and a pair of Queens….

Share

Video Thread 6/23/2023

 Posted by at 12:05 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 232023
 

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ delayed opening a criminal investigation into Trump for Jan 6. insurrection for more than a year [I do think it is unrealistinc to exoect Chris Wray, ot, for Heaven’s sake, Jeff Rosen, to have opened an investigation. I’d go for March 12, 2021, Garland was confirmed MArch 11, 2021]

The Lincoln Project – Pick a Struggle

Thom Hartmann – This Man Wants To Bring Back Lynchings & He Isn’t Alone

Parody Project – A Tale of Indictment

Can You Solve This Cat Murder Mystery?

Beau – Let’s talk about Minneapolis, cops, and decrees….

Share

Open Thread June 23, 2023

 Posted by at 6:01 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 232023
 

Yesterday, I learned about the House voting to censure Adam Schiff for telling the truth. It probably came in the previous night, butit would have been after 10 pm my time, in one of the Substack newsletters. Ten pm is when I check for spam and close my email, even if i’m up later than that. I am actually less angry at the Republicans in the House than I am at the morons who sent them there. Adam’s full speech (a tad over 6 minutes is at his own website and also on YouTube, and one of my Substack sources provided a partial (but substantial) transcript:
“To my Republican colleagues who introduced this resolution, I thank you. You honor me with your enmity. You flatter me with this falsehood. You who are the authors of the big lie about the last election condemn the truth tellers and I stand proudly before you. Your words tell me that I have been affective in the defense of our democracy, and I am grateful.
“Speaker McCarthy would spend the nation’s time on petty political payback, thinking the censure or fine will force Trump’s opposition into submission. But I will not yield. Not one inch. The cost of the Speaker’s delinquency is high, but the cost to Congress of this frivolous and yet dangerous resolution may be even higher as it represents another serious abuse of power.
“I say this to Speaker McCarthy and others who wish to gratify Donald Trump with this act of subservience, try as you might to expel me from Congress or silence me with a $16 million fine, you will not succeed you might as well make it $160 million. The Speaker will never deter me from doing my duty no matter how many false justifications or slanders you level against me. You indict yourselves.
“Why were you silent, afraid, and unwilling to do your ethical, constitutional duty? Why did you cower? And why do you still? Will it be said of you that you lacked the courage to stand up to the most immoral, unlawful, and unethical president in history but consoled yourselves by attacking those who did?
“Today I wear this partisan vote as a badge of honor knowing that I have lived my oath, knowing that I have done my duty to hold a dangerous and out-of-control president accountable and knowing that I would do so again in a heartbeat if the circumstances should ever require it. I thank you, and I yield back.”

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Politico – The sleeper legal strategy that could topple abortion bans
Quote – Revs. Jan Barnes and Krista Taves have logged hundreds of hours standing outside abortion clinics across Missouri and Illinois, going back to the mid-1980s. But unlike other clergy members around the country, they never pleaded with patients to turn back. The sight of the two women in clerical collars holding up messages of love and support for people terminating a pregnancy “so infuriated the anti-abortion protesters that they would heap abuse on us and it drew the abuse away from the women,” recalled Taves, a minister at Eliot Unitarian Chapel in Kirkwood, Missouri, as she sat on a couch at Barnes’ stately church in this quiet suburb of St. Louis.
Click through for details. It seems to me fairly self-evident. MAGA “Christians” could use a mandatory “refresher” course in what religious freedom actually is.

Wonkette – Sam Alito Is Just Humble Fisherman Drinking $1,000 Bottles Of Wine Served By Billionaires
Quote – [Alito:] I stayed for three nights in a modest one-room unit at the King Salmon Lodge, which was a comfortable but rustic facility. As I recall, the meals were homestyle fare. I cannot recall whether the group at the lodge, about 20 people, was served wine, but if there was wine it was certainly not wine that costs $1,000. [Wonkette:] Okay, a) how would Alito know what the wine cost if he wasn’t, as reported by ProPublica, paying for his stay, and b) Sam Alito knows what a $1,000 bottle of wine tastes like, and it does not taste like whatever swill he does not recall drinking in Alaska.
Click through. I figured if anyone could manage to put a more colorful spin on this story, it would be Womkette. They did not let me down.

Food For Thought

Share
 Older Entries  Newer Entries