History – Page 28 – Politics Plus

Open Thread May 3, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:43 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 032022

Yesterday, I pretty much rested, or tried to. I kind of wore myself out Sunday and was having trouble staying awake. Some days are like that.

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Short Takes –

Letters from an American April 30, 2022
Quote – This letter is for the musician I met this week whose work takes her all over the country. She said that in her travels lately she feels something powerful building under the radar, and asked me if such a thing had ever happened before.
Click through for details.What we have here is history, and hope.

The 19th – She’s a White suburban mom. Can this lawmaker — and her viral speech — rally people like her for Democrats?
Quote – McMorrow said she is mindful of what it means to get media attention because she is a White woman. She highlighted Erika Geiss, a Black state senator, and Jeremy Moss, a gay state senator, who both gave impassioned speeches recently about inequities that have received far less attention. McMorrow said it shouldn’t be on marginalized people to do all the work. “If those of us who are not the ones negatively impacted by these attacks are comfortable and stand by and just let it happen, then it’s going to keep happening,” she said. “So now I’m looking at how I can make sure we’re elevating those voices.”
Click through – I posted the clip when it came out I”ve palyed a response or two. Now I want to feature her advice to Democrats.

Daily Beast – These States Are About to Put New Voting Laws to the Test
Quote – A number of states that have passed new voting restrictions in the past year—including Arkansas, Georgia, Alabama, and Indiana—have primaries this month. Their outcomes will serve as the first big test of the impact of new voting restrictions enacted following the 2020 election and former President Trump’s election hysteria. Pulaski County Clerk Terri Hollingsworth, who serves as the county’s elections administrator in Arkansas, says executing the changes in her state has been “somewhat of a nightmare.” She’s worried about a new rule requiring voters’ signatures on their absentee ballots to match what the state has on file—fearing that signatures might have naturally changed over the years. “We’re not handwriting experts,” she told The Daily Beast.
Click throiugh for more analysis. These are some of the worst voting restrictions we have seen since Jim Crow. If you want to follow election law, this might be a good time to subscribe to the Daily Beast newsletter.

Food For Thought

Open Thread April 21, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:49 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 212022

Yesterday, it occurred to me that one of these days, am going to set up and schedule an Open Thread where the top of the post just says “Yesterday,” and nothing else. Fortunately, today is not that day. But I’m sure it will come. When it does (maybe more than once), don’t worry about me. If I managed to get everything else up, I’ll be fine. I just meant to fill that in early, got scatterbrained, and forgot to go back and finish it.

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Short Takes –

Democratic Underground (Smackdown 2019) – Hawley needs to reconsider!
Quote – Cease and desist order was given to Senator Hawley last month and he has yet to comply over copyright infringement laws. What might be the issue? A national media photographer took that famous picture of the Senator with his raises fist before he was to vote against President Biden win over Trump. That photo is being sold by Hawley.
Click through, and do scroll down the comments. There is a variant on that photo in one comment which needs to be seen. Accidental violations of copyright can be atoned for … but copyright and other forms of intellectual property shold not be messed with.

The 19th – ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bills aren’t new. They’ve just been revived.
Quote – [Logan Casey, senior policy researcher and adviser for the MAP] said the bills are relics of the AIDS crisis, when panic about homosexuality dictated school curriculum. It also dates back to the infamous “Save Our Children” campaign led by activist Anita Bryant in the 1970s to overturn anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people in Miami, Florida. “Once the HIV epidemic came into the picture, then a bunch of states started considering and enacting laws that banned instruction on sexuality and homosexuality in public education, channeling this ‘Save Our Children’ campaign energy and the fear and prejudice during the HIV epidemic,” Casey said.
Click through for more history. “Republican lawmakers say the new spate of curriculum bills allow parents to decide what their children learn about sexuality at a young age,” which is incredibly naive. It will aactually insure that children lean fictions from their peers rather than facts from responsible adults. (It will also make them more vulnerable to sexual abuse.)

Trump[**]’s Nightmare Song Should Be “Georgia On My Mind”
Quote – You’ll notice that there is a dead month from May 30 to June 1st, when the panel will begin hearing testimony. But it isn’t really a dead month. Willis will be able to use it to present evidence before the grand jury to obtain search warrants and subpoenas. This will empower her investigation to move farther, faster. But Willis dangled a little bit more.
Click through for both the background and the new teasers. This is good news. Glenn will be talking about it also – I’m not sure when that will pop up on the Video thread, since I try to keep his videos consecutive.

Food For Thought

Open Thread April 18, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:39 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 182022

Yesterday,, being Easter, I more or less relaxed.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Teri Kanefield – It’s Not About “Faith”
Quote – One point I keep making is that rule of law is difficult. It’s frustrating. It strives for fairness but isn’t always fair. Perfect fairness is not possible on Earth, where human beings are flawed, and there is constant pushback from those who prefer autocracy. This causes people to grow cynical and reject democracy. But the only real alternative is autocracy. “Confidence in democratic institutions” doesn’t mean “faith that we always get what we want” or “faith that courts will reach the right results.”
Click through for full argument. I found this through “Crooks and Liars” blog roundup.

Federal Appeals Court Upholds Dismissal of Devin Nunes Defamation Claim Over 2019 CNN Report
Quote – Nunes had originally sued in federal court in Virginia, but a federal judge, citing concerns about “form shopping” and noting that there was “no logical connection between the events in this case and this district,” transferred the case to New York. Chief U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed Nunes’ claim in February 2021. Swain found that California law should apply to Nunes’ case, since that is where he lived and would have presumably suffered the greatest damage to his reputation. In applying California law, Swain further found that Nunes had failed to meet the statutory requirement that a plaintiff alleging defamation must make a written demand for a retraction within a short period of time after publication. Nunes had not done so, and Swain determined that he could not maintain his claim.
Click through for details. I’m sure Dairy Devin doesn’t think so , but I find this funny AF. “Musical states,” anyone?

Florida rejects 54 math textbooks over ‘prohibited topics’ including critical race theory
Quote – Florida’s education department has rejected 54 mathematics textbooks from next year’s school curriculum, citing alleged references to critical race theory among a range of reasoning for some of the rejections, officials announced. The department said in a news release Friday that some of the books had been rejected for failure to comply with the state’s content standards, Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking [Best], but that 21% of the books were disallowed “because they incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies, including CRT”.
Click through for what little detail the state was willing to provde. Heaven knows what they think CRT is – but, whatever they think, it isn’t that.

Food For Thought:

Video Thread 4/15/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:43 am Open Thread, Politics

Apr 152022

Glenn Kirschner – One Govt Official, LT GOV Benjamin, Indicted for Bribery While Another, Trump, Remains Unindicted

The Lincoln Project – Enabler In Chief

The Damage Report – Virginia GOP Caught For Vile Racist Tirade

Ojeda LIVE – The WORST in Congress? MTG & MC square off in the battle for the most vile imbeciles of the House

Armageddon Update – What Happened to Us?

Phone-Sized Kitten Turns Guy Into A Cat Person

Beau – Let’s talk about why the West is slow-walking the sanctions….

Open Thread April 1, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:03 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 012022

Yesterday was Transgender Day of Visibility, often abbreviated as TDOV. My Women’s History short date was not picked to celebrate it, because i didn’t know or remember it, but it did just cross ay mind that she might have been trans. But she also might have been gender neutral, or neither of those. It was just a[n interesting] coincidence. Today, to make up for it, I am featuring a real-life transgendered person from history. Some of you may remember seeing or hearing about her during her lifetime. I do. At that tme transsexuality (as it was then called) did not have the entire religious right line up against it She was more or less accepted on her own merits – not that she was universally acclaimed, but she did enjoy notable successes. I’m proud to say that I was not brought up to think of trangender in any negative way – just as something that sometimes happens. BTW, I will have no April Fool’s pranks in either post today. Reality is prankish enough.

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Short Takes –

The 19th – What Transgender Day of Visibility means for trans Texans this year
Quote – Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV), celebrated annually on March 31, is a moment to celebrate the lives of trans people and to raise awareness of injustices they face. This year, it carries a special significance for some transgender Texans: Trans people still living in the state, as well as those who have moved away for school or work, told The 19th that they are thinking about how to use their own voices to uplift trans youth — and about what being visible ultimately means to them.
Click through for much more. Most straight people would benefit from a lot more analysis and contemplation of our own sexuality. Those who instead focus on others are wasting a lot of time and energy which could more profitably be ised to improve their lives. (Just my opinion.)

Colorado Public Radio – New Colorado law bans people from openly carrying firearms near voting locations
Quote – Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law on Wednesday that bans anyone in Colorado from openly carrying a firearm within 100 feet of a voting location, unless their property falls within that buffer…. It passed with no Republican backers, who argued it infringed on 2nd Amendment rights.
Click through for story. If “No electioneering within a hundred feet of the polls” doesn’t violate the First Amendment, then this doesn’t violate the Second. Ideally, all states should have this law on the books (not that there shouldn’t also bemoe voter protecton.)

Wikipedia – Christine Jorgensen
Quote – Jorgensen was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II. After her military service, she attended several schools and worked; it is during this time she learned about sex reassignment surgery and traveled to Europe, where in Copenhagen, Denmark, obtained special permission to undergo a series of operations beginning in 1952. She returned to the United States in the early 1950s and her transition was the subject of a New York Daily News front-page story. She became an instant celebrity, known for her directness and polished wit, and used the platform to advocate for transgender people. Jorgensen often lectured on the experience of being transgender and published an autobiography in 1967.
Click thrugh for details. There was much more to her life. People – most if not all – sometimes feel trapped. I don’t know how one could feel any more trapped, inside their own body, than a transgendered person, and particulrle in our current culture.

Food For Thought:

Open Thread March 31, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:22 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 312022

Yesterday, I made and got confirmed my reservation to see Virgil on April 10 – the first available Sunday, Sunday being the safest day of the week for driving. I also managed to get the recyclable and trash bins out to the curb for pickup tomorrow, which surprised me a little bet, because the previous day I had pushed my mobility limits. While I was doing that, the “neighborhood cat” came around and accepted a few salmon treats. He can be picky, so that was nice. He is definitely not starving, but I still try to figure out his likes and dislikes. Sadly, looking at my iris bed, it doesn’t look like my TomCat iris is coming back this year. In fact, it looks like I’ll only have one stem of Baboon ~~Butt~~ Blood (sorry – when that varietal came out it was named “Baboon Bottom” and I got into a bad habit with it). I may be able to recover the others, or soe of them, by separating and fertilizing, but it’s by no means certain, even if I can muster up the energy to do it, which is also doubtful.

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Short Takes –

Mother Jones – We All Know Teachers Are Underpaid. But Who Imagined It Was This Bad?
Quote – Perhaps most jarring of all was the teacher in California who said that, in order to support her family financially, she has become a surrogate mother. Twice. “I’m literally renting out my uterus to make ends meet,” she wrote.
Click through for stats and stories. This may be the most devastating thing Republicams have done to the United States. It may not grab headlines like an insurrection, but its effects are far more widespread and far more long lasting.

The Hill – Biden signs bill making lynching a federal hate crime
Quote – “Hundreds of similar bills have failed to pass. Over the years, several federal hate crime laws were enacted. … But no federal law — no federal law expressly prohibited lynching. None. Until today,” Biden said to applause.Biden noted that civil rights leaders and lawmakers have been working for more than 100 years to pass a bill making lynching a hate crime. The president called lynching a “uniquely American weapon of racial terror.
Click through for story. It’s about time.

Women’s History – Wikipedia – Milunka Savić
Quote – In 1912, her brother received call-up papers for mobilization for the First Balkan War. She chose to go in his place—cutting her hair and donning men’s clothes and joining the Serbian army. She quickly saw combat and received her first medal and was promoted to corporal in the Battle of Bregalnica. Engaged in battle, she sustained wounds and it was only then, when recovering from her injuries in hospital, that her true sex was revealed, much to the surprise of the attending physicians.
Click through. Please. I can’t possibly do justice to this feisty lady in one quote (if I had to try, it ought to be “I will wait.”

Food For Thought:

Open Thread March 30, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:52 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 302022

Yesterday, I went to my doctor’s office to get the form filled out that the DMV gave me Mondey (of course after calling to see whether they could fit me in. Frankly I think they went out of their way for me. I do try not to be a Karen.) I took the form to the DMV and it worked like a charm. In fact, they offered, because my driver’s license was supposed to renew within 6 months anyway, to renew it for another five years. Of course I was thrilled. (I do try not to be a Karen.) Now all I have to do is make an appontment to visit Virgil – the earliest Sunday he is available is April 10th (and, frankly, I feel safest driving on Sunday) I know that because the visitation staff has gone out of their way to let me know what days he (his “pod”) is scheduled for. (I do try not to be a Karen.) So back to what passes for normal starting today. Yay!

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Short Takes –

Politico – CAWTHORN’S ORGY CLAIM FALLOUT
Quote – The first-term conservative said he received invitations along the lines of: “‘Well, hey, we’re going to have kind of a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come’.” The 26-year-old described his response on the podcast “Warrior Poet Society”: “I’m like, ‘What did you just ask me to come to?’ And then you realize they are asking you to come to an orgy.” Cawthorn also claimed to have seen other people who are “leading” efforts to eradicate drug addiction using cocaine in front of him.
Click through for story. I wouldn’t doubt the orgies, but I definitely doubt that anyone would invite Maddy. Unless they wanted to make him the goat (no, not the GOAT, just the goat, as in scape.)

PolitiZoom – REVEALED: Trump’s Last Official Call Jan 6 Was To Pence, Then A 7 Hour, 37 Minute Blackout On WH Logs. What’s Being Covered Up?
Quote – That immediately begs the question, what happened between the hours of 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. on January 6 and how was Trump communicating with people? He has already stated through a spokesman Monday night, “I have no idea what a burner phone is, to the best of my knowledge I have never even heard the term.” Right. What’s being covered up? Seven hours is one whole lot of a longer time than the infamous 18-minutes of Watergate.
Click through for details. I thought “Shades of Nixon” – but at 7:37 Trump makes Nixon’s 0:18 and a half look like Amateur Hour.

The National WWII Museum – Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
Quote – Within the United States, Sophie Magdalena Scholl is not the best-known resistance fighter, but her story is a powerful one. She was a key member of the Weiße Rose (White Rose)—a resistance group run by students at the University of Munich who distributed leaflets and used graffiti to decry Nazi crimes and the political system, while calling for resistance to the Nazi state and the war. On February 22, 1943, she was beheaded for treason at just 21 years old.
Click through for full details. If you hear someone allude to the “White Rose” (or the “White Rose Society”), this is what they are talking about. Beau does occasionally (he also has a Tshirt with a white rose, so he can allude to it without saying it.)

Food For Thought:
The video this quote is from will be on the Video Thread tomorrow. But this is so succinct I just wanted to meme it.

Open Thread March 28, 2022

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

Mar 282022

Yesterday, I checked and double checked everything I need to go to the DMV today. I am not looking forward to that (I am looking forward to it being over, though.) I may actually not have to be there forever. I had to make an appointment – the earliest I could get was for today… but I made the appointment back in February. So that line may supersede the traditional line of people in person. Yes, I will definitely mask. If I am slow commenting, please be patient. Thanks!

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Short Takes –

Daily Kos (David Neiwert) – Michigan militiamen hoped their kidnapping plot would spark nationwide ‘Boogaloo’ civil war
Quote – The defendants, … all members of the so-called “Wolverine Watchmen” militia, are leaning heavily on claims that the government entrapped them into the plot to abduct Whitmer from her summer home and put her on “trial,” for which they now face federal kidnapping-conspiracy charges. The trial’s outcome could have broad ramifications for how federal authorities tackle the rising tide of right-wing domestic terrorism, as well as ongoing prosecution of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrectionists.
Click through for story. Their lawyers are (maybe I should say “were”) going for an entrapment defnse, but these dudes are making that well-nigh impossible. I am not getting the impression that any of them have the tiniest particle of remorse, either. “FOFA,” as the saying goes.

Daily Beast – Madison Cawthorn Committed the One Unforgivable Sin of Politics
Quote – But Cawthorn did something far worse, at least for his own political prospects, and it may cost him his seat: He left his constituents—and then was forced to return to them, hat in hand, after the courts predictably struck down the state’s new map, and eliminated the district he left to run in, on Feb. 23…. The numerous candidates challenging Cawthorn in the GOP primary, slated for May, do not intend to let voters in North Carolina’s 11th District forget it. One of them is Michele Woodhouse.
Click through for the twists and turns. Irony may be dead to humans – but Karma remembers. Really, this could not have happened to a nicer guy.

Women’s History – Wikipedia – Fatima al Fihri
Quote – Fatima bint Muhammad Al-Fihriyya (Arabic: فاطمة بنت محمد الفهرية القرشية) was an Arab woman who is credited with founding the al-Qarawiyyin mosque in 859 AD in Fez, Morocco. She is also known as “Umm al-Banayn”. Al-Fihri died around 880 AD. The Al-Qarawiyyin mosque subsequently developed a teaching institution, which became the University of al-Qarawiyyin in 1963.
Click through for bio, including some historians’ doubts. Personally, I consider it far more credible for white male historians to doubt the existence of a successful woman than for male Muslims to invent (or accept if invented) an oral tradition about a powerful, successful woman. (Many people doubt the accuracy of oral tradition in any culture … but those who have studied it, while admitting there can be details which change, have found the substance to be pretty darned reliable.)

Food For Thought:

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