Iran War – Politics Plus

Open Thread September 2 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 022026

At 81, even in a small family, I’ve known some morticians – including away from the funeral home. They are human. Probably no two of then would tell you this in the same words – but they’d all tell you that everything they do is done for the families of the deceased – and also, that dealing respectfully with the remains is at the very top of the list of thingd that are done for the family. Do, when I came across a YouTube channel called “Lauren the Mortician,” it shouldn’t be surprising that I watched a few episodes, and ended up bookmarking the home page. She makes a new video each Monday (which she refers to as “morbid Monday”), and iy sholdn’t be a surprise that this Monday she was all over the Nepal disaster. If you can’t stand thinking or talking about death, ignore this. But if you are open to getting a little better acquainted with the Grim Reaper, this week’s video is here (spoiler – almost no one drowned.)

Referred by VoteVets. Maybe I’m seeing ghosts – but with Tramp [sic] and Kegsbreath shooting off their mouths about how shipboard deplotments shoud routnely be a full year – I can’t help but wonder whether they are being influenced by someone who realizes how detrimental that would be to morale – both to the teoops trapped in that situation and to troops who aren’t there but are scheduled to be up next – and to those who have not enlisted but were considering doing so – and now won’t. Someone who wants to see the US military completely destroyed. It’s easy to say that this regime care no more about human beings serving in the armed forces that they would about a part in a machine – but, honestly, they don’t even care that much. Machine parts wear down and need maintenance too – and without that maintenance the machine won’t work.

Breaking news from Axios when I first saw it. It isn’t good wnough in this regime to agree (or xapitulate) on some things or even most things. It’s got to be everything, or you’re O-U-T, out.

Joyce Vance asks the question we’s all like to know the answer to – especially if the answer contained informatin we could use to get rid of them. I think it is both possible and plausible – although, alas, not presumptive) that he has dirt on them. That’s been an arrow in his MO quiver since he was an apprentice in Daddy’s company. And, for three of them at least, we even have a pretty good idea of what the dirt might comprise. But that is not the only possibility – and there may in fact be multiple reasons, and different ones for rach compromised justice.

Cat 2fer

Open Thread August 24 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:42 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 242026

Yesterday, I saw Virgil, and we played cribbage. Besides being great to see each other, it was good to experience something more or less normal (even including the normal frigidity in the visiting room.) I have forgotten that, though I never found my original car key, Trinette did – in a place I would never have looked, and I try not to think of how it might hace gotten there, because that way lies madness. I’m just glad it has been found.

Yes I realize this is not new – certainly not to anyone here – but Robert Reich says things so well.

Black Star is correct that “nobody has noticed.” This is certainly the first I have heard of it, and I see some legacy media and more independent news outlets than any one person can possibly read. (This is also the first I have heard of Gary being predominantly black. I expext that would surprise Harold Hill if he were real and still alive. This is BS -not in the sense of fake, but in the sense of morally unacceptable.

Back in the seventies, I was a charter subscriber to Mother Jones magazune. It was always good reporting – eventually It got too good for me to deal with – even just on line. Dose of Democracy referred this artivle.

Open Thread August 1 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:05 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 012026

Yesterday, Malcolm described the Iran War situation as one of two things: either all combatants (and non-combatants, including some new ones) think the war is a game of Risk – or they think it is a Tom Clancy novel. I’m not familiar with either the game or the author’s works – but it doesn’t sound good. Also, he put out a second show, a special edition – mostly about a newly resuscitated 500-year-old territorial dispute between Spain and Morocco for part of the Sahara. NO ONE HAS INVADED SPAIN. Although the Evil Emperor clearly wants to take down the government of Spain.

This is long – and it’s going to be even longer, because it’s a series. It will be coming out on Fridays, which means you will be seeing it on Satirdays – unless you subscribe to Robert Reich‘s Substack yourself. Someof it may well bore you – because it is fundamental, and y’all are already up on foundations. But it’s still good to look at them from a different angle. I do take issue with his statement that economics are not separate from politics. He sees them as two sides of the coin. I see them as married – with no reason why they can’t divorce and marry something else.

From The Conversation. I know that I want the truth from news sources – whether that truth is excellent, horrifying, or anything in between. I’m inclined to think that may well have been influenced by the fact that my recreational reading, from age 8 up, was authors like Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner, Rex Stout, and Ellery Queen – adding in my teens Ngaio Marsh, Matjorie Allingham, Josephine Tey, and too many more to list here. But that might be just my imagination. I really so not understand people who either don’t care whether what they believe is true or not – or who will embrace anything as truth because they want it to be true. And it boggles my mind how many of them there are.

I finally got Drop Site News sending to my new email address. My bad, I should have done it sooner. This is quite a story. Apparently the Mango Monster has gotten a bee in his bonnet about a Russian spy station which used to exist, but was closed in the early oughts and pretty well demolished. The site now has a school. I am still trying to wrap my head around as to why Russians would call a spy station in a Spanish-speaking country “Lourdes”. Saint Bernadette might has thoughts about that. Anyway, after the Soviet one was demolished, a Chinese one went in to a completely different area. All this and more is at the link, including a couple of supplemental videos.

Atlanta Black Star weekly puts together a column called “The Narrative, which matches up news stories with a common theme – which may or may not be obvious

2fer

Open Thread July 30 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 302026

Yesterday, I didn’t do much other than wade through email. Virgil called, which was nice. I did get some knitting done. Today’s pet video is another spliced one – which I will be calling a 2-fer.

From ProPublica. You can talk about unintended consequences – and I am pretty sure this was not intended – but the Mango Moron and the desoicable Russell Voght probably both see it as a feature, not a bug.

From Adam Klasfeld. This pisses me off royally. Yrd, every profession, including medicine, contains people who, though highly educates, are dumber than rocks. (And no amount of intelligence guarantees courage comes with it.) Anthony Fauci is not merely an intelligent MD; he is also a fighter and a hero. And he’s older than I am – and under this stress is beginning to look it. This persecution needs to end – yesterday.

Talking Points Memo: James Comey is far from perfect – but he doesn’t deserve this. The detail that made me curse out loud was that,on a trip with his wife, they made a stop at the grave of their son who dies when still an infant. Thhey were under (illegal) surveillance the entire time. The in-person surveillance lost track of him, but the electronic surveillance picked it up and went there after the Comeys left – and took a photo of the flowers they left at the grave.

Open Thread July 29 2026

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

Jul 292026

I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing I can do witr Paint software (and probably any other non-Wordpress or non-Bluehost software) to keep the inages from overflowing, even if I reduced them to 100 pixels (roughly the size of a postage stamp.) Instead, I don’t even know whether I need to make them 800 pixels or smaller,ut I do, then put them into the draft, preview it and watch them spred out beyond reason, then go into our library and scale them there. After which, I need to “refresh” the draft and preview again and see them fill (but not overflow) the space. At least it appears to work. Please, anyone and everyone, let me know it it’s not working for you.

This is Dropsite News from Saturday. It came only to the old email. I didn’t delete it but also didn’t read it then. Monday I read it and decided that in a time when I know there are many in the US feeling like nothing they can do makes a difference, we needed to see it. Though it would not work with every insult, I admired the power of embracing the opponent’s insult.

This is what VoteVets thinks of our “strategy” in the Middle East. Yeah. A second thing the Mango Moron and Kegsbreath have in common (besides both being playground bullies in adult bodies) is thet neither can read the room – or in this case the Theater – with the reuly that they are completely unable to construct – or even imagine – an actual strategy ( or even to recognize one when they see it. And Iran clearly has one. Or more.) Veterans with combat experience, particularly in the Middle East and pretty much regardless of rank, are all saying the same things about this war – just with different framing.

IANAL, but I think I can safely say Jim Jordan is out of his ever-hating mind if he thinks he has a case here. Of course, heANAL either – Harry Litman makes that painfully obvious.

Open Thread July 16 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 162026

Tuesday was Bastille Day, and all the European leaders were in Paris to honor Ukraine. Of course President Zelenskyy was there with Mrs Zelenskyy and a Ukrainian fighter pilot led the flyover. I wish I could go on and on about it, but I would be remiss not to warn you about the cyclospora outbreak reported by The New Yorker (HHS is not helping.) Just as one example, Michgan generally averages 50 cases a year, but has seen 3000 cases in just a month. The described symptoms remind me of when I was in the hospital – believe me, you do not want this (Yeah, you might lose weight, but there are better ways.) The regular method of transmission is through uncooked produce. So cook all the produce you can (I know that’s not really possible with, say, lettuce) and wash strongly what you can’t cook.

Yesterday, Malcolm’s show (with Jacob and Wahjeeh went for 1.75 hours, most of which was details of how Iran has been pummeling us, and our unnecessary and catastrophic losses – not of people (yet, thankfully) but of equipment and facilities. I would love to hear from some of the women and Black men whose promotions to General were revoked – not what they would say for publication, but what they really think.

Juan Proaño is the CEO of LULAC – think “the Latino NAACP.”) He and Joyce talked about the death of Lorenzo Arauno last week and of Joan Sebastian Guerrero on Monday morning. You can flip through the transcript for such details as that neither was the person ICE were “looking for,” nor was any of the others in Arauno’s vebicle. Or that ICE stripped Arauno of all ID before the ambulance came, so that the hospital had to admit him as a “John DOE,” with the result that when the family arrived at the hospital, the hoapital could not cprroborate his identity, and it wasn’t until the next day that the family could actually learn he was dead. In the case of Guererro – and you won’t find this in the trancript; I had to go hunting for it – ICE claimed it attempted to stop the vehicle, but “the driver kept going. They said the officer feared for public safety when he shot at the vehicle, hitting and killing the driver.” Sure – if you are afraid for public safety, of course you would shoot to kill someone who is actually driving a moving car so you can turn the car into an out of control killing machine /S/.*

Of course the Narcissistic Navel Orange will appeal. But the Supreme Court’s term is over until the first Monday in October – so he may have to wait a while. Meanwhile, this ruling will not stop or suspend any disciplinary proceedings against Blanche and Woodward.

This link is to a conversation between Ken Harbaugh and Kris Goldsmith. They look to be a notably odd couple – but appearances can deceive. Both are veterans. Kris has survived serious PTSD (not that there is such a thing as non-serious PTSD – but some are more serious than others.) Ken may not have- but he gets it. I’ve watched a lot of conversations on Substack which were illuminating. Butthis is the first one I would describe as profound. It’s about 25 minutes (and has, of course a trenscript), so you likely will not want to drop everything anf watch it. But may I suggest? – that, instead of watching or listening to the speech tonight of the Apricot Antichrist, in which he will claim that the elections of Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock were fraudulent because of intervention from Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, among other lies, you consider this instead. Or afterwards as a palate cleanser.

I don’t remember whether I have used the symbol /S/ her before. in case I haven’t it means “Sarcasm” and is called a “snark tad.”

Open Thread July 9 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 092026

Yesterday, after the resumption of hostilities in the Persian Gulf, Wajeeh described our so-called President as being surrounded by three drama queens (whom he named) – and hilarity ensued. This part of the conversation started at or just after the 30 minute mark, and took just a few minutes, so if anyone wants a good laugh, you can find it and it waon’t take much of your time. Unlike YouTube, I can’t set it to start there, but the timeline is easy to manipulate. Also, I did watch “The Last Class.” After some thought, I think maybe the way to say this is: Robert Reich is the most compact giant who ever existed. He has another movie coming out, and showed a trailer – although I think it’s still in progress – which is appropriate – because the title is “The Work in Progress.” In another also, Graham Platner withdrew his campaign fir the Senate. I have just two words – Al Franken. I’m not trying to say what you probably think I am. I am trying to say that when an aspersion involves money (like cheating on taxes, or embezzlement, or grift) or other types of immorality, we investigate. When an aspersion involves sex we just lose our minds.

Good Grief. Apparently, stupidity, or death wish, or delusion, or all three, or God knows what, is color-blind. “Christian nationalism” is bad enough, but we’re not up against just Christian nationalism, we’re up against White Christian nationalism. Any black (or darker than a brown paper bag) person who buys into that has to be suicidal.

If I were a Black woman in Florida, I would absolutlely fear for my life if a white man started to argue with me. Which is probably why she was carrying in th first place. If we had the statistics of how many people in the US have been killed in arguments over parking spaces, it would probably surprise you. I am confident that Stand Your Ground applies. And equally confident that no court in Florida will accept it from a Black woman. We shall see.

Archived from The Lever. Every time the present regime comes up with a new and innocuous sounding name for a project, it’s a bad sign. This “Task Force” is no exception.

Open Thread June 13 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 132026

Yesterday, Malcolm’s show was called the Taco Warcast. Jacob Kaarsbo (Danish intelligence Middle east) pointed out “it tells you all you need to know about Trump and US credibility at the moment. when you have to wait for announcements to be confirmed by Tasnim” (Tasmin is the IRGC media in Iran.) Also, Judge Brinkema in Alexandris, VA turned her temporary injunction against the “weaponization” slush fund into a preliminary injunction which is essentially permanent. She will not let the matter go unless she receives a statement signed by Todd Blnch AND the Secretary of the Treasury, under penalty of perjury, that the fund is dead and will not be resurrected. Finally, Frank Figliuzzi remarked that, unser the currect regime, a total of 1600 people have been allowed into the US (which seems a very small number to me to begin with), and that 1300 of them have been white South Africans.

I bumped this a day so as not to double up on Robert Reich. His analysis is IMO sound, and I don’t think it’s too soon to have it. What if a new Congress makes inpeachment ot the 25th viable? Or what if Dear Leader dies in office?

I hope this from The Conversation isn’t too depressing. How do sane people counter this kind of mentality? If only we knew.

And this from The Lever is also kind of depressing, and for the same reason. How do we counter the irrational? (I do feel any theory which does not address racism and/or misogyny is at best incomplete.)

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