Joe Biden – Page 17 – Politics Plus

Open Thread February 8, 2023

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

Feb 082023

Yesterday, President Biden delivered the 2023 State of the Union address. For the first time, the mother of a black person shot and killed by police was present. Today the 19th has the story. Until I can get the link up, here’s the link to the back story. In case it takes me too long, here’s the link to The 19th front page, where it will surely be included. I did watch the speech live. I was a little surprised at how wek=ll the Republicans behaved – not 100% courteous, but at least they didn’t riot or do anything physical. There were certainly some very touching stories. Joe of course was 100% polite. I thought he did well at hitting his accomplishments. I hope it sinks in. I didn’t hang around the the Republican response. I was abit wrung out by the speech, plus I had a pretty good idea what she was going to say.

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Crooks & Liars – Hunter Biden Goes On Offense, Demands Rudy Get ‘Laptop’ Probe
Quote – Among the letters, which were obtained by NBC News, was one sent … asking the Justice Department’s National Security Division for an investigation into “individuals for whom there is considerable reason to believe violated various federal laws in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden’s personal computer data,” including Rudy Giuliani, who was Trump’s lawyer at the time.
Click through for story. C&L basically says “It’s about time.” I would suggest that the action coming now was prompted by the fact that the House is now in a position to take action, as opposed to just spreading disinformation, so now it’s necessary. And I might add, just think how strong a person has to be to ignore all that crap for so long.

The New Yorker – Sending Help Instead of the Police in Albuquerque
Quote – In the southeastern corner of Albuquerque, near a wide mountain pass that opens onto an expanse of arid high plains, Sean Martin and Isaiah Curtis drove toward a Blake’s Lotaburger, a regional fast-food chain. Behavioral-health workers with Albuquerque Community Safety, a new city department, they respond to calls, mostly from 911, about nonviolent crises involving mental health, homelessness, or substance use. A.C.S. responders are trained to connect people from some of the city’s most vulnerable populations with professional help. In doing so, they also reduce those residents’ interactions with local law-enforcement agencies, which in recent years have had the second-highest fatal-shooting rate among major American cities.
Click through for details. THIS is the kind of police reform – defunding if you will, but actually reallocation of funding – that we have been agitating for. It’s been a pleasure watching New Mexico turn bluer after having Susanna Martinez for Governor (sort of like having Jeanine Pirro for Governor.) There are steps back of course, but the trend is positive.

Food For Thought

Open Thread February 7, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:08 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 072023

Yesterday, “Choose Love” managed to get a donation request ou for Turkish and Syrian victims of the earthquake. I’m not on their mailing list (at least I wasn’t), so they must have worked with other groups to get it out so fast, and therefore you may also have received it. In case you didn’t and want to help, here’s a link. I went from there by clicking on the logo to a page which has an “About us” link which provides some credentioals, including the number by which they are registered as a charity in the U.S., so anyone who is dubious can investigate further. OXFAM also came though with a request. Tonight, of course, is the State of the Union address. I plan to watch it, but if you don’t wish to, or aren’t able to, Robert Reich’s prediction is a short take today.

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Robert Reich – The state of Joe Biden’s union: The return to democratic capitalism
Quote – America’s postwar industrial policy spurred innovation. The Department of Defense and its Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration developed satellite communications, container ships, and the internet. The National Institutes of Health did trailblazing basic research in biochemistry, DNA, and infectious diseases…. Large corporations sought to be responsive to all their stakeholders — not just shareholders but employees, consumers, the communities where they produced goods and services, and the nation as a whole.
Click through for full opinion. Benjamin Franklin’s warning – “if you can keep it” – comtinues to echo through my mind.

The New Yorker – The Hunt for Russian Collaborators in Ukraine
Quote – The most obvious cases are those in which a person took up arms against Ukrainian forces or was involved in spying or sabotage to aid the Russian war effort. But assessing culpability can get murky at the level of local governance. “We’re looking for people who worked for the benefit of the Russian occupation,” Kravchenko told me. “But does that apply to a welder or carpenter who maintained buildings or equipment for the occupiers? Or people responsible for critical infrastructure?” There wasn’t an easy answer or policy, he said.
Click through for story. At least we didn’t have to get bombed and invaded before finding ourselves in the situation of having to wonder whether our friends, family, and beighbors are collaborators.

Food For Thought

Open Thread February 3, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:14 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 032023

Yesterday, only a day or two after I pointed out that McCarthy had seated Ilhan Omar on the Foreign Affairs Committee, she was kicked off of it. The snake didn’t have the guts to do it himself. He took a vote of the full House. Grrrrr. Also, I want to highlight an article by Robert Reich on the debt ceilling – factual and easy to understand, like everything he writes.

Also, this video was in Wednesday’s video thread, and Lona recommended reporting it here because, essentially, it should be seen by everyone in the country. She also recommended Freya including it in her action emails, which is up to Freya of course, but I’d concur.

PoliticsGirl – Why Less Tax is Actually More Tax

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Letters from an American – February 1, 2023
Quote – On February 1, 1862, in the early days of the Civil War, the Atlantic Monthly published Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” summing up the cause of freedom for which the United States troops would soon be fighting…. [T]he hopes of that moment had crumbled within a decade. Almost a century later, on February 1, 1960, David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell A. Blair Jr., and Joseph McNeil set out to bring them back to life when they sat down on stools at the F.W. Woolworth Company department store lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina…. Exactly 63 years later, on February 1, 2023, Tyre Nichols’s family said laid their 29-year-old son to rest in Memphis, Tennessee.
Click through for more detailed history. Mr. and Mrs. Nichols have accepted President Biden’s invitation to attend his State of the Union address. But – will we ever learn?

Washington Post (no paywall) – A Black professor defies DeSantis law restricting lessons on race
Quote – The painful chapter in Florida’s history known as the Newberry Six lynchings is one the university professor has taken pains to help document over decades of research. It’s also one that he fears will be removed from Florida history lessons under a new education law championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) as part of a broader push to root out ideas he deems “woke.”
Click through for story. In DeSantis’s Florida – Desantistan – it’ is not unthinkable that Professor Dun may need to be concerned that he may be lynched. That despite the fact that so many of us, even before 1861 and up to the present – have fought so hard to prevent that.

Food For Thought

Actual Calendar at https://networklobby.org/black-history-month-2023/

Video Thread 2/1/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:58 am Open Thread, Politics

Feb 012023

Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump goes out for ice cream while the folks he told to attack the US Capitol go to prison

PoliticsGirl – Why Less Tax is Actually More Tax

Farron Balanced – Kevin McCarthy Goes Absolutely Nuts When Reporter Asks About George Santos

Robert Reich – The One Thing That Would Make Elections Better For Everyone

This Cat’s Obsessed With One Movie

Beau – Let’s talk about Biden’s impeachment and the GOP Senate….

Video Thread 1/31/2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:59 am Open Thread, Politics

Jan 312023

Glenn Kirschner – Will beating death of Tyre Nichols prompt politicians to take seriously the need for police reform?

The Lincoln Project – Still Here

MSNBC – Biden speaks to family of Tyre Nichols

Armageddon Update – Murder Moron!

Couple Tries Rescuing Two Puppies for Six Hours At The Beach

Beau – Let’s talk about Newport News and remembering your training….

Open Thread January 31, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:44 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 312023

Yesterday, I slept later than I have for months – apparently after all that worry I needed to. Of course the disadvantage of thet is that the longer I sleep, the worse the aches and pains are when I arise. Fortunately the TENS makes short (not instant, but short) work of that. Virgil called – his friend dialed for him – so I was able to accept the call. I stressed that he needs to gethis friend to dial for him when he calls – it’s not a matter of money (an “unaccepted” call is not charged for), but the stress to bothe of us (probably more to me than to him, since I am more aware of what’s going on.) I’m not sure how much he actually absorbed, but his friend will get the point.

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ProPublica – How Congress Finally Cracked Down on a Massive Tax Scam
Quote – After six years of failed efforts by the IRS, Justice Department and lawmakers, new legislation is expected to prevent the worst abuses of a tax-avoidance scheme that has cost the U.S. Treasury billions of dollars. Tucked into the massive, $1.7 trillion government spending bill signed into law by President Joe Biden on Dec. 29, a provision in the law seems poised to accomplish what thousands of audits, threats of hefty penalties and criminal prosecutions could not: shutting down a booming business in “syndicated conservation easements,” which exploit a charitable tax break that Congress established to preserve open land.
Click hrough for details. I had never heard of this, though it doesn’t realy surprise me. Sometimes, thankfully, our elected representatives are more knowledgeable than we are, which is good, since one can’t advocate on something one doesn’t even know is a problem.

PolitiZoom – Pelosi Attacker Calls SF Television News to Apologize… For Failing to Kill Paul Pelosi, ‘Unprepared’
Quote – David DePape called the KTVU newsroom from San Francisco County Jail Friday, the same day a superior court judge ordered video of the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi to be released. The call was unexpected. He told our reporter he had an important message…. In the chilling and bizarre phone call, he apologized for not going further. “I want to apologize to everyone. I messed up. What I did was really bad. I’m so sorry I didn’t get more of them. It’s my own fault. No one else is to blame. I should have come better prepared,” he says.
Click through for story. C.S. Lewis once penned the phrase “the disinterested hatred of evil for good” (not meaning a lack of intellectual interest, but an absence of an ulterior motive, such as greed or fear) in a way that suggested it didn’t really exist. I think it does – it may be rare, but some actions seem so far out as not to be explainable otherwise. Is this one of them? I don’t know.

Food For Thought

Open Thread January 19, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:04 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 192023

Yesterday, although also trying to catch up on some personal stuff, I did play the New Yorker’s “Name Drop” puzzle and actually got it on the third clue. While there, I looked at the Daily Cartoon. I’d love to peproduce it here, but it’s so good everyone is going to be all over it, so I’ll just link to it instead. Don’t miss it . and don’t miss Freya’s new Sound Off. Yes, it will be in the weekend email, but if you’re here, why not see it now?

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PolitiZoom – Another Trump Ally, Michael Flynn, Now Suggests Biden Was Set Up
Quote – Saturday, I wrote abouttwo of Trump’s closest allies (Sean Hannityjob and Ronny Jackson, proposing, against all expectations, that Joe Biden, rather than being clumsy, negligent or incompetent in his handling of classified materials, that something more sinister is afloat… that Biden is being “set-up” – supposedly by his own people – to take a fall…. Well, now another traitor has been heard heard from, Gen. Michael Flynn, newly reinstated to Twitter by chaos agent Elon Musk on the 2nd anniversary of the Capitol riot, here weighing {and} pushing the same line as others close to Trump… that the President is being undermined by “others” in the White House.
Click through for details (and a lot of chatter.) There’s an old saying (which I am butchering, but it has multiple variations anyway): Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times looks like projection.

Crooks & Liars – Dad Arrested After Toddler Seen Playing With Loaded Gun On Live TV Show
Quote – All of this was captured on camera. A lot of people watched it Saturday night because Beech Grove police are featured on a show called “On Patrol: Live,” which airs on REELZ. A police report confirms officers recovered the weapon, a 9-millimeter handgun with 15 rounds in the magazine…. Osborne is due in court for his initial hearing Tuesday [rescheduled for Thursday] afternoon.
Click through for story. You know, back in the day, as recently as the 1970’s, the NRA stood for gun safety and responsibility. Today, they’ll probably file an amicus brief for this dad. Are there actually any responsible gun owners left?

Food For Thought