Masculinity – Politics Plus

Open Thread July 19 2025

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

Jul 192025

Yesterday, Talking Points Memo published Maurene Comey’s farewell letter to her colleagues at SDNY, fro BlueSky where it had been posted by some one from Lawfare. Whatever you may think of her father, the message is on point and worth a look. It’s in hte second section of their newsletter.

There is another national protest scheduled for a week from today. This one is sponsored by Families First and being publicized by Care in action. Families First is specifically trying at this point to protect domestic workers, many of whom are immigrants, documented or not. Yes, the Apricot Antichrist wants to rip children’s nannies away from them, Quelle surprise. The link to find an event is here. Also there are some photos for the most recent one here.

The F* News refers to Amanda Marcotte (of Salon), but doesn’t link to her – I don’t know why – maybe because Salon is paywalled if you go there too often – but I found the article and archived it. So if anyone wants to go straight to the source, here it is.

I cannot honestly say this article is encouraging. But it is honest and frank, and probably pretty much correct. Democratic leaders need to deal with the fact the most voters are not like good Democrats, who follow the facts enough to know that middle class and poor people are better off under Democratic leadership than under what passes for Republican leadership, and therefore it is in the best interest of anyone not a billionaire to vote in Democrats. On the contrary, far too many voters are far too easily swayed by appeals to their guts.

Open Thread June 17 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:58 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jun 172025

Yesterday, A federal jury found that Mike Lindell defamed Dominion Voting Machines (in the person of its former CEO Eric Cooper.) The headline said he was found guilty, but defamation is a tort, as opposed to a crime, so I don’t think guilty is the correct legal term. The award was $2.3 million. I doubt Lindell has that much any more than he has the $62.7 the case was filed for. Lindell has, of course, been shown up for the liar that he is, but I’m not holding my breath for MAGA to be convinced of that.

After referring to Evan Hurst’s “The Moral High Ground” Substack, I came a cross to a specific article there which sounded good, so I checked it out, and here it is.

I’m sharing “The Week Ahead” on Tuesday, not because I don’t think everyone’s heard about Senator Padilla – the could only have been missed by political illiterates – but because she explains why Judge Breyer scheduled a hearing over the California National Guard case, and I’ve seen a lot of people who are literate politically but legal procedurally not so much asking why and noting that it seems like a concession to the regime. Since there is sound reason, and also since there are still people who are incensed at the Biden DOJ because the Clementine Caesar is not behind bars right this minute, I thought I should share that. Being furious with people who are on our side doesn’t help either our mood or our motivation. And prosecutorial and judicial decisions can look wimpy if one doesn’t know the reasons – and I’m as guilty as anyone. Yes, I’m discovering that I have a little authoritarian in me too – it’s not dominant, but it’s there. Anyway, the short answer in this case is that he is looking to the long run. But Joyce has the details as to why. (It does require a scroll down to get to it. I don’t know why she would expect a response from either Tuberville or Britt.)

The F* News has the skinny om the Boelter arrest (and more.) I already have come to the conclusion – for some time now – that religion is not the problem that people without it think it is. There is a problem, yes, but it’s not so much the religion as it is the misuse and abuse of religion. This is not an original thought of mine. For just one example, G. K. Chesterton said it, not in my exact words but still pretty clearly (and eloquently), in the Father Brown story “The Sign of the Broken Sword.” It’s actually been said a lot, but you may not see or hear it unless you are looking for it.

Belle GOP regrets

Dog/Cats

Open Thread October 25 2024

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:10 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 252024

Yesterday, my back bothered me from the middle of my sleep time (it woke me up, and I never really got back to sleep) through the entire rest of the day. I seriously considered sleeping sitting up. I used the TENS unit and ice (not at the same time – those ice bags may be sealed, but that doesn’t stop condensation.) Both helped some, But not enough. Yes, I know, Urgent Care, but the last time I did that (for pain muchless sefver in a much smaller area) I ended up having to do so much walking I exacerbated it. If I exacerbate this much more, I’ll fall and won’t be able to get up. If it persists, I’ll do that.

Pro Publica points out that, while, yes, immigration has increased, that is far from the only change in immigration in recent years. They don’t go into the fact that many, particularly those from Central America are fleeing conditions which we, the United States, made possible by meddling in their nations’ politics through the CIA and, among other programs, the School of the Americas (now whitewashed as the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.”) And both of our major parties have blood on their hands. Our hands. Sure, a lot of that was on account of GOP rule. But I wouldn’t expect those injured by it to be able to make that distinction.

As a former DOJ prosecutor, Joyce Vance knows a whole lot more about the DOJ’s responsibiities than I do. I’ll just let her do the talking.

Open Thread September 3 2024

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

Sep 032024

Yesterday, I was referred to this article by a poster at Democratic Underground. It’s at Salon, which I have long thought is one of the most, maybe the most in depth organ on cultural issues at least, and often beyond. Actually,that’s a reason why I don’t cite it more often than I do – I don’t have the time or energy to go that deep often, and I don’t expect you to either. But I am citing this one.

There are ways to sugarcoat this – and that’s part of the problem. It’s gonna take a whole lot of votes to offset it. I think the votes are there, but we will need every single one of them. GOTV matters as – well, not as never before because it mattered this much in 2016 and we didn’t succeed. But it matters that much again.

I would not call this an unseen problem – anyone who looks at national election results nationall since 1980 (and particularly since 2000) sees it clearly. I would call it an unacknowledged problem, since no one but Democrats (and not all of us) and the National Popular Vote interstate Compact is pointing it put. And why would Republicans point it put? It’s the only way they can win ( almost said without cheating, but, for on thing, it is a forme of built-in cheating, and for another, if it isn’t enough for them, they cheat in other ways, as in 1976.) I do not intend to badmouth decent and honorable Republicans (mostly historical) such as Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, T. Roosevelt, Margaret Chase Smith, Mark Hatfield, Adam Kinziger, and others (mostly historical.) But the few that are left had lost control of the party by 1980. None of this is unseed. It’s merely unmentioned.

PHP is a programming language used to build websites. We have it at all through our hosting partner, BlueHost. In order to update it, we have to go through Bluehost. During his life, TomCat was the only one who had access to our account there. I (JD) am now the only one. I have been to BlueHost and investigated updating our PHP to 8.3 or even to 8.1. I found instructions to do so - in fact, I found two conflicting sets of instructions. I went through one set of the steps and got the message that Our site could not handle 8.3, but that it had successfully updated to 8.1. I then went back here to see what it looked like. But I couldn't get in - either as an administrator or as a reader. It was just gone. I had to reach BlueHost by phone. It was determined that Politics Plus is in fact not compatible with any version of PHP newer than the one we have. BlueHost therefore uninstalled it for me, and the site came back to normal. Of course, like everyone else, I care about security. But I also am aware that TomCat elected to use different providers for several of the services that BlueHost provides, for instance backups. We are backed up daily - but not by BlueHost. However, out PHP is through Bluehost. I feel that if they are not worried about the older version, I am not going to worry about it. I believe that our security here is all or mostly through WordFence, whom I trust.