Monarchy – Politics Plus

Open Thread August 28 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:30 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Aug 282026

Wednesday, I went to bed around sunrise, and got up around sunset, and stayed up. On Thursday, I did the same, and finished and posted this in real time, around sunrise. That won’t last too long. The opera is tomorrow, and Trinette will be coming over Sunday. By Tuesday at the latest I should be back on a schedule which, if not exactly normal, is at least normal for me.
ttps://harrylitman.substack.com/p/the-other-side-of-dojs-corruption
I am not saying, and I don’t think Harry is saying, that this is entirely due to this DOJ having thrown the presumption of regularity out of a fiftieth story uindow. But I can’t help but think it does play a part. And so does sheer incompetence (something which affects every aspect of this regime, not merely the DOJ.)

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/revisiting-can-federal-troops-be
It always surprises me – and, frankly, feels false – when the Mango Moron is described as using a “trial run.” simply because I don’t think is intelligent eough – and I do think he is too vain – to believe he needs one. However, he does have lackeys who are knowledgeable enough to recommend trial runs to him, and possibly glib enough to get his approval. Of course, a trial run on his part may also become a trial run on our part – or, at the very least, a telegraphing of the nature of the attack before it occurs. I’m very glad Joyce Vance is doing the analysis so that I don’t have to – she is SO much better at it than I could possibly be.

https://thefuckingnews.substack.com
I expect the Guardian has all of these stories, and a lot more respectfully at that. Somehow, to me, the tone felt exactly right.

https://www.confrontthehate.com/p/the-american-caesar-why-extremists
Well, here it is at last – the truth that, if we become a fascist nation, it won’t happen or at least not completely, from our being careless and just sliding into it. We will have been deliberately dragged into it by people who know exactly what they are doing, and want it to happen, because tthey think it will allow them to get everything they want. It won’t. But by the time they figure that out, since they are wealthy and think wealth will buy everything, i will be far too late for all of us. So much for “most of us just want the same things.” The people who want the power they believe a monarchy will give them re totally different. They are a minority, yes -but they are a larger minority than normal people can begin to comprehend.

Open Thread July 2 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:54 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 022026

“When the power of love beats the love of power, the world knows peace.” – attributed to Jimi Hendrix. Quoted on a banner two people were attempting to fly from the top of the Statue of Liberty. I hope they have survived. I don’t know the whole story as I type – perhaps y’all do by now.

If you know anything about the British Constitution, you know that a King or Queen nactually has far less power than our President – especially this one. The monarch of England, for example, is forbidden by the Constitution to speak publicly about politics. Elizabeth II spent what, over 70 years? – living up to that. I mention this because Robert Reich implies in the video that SCROTUS made our so-called President a King. They did not. They made him into an emperor- or maybe a demigod. An autocrat. A Dictator. But not a King.

This from “We Are The Mighty” is a flashback to World War II which has a happy ending. This quote – “The Nazis took perverse pleasure in trying to destroy anything that their enemies held dear” rings very now to me. Therearestill Nazis – and they are still practicing this.

Archived from the Huff Post. One response to Mike Johnson: “Don’t threaten us with a good time”

I don’t think the subject of this from The Intercept is getting the attention it deserves. Possibly because it doesn’t sound that bad – but the unintended consequences are massive.

sorry the URL is embedded in Paint. But I put it below the image in case you want to read the story and haven’t already seen it.

https://archive.is/ohZGx

Open Thread January 23 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:02 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 232025

Yesterday, following a day of undeserved pardons (and commutations), a day which itself followed a few days of richly deserved pardons (and commutations), many not even reflecting any crime, but issued for protective purposes – The Huff Post Fringe had words. Also, this happened. The link is from The Root, but I’m sure others are not getting left out of the purge. Meanwhile, The Root compiled a list of what it describes as the Canteloupe Caligula’s “most worrisome” executive orders.

This is only the second article from the Contrarian, and it has already come a long way. It is a roughly 18 minute video, and it has CC, and it has a transcript for which you have several options, including saving as a PDF (which I did), saving as something else, printing (which should mean either to paper or to your hard drive or a thunb drive), and reloading. I did save it as a PDF, haven’t looked at it yet, but assume it’s more accurate than YouTube – not that that’s hard.) Mechanics aside, the episode is a “how did we get here” story which should frighten (but not, I hope, paralyze) you.

When I read this article from Steve Schmidt in situ, I also looked at one of the comments – the first one (I don’t know whether they change position as time passes, so I’ll add it was by Martin Dillon.) It ended with “Are there no Republicans that want to save this country?” My mental response to that was “Yes, there are, but few, if any, are in office, elected or appointed.” And that makes them difficult to find. Many have re-registerd as Independent or Unaffiliated. Don’t try to look for them in Congress or State legislatures. Look for them in your community. There are at least 3 Special Elections coming up, to replace Congressmen who have been appointed to some other position, and there are non profits who want to save democracy helping to fund Democratic candidates. That’a the place to start. And sooner than later.

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.