Poetic Justice – Politics Plus

Open Thread December 22 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 1:06 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 222025

Yesterday, I got an email from Jasmine Crockett about a new poll – she is leading the Republican by 9 points, 51% to 43%, and this was just days after she entered the race. Fingers crossed! Also Trinette was by. Always so great to see her. We didn’t talk as much as usual – she is learning to crochet and I’m doing my best to help make it easier.

ICE Has Domestic Abuser Agent Locked Up In Their Own Facility

When I first saw this story, I hoped o find it in “Law & Order” – but no luck I’d love to see what their take would be. It seems to me wrong on so many levels.

https://archive.is/ICy7q
This (archived) from The Nation is not brand new, but I just received it yesterday from Dose of Democracy. All things considered, it probably should not be surprising, but I hadn’t thought about it. So I was surprised.

https://steveschmidt.substack.com/p/jfk-vs-donald-trump
This is not new either – except to me, probably. I was alive and I believe sentient during the Kennedy Presidential campaign, though not old enough to vote. I graduated from high school that year and started my freshman year of college. And I knew Kennedy had served in the US Navy during World War II. I had heard about PT-109. But I never realized that he and 12 others had been been presumed dead and actually had a funeral service. Steve Schmidt brings it up now to emphasize the contrast between JFK and the Orange Oligarch.

Open Thread January 22 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:07 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 222025

Yesterday, The 19th shared a Vogue article about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s collar for the inauguration (spoiler: it was a “strong statement.”) I don’t know whether she is on a Vogue cover, or will be, but it would be a lovely rebuke to Melania. You go, Vogue! Also, The F*News did a summary of executive orders and other junk, which made me wish I could just read nothing but it (and The Contrarian) for the next four years. But I can’t do that. Finally, Wonkette referenced an article by Tim Snyder about Cabinet nominees who were rejected by the Senate in bygone days, when we still had a Senate.

I doubt this will make the news … and I also wonder how many stories there are like it.

This Democratic Underground link is to a list of economic indicators and exactly where they were when Biden handed over to the Apricot Antichrist. Bookmark it, or copy to a word document or anything else which will also save the live links. It will be needed when the media starts parroting MAGA lies about what happens to it.

Open Thread January 21 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 212025

Yesterday – Protective pardons, political and family. Tangerine Palpatine orders executive shock and awe, and promises “Golden Age of America” (but I think he means “Gilded II.”) And all of that was before 4:00 pm EST. I signed petitions as many as possible, and skimmed through most of my email. I’m tired already. Even Axios is tired. They didn’t do a new email each time they sent an alert on TSF, just added to the story and updated the old one the earlier one. That’s why only one link for multiple headlines. Oh, and Ceclie Richards died. It was announced in the morning, so at least she escaped before the inauguration. But she’s a great loss.

ProPublica sent the newsletter including this link on Friday. But I figure since TSF was inaugurated just yesterday at noon, he only had a half day anyway, and then there are the inaugural balls. So the headline’s question will not have been answered yet.

This from The F* News, is a list of some of the Biden Administration’s achievements. It isn’t 27 pages long (I have one that is, although it’s somewhat double spaced -I would guess somewhere around 18-20 pages if all the extra spacing was removed; if anyone wants it as a PDF let me know) but is also offers some of the reasoning behind its choices, and sorts them into categories rather then just listing by date. So they both may be keepers.

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.