Open Thread May 30, 2022

 Posted by at 7:29 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 302022
 

Yesterday, I finished framing and watermarking cartoons for between June 11 – June 20. Five more down. Ten days and five more new ones to go. My computers are’t networked, but Yahoo provides an app for notes which then remain online, and I’ve started using it for what’s going on with cartoons so I can access cartoon information on either computer and update it on both at the same time. The picture in progess I can always email to myself and get the same result … or put them on a thumb drive. That way I can grab spare seconds to work them. Also, Nameless informs me he will have a post for Memorial Day up sometime today – when I see it I’ll send a second email, because not everyone who gets the emails reads every day.

Cartoon – 30 Memorial-Day.jpg

Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – Uvalde Police Have Never Dealt With This Kind Of Public Scrutiny
Quote – Of course, politicians look the other way. That’s the agreement. And even the good politicians are afraid of the cops, since motivated cops think nothing of digging up dirt on their perceived enemies. (As their exes can verify.)
Click through for the implications. It looks like we are about to get proof of everything we’ve always known about police corruption.

Washington Post – A Jewish teen put her baby up for adoption in WWII. They just reunited.
Quote – When Sonya Grist entered the room, she was shaking. “My stomach was in a knot,” she said. “It was a bit of a shock to the system.” But as she embraced her mother for the first time, “there was an immediate bond,” she said. “I haven’t come down to earth yet.” The feeling was mutual: “She is a little bit of me,” Cole said between tears. Seeing her daughter again, “was definitely the best thing that has happened to me.”
Click through for very touching story. It’s a slow news day … and we can all use good news. My cousein sent me the (gift) link (so no paywall.)

Crooks and Liars – Tiffany Cross: White Replacement Theory Is ‘Gangsta’
Quote – Starting with a clip of Tucker Carlson cackling like a deranged hyena at critics of his white supremacy, Cross told viewers, her tongue somewhat in cheek, “Well, this might be a surprise to many of you, but I actually think that white replacement theory is very legitimate. It is absolutely something to fear.” But not at all for the reasons any of us might have been thinking. Because beginning with the Indian Removal Act, which forced relocation of thousands of Native Americans, also known as the Trail of Tears, whites saw people of color as “in the way” of fertile land they wanted for themselves. So they forced native peoples off their own land, then replaced them with white settlers.
Click through for full transcript (and video if you like.) I try not to get more than one story a day from the same source… but as I said, it’s slow. And Tiffany is SO right about the projection.

Food For Thought

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Video Thread 5/29/22

 Posted by at 12:01 pm  Open Thread, Politics
May 292022
 

Glenn Kirschner – New reporting disclosing Trump’s statement about Pence suggests Trump committed the crime of treason

Meidas Touch – Desperate Republican makes DISGUSTING ATTACK on Stacey Abrams

Robert Reich – Why We Need a Windfall Profits Tax

Farron Balanced – Russian State Media Slams Trump And Calls Him A Fascist

PBS – Trailer for the National Memorial Day Concert – TONIGHT – Check local listings

Liberal Redneck – On the Horrific Texas Shooting

Beau – Let’s talk about renaming military bases….

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Video Thread 5/28/22

 Posted by at 11:33 am  Blog News, Personal
May 282022
 

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ/federal grand jury squeezing Trump’s lackey lawyers: Rudy, Eastman, Ellis & Chesebro

Meidas Touch – Texas Paul unveils his plan to TROLL the GOP

The Lincoln Project – Run Away

The Ring of Fire – New Legislation Could Dismantle Independent Media

Robert Reich – The Real Motive Behind the GOP’s “Culture War”

Brent Terhume – We have a problem in this country  (Brent is angry.  And I probably don’t have to say it isn’t doors he’s angry at.)

Beau – Let’s talk about falling dominoes….

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Video Thread 5/27/22

 Posted by at 11:42 am  Open Thread, Politics
May 272022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trump offered Kellyanne Conway an unsolicited blanket pardon. Let’s talk Rudy/Don Jr./Ivanka/Jared

Meidas Touch – Texas Paul REACTS to Marjorie Taylor Greene defending White Supremacists

The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – May 24, 2022

MSNBC – Rev. Al Sharpton: I Think The President Is Legitimately Angry On Guns

VoteVets – Semper [Illinois]

Miserable blind cat crying for help rescue cat before & after 7 monthsThis one is kind of a roller coaster – but ends on an up)

Beau – Let’s talk about what Dems can learn from the Scopes trial….

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Open Thread May 27, 2022

 Posted by at 6:36 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 272022
 

Yesterday, I received my grocery order and put it away. No substitutions – a few things missing, but I wasn’t charged for them. While waiting, I started working on cartoons for June. It’s a month with a lot missing and also a few dated, so it’s a ;large project. I got four put together (but not framed) which took me up through the ninth. I’d kind of like to get the tenth done this week yet, and then get farther next week, but we’ll see how it goes.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Daily Beast – The Supreme Court Just Said That Evidence of Innocence Is Not Enough
Quote – After losing in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Arizona’s attorney general appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. During those oral arguments, state prosecutors repeatedly argued that “innocence isn’t enough” of a reason to throw out Jones’ conviction. On Monday morning, by a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court concurred: Barry Jones’ innocence is not enough to keep him off of death row. The state of Arizona can still kill Jones, even if there exists a preponderance of evidence that he committed no crime.
Click through for verdist ana analysis. I don’t have any idea how to react to this – it is that warped.

CPR News – Hate crimes are on the rise. Here’s what you can do to help prevent them
Quote – If someone says something that I have never heard them say before, like something racist, as uncomfortable as that would be, I would want to say, “I’ve never heard you talk like that. Why are these things appealing to you? What’s changed with you?” Actually express concern about them, that something is off and they’re becoming angry and blaming people, which is really a warning sign. If, instead, you come with the opposite opinion, or try to use facts to dispute someone’s beliefs, sometimes it ends up having the effect of making you impossible to talk to. They think you’re the “other,” or shaming them, and they will pull away, and then maybe they won’t express these things to you, but they can continue to get more strident.
Click through for full conversation – and, since after all this is radio, you can also listen to it if thet works for you.

Letters From An American – May 25, 2022
Quote – It seems that during the Cold War, American leaders came to treat democracy and capitalism as if they were interchangeable. So long as the United States embraced capitalism, by which they meant an economic system in which individuals, rather than the state, owned the means of production, liberal democracy would automatically follow. That theory seemed justified by the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The crumbling of that communist system convinced democratic nations that they had won, they had defeated communism, their system of government would dominate the future…. In fact, the apparent success of capitalism actually undercut democracy in the U.S.
Click through as she bolsters the argument. It’s depressing, but iit’s also important. And it’s why it’s also so important to distinguish between Left v. Right economically and Autocracy v. Democracy as governance. See (and shre) The Political Compass.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread May 23, 2022

 Posted by at 7:13 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 232022
 

Yesterday, I woke up before the alarm went off, and just stayed up, since I knew the weather could be problematic. It actually turned out not to be. there was no snow or ice or even frost on the windows – a couple of drops of rain was all. I took my time driving, the roads were almost all dry, and the short spots where they were not (bridges ot dips) were only wet, not icy. Virgil was a litttle short of sleep … and so was I. But we enjoyed each other’s comapny. And I got home as easily as I went down. (However, I wouldn’t be surprised if, when you see this, I am actually still asleep, even if you get to it later than usual.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

truthout – Judge Blocks Biden from Ending Title 42 in “Arbitrary, Racist” Ruling
Quote – Human rights advocates say Title 42 forces people legally seeking asylum in the United States into perilous situations in Mexican border cities, where Human Rights First has identified nearly 10,000 violent attacks on migrants. “Beyond the devastating humanitarian impact of Title 42, the court’s ruling also fails to recognize well-established domestic and international law,” said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. “Seeking asylum is a legal right, and yet this bedrock of the American legal system is quickly eroding at a time of unprecedented need.”
Click through for an explanation at least in part why the immigration authorities at the southern border are still doing such a – (cough) – such a rotten job. It isn’t all on Biden by a long shot (granted that some of it is).

Reuters – Analysis: Australian women unleash new political force on climate, integrity
Quote – Women who left successful careers in business, medicine and media to enter politics as independents were on track to win five seats from Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s Liberal party in its affluent urban heartland in Saturday’s general election, as moderate voters abandoned the government…. Personifying the disruptive change were centrists, mostly women, dubbed “teal” candidates because of teal-coloured marketing material used as they targeted seats held by Morrison’s conservative party.
Click through for full analysis. Lona did such a good job of summarizeing the election results in her comment (scroll down) that I thought I’d use this article, since it’s more about something new than general politics.

Crooks and Liars – Cassidy: Our Maternal Death Rates Only Bad If You Include Black Women
Quote – “About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear,” Cassidy said in an interview with POLITICO. “Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”
Click through for story. Can you believe this? Not his thinking it, tha’s nrmal for Republicans, but presumably not realizing what kind of blowback he would get from it?

Food For Thought

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Video Thread 5/21/22

 Posted by at 11:52 am  Open Thread, Politics
May 212022
 

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ wants the 1000+ transcripts of witness testimony from the Jan. 6 House committee. Here’s why

Meidas Touch – Muslim TV hosts EXPOSE clear DOUBLE STANDARD in recent Buffalo shooting

The Lincoln Project – Doug Mastriano is Dangerous

RepresentUs + Mondaire Jones shares a first-hand account of a failing democracy

Ring of Fire – Marjorie Taylor Greene Says The ‘Real’ Racists Are The Ones Denouncing White Replacement Theory

Armageddon Update – Abort The Court

Beau – Let’s talk about when the wealthy meet climate change….

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Open Thread May 17, 2022

 Posted by at 6:34 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 172022
 

Yesterday, my radio station played (an orchestral arrangement of ) the Welsh song usually translated as “Men of Harlech.” I first learned it when I was a little girl – but today it made me think of Ukraine. It’s known to date back to the Wars of the Roses, but may be even older, from 1408, when Prince Hal (the future Henry V) invaded it to annex it. Here’s a short quote from the oldest published English translation (1873):

Know that freedom’s cause is strongest,
Freedom’s courage lasts the longest,
Ending but with death!
Freedom countless hosts can scatter,
Freedom stoutest mail can shatter,
Freedom thickest walls can batter,
Fate is in her breath.

Sadly, the Welsh lost that battle and became part of the UK … but not part of England, even now. They have held on to their language and culture, and their status as a nation, to this day.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Media Matters – Fox’s modest proposal for baby formula crisis: Starve migrant babies
Quote – Meanwhile, there is currently a major shortage of baby formula in the United States. There are many reasons for this shortage, including the consolidation of formula suppliers, supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, bacterial contamination that forced a recall of some formula stocks and the shuttering of a major manufacturing plant, U.S. trade policy, and the general disregard U.S. policy has for children. The shortage is a crisis for many parents, who are unable to find the food they need for their babies.
Click through for more. ICYMI, the term “Modest Proposal” is a reference to a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift regarding famine and babies (written IIRC during the Irish potato famine.)

Letters from an American – May 15, 2022
Quote – They also drew from America’s own version of a theory of replacement. That theory comes out of the 1870s and was explicitly connected to voting…. The violence of the 1876 election, along with fears of what their lives would look like in its wake, led Black Americans to leave the South in a movement known as the Exodus…. When Black Americans began to come to their state, Indiana Democrats immediately howled that the Republicans were importing Black migrants to shift the state back toward the Republicans in the 1880 election…. [T]he conspiracy theory took root. White Hoosier Democrats met Black migrants with showers of rocks and vowed to “clean out all the g–d d– –n***ers in the county before the [1880] election.”
Cick through for history and discussion. The only replacement of voters which is happening is in the course of nature, Yes, a few people do leave the US, and a few come here (though it takes a while to become a citizen, but the biggest influence is that older peole die and children reach voting age.That process happens to people of every color, and incidentally every gender – and has done so since the beginning of time. (Although Texas Paul has a slightly different take on it.) Wouldn’t you think Talibangelicals would think that trying to stop or change it was against God’s will? Alas, no consistency there.

The Daily Beast – Hero California Church Members Hog-Tied Gunman Who Killed 1, Hurt 5
Quote – After the initial gunfire, Hallock said, “a group of church-goers detained him and hog-tied his legs with an extension cord and confiscated at least two weapons.” The man had two handguns, police said…. Peggy Huang, a Yorba Linda city councilwoman who[se] parents are members of the congregation but were not present, told the Los Angeles Times that witnesses told her that after the shooting started, the pastor hit the gunman with a chair and other members accosted him.
Click through for details. Most of the parishoners appear to be in their seventies and up. There was no “good guy with a gun” here – the only weapon used was a chair. Older people are often underestimated.

Food For Thought

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