Racism – Page 18 – Politics Plus

Open Thread May 23, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon 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

Video Thread 5/21/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon 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….

Open Thread May 17, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon 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

Video Thread 5/16/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:02 pm Open Thread, Politics

May 162022

Glenn Kirschner – Federal prosecutors open grand jury probe into Trump’s removal of top secret docs to Mar-a-Lago

The Lincoln Project – Thank you, Jen.

MSNBC – America ‘Needs To Prepare For’ Insider Threats To Elections

Twitter – CNN – White supremacist terrorism

“It’s really important to examine how the media talks about white shooters,” @marascampo says. “There are some predictable patterns. First, there’s almost always this presumption of mental illness that absolves the shooter for any personal responsibility.” Watch the rest pic.twitter.com/0uXWfE7l5i

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 15, 2022

Politics Girl – Quick Civics

Food-Obsessed Cat Has Taught Himself To Open Containers With His Teeth

Beau – Let’s talk about a cliff analogy….

Video Thread 5/15/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:46 am Open Thread, Politics

May 152022

Glenn Kirschner – J6 committee subpoenas McCarthy, other representatives. Here’s what’s at risk if they fail to comply

Meidas Touch – Top Democrat DESTROYS Justice Thomas with speech of the year!

The Lincoln Project – The Crazy Ones

MSNBC – Swalwell: ‘Inference of Guilt’ If GOP Reps Don’t Honor Jan. 6 Subpoenas

CNN – Republican didn’t want the press at his event. So CNN got creative (unfortunately, so did the CC -which is gibberish – and the transcrip is no better. But the chyrons help.)

Shirley Serban – If I Were a Rich Man

Beau – Let’s talk about Quadry Sanders and Oklahoma…. (Wow!) —->> https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-oklahoma-officers-charged-manslaughter-unarmed-mans-death-rcna28032

Open Thread May 13, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:11 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 132022

Yesterday, I paid a couple of bills. I didn’t venture outside, though I suppose I might have, because besides the evacuations the day before, we also has spring winds (to blow them away) – but that’s a straight stick which points two ways, – the winds could aldo have brought the fires (and their smoke) closer. Not difficult to justify doing what I wanted to do anyway (grin.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

truthout – DeSantis’s Congressional Maps Deemed “Unconstitutional” by Judge He Appointed
Quote – Smith will likely replace DeSantis’s gerrymandered maps with one of two that the Republican-controlled legislature had previously passed, which the governor had vetoed earlier this year. Though still advantageous to the GOP, those maps are seen as somewhat better (though by no means perfect), in terms of respecting Black voters’ voices, than the ones DeSantis demanded be passed after his veto.
Click through for article. Here’s my take on DeSantis.

Media Matters – Fox News melts down following revelation Karine Jean-Pierre called the network racist. She’s right.
Quote – It’s not just people on the left pointing out Fox’s racism. In 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, The Daily Beast reported that it “spoke to more than a dozen Fox News insiders, who all suggested that behind the scenes there is a growing despair among employees about the network’s role in demonizing and spreading fear about Black Americans in particular.” One Fox staffer quoted in the piece described some of the network’s personalities as “a white supremacist cell,” adding, “This is rank racism excused by Murdoch.” Another described Fox programming as “white supremacist crap.”
Click through if you can stand to. Shall we expect Fox staff to treat Karine with even more disrespect than they did Jen? (OK, I grant I was shocked when Doocy said on camera that he would miss her because she’d always been a “good sport.”)

Robert Reich – Personal history: The Supreme Court I argued before fifty years ago
Quote – Douglas, Marshall, and Blackmun were the intellectual leaders of that Supreme Court. Their opinions gave the Court its moral heft. They drew not only from the Constitution as written but also from the nation as it had evolved. They understood the moral leadership America needed to protect the rights of the voiceless and the powerless. Today’s Supreme Court majority doesn’t have a clue about the Court’s moral authority, and couldn’t care less.
Click through for history, nostalgia, and moral clarity. Today’s FFT is a meme drawn from this article. Feel free to share it.

Food For Thought

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 16: Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich testifies before the Joint Economic Committee January 16, 2014 in Washington, DC. Reich joined a panel testifying on the topic of “Income Inequality in the United States.Ó (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Video Thread 4/23/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 12:16 pm Open Thread, Politics

Apr 232022

Glenn Kirschner – Rep Jamie Raskin: Public Hearings Will Show, “Trump Launched a Coup Against VP Pence and Congress.”

The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party

Meidas Touch – Texan HUMILIATES Ted Cruz for Disney Furry Porn Fetish

Really American – Fox Host CALLS OUT Desantis’ CRT Math Claims On Air

Crooks and Liars – McCarthy Denies He Said He’d Ask Trump To Resign. Maddow Has The Tape. (McCarth is a liar. In other news, the sun came up this morning.)

Armageddon Update – The Arrogance of the Left (I don’t think “arrogance” is the right word – but it might as well bem because everything else in the rant is correct.)