Reality – Politics Plus

Open Thread October 9 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:43 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Oct 092026

Yesterday, I had to admit to myself that I have caught Virgil’s cold. I will, of course, get over it, but it’s still annoying.

This is from Heather Cox Richardson. Malcolm Nance likes to say that (with our current Executive branch) we have mental illness posing as foreign policy. (And I would add, also cosplaying as domestic policy.)

This from The New Yorker is neither bad news nor good news – but it is completely off topic from politics, and there is a kind of poetic justice in it.

Maybe it’s just me – but I’ve run across a number of debates in my lifetime about what is big and what is small. (Generally it depends.) This from The 19th is going to affect hugely the people who are having the rug pulled out from under them – not to mention their families and friends. But I couldn’t begin to describe how terribly petty it is. Centuries ago, the attitude behind it passed for normal. But that – at least among civilized people – has not been true for at least a century. Except for those whose minds are still locked into the Middle Ages.

Open Thread December 6 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:56 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 062025

Yesterday, I received two Axios alerts about the courts – one that SCROTUS will hear Metanucillini’s birthright citizenship case, and the other that a Federal judge has ordered Epstein’s grand jury transcripts unsealed. Also, The Root had an update on Baby Chance – you’ll remember the case. And the New York Times (are you sitting down?) actually did something in favor of freedom of the press.

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/a-2-1-panel-of-the-dc-circuit-makes
from Joyce Vance – “The case is styled as Harris v.o Bessent, although there are numerous parties involved and the order directly impacts the president’s ability to fire at will.”

Colorado Public Radio addresses my Secretary of State’s refusal to turn sensitive voter information over to the DOJ. I knew that was the case but it’s good to also have her legal reasons. I might also point out the request is unconstitutional – the conversation gives the states sole authority to run elections. There have been times I wished that wasn’t the case – but now is not one of those times.

This is essentially one story from Senator Hickenlooper – and it’s a story comparable to Abrego Garcia’s. Hick and his staff are doing everything they can think of and are getting stonewalled at every step.

Yes, I realize this is almost an hour long, and yes, there are some ums and aws in it. That’s why I put it in Saturday when it’s from Thursday. There is a transcript if that’s better for you (I didn’t vet it so it may have some creative spelling in it.) The first 16¼ minutes are an overview of history starting in the 1920s and then explaining how we got here from the 1980s. I lived through a lot of it, and I expect you did too. After that she goes into how we got here from 1980, including the “Some people are better than others” fallacy (of course some people are smarter and/or more competent than others, but the idea that skin color or gender has anything to do with that is such an obvious fallacy that one really has to have a mind which is out of shape to fall for it.) She explains how the unitary executive theory was proposed and is being used to make some people worth less in law. She touches on a principle that if you take a random 10 people, 2 will have actual opinions on government and 8 just want things to go smoothly and predictably so they don’t have to think about it – and just want to get along with people, and how to use that knowledge to get through to many people on whom reason and logic don’t work. She mentioned that she put so much effort into this video that she might not do a Thursday night letter (turns out she did, but it didn’t post until after 3 am her time). If you choose not to watch it or read the transcript, that’s fine. It’s your decision.

Open Thread June 14 2025

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

Jun 142025

Earlier this week, I mentioned that Pete Buttigieg now has a Substack. A couple of days later, Heather Cox Richardson invited him to a video conversation which was broadcast as recorded. The recording is now available, probably on both Substacks, but I watched it on Pete’s. If you have a spare three quarters of an hour or so, and you’d like to spend it in the company of two people who are intelligent, knowledgeable, sane, and just good people, this may be for you.

As Wonkette does not say (but I do), families are not a certain predictor of a person’s principles. Some apples fall a county, or a state, or a country away from the tree. These people coming up with these conspiracy theories, particularly the ones including trafficking children- I mean, for that to even occur to them doesn’t say much for their own morals.

This opinion piece (I say opinion, but it’s the truth) by Rebecca Solnit got her banned from Facebook. But Wonkette’s “TABs” linked to it. If you are here before going out to a “No Kings Day” event, this is probably the one to read now and the rest later.

I threw in this from Wonkette because I didn’t want it to wait. I also didn’t want it to get buried. Foreign policy is not an area which gets much attention (unless there’s a war – and that goes double for the current isolationist atmosphere) and I thought this important.

Open Thread April 18 2025

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

Apr 182025

Today I am expecting snow in the afternoon and overnight. This is not the latest in the spring we have had snow. I remember one year in the late 90’s when we had snow during the third week of May. It wasn’t that much, but it was enough to ice the roads as I drove home from work. When I got home, I called the announcer of my local radio station and requested “Come un bel di di Maggio” (Like a lovely day in May) and she played that and also “Die Wunderschöne Monat Mai” (The amazingly beautiful month of May.) And we are not the only ones expecting un-spring-like weather. Hail is predicted over an area of the plains from roughly Iowa to Oklahoma city. They are not predicting but cannot rule out tornadoes there also. Sorry about the missed post – I did put it up when I realized it thanks to Nameless because there was so much in it, including a Borowitz. If you’ve been reading what I have put up, you’ll know I am being gut-punched by the news😢. It must not be stopping me from signing petitions, though. Yesterday I got 5 responses from my Congressman within the space of a minute, and I’m sure they are all responses to petitions and/or group sponsored letters.

This is about as straight talk as it gets. I’m going to be flippant for a moment and say, “Gee, there sure must have been a lot of people in Nazi Germany bitching about the price of eggs.” But it’s really no time for flippancy. I just get that way when I feel helpless. It’s good to know we still have some judges who are not corrupt – and I’m confident there are many more we are not hearing about because they haven’t been assigned a case like these – yet.

Personally, I don’t have anything against lawyers in general. I’ve been fortunate enough to know some really good ones – good people besides being good lawyers – and on principle I tend to assume a person is a decent human being until proved otherwise. But Joyce’s point that many Americans would have no sympathy for lawyers is probably sound (and for that matter, not just for Americans, but for just about every group since before Shakespeare’s time.) Most layers do not deserve to be treated like this. Sadly, some with firms that capitulate now are likely soon to do something that does deserve negative consequences.

More pretty much straight news from Andy (I don’t believe in the poll, but I do believe if there were one, this would be the result.)

Rachel Maddow interviews Senator Van Hollen

Open Thread March 20 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:00 am Politics

Mar 202025

Yesterday, The new (to me) PC is here now and I was able to get it connected to everything and running much faster then I’ll be able to get everything organized on it. But it’s looking a lot more feasible. And I did find out my games are going to work now, except for the ones which depended on Adobe Flash (Sadly, there’s no workaround for that – I asked about that some time ago, and instead of a workaround they gave me a free game coupon to get something else.) Oh, and happy Spring Equinox to those who celebrate.

Jim Stewartson has a background in entertainment, including videogames. When he realized that technology he had helped develop was being used in far-right propaganda and psyops, he founded the organization Antifascist USUA to help deprogram victims. So, though not academically trained in psyops, he has been on the frontlines for a while. I am taking this seriously. This link is to his own website, but he is also on Substack now.

Robert Hubbell has retired from lawyering, but he doesn’t appear to have forgotten much. The post is from this week, but before John Roberts released his social media post about impeachment, with which Hubbell clearly disagrees, at least in part. (Off topic, but as I was typing I typoed “media: as “mefia.” And it occurred to me that all that needs is an “a” in the second position to be all too accurate.)

Open Thread January 3 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 5:49 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 032025

Yesterday, I expect everyone knows that a couple of Cybertrucks were uses in incidents in which people were injured or killed or both. There’s a lot of speculation, but what appears to have been confirmed is that the two drivers – a white man from Colorado Springs who drove the truck to Las Vegas, NV, and a black man from Houston who drove the truck to New Orleans, rented the trucks, both from the same company online, Truro (or Turo – I didn’t verify which was correct.) We need not to jump to conclusions. In better news, my state’s Attorney General, Phil Weiser, announced that he is running for Governor. That’s good news, and gave me some hope. I’d been worried about that since our current Governor is term limited out, and I couldn’t think of anyone else who had the necessary visibility who hadn’t already served (and been term limited.) Phil has a real chance, and, while I’m now worried about the Attorney General position, I feel this is more important.

As a non-subscriber to Crooks and Liars, I find it difficult to read their stuff. And this particular one I wanted to save, since it has a lot of advice I’ll want to keep on hand, at least for the next four years – including a few Substacks (and I remind you that you can subscribe to any of those for free). I didn’t want to print it, even just to a PDF, so I used Ctrl A followed by Ctrl C to copy everything – then Ctrl V to put it into a Notepad file, and deleted everything before and after it (in simple text, it isn’t hard to tell when it starts and stops. If y’all subscribe, you shouldn’t need to do that. But it works for me.

Robert Reich could easily have written this years ago. It’s too bad he didn’t. Not that it would have changed much except a few people’s minds, and people not powerful enough to change much at that.

Personal Update January 13, 2024

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:47 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 132024

Well, yesterday I got my car back after some very pricey repairs (including a timing belt – which was most of the cost.) Trinette worked the time out with her boss, drove here, took an Uber to the garage, and then drove home. Yes, Nameless, I said “Hi” for you, and she says “Hi” back. Now we just need to keep it running until I’m cleared to drive. Not that driving is exactly exercise, but I’d like to be a little stronger yet.

Robyn Pennecchia, writing for Wonkette, says this so well: “Today, I would like to take a moment to congratulate myself for not going on any violent murder sprees, for never adopting a Ukrainian orphan and then claiming she was an adult who was trying to kill me and my family so I could “re-age” her and send her to live on her own at the age of eight, for not participating in any dog fight rings, for never having voted Republican, and for never having consumed human flesh. At the same time, I would like to congratulate the state of Ohio for not sending a woman to prison over a miscarriage — which is a far lower bar of human decency than many of us would have ever thought possible. More specifically, we should be congratulating the grand jury that refused to charge Brittany Watts, 34, with “abuse of a corpse,” a charge which makes a lot more sense, re: cannibalism and necrophilia than, say, miscarrying a child who had no chance of survival to begin with.”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad that she’a been acquitted. But I’m still furious it happened in the first place. Jury nullification can be very helpful, but it’s not something which can be depended upon.