Open Thread May 4, 2022

 Posted by at 6:35 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 042022
 

Yesterday, I received confirmation for my visit to Virgil this Sunday. I would have receuved it Monday if I hadn’t made a proofreading error which I had to clarify. I’m both relieved and a little sad that I got the approval in spite of the delay, because May 8 is Mothers’ Day. But maybe the mothers of inmates who are not only children are visiting other days on the weekend. I hope so. Anyway, I’ll be there.

Cartoon – 04 0504Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Twitter – Statement of President Biden on reported Spureme Court draft    Quote:

Click through – the link is to Twitter – it should allow you to click on the full statement and see a larger image. Of course there are a gazillion actions already set up, and it won’t do any haem to join one or more. (Update: Chief Justice Roberts confirmed the draft yesterday)

Daily Kos (Community) – Ukraine Invasion Day 69: irony might yet win the war
Quote – Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to undergo cancer surgery and temporarily hand over power to a hardline former federal police chief, according to a new report. Putin will transfer control of Russia’s government to Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian federal police’s Security Council, while he is incapacitated….
Click through for a little more on this and a lot more on the war in general.

No More Mister Nice Blog – Who Are Right-Wingers When They’re At Home?
Quote – [T]he teams working on Fox’s evening lineup began to make wider use of expensive ratings data known as “minute-by-minutes.” Unlike the “quarter-hour” ratings more commonly used in cable newsrooms, which show how each 15-minute “block” performed, the minute-by-minutes allow producers to scrutinize an audience’s real-time ebb and flow. Mr. Carlson … was among the network’s most avid consumers of minute-by-minutes, according to three former Fox employees….
Click through for article. This blog is in our blog roll, and does great work – but I usually find it when Crooks and liars lifts fro it.

Food For Thought

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Video Thread 5/3/22

 Posted by at 12:10 pm  Open Thread, Politics
May 032022
 

Glenn Kirschner – J6 hearings to start 6/9; how many Republican pols will refuse to testify, joining The Cover Up Club

Lincoln Project – Russian Rand Paul

Really American – Republicans MELTDOWN Over Student Loan Forgiveness

Meidas Touch – Texas Paul REACTS to megaviral #WeirdGOP Video

Ojeda Live – Disgusting and UnAmerican… Yep That’s the GQP!

Twitter – QAnon Anonymous

Beau – Let’s talk about Gerasimov, the most sought after man in the world…

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Video Thread 5/1/22

 Posted by at 12:26 pm  Open Thread, Politics
May 012022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Atlantic article: Why it’s a smart political calculation for Republicans to say, “Trump’s a Loser”

Lincoln Project – Laughing

Meidas Touch (ICYMI) – Trump REVEALS Fear of Being Killed by Fruit During Sworn Deposition | Tony REACTS!

MSNBC – Lawrence: Ron DeSantis Is $1 Billion Stupider Than We Thought

VoteVets – John McCain Called Out Rand Paul As A Russian Asset Long Ago

Brent Terhune – Praying on Planes (Once again his satire is so brilliant you may be tempted to think he’s for real.)

Beau – Let’s talk about getting banned books for free….

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Video Thread 4/29/22

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Apr 292022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Jim Jordan does Elon Musk’s bidding, sends “preservation letter” demands to Twitter board members

Thom Hartmann – Why Canceling Student Debt Can Save America & Get Out The Vote (His last vid ended with a cliff hanger, so I kind of had to post this one)

Twitter – Never forget

RepresentUs – Michael Douglas Thanks Missouri Better Elections Team

Crooks and Liars – Jimmy Kimmel Recommends A New Drug For Marge

Puppet Regime – Putin’s Friendship of No Limits

Beau – Let’s talk about Bishop Evans and Operation Lone Star….

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Open Thread April 29, 2022

 Posted by at 6:49 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 292022
 

Yesterday, I received a grocery order which had NO SUBSTITUTION! Yay! My delivery window was 4-6 pm and by 4:30 I actually had it all put away. Amazing.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

HuffPost – Parents of Trans Kids Don’t Know Where Their Children Can Be Safe
Quote – Many families, including the Morrisons, would be forced to move away if Arizona were to pass a stricter trans youth medical care ban in the future. What makes that reality particularly devastating for their household is that they already had to relocate once to keep Skyler safe: They left Texas in 2017 after lawmakers attempted to force through a bill banning trans youth from using the school restroom that matches their lived gender. The Morrisons hoped Arizona would be a chance to start over.
Click through for the full story. Cuss if you feel like it – I did. (I personally don’t think I would have gone to arizona from Texas for this reason – New Mexico would have been a better bet. But that’s just me.)

Crooks and Liars – Blinken Torches Rand Paul’s Russian Talking Points
Quote – Sen Paul tried to blame the US and other NATO nations for agitating Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine. Blinken said, “If you look at the countries Russia has attacked over the last years — these are countries not part of NATO. They do not attack NATO countries for probably good reason.” Paul replied, “You could also argue the countries they attacked were part of Russia. Were part of the Soviet Union.” This is Putin’s propaganda, which Sen. Paul gave credibility to.
Click through for full exchange (including video). I get very frustrated that so many people – people in general but also an astonishing number of people who ought to know better – keeptalking as if there is still such a thing as “the Societ Union.” There isn’t. There’s also a misconception that Rissua = Communism, It doesn’t. It is a capitalist oligarchy. It is also extremely authoritarion, as it was under communism (and under Communism in name only), but that’s a different matter. I also see peole using the term “Comrade” in Russian references, which bolsters the falsehoon. If we don’t know what we are up against, we can’t very well oppose it effectively.

Mother Jones – A Wave of Lawsuits Aims to Halt Louis DeJoy’s Gas-Guzzling Postal Fleet
Quote – Sixteen states and two environmental activist groups—Earthjustice and the National Resources Defense Council—are suing USPS to halt its purchase of a fleet of of gas-guzzling mail trucks. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has come under fire in recent months for his decision to move forward with a contract for 165,000 new postal trucks—90 percent of which would run on gas and earn 8.6 miles per gallon.
Click through fir list and details.. I have aleady ranted once today, so I stand mute on this one.

Food For Thought

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Video Thread 4/28/22

 Posted by at 12:02 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Apr 282022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Judge holds Trump in contempt of court. Will Trump grift his MAGA base to pay his 10K-a-day fine?

American Bridge is reaching out to voters

Thom Hartmann – Should Ukraine Be rolled Into NATO Now – To Stop the War? (ends with a cliff hanger – I will post the next one though)

Rebel HQ [Texas Paul] – TikToker Roasts ‘Spineless’ Republican Party

Voice of America – US Cabinet Officials Pledge More Military, Diplomatic Assistance to Ukraine

Liberal Redneck – On Elon, Twitter, and our Billionaire Overlords

Beau – Let’s talk about Japanese-Russian relations….

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Open Thread April 27, 2022

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

Yesterday, I finished putting together today’s posts at a little after 4:30. That was an hour earlier than they guarantee the information, but I looked it up anyway, and a lot of information was already there. There wass a group of 211 jurors ordered to report by 8:00 a.m. today, and another group of 286 standby jurors ordered to check in around 11:30 and be prepared to come in within the hour. Of that 268, I would be the 248th person to be called. On Tuesday they released 380 standby jurors, and on Monday they released 404. So I was figuring I can pretty well expect to be off the hook. But of course I don’t take that for granted.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Common Dreams – EU Enacts Landmark Social Media Law to End Self-Regulation by Big Tech
Quote – “The law aims to end an era of self-regulation in which tech companies set their own policies about what content could stay up or be taken down,” the newspaper noted. “It stands out from other regulatory attempts by addressing online speech, an area that is largely off-limits in the United States because of First Amendment protections.” Calling the legislation a “major milestone for E.U. citizens,” Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal market commissioner, said that “the time of big online platforms behaving like they are ‘too big to care’ is coming to an end.”
Click through for details. Yes, free speech. And yes, this is going to be a pain in the butt for them to administer, even without the FirstAmendment. But the way social media currently act will nevitably destroy democracy.

Crooks and Liars – Climate Activist Dies After Setting Himself On Fire At SCOTUS
Quote – And so Wynn Bruce had set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court at about 6:30 p.m. on Friday, and we didn’t pay any attention to that, either. I thought I’d remind you, so he didn’t die in vain.
Click through for story. CPR reported the incident but not the reason. You may have seen the report somewhere (but probably not the reason.) I’m afraod he did indeed die in vain.

The Daily Beast – U.S. Vietnam War Insiders: Russia Is Making the Same Damn Fool Mistakes in Ukraine That We Did
Quote – “The Americans got run out of Vietnam, and the Russians are going to get run out of Ukraine,” William Taylor, ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009 and again, for seven months, from June 2019 to January 2020, told The Daily Beast. “The U.S. didn’t understand Vietnam, and the Russians didn’t understand Ukraine.” … Although comparisons are inexact, he finds an eerie parallel between the American failure in Vietnam and Russia’s violent campaign in Ukraine. “We didn’t understand there’s a nationalism about the Vietnamese,” he said. “The Vietnamese pushed us out,” and “the Ukrainians will push out the Russians.”
Click through for the reasoning. I was certainly not an insider then, but those who were have good reason to know mistakes were made. I hope their conclusion is accurate.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread April 26, 2022

 Posted by at 6:39 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 262022
 

Yesterday, I got a phone call from Virgil, which means he has been fully checked in (I was told that could take up to 2 weeks, but it only took 6 days.) He says the staff are very good people – I was surely glad to hear that. Anyway, I went to the DOC site to download and print the forms I will need (or may need) including the disability accommodation form. I have never needed to request accommodation at any of the other three places I have visited him, because they all are on one level or have ramps, and I can walk far enough to go therough the metal detector, and I can collapse the wheelchair so that it also goes through (not at the same time that I do.) But getting onto a shuttle bus is a shuttle bus of a different color. So I want to get that done in advance. I had no trouble finding the forms on line and only slight annoyance “printing” the pages I needed to a PDF. Next is to print to paper and fill them out.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – Cawthorn Wasn’t In DRAG-Drag, He Was In NORMAL PERSON Drag
Quote – I’ve witnessed this kind of thing firsthand. At my high school every year, there was an assembly in honor of the football team — attendance mandatory. It ended with several players onstage dressed in drag. The message was that these kids were the embodiment of masculinity, so it was funny, get it? Not even remotely gay or transsexual or connected to transvestism!
Click through for details. I could wish this wasn’t correct and that it would hurt Maddy – but I fear that would be incorrect.

The Daily Beast – U.S. Is Now Aiming to Degrade the Russian Military, Says Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin
Quote – Austin, speaking bluntly Monday after a tour of Kyiv on Sunday, said Russia had “already lost a lot of military capability and a lot of its troops, quite frankly, and we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.” Austin was accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on his trip, which was shrouded in secrecy until President Volodymyr Zelensky blurted out the secret at a Saturday afternoon news conference.
Click through – their source is the New York Times but I’m paywalled out. That trip to Ukraine must have been one impressive trip.

Media Matters – With attack on Twitter, the right shows it has institutionalized Trump’s corrupt use of government power
Quote – “Nice company you’ve got there; be a shame if something happened to it. Maybe you should save yourself some trouble and sell it to our buddy.” That’s the message 18 House Republicans, led by Judiciary Committee ranking member Jim Jordan (R-OH), sent on Friday with a letter demanding Twitter’s board of directors preserve all records related to the bid by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to purchase the company.
Click through for article. This certainly sounds like RICO to me. Can we give DOJ enough money to hire 200 prosecutors, please? It looks like they are going to need more than 130 new ones.

Food For Thought

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