Open Thread July 17 2024

 Posted by at 6:09 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 172024
 

Yesterday, There was a thunderstorm warning , not exactly for my area, but for an area I’m on the fringes of. I heard one crash of thunder, but I didn’t see the Lightning, so I have no clue how far away it was. I lost no power, but my modem started refusing to stay connected to the ‘Net. I rebooted it once but that didn’t help – but I then rebooted a second time, this time leaving it disconnected for over an hour, and it’s working now. Fingers crossed it keeps working. Another 9 days of storms like this are predicted, and tha’s as far in advance as they rpredict, so there could be more. So now, though the modem is working, somehow the zoom size of my inbox in my opera browser got trashed. Everything else on that browser works, but can’t read my emails (my main source.) So I’m having to read them on edge. It’s not perfect, but it’s close enough I can make it work with the screen magnifier. So I learned that, according to Axios, there is now evidence tat Netanyahu is working behind the scenes for Trump**. I hope this news reaches some coters who are wanting to not vote for Biden because, basically, he honored a treaty he was legally bound to honor. At least he’s doing his best to hold Bibi back. Trump** will say, “Do whatever the hell you want.” If anything else new comes it, it will have to wait. I need to get this posted while I still can (at least I hope so.)

Steve Schmidt’s response to the shooting at the Trump** rally byposting a video of Bobby Kennedy’s speech in response to the death of MLK. It was a powerful speech then, and it’s powerful now, but what really hit me was one of the comments (which I normally never look at – this must have been the first time in over a decade that I have done so.) A viewer usernamed “@tedb3966” simply wrote, “The greatedt President we never had.” But Steve himself has some powerful things to say too.

I know y’all are alert and atay informed, so you probably know that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has set his sights on Clarence Thomas. But I also thought youmight be as interested as I was to read about it from a black news outlet.

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Open Thread June 18 2024

 Posted by at 6:09 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 182024
 

Yesterday, when I had the time and energy to finish reading my emails from Sunday, I came across Joe Biden’s Father’s Day Proclamation (courtesy of Steve Smith), read it, and am sharing the link. That’s the world that I want to live in. It’s not a perfect world – there is no perfect world – but it’s a world in which at least the Federal goverment is run with ethics, honesty, kindness, and consideration, in order to make life easier for the maximum number of people. I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but I’m going to anyway: we willl never get there by electing people at any levels who just want power – and who get elected by promising their voters power through them. Also, Robert Reich’s caption contest, which asked readers to submit suggestions for whar “MAGA” really stands for, ad too many good answers to list here. I can’t enter, being a free subscriber, but had I been ale and done so, I would have suggested “Malice And Greed Always.”

Moving to actual news (or at least actual analysis of actual news – there’s some of both), Robert Hubbell goes into detail about how and why the Washington Post is so worng in their election coverage, even though they still do well in other areas (some of this ofcourse also apples to the New York Times, and other formerly competent mainstream outlets.) If he is accurate on their strategy (and I suspect he is), it’s easy to see why he wonders whether the Post can survive. It’s a no-brainer.

In Sunday’s Open Thread, Beau spoke about Ukraine, including commenting that Ukraine might be operating in the skies a little more – which, with the loan he also spoke about – they have been doing. Now, the Daily Beast confirms that Ukraine is hitting hard, and it is working. We can but hope Putin is runninng out of things up his sleeve.

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Open Thread June 6 2024

 Posted by at 5:52 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 062024
 

Yesterday, Wonkette’s newsletter provided a gift link to a New York Times opinion piece, written by Michelle Goldberg (not by some right-wing lackey), whichdoesn’t contain anything we hadn’t figured out, but says it well and clearly. And the gift link makes it easier to share if you’d like to (don’t cut it – the stuff after the question mark is needed to validate that it’s a gift.) Also, Andy Borowitz “interviews” the new President of Mexico, who has thoughts on the U.S.

Well, this is interesting. It’s hard to be sure what it means at this point, other that Republicans are so good at creating “plausible deniability” that they have gotten bad at using it, trying to make it work all the time. Denying everything is admitting everything.

Well, this is really interesting. Like puppetmaster, like puppet, I guess. Now, before anyone says “Money is the root of all evil,” let me point out it is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil (or as Chaucer quoted in the Canterbury Tales, “Radix malorum est cupiditas.”)


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Open Thread May 25 2024

 Posted by at 6:04 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 252024
 

Yesterday, Robert Reich announced he is starting a series he is calling “Debunk” in which he will debunk the ten biggest political-economic myths. It’ll run for ten weeks. Any episode i don’t share i will at least link to so you can follow it.

The headline here says it all, really. And the artice connects the dota, with each new dot adding something more appalling.

This should bring a smile to your face. (I wonder whether they invited Bernie to the ceremony.)

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Open Thread May 23 2024

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 232024
 

Yesterday, I observed that Donald Trump** is now claiming that Biden ordered him assassinated, specifically on the day of the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Magats are, frankly, to evil to eben be able to imagine a person who just wouldn’t do that, so perhaps we should counter with something like “Democrats get things done. If Joe wanted him assassinated, he’d have been assassinated. He wasn’t. End of story.” Also, among the petitions I signed was one for Thomas and Alito to recude from the Trump** immnity case. Actually, I’d rather leave those to on and have the three he nominated recuse.Knocking out those two still leaves it 4-3, and the best hope we have is for Roberts to do the right thing. But if we knock out Gorsuch, Javanaugh and Barrett, it’s now 3-3. Unless Roberts does the right thing, there’s an unbreakable tie.

I’m going to word my hanky alert differently on this by quoting Shakespeare’s Mark Antony: “If youhave tears, prepare to shed them now.” Yes, I’m preaching to the choir. But sharing it couldn’t hurt.

Just as I’m highly in favor of the National Interstate Popular Vote Compact, because I don’t see any possibility to amend the Constitution without the nation being able to see that the popular vote works, I also don’t see equirable tax reform happening unless people can see it works. That’s why I;m posting this,and enci=ourage sharing it as widely as possible.

And here is yet another article which desperately needs to be widely shared. I’ll try to help on this one with the”Food for Thought” cartoon below.

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Open Thread May 13 2024

 Posted by at 5:57 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 132024
 

Yesterday, I saw another Parody Project production. I’m not sure it’s new, but it is delightful. (The original song is IMO deplorable, but this may redeem it.) Also, Trinette was by (and returns greetings). I had a whole bunch of stuff- trash, recyclables, and charity – which I needed help getting it out. After seeing Virgil, despite coming home exhausted, I had a burst of energy over the week. That helped me with the decision to start making it every other week to see him.

Just in case you needed, or someone you knw needs, yet another reason to do every possible thing to prevent Trump** from returning to the White House…

This site was down yesterday evening, but should be up today .  (And I don’t want to hear a single word about a PhD candidate using a double negative. There’s more to brains than formal grammar.)

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Open Thread May 10 2024

 Posted by at 6:05 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 102024
 

Yesterday, I got two petitions which I did not sign (along with a bunch of others that I did sign.) Both were from Left Action (I don’t know whether it is a wing of Care2/The Petition Site, that is who hosts its petitions.) The first one I saw (the second I received becaue I read my emails from the top down) was addressed to Judge Merchan and was headed “Don’t let Trump’s lawyers get a mistrial.” The problem is that it is addressed to the judge. Prople not involved in the trial pushing the judge to rule a certain way could be construed as obstruction of justice. The other one was regarding remmoving Aileen Cannon from the Mar-a Lago case. It didn’t specifically say it was addressed to the Citcuit Court (I forget which District that is), but I had to assume that it is, since that’s the only body which can do what is petitioned. I’m not saying no one can petition the courts, but this is not the way. Such a petition would have to come from someone with standing, like a group which had filed an amicus brief. We have all gotten so accustomed to “Don’t like something? Sign/start a petition that we have lost sight of the need to address those petitions to the entity which can actually act on them, and that entity had better not be someone in the justice system for whome the petiton could be construed as obstruction. Judge Merechan has been doing everything he possibly can from the day the case was assigned to him to insure there will be no mistrial. This petition could even conceivably increase the chances of a mistrial, not reduce them, if it is actually delivered and Trump**’s defense team find out about it. Both petitions were from n email address which can apparently be responded to, since i did and haven’t received a non-delivery notice. I hope y’all will consider this concerning these and any other petition involving any court. You can probably petition the prosecutor, maybe even the defense, but please, not the judge.

At least this is good news – if, as Ben said, we can keep it. I can guarantee that, should Trump** win, we cannot. And even if he doesn’t, if enough of his followers get into/stay in Congress, I certainly wouldn’t guarantee being able to keep it.

More proof that it’s not about life, it’s about control. With my age and experience, I probably shouldn’t be – but I was shocked by the sheer volume.

I don’t see how any sane person can fail to be in awe of Volodomyr Zelensky. Eleven assassination attempts and still trucking. Fly high, Ukrainian Guy!

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Open Thread April 25, 2024

 Posted by at 6:14 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 252024
 

Yesterday, the Arizona State House voted to overturn the 1864 abortion law, the one whose author has been so discredited. If it gets through the Senate, the Democratic Governor will, I am sure, sign it. Arizona appears to be on a roll – they also indicted some election conspirators, including Giuliani and Meadows. Also, my radio station was playing Passover music (it’s not till Tuesday night, but this DJ normally only works this station on Wednesdays, so next week would be late. (The rest of the time he works at the sister station whoch features jazz.) That made me think that 613’s Passover piece might be up, and it is. They are a group which makes videos for Jewish holidays, picking an artist to parody and then signing information about the holiday in a nedley of that artist’s works. This year’s is titled “Matza Mia”, parodying Abba (of course).

If you are looking for some really juicy news about what a fiasco Trump’s trial is being (especially on Trump’s side), Mary Trump is your go-to source. This column is dated Wednesday, but looks back to Tuesday

Joyce Vance has links to trial transcripts and documents. This might be a good one to save as a fact-checker reference.

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