Open Thread November 4 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Nov 042025
 

Yesterday, I opened my email, and it looks like I’m going to be doing more knitting this week and next. PBS Great Performances will be streaming “The Barber of Seville”. Cedille Records (RBG’s son) will be releasing a new CD and streaming from another, both with only composers killed or exiled during the Holocaust (good thing I just ordered and received 4 boxes of tissues).

This Intercept article didn’t pop up a subscription pitch for me – possibly because it’s the first of the month? Anyway, I have held this for a bit in the chaos, but it does need to be known.

Heather Cox Richardson from last Friday is worth reading if only for the Gatsby quotation, in which Nick specified that he was speaking of “Tom and Daisy [Buchanan]’, but which Richardson rightly extends to the whole MAGA party. It’s sad but true. (Totally off topic, but I just realized that she and I have the same surname – mine just uses the nickname instead of the full first name, and has condensed the spelling.)

I posted last week a preview of the Supreme Court season, but this “The Week Ahead” specifically looks at a Nectarine Napoleon’s tariff case (one of them) and analyzes what exactly he is trying to accomplish,

HCR videos generally run at least 20 minutes and usually considerably more. So I thought I’d better grab this six minute one while it was still current.

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Open Thread July 2 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 022025
 

On Monday, I finally remembered to re-add images like Lona’s hedgehog and Freya’s angry cat to the media library late enough in the day that the should be the last thing added in June, to make them more convenient to find. Speaking of Freya, has anyone heard from her? It’s been a very long time, not just since she posted here, but since I (and also Evelyn, who is also concerned) got a newsletter from her. If you know anything, please put it into a comment or email me. Then yesterday, I got the news that Jimmy Swaggart has died. I won’t speak ill of the dead, and I assume everyone knows what that is code for.

There have been lively debates in comment sections about this case – which is now over – the baby, a boy named “Chance” was removed by C-section (and while the case it over for the courts, it’s not over for him, poor thing.) But this from The Conversation is about as complete an analysis of the ethics of the case as you are likely to find.

This is from The Brennan Center for Justice on the topic of the Supreme Court. I know in the past some have had issues getting to that site, so here is an archive link in case anyone needs it.

Here is an extra video which left me literally speechless:

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Open Thread July 1 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 012025
 

Yesterday, I went through a little more than two days of emails – I had not had the energy to tackle Sunday’s on Sunday. But Joyce Vance’s “The Week Ahead” from Sunday really shouldn’t be missed, both for the analysis and for the hope. Harry Litman addressed the same case – not the verdict itself but apparently even lawyers can’t agree on how awful it is.) Also yesterday – remember the Pearl Street bombing in Boulder, CO on June 1? Well, one more victim has died, as reported by Colorado Public Radio. She was 82 years old. Finally, USA Today has a pretty detailed account of the shooting in Idaho. I won’t claim is the best – I didn’t check everywhere – but it’s pretty solid. No paywall.
https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-week-ahead-

This is a few days old – but I think still interesting to anyone who is still wondering just how effed up the knuckle-draggers working in the current regime can get. I would put this somewhere in the territory of FUBB and FUBAR.

John Pavlovitz was inspired (as was I) by Joe Biden’s presence and demeanor at the funeral of the Hortmans (Melissa, Mark, and Gilbert). This is what he had to say about it – and I can agree with just about every word. I did know what we had, and you may recall, was so crushed when he dropped out of the race that I had to take a week off to collect myself. I wish I had a way to forward this to President Joe. He deserves to know how much he is loved and missed.

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Open Thread June 28 2025

 Posted by at 6:06 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 282025
 

Yesterday, the Supreme Court gave us a decision dump. It’s a dump in all senses. And there’s a good deal of coverage all over the net, so I’ll just add that my heart goes out to Justuce Sotomayor, who must be in licking-her-wounds mode big time. Also, I learned that a No-Secret-Police Act has been introduced in Congress. Civic Shout has a petition to applaud it.

Many, maybe most, of Meidas Touch Substacks posts are videos. I literally cannot watch them. If I try, my brain starts wandering and my stomach tightens. This does not mean Meidas is bad – in fact, it’s more likely to mean it’s very good indeed – since that happens to me with some of the best speakers. But it does happen, and I won’t post anything I cannot evaluate. Fortunately, this post is not a video (it is from a video, and it contains a short video of Mrs. Abrego Garcia), and it addresses something that no one else is, as far as I can tell. If they are, they are leaving out the human side. And without empathy, our work is – not worthless, but worth less.

Others are spreading this news, but I thought I’d post it straight from the source which did the investigating – Project on Government Oversight (POGO)

One more thing from Pete Buttigieg. He does manage to find things that others miss.

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Open Thread March 20 2025

 Posted by 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.)

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Open Thread October 15 2024

 Posted by at 5:59 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 152024
 

Yesterday, I read Joyce Vance’s “The Week Ahead.” A day late, but since yesterday was Indigenous People’s Day, the week doesn’t start until today. Certainly not SCROTUS’s week – and she includes the SCROTUS week’s calender in her post.

It amazes me that it seems to have taken so long, and so much more evidence, for so many people to see this. I don’t even remember how long I’ve known this, except that it was sometime in his first (and I hope last) term.  I expect Robert Reich has known it for a minute also, but this is the first time I have seen him write about it quite this way.

I think that Wonkette’s Robyn Pennachia does a fine job with this story. She manages to make it both laughable and chilling at the same time, which is not all that easy. I have a bumper sticker – I’ve has it for more than 20 years and have always been afraid to put it on my car, here in Colorado Springs, the crazy Christian capital of the West. And people like the one Robyn describes are why. The sticker says, “Jesus called. He wants his church back.”

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Open Thread October 8 2024

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 082024
 

Yesterday was the first Monday in October, and that means it was the beginning of the current term for the Supreme Court of the United States. If, like most of us,you pay attention to this Court when it makes a decision which will affect you or someone you care about (and I admit that describes me), this may be a good time to dig a little deeper. Jotce Vance is not on the Supreme Court (more’s the pity for us, though she is probably happy she isn’t), but she knows more about it than most people do.) You can if you wishm read he “The Week Ahead” column for this week I guarantee you will learn something.

People who love horses will be interested in these two companion stories. I can’t speak for other states, but, at least in Colorado, no horses are being killed in the interest of reducing equine crowding. And I can’t say what the horses are thinking, but the girls in this program must feel like they are in heaven. I haven’t been on the back of a horse for at least 50 years now, and I know myself better than to try it now, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the feeling.

I don’t know what else one would expect from a Trump** nominee. But I also don’t know what the process is to fire an Inspector General. If it’s as hard as it is to fire a Postmaster General, that would explain why he hasn’t been fired. We can at least hope that this report from POGO will generate some action.

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