Stock Market – Politics Plus

Open Thread May 27 2026

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

May 272026

Last weekend, it happened again. In case you missed it, starting around Easter, the announced on Saturday that peace talks were going well and peace was imminent. The oil futures market responded – the price per barrel dropped. On Monday (or Tuesday if Monday was a day the market was closed) the same went all hawkish and threatened to bomb Iran to Kingdom Come. The price of oil futures went up. American oligarchs who had bought low (who can affords to buy futures th the hundreds of millions of barrels) then sold high. This has happened every weekend for eight weekends. Every weekend for those eight weekends, ‘s personal friends who could afford to buy oil futures in the millions of barrels made millions of dollars. And don’t think it’s over. It will go on as long as they can get away with it. Malcolm dtill called his show the “confuion-cast” yesterday, but said he may soon go to “dementia-cast.”

You don’t have to go to X to watch the graphic. It plays fine right in the article. I personally think the final still at the end is every bit as jawdropping as the video.

Robert Reich is talking about the political compass here – and so on point that I expect he is aware of it. This is not the first time I have heard someone advise that a third axis is needed, and I beieve that person suggested good and evil – which is fine with me. It would have to be in and out, since that’s the only dimension left in our three-dimensional world, and it would be a challenge to draw in two dimensions, but I think probably worth the effort.

There’s a lot in Mornng Memo, and it’s all valuabe. But the first section is what first caught my eye.

Better a couple of days late then never (IMO)

Open Thread May 7 2026

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:01 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 072026

Yesterday, my exterminator came and said all my rooms have much less activity – and so does the yard. It actually snowed a little Tuesday, which is exactly when they would try to get inside out of the cold, so that’s all good. Then Trinette came by – and it took us a while to find where the plug had come out of the computer, but we did, and it works. So I can run the disc now, and hopefully I’ll be back in business.

Thirty seven minutes of discussion about Louisiana v. Callais – and the procedural mandate SCROTUS released late this Monday (a little less if you skip the part at the beginning when knitting and animals are discussed. The first few minutes of Substack videos are always off topic because viewers don’t all join at once, and most presenters wait until at least 1000 have joined to address the topic.) Once I started watching instead of reading, I have continued when possible because watching, you can’t skip, so I don’t miss things by trying to read too fast. And also, because depth of the the presenters’ feelings on the topic come through more clearly. But if you really prefer to read it, scroll down a bit – I’ve se the link so the transcript will already be up.

Under a regime which does not care whether people live or die, nor how they suffer –this could not have happened at a worse time. Not that there is a good time, but there have been times when the federal government would at least have tried to minimize tragedies.

Robert Reich points out a billionaire who is making a case for a wealth tax. But he’s not doing it intentionally. I’ve often wondered whether, if millionaires and billionaires woul just pay their political contributions into the IRS as conscience gifts instead of giving them to politicians, we could fund Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and other similar programs just fine.

Open Thread January 29 2025

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:08 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jan 292025

Yesterday, I watched/listened to most of a Contrarian interview with Sherrilynn Ifill. Being naturally a better reader than listener, while still listening, I scrolled down into the comments. I noticed a bunch of people complaining about no transcript. Odd, I thought, since the button (not exactly presented as a button but as a word which served the function. I finally came to one which was the last in a thread, so probably a lot of people didn’t see it, which pointed out that before you see the transcript “button” you must click on “Watch now” and it will appear. That may only be true on phones and tablets (those who are complaining who mention what hardware they are using look to all be on phones or tablets), but it’s still good to know. As an unpaid subscriber, I can’t comment, but I can recommend comments, and I recommended that one. Also, the Contrarian does pay attention to subscribers, and from now, instead of sending an email for every new post, or even just the major ones, they will send two a day, morning and evening, which will include a list with short descriptions of of the articles (mostly videos) since the previous newsletter. I hadn’t complained, but that will certainly make my life easier. Also yesterday. the stock market tanked – and Robert Reich knows why. Today, Happy Lunar New Year!

From Wonkette. You likely know about it – but no one says it quite the way Wonkette says it. And we also all knew it was coming, I expect.

These two articles from PoGo are a lot to read, I admit. And getting Congress to do what needs to be done looks darned near impossible. Those three special elections are looking more important every day. Not that they will solve everything, by any means. But every little victory helps a little. BTW if it looks like either of the two links is done, keep scrolling anyway. One had, at least for me, a huge plug for the newsletter – but there was much more after it.

Video Thread 12/16/2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:51 am Open Thread, Politics

Dec 162021

Glenn Kirschner – Rep. Swalwell Announces New Federal Bill: Help for Families Who Lost a Loved One to Homicide

MSNBC – Mary Trump: Donald Trump Had The Power To Stop Jan. 6 Riot

Thom Hartmann – Trump Overruling Michigan Governor (w/ Judd Legum)

Rebel HQ – Mark Meadows Is SCREWED As Text Messages Surface (Ordinarily I don’t use material that jumps to conclusions – such as Mark Meadows being screwed – but there is good factual stuff in here.)

Robert Reich – Can Congress Really Use Insider Information to Trade Stocks?

Liberal Redneck – War on Christmas

Beau – Let’s talk about semantics, Shepherd’s Pie, liberals, and leftists….

PHP is a programming language used to build websites. We have it at all through our hosting partner, BlueHost. In order to update it, we have to go through Bluehost. During his life, TomCat was the only one who had access to our account there. I (JD) am now the only one. I have been to BlueHost and investigated updating our PHP to 8.3 or even to 8.1. I found instructions to do so - in fact, I found two conflicting sets of instructions. I went through one set of the steps and got the message that Our site could not handle 8.3, but that it had successfully updated to 8.1. I then went back here to see what it looked like. But I couldn't get in - either as an administrator or as a reader. It was just gone. I had to reach BlueHost by phone. It was determined that Politics Plus is in fact not compatible with any version of PHP newer than the one we have. BlueHost therefore uninstalled it for me, and the site came back to normal. Of course, like everyone else, I care about security. But I also am aware that TomCat elected to use different providers for several of the services that BlueHost provides, for instance backups. We are backed up daily - but not by BlueHost. However, out PHP is through Bluehost. I feel that if they are not worried about the older version, I am not going to worry about it. I believe that our security here is all or mostly through WordFence, whom I trust.