TV – Politics Plus

Open Thread September 11 2025

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

Sep 112025

Yesterday, I learned that the (Democratic) Governor of Kentucky was on Seth Meyers the night before. I don’t hav time to watch Seth much, and when I do, it’s usually just “A Closer Look. But I looked up this segment. It’s just under 11 minutes. If the Mango Monster gets wind of it, he’ll be calling for Seth Meyers to be fired along with Colbert and Kimmel.

Well, this is discouraging. I have not yet felt the consequences of DOGE in my Social Security checks – probably no one who has been receiving it electronically for over a decade and has no changes recently or in the near future has felt it, since the cuts so far have been personnel cuts which affect people dealing with new claims or claim changes. Or people receiving paper checks might be affected. Someone in the organization with more brains than God gave lettuce has set SSA’s computer to sent electronic checks early but make them “pending” until the day they are due – mine is due the second Wednesday of each month – but I could see it Monday and Tuesday as a “pending” transaction. There are cuts in the “Big Brutal Bill” but those have been set not to take effect at least until 2026 – possibly even after the midterms – Republicans know perfectly well how unpopular cuts to vital programs, not just SS, are and don’t want to lose their majority. Think that one through. They know they are not electorially safe in 2026 but think they will be in 2028.

There’s a good point being made here. And I’m sure everyone can think of multiple historical examples. If we do not have a way to hold someone accountable for a particular action, we are saying “Go ahead and do it” even if that is the last thing we intended. And it’s not as if we didn’t realize this could happen. My Lai was 57 years ago. We have had plenty of time to figure out how to deal with this. And we didn’t even try.

There’s really no need for me to comment on this article from The Root. It says it all. (Daily Kos covered it also, but it shouldn’t be missed.)

A guest video today – Heather Cox Richardson Longer than usual, but under ten minutes

A Star Is Born: (“I Didn’t Even Know There Was Also A 3:30 In the Morning Until Today”)

Posted by SoINeedAName at 2:08 pm Politics

Dec 242022

Two days ago, a Waterloo, IA evening TV sports announcer was reassigned to the early morning local news – but told to cover the weather pertaining to the blizzard blasting through Iowa. Mark Woodley did NOT appear to be a happy camper during his three-and-a-half-hour stint. And he wasn’t shy about letting his audience know it … in the most snarky and entertaining way that has now gone viral.

Woodley had originally posted the montage of clips to his personal Facebook page, but his friends and family intervened and convinced him to put it on Twitter.

This is what you get when you ask the sports guy to come in to cover a blizzard in the morning show. pic.twitter.com/h0RL9tVQqg

— Mark Woodley (@MarkWoodleyTV) December 22, 2022

The next thing he knew, the movie director Judd Apatow and the actor Josh Gad (voice of Olaf) were retweeting him. And his humorous antics have since been covered by NBC’s “Today Show” as well as The New York Times and even the Wall Street Journal.

Besides putting on his heavy winter togs, Mark Woodley also put on a grimace to head out into the subzero temps to report on the impending blizzard.

Woodley noted that he usually does the evening news stint which run “for only 30 minutes and are generally inside.” So, he started the first of his 14 freezing outdoor reports explaining why he was covering the weather instead of sports.

“I usually do sports; everything here is canceled for the next couple days, so what better time to ask the sports guy to come in about five hours earlier than he would normally wake up, go stand out in the wind and the snow and the cold and tell other people not to do the same.”

He got grouchier and grouchier as the three-plus-hour-long morning news show slogged on. And the warm and cozy staff inside was loving it!

Woodley handled their ribbing expertly:

“This is a really long show. Tune in for the next couple hours to watch me progressively get crankier and crankier.”

We’re all familiar with the local TV news folks’ banter, so it was no surprise when Woodley seemed to quibble over a colleague’s assignment tracking the impending storm inside the station’s warm van.

“Clint got the better end of that deal — that thing’s heated.”

“The outdoors currently is not heated.”

As is not uncommon, the temperature outside continued to fall throughout the morning show, even as the sun was slowly coming up.

“I’ve got good news and bad news: The good news is I can still feel my face right now. The bad news is I kind of wish I couldn’t.”

Woodley was begging to return to his regular job and felt someone had it out for him:

“I’m pretty sure, Ryan, that you guys added an extra hour to this show just because somebody likes torturing me.”

Woodley’s reply when asked by the warm-as-toast anchorman sitting inside the nice warm studio how he was doing is a classic:

“Again, the same way I felt about eight minutes ago when you asked me that same question.”

“It’s absolutely fantastic, Ryan.”

Finally, in the last shot of the morning, Woodley got to sign off:

“Live in Waterloo – for the last time this morning … THANKFULLY!”

His snarky take on reporting the weather has been greatly appreciated by an audience who have lavished praise on his honest reporting. Here are a few of the accolades Woodley received on Twitter:

Like most local TV reporters, Woodley has always dreamed about making “big” someday. He’s facing his new curmudgeon notoriety admirably well:

“Being known for being the crotchety old sports and weather guy was not on the list. But it is what it is.”

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.