Video Thread for 7/20/21

 Posted by at 12:32 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jul 202021
 

Glenn Kirschner – Defendant Hodgkins Receives Lenient Sentence. How Will It Impact Other Insurrection Prosecutions?

Thom Hartmann – GOP Killing Kids & Grandma to Own the Libs?

politicsrus hasn’t posted for a while, but now has three up. First: Smart campaigning is here

politicsrus #2: Make John Happy – looks old, but we can’t take these Senators for granted. And we need to keep then

Now This News – Police Use Bag of Chips to Save Stabbing Victim’s Life

Puppet Regime – Putin Has a Solution for US Democracy

Beau – Let’s talk about Legos, being your own worst enemy, and the Block 19…. From what Beau says, it apears Lego just made the Legos, and the kits were the brainchildren of (and assembled by) someone else.

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Open Thread for July 20, 2021

 Posted by at 6:53 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 202021
 

Here’s a personal opinion, with which anyone is welcome to disagree. I believe that the DOJ should research court records to determine the longest sentence that anyone has ever received for a conviction of a single count of possession if narijuana for persona l use Then, the sentence for Capitol rioters should all be at least one day longer then that. I’m pretty sure eight months doesn’t meet that criterion.  It is, however, definitely better than nothing.

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Short Takes –

AP News – In step to shut Guantanamo, Biden transfers Moroccan home
Quote – Almost 800 detainees have passed through Guantanamo. Of the 39 remaining, 10 are eligible to be transferred out, 17 are eligible to go through the review process for possible transfer, another 10 are involved in the military commission process used to prosecute detainees and two have been convicted, a senior administration official said. The 10 eligible for transfer are from Yemen, Pakistan, Tunisia, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates.
About goddam time. Click though for story.

Reuters – France honours Rev. Jesse Jackson with the Legion d’Honneur
Quote – A political activist, minister, and former shadow U.S. senator for the District of Columbia representing the Democratic party, Jackson has been involved in civil rights activism since the 1960s, when he worked alongside Martin Luther King…. “From your earliest years, you were hungry for knowledge and justice, and you are a special friend of France, a brother for us,” Macron said in a solemn address at the Elysee palace.
Click through for a little more, including photo.

The 19th – Senate Democrats take fight to protect voting rights to Georgia
Quote – Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic head of the Senate Rules Committee, which oversees federal elections along with the chamber’s day-to-day procedures, said the panel decided to convene its first field hearing in more than 20 years in Georgia because its legislature passed an “egregious” restrictive voting law earlier this year. “We cannot keep our heads in the ground, you’ve got to go out there and see exactly what’s happening,” Klobuchar told The 19th ahead of the hearing.
Click through for details. It’s not guaranteed to work, but it is something. It can’t hurt.

Food for Thought:

There is a new book out about plants. The title is “This Is Your Mind on Plants.” The last name of the author is “Pollan.” Yes, you probably could make this up, but who would believe it?

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Open Thread for July 14, 2021

 Posted by at 11:28 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 142021
 

Yesterday was kind of uneventful. I discovered an unopened bottle of salad dressing I had thought I was out of – a quite new bottle, not an old expired one. I need to place a grocery order but I don’t like to do so on Tuesday for Wednesday because that’s when theprices change. I kind of like to know what I am spending. Maybe today.  It’s not urgent to within a day or two.

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Short Takes –

The Hill – Biden rips Trump’s ‘big lie’ in voting rights address
Quote – Republicans vehemently oppose the For the People Act, calling it a blatant power grab by Democrats. The wide-reaching bill would mandate a federal threshold for certain voting rights, such as universal by-mail voting, early voting and same-day voter registration. It also addresses gerrymandering and campaign finance reform.
Click through for full story. Maybe we should be saying yes, it is a means to grab power away from those who hold it illegally and immorally and return it to the people to whom it rightly belongs. Maybe it’s just me – but I think we need to get better at turning their own words back on them. And we need to do it fast.

Politico – Opinion | The Democrats Need a Reality Check
Quote – But the FDR and LBJ examples show conclusively why visions of a transformational Biden agenda are so hard to turn into reality. In 1933, FDR had won a huge popular and electoral landslide, after which he had a three-to-one Democratic majority in the House and a 59-vote majority in the Senate. Similarly, LBJ in 1964 had won a massive popular and electoral vote landslide, along with a Senate with 69 Democrats and a House with 295. Last November, on the other hand, only 42,000 votes in three key states kept Trump from winning re-election. Democrats’ losses in the House whittled their margin down to mid-single digits. The Senate is 50-50.
Click through for his rather depressing reasoning. I wish I had an idea how to make it happen.

Slate – What the Rogue Texas Democrats Did on Their First Day in D.C.
Quote – They’d come to D.C. to take the last (and most dramatic) action available to them to stop their home state of Texas from passing sweeping restrictions on voting rights. The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature is ready to pass the bill, so more than 50 Democrats in the Texas House fled to D.C. to withhold the quorum required to pass a bill. They must stay out of the state for the rest of the 30-day special legislative session called by Gov. Greg Abbott. Their plan for their first day included a short press conference, then lobbying senators and members of Congress to pass federal voting rights legislation that would supersede what the Republicans in the Texas Legislature are trying to pass.
Click through for more story, opinion, and analysis. It is simply heartbreaking that they need to do this. They are all heroes in my book. But they shouldn’t have to be, and wouldn’t if too many Republicans weren’t weasels (no insult intended to four-legged, furry weasels.) I wanted to be sure to post this story today and not behind Pat’s back – she’s on vacation for four days starting tomorrow (so don’t worry about her.)

Food for Thought: Three Borowitz Headlines
Democrats Agree to Return to Texas if Greg Abbott Leaves

Texans Nostalgic for Wisdom of Rick Perry

Greg Abbott Tries to Lure Back Democratic Lawmakers by Offering NPR Tote Bags

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Video Thread for 7/13/21

 Posted by at 12:28 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jul 132021
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s CPAC Speech and the Reaction of his Adoring Fans. Hate Sells as our Nation Suffers

Meidas touch – Arrest Trump Now

MSNBC – Texas Charges Man Who Waited Six Hours To Vote With Illegal Voting

Now This News – Dr. Fauci Slams CPAC Attendees Applauding Low Vaccination Rates

Rebel HQ – Trump ADMITS To Peddling Election Lies

Rocky Mountain Mike – Big Lie. This may be his best ever.

Beau – Let’s talk about that statue coming down and defending history….

Beau – Let’s talk about politicians writing unconstitutional laws….

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Open Thread for July 3, 2021

 Posted by at 7:11 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 032021
 

Last night’s opera was “Nixon in China.” It’s the first in John Adams’s American history trilogy; “Doctor Atomic” was the second. “Nixon in China” is fairly straightforwardly historical, until the second act, when a plot point of Mme. Mao making up a clownish exaggeration of a villain as Kissinger in a performance for the guests requires the storyteller singing Kissinger to double. The more you detest Kisinger, of course, the funnier it is. As with “Doctor Atomic,” actual journals and quotes from contemporary interviews were used in the libretto. The only character who is spared some mockery is Chou En-Lai, who at the time of Nixon’s visit was dying of cancer but also ersonally invested in the meeting going well – good reasons to treat him kindly. There is a piece which was contemplated being in the opera but withdrawn which is known as “The Chairman Dances” or, alternatively, “Foxtrot for Orchestra.” (I guess the idea of a mobility challenged Mao dancing for 12 minutes, energetically at that, was simply too much.) I’ve never seen the third opera in the trilogy, because it involves terrorism and ends up getting boycotted. Since I haven’t seen it, I can’t say whether the boycotting is justified, but I suspect it isn’t. Perhaps some day I’ll find out.

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Short Takes –

The Hill – Five takeaways from the Supreme Court’s term
Here are the five: The court is shifting to the right
Still some room for consensus
Religious rights groups extend winning streak
Losing streak continues for voting rights
A ‘warm-up act’?
Click through for details on each.

Yahoo!news – Tropical Storm Elsa is the latest evidence climate change is happening now
I’m not a big fan of yahoo news, but this was the only source I could find quickl which made the link to climate change explicit
Quote – While Elsa, whose maximum sustained winds are 45 miles per hour, is unlikely to inflict the same amount of damage as a stronger hurricane if and when it makes landfall, its formation on July 1 — following Ana, Bill, Claudette and Danny — fits into a pattern in which the changing climate makes conditions for life-threatening storms more favorable.
Click through for the rationale.

Axios – Poll: Americans more worried about restrictive voting laws than election fraud
Yes, I know, this is one of those “file under No Shit, Sherlock” stories. But there’s so much denial of it.
Quote – Why it matters: 67% of Americans — including majorities of Republicans, Democrats and independents — said they believed American democracy is currently under threat, though the survey did not ask what they believed is threatening it.
Click through for details.

Food for Thought

Just a little extra – Smithsonian Trivia for July 4. Their quizzes are generally tough but I managed 4 out of 5 on this one.

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Open Thread for July 2, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 022021
 

Last night’s opera was “Satyagraha” by Philip Glass, and I think I’ve already written about it. Libretto in Sanskrit from the Bhagavad Gita, the whole first scene take place within Gandhi’s meditation, the second and third acts depict actual events but none outside of South Africa, so that it’a more abut his formation than it is about who he became, but it also looks backward to Tolstoy and forward to Dr. King. Minimal titles, because what’s being sung is not directly related to the action. To say “It’s not your usual opera” is a gross understatement. Yet I find it oddly moving. Plus every time I see it I get new insights.  I may have to break down and get the DVD. In unrelated news, yesterday my favorite browser went down, and when it came back up, it looked different I’m still finding things But, basically, just an annoyance. It shouldn’t be crippling.

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Short Takes –

Former Mueller Deputy Explains Why Indicting Trump Org Matters
Quote – [T]he one point I would make about the press reports of a company being charged — some viewers may think, “Well, what’s the import of that? Who cares? A company can’t go to jail, and that’s not what I’m really interested in.” But just remember, for a company to be found guilty, the government has to prove that at least one individual at the company is criminally liable, so it means more than just a company,
Click through for the rest. And if you are interested in reading C&L’s fluff story about Spiderman and the Pope, click here. 

The Hill – Kagan rips colleagues in blistering 41-page voting rights dissent
Quote – She cited late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the 1991 case Chisom v. Roemer in which he opined a supposedly neutral law that limited voter registration to only a few hours a week and thus made it more difficult for Black voters than white voters to register because of life circumstances would result in Black people having “less opportunity to participate in the political process than whites.”
Click through to see that she really let them have it. I figured everyone will have seen the indictments by the time this goes up, and voting rights is actually more important at this point.

The 19th – Women in the Biden White House earn 99 cents for every $1 earned by men
Quote – The gender wage gap is typically a “raw” figure that doesn’t adjust for experience, education, title or other factors. It simply looks at median wages. In past administrations, a lack of women in higher-paid positions widened the gap. But in the Biden administration, there is a wider distribution of women across the pay scale, not just in the lowest paid jobs where they have typically been concentrated. About 56 percent of the senior staff in Biden’s White House are women, and about 36 percent come from racially and ethnically diverse communities.
Click through for details. Nice to have some good news.

Food for Thought

Just for the record, here is the actual indictment from yesterday as a pdf file.

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Video Thread 6/26/21

 Posted by at 1:00 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 262021
 

Glenn Kirschner – Giuliani Law License Suspended is Part 1 of Accountability: SDNY Criminal Investigation is Part 2

No Dem Left Behind – Hold Them Responsible

Armageddon Update – “Voting Wrongs”

Rebel HQ – Trump Fanatic Facing Extra Jail Time After GOP Law Backfires (Karma is quite a lady.)

Randy Rainbow has a Tribute Parody for Barbra Streisand – it’s not satirical, so I’m not embedding it, but I thought I’d provide the link for those who love Randy as much as I do (and as mush as he loves Barbra)

Otter Reaction to Popcorn Maker (trilingual CC) These little maniacs are pretty cute. No, we don’t domesticate otters in the US. But this isn’t in the US and these are not US otters.

Beau – Let’s talk about Texas building the wall on its own….

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Open Thread for June 25, 2021

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 252021
 

I know all our thoughts are with Colleen, but there’s still some news too, and some commentary. Thank God It’s Friday. I guess.

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Short Takes

Washington Post – States across the country are dropping barriers to voting, widening a stark geographic divide in ballot access
Quote – Seventy-one new laws easing voting rules are poised to benefit 63 million eligible voters in 28 states, or about one-quarter of the U.S. voting population, according to the Voting Rights Lab report, which tracked policy changes as of June 13. Thirty-one new laws in 18 states create more barriers to the ballot box, affecting 36 million eligible voters, or 15 percent of the national voting population, the report stated. Legislative debates over restrictions are underway in key states such as Texas and Pennsylvania, leaving open the possibility that new limitations affecting millions more voters still will be enacted this year.
Click through if you don’t mind fighting a paywall. Bottom line, it’s somewhat bleak,but not all break.

CNN – Why Democrats were desperate to win Joe Manchin’s vote for an already-doomed election bill (opinion)
Quote – See, now all 50 Democrats will vote to move forward with election reform legislation and all 50 Republicans are expected to oppose that move, Democrats can then go to their base ahead of the coming 2022 midterms and say something like: Every single Democrat wanted to make elections more fair and open. And every single Republican stood in opposition to that effort.
Click through for full analysis. He may be right, or there may be more, but this theory falls in well with Auntie Maxine’s vide vote request.

Crooks and Liars – Ohio Republican Who Forged His Father’s Signature To Vote Twice Calls It ‘An Honest Mistake’
Quote – “It was there with a pile of other paperwork,” Snodgrass said of the absentee ballot. “I was sleep-deprived and not thinking clearly. But I’m not going to run away from it. I was simply trying to execute a dying man’s wishes,” he added, saying that it would be wrong to characterize what he did as “just Trump voter fraud.”
Click through for a little more. Sadly they must be saving his picture for the poster for IOKIYAAR.

Bonus Headline: Americans Shocked to Learn That Giuliani Had Law License (Borowitz) You can click through also.

Food for Thought

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