{"id":51520,"date":"2023-04-19T06:57:35","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T13:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=51520"},"modified":"2023-04-18T19:17:03","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T02:17:03","slug":"open-thread-april-19-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2023\/04\/19\/open-thread-april-19-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread April 19, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, when I turned on Colorado Public Radio on the computer, what was playing wa Alan Hovhaness’s Symphony #50, which has the subtitle “Mount St. Helens,” and yes, he wrote it literally during the 1980 eruption – he was living within view of it. CPR – both the news side and the music side – are going all out for Earth Day. Today’s newsletter from Mother Jones included a few pointed paragraphs on people who are progressive enough to vote for Biden but not progressive enough to support a housing project of the kind needed to make replacing fossil fuels actually work, because NIMBY (“Not in my backyard.”) I can’t give you a link, since those remarks are in the newsletter only, but I can link to the lead story by a different author with the same theme<\/a>. It made me think that maybe part of the problem of getting a strong progressive political majority is a kind of Catch-22 – really good education and money tend to go together. But people without money need a really good education in order to see the quakity of and the need for progressive policies. And for those who have both the educatin and the money, the money tends to corrupt. Here’s one ver short quote from the newsletter – “Some on the left continue to be quite acrobatic in their defense of blocking housing, ignoring all evidence that this mostly benefits rich homeowners.”<\/p>\n

In other news, Fox and Dominion settled for about $785 milliom.\u00a0 For anyone who (like me) is disappointed by this, I have ne word – Smartmatic.<\/p>\n

Cartoon –<\/p>\n

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Short Takes –<\/p>\n

CPR News – Gov. Jared Polis signs bills protecting access to abortion and gender-affirming care in Colorado<\/a>
\nQuote – Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday signed a set of health care bills enshrining access to abortion and gender-affirming procedures and medications, as the Democrat-led state tries to make itself a safe haven for its neighbors, whose Republican leaders are restricting care. The goal of the legislation is to ensure people in surrounding states and beyond can come to Colorado to have an abortion, begin puberty blockers or receive gender-affirming surgery without fear of prosecution. Bordering states of Wyoming and Oklahoma have passed abortion bans and Utah has severely restricted transgender care for minors.
\nClick through for details.<\/a> This is the right thing yo do, but it can’t be denied that it will also strengthen Colorado’s medical community, and also bring dollars to the state. It makes me proud of my state and my Governor. But…<\/p>\n

CPR News – Colorado Catholic health clinic joins forces with D.C. law firm to challenge state\u2019s new abortion-access law<\/a>
\nQuote – In a lawsuit, Bella Health argues that the new law targets religious clinics\u2019 duty to help pregnant women in need \u2014 which they say is a violation of their constitutional rights. They say those duties include helping women continue their pregnancies after they take mifepristone, a pharmaceutical drug used in medication abortion, and later change their mind. \u201cWe opened [the lawsuit] because of our belief that life is a precious gift from God, worthy of protection at all stages,\u201d said Dede Chism, a nurse practitioner and co-founder and CEO at Bella Health and Wellness, in a release. \u201cWhen a woman seeks our help to reverse the effects of the abortion pill, we have a religious obligation to offer every available option for her and her child.\u201d
\nClick tthrough for the other side of the story<\/a>. I don’t normally use the same source twice, but in this case, the story is not complete without both. This part makes me ashamed of the misogyny and stupidity of – some of us – some people, and no state can claim not to have them.<\/p>\n

Food For Thought
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\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, when I turned on Colorado Public Radio on the computer, what was playing wa Alan Hovhaness’s Symphony #50, which has the subtitle “Mount St. Helens,” and yes, he wrote it literally during the 1980 eruption – he was living within view of it. CPR – both the news side and the music side – […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":50381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[3704,3723,4344,3735,4395,3719],"class_list":["post-51520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","tag-cartoon","tag-climate-change","tag-colorado","tag-misogyny","tag-womens-health","tag-womens-rights","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}