Open Thread May 19, 2022

Yesterday, I watched a Sixty Minutes segment (during that hour I avoid the radio -its only about 27 minutes, so I also watched something else – a documentary about the WWII British equivalent of Tucker Carlson – mildly interesting.) If you watch 60 mnutes you have probably seen the segment. If not, you may want to bookmark this for when you have a spare half hour. It’s the story of a black family who purchase a large home which turns out to have been, not just a plantation, but the plantation on which their ancestors were enslaved. Simply amazing. Here’s the link. I also managed to get trash ans recyclables out to the curb (It only took me about a half hour and a few extra CBD gummies to recover from that.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

CPR News – ‘I’m not giving up’: Sen. Michael Bennet’s drive to make the expanded Child Tax Credit permanent
Quote – The pandemic-relief package, known as the American Rescue Plan, expanded the Child Tax Credit for one year, made it fully refundable, so the poorest families could benefit, and for the last half of 2021, sent it in the form of monthly checks to families, turning it into a reliable income supplement…. Bennet’s frustration that the expanded benefit was not made permanent, or even just extended, is palpable…. “I’m not giving up. And I don’t think we should give up. And I, frankly, I’m not giving up until we have an economy that when it grows, it grows for everybody, not just the people at the very top. And I think we can do that too,”
Click through for story. Colorado would have to be crazy not to re-elect Senator Bennet. (And it’s because part of Colorado IS crazy that I became a – small- monthly donor to the campaign.)

HuffPost – Living With The Far-Right Insurgency In Idaho
Quote – [White nationalist Vincent James Foxx] is one of many far-right activists who have flocked to Idaho in recent years, where a large and growing radical MAGA faction in the state’s Republican Party has openly allied itself with extremists to a shocking extent, even for the Trump era. This faction is accruing more and more power in Boise, the state capital: Imagine a statehouse full of Marjorie Taylor Greenes and Steve Kings. At the local level, they have seized seats on school boards and county commissions at a fast clip.
Click through for details. Idaho is pretty much every bit as LDS as Utah – just not as publicly. I don’t know what the position, or the participation of the LDS Church is in this – but I’ll bet there is some. The church just possibly could surprise us.

The Hill – House passes domestic terrorism bill in mostly party-line vote
Quote – The bill calls for establishing a Domestic Terrorism Unit in the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the DHS, which would be tasked with observing and examining domestic terrorism activity, in addition to a Domestic Terrorism Office in the Counterterrorism Section of the National Security Division of the DOJ, which would look into and prosecute domestic terrorism incidents and communicate with the Civil Right Division about occurrences that may be considered hate crimes.
Click through for discussion and details. This could work, if only the government (federal and atate) would stop assuming that it’s only terrorism if a non-white person does it – when the reverse is closer to the truth.

Food For Thought