Open Thread January 24 2025

 Posted by at 6:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 242025
 

Yesterday or the day before, I mentioned three special elections coming up which should be winnable – and the more of them get in, the slimmer the house majority becomes. Here is the link to a PAC called “Youth Save Democracy” which concentrates on GenZ and Millennial voters and has a “Special Elections Fund” currently for these three elections. Also yesterday, ay least one person is rejecting the Peach Prevaricator’s pardon. When tried, she pled guilty, and said, “We were wrong. This is what I deserve.” She was sentenced to, and served, two months. Now, she has an attorney writing a letter of rejection for her to make her rejection an official matter of record. Both The Root and Democratic Underground have this story. Several DUers posted – ar least one got it from the BBC.

I pay no attention to DAVOS, and I’ll be surprised if anyone elsehere does. But Robert Reich does that for us – and oh boy, does he have their number.

I didn’t know that Elno’s grandparents were Nazis – but I can’t say I’m surprised. I did know he is on the spectrum, but it’s ben a minute since I stopped giving him any mental slack because of that. Did anyone know he had once visited Auschwitz? I didn’t. Schmidt says of Auschwitz: “There is a duality at Auschwitz that is shattering. It is simultaneously a space of utter madness and hyper-rationality.” But that’s not really a duality. G. K. Chesterton more than a century ago that if you apply strict rationality (or as Spock would say logic) to erroneous premises (such as “alternative facts”), the result is insanity. But Schmidt’s point in the essay is not that, but the disappearance from the memory, at least the American memory, of the history which produced Auschwitz and the other “camps.” And, though he doesn’t mention it, the disappearance from American collective memory which modern Nazis are attempting to make universal of slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, massacres which taint our own history, along with hostility to just about every immigrant group we have ever seen.

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Open Thread January 23 2025

 Posted by at 6:02 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 232025
 

Yesterday, following a day of undeserved pardons (and commutations), a day which itself followed a few days of richly deserved pardons (and commutations), many not even reflecting any crime, but issued for protective purposes – The Huff Post Fringe had words. Also, this happened. The link is from The Root, but I’m sure others are not getting left out of the purge. Meanwhile, The Root compiled a list of what it describes as the Canteloupe Caligula’s “most worrisome” executive orders.

This is only the second article from the Contrarian, and it has already come a long way. It is a roughly 18 minute video, and it has CC, and it has a transcript for which you have several options, including saving as a PDF (which I did), saving as something else, printing (which should mean either to paper or to your hard drive or a thunb drive), and reloading. I did save it as a PDF, haven’t looked at it yet, but assume it’s more accurate than YouTube – not that that’s hard.) Mechanics aside, the episode is a “how did we get here” story which should frighten (but not, I hope, paralyze) you.

When I read this article from Steve Schmidt in situ, I also looked at one of the comments – the first one (I don’t know whether they change position as time passes, so I’ll add it was by Martin Dillon.) It ended with “Are there no Republicans that want to save this country?” My mental response to that was “Yes, there are, but few, if any, are in office, elected or appointed.” And that makes them difficult to find. Many have re-registerd as Independent or Unaffiliated. Don’t try to look for them in Congress or State legislatures. Look for them in your community. There are at least 3 Special Elections coming up, to replace Congressmen who have been appointed to some other position, and there are non profits who want to save democracy helping to fund Democratic candidates. That’a the place to start. And sooner than later.

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Open Thread January 22 2025

 Posted by at 6:07 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 222025
 

Yesterday, The 19th shared a Vogue article about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s collar for the inauguration (spoiler: it was a “strong statement.”) I don’t know whether she is on a Vogue cover, or will be, but it would be a lovely rebuke to Melania. You go, Vogue! Also, The F*News did a summary of executive orders and other junk, which made me wish I could just read nothing but it (and The Contrarian) for the next four years. But I can’t do that. Finally, Wonkette referenced an article by Tim Snyder about Cabinet nominees who were rejected by the Senate in bygone days, when we still had a Senate.

I doubt this will make the news … and I also wonder how many stories there are like it.

This Democratic Underground link is to a list of economic indicators and exactly where they were when Biden handed over to the Apricot Antichrist. Bookmark it, or copy to a word document or anything else which will also save the live links. It will be needed when the media starts parroting MAGA lies about what happens to it.

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Open Thread January 21 2025

 Posted by at 5:53 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 212025
 

Yesterday – Protective pardons, political and family. Tangerine Palpatine orders executive shock and awe, and promises “Golden Age of America” (but I think he means “Gilded II.”) And all of that was before 4:00 pm EST. I signed petitions as many as possible, and skimmed through most of my email. I’m tired already. Even Axios is tired. They didn’t do a new email each time they sent an alert on TSF, just added to the story and updated the old one the earlier one. That’s why only one link for multiple headlines. Oh, and Ceclie Richards died. It was announced in the morning, so at least she escaped before the inauguration. But she’s a great loss.

ProPublica sent the newsletter including this link on Friday. But I figure since TSF was inaugurated just yesterday at noon, he only had a half day anyway, and then there are the inaugural balls. So the headline’s question will not have been answered yet.

This from The F* News, is a list of some of the Biden Administration’s achievements. It isn’t 27 pages long (I have one that is, although it’s somewhat double spaced -I would guess somewhere around 18-20 pages if all the extra spacing was removed; if anyone wants it as a PDF let me know) but is also offers some of the reasoning behind its choices, and sorts them into categories rather then just listing by date. So they both may be keepers.

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Open Thread January 20 2025

 Posted by at 6:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 202025
 

Yesterday, Steve Schmidt posted a column which is near perfect for today. I can disagree with him on a couple of minor points, but that’s really just nitpicking. I cannot disagree with his conclusion, even though I don’t clearly see how it is to be done. Also, I read yesterday that the Mango Monster’s cryptocurrency scan is called $TRUMP. Does that make him a $TRUMPet? And to top off the day, the word “Villainaire[s]” has been coined.

Crooks & Liars is really speaking to elected Democrats here. But one of the things we do best is to nag our elected officials to do the right thing. So we need to think about how we can best do that under this administration.

This was in a Contrarian newsletter from Friday. I’m sorry to have to say that all the information is in a video, it doesn’t appear to have CC, and you need to jump on the button to unmute the sound. I missed about a minute but I think what I mostly missed was courtesies. Joyce Vance is known here as a Substack author, but from now on she will also be working (not alone) on a project for the Contrarian called the “Democracy Tracker. The idea is to have something which will catch us up to as much as a week’s important news into minutes. I want to say “Good luck with that,” but this time I really mean it. I hope they do pull it off. Everyone working with The Contrarian is an expert in their own right, so I think they do have a good chance. We shall see.

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Open Thread January 19 2025

 Posted by at 6:07 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 192025
 

Yesterday, Axios published the evaluation of the 10 US cities that “did the best” in 2024. Colorado Springs is on it at #5. We are in one of only two blue states on the list, and I believe the only red city in a blue state. Of course, in general, red areas have considerably more room to improve than blue ones. It doesn’t mean we’re one of the top ten places to live, speaking economically (though speaking scenically, we probably are.) Also, the radio opera was Puccini’s Tosca – a tragedy in the literary sense, but also politically. The eponymous heroine’s lover, whose life she tries and fails to save, his friend, and she herself are on the right side of the autocracy vs. democracy divide, and although she manages to kill one pre-fascist (who is a real piece of work – I can only think of a couple of others in opera who even come close to his pure evil), his flunkies only fail to catch ans torture her because she suicides first. Yes, I know, Napoleon was no liberator, but you can’t blame people of the time for thinking he was or might be. Even Beethoven thought that – until he didn’t. “Tosca” is a very tight story- everything moves the plot, even the one comic-relief character, so the more you know about it the more heart-wrenching every note is – and the harder it is to look away. (A side note – this is the opera which contains the aria over which Puccini won a copyright infringement lawsuit against the composer of the song “Avalon.” Of course I was not on the jury – I wasn’t born yet -but had I been, and just knowing the two pieces, I would have been inclined to vote the other way. Only one phrase that’s in the opera is in the pop song, it’s not used “verbatim”, and it is developed very differently.)

I expect everyone here knows this by now, since it came out on Friday. But Sundays are for good news – and right now it just doesn’t get any “gooder” than this. The Contrarian was where I first saw it.

This also came out Friday and started me wondering what else on our wish list would be announced today. Whatever would have been, I would have added. We need all the good news we can get just now.

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Open Thread January 18 2025

 Posted by at 6:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 182025
 

Yesterday, Heather Cox Richardson mentioned, among other things, that after Preident Biden’s speech this week, Google searched for the term “oligarchy” spiked. I guess it’s good that a lot of people are learning – and I guess it’s encouraging that enough people are willing enough to learn to trigger a spike. But I guess I just don’t live in the same world as people who didn’t already know the word. I suppose that in 1962 there wewre plenty of people who didn’t grasp the implications of “military-industrial complex” too. (However, I’ll bet everyone who heard Washington’s farewell understood the term “designing men” – although it’s much harder to actually recognize one until he’s on the way out with your money and possessions in his pocket.)

If Robert Hubbell provides clarity on resisting, Robert Reich provides a pep talk to stress the necessity of resisting. That’s why I’m putting it first today. I for one needed the guidance of Hubbell to help me get out of the emotional swamp Reich built. You may not, but just in case.

Given the holiday, I need to plan ahead some, but I want to get this in before Sunday. Robert Hubbell makes the difference very clear between resisting and disengaging, particularly on social media. I don’t do any social media myself, and the closest thing I do do to social media is Democratic Underground, and I’m kind of afraid to go there since I posted this Thursday and expect a lot of pushback. The way some members there post, you’d think Merrick Garland was Roy Cohn or Roger Stone. and that just isn’t the case.

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Open Thread January 17 2025

 Posted by at 6:02 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 172025
 

Yesterday, I made an appointment on line to get blood work done. Besides being able to make appointments on line, and communicate with providers through what is essentially email but on their site, so with all the privacy of HIPAA. Another is that they have multiple locations, so if the lab closest to you is booked up through March, nd they want it done in early February, you can choose another location. Yes, the lab I chose is farther, but I can get to it on the Interstate, so it should take about the same amount of time. It’s also in one of my old neighborhood – one of them – so I know exactly where it is.

On Wednesday, Steve Schmidt, after a short rant about Pete Hegseth, addressed the My Lai massacre, it’s [lack of] consequences for the murders, and finally described his own journey to Viet Nam and the forgiveness he found there (he was not born yet when My Lai happened, but what he found was an attitude of forgiveness for all.) I was alive then – I was on active duty in the Marine Corps – but I was not aware of all the details he includes (and of course it did not become public knowledge for quite a while.) Someone who was aware of it was Scott Peck (known as the author of “The Road Less Traveled,” though I personally consider his second book, “People of the Lie,” far more significant – and about eight years ago would have been a good time for it to become popular again.) It is, I think, obvious why Schmidt connects My Lai to Hegseth, since a military filled with war criminals who are “tough” is the kind of military Trump** wants, and wants Hegseth to make it so. Steve sees this as an issue of courage – I see it as an issue of truth – but we are really in the same position in the end. Anyway, consider this a plug for “People of the Lie.”

I really don’t have much, if anything, to say about this Talking Points Memo article. Except that it would have been nice to know about it years ago, like, say, early in Obama’s first term, when we might have been able to start a reform movement. We won’t be able to do that during this administration, and even if we could, it’s already too late to accomplish much. Hopefully we may get another chance, down the road.

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