Autocracy. – Politics Plus

Open Thread February 23, 2023

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:59 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Feb 232023

Yesterday, it had snowed and there was plenty of cloud cover, but a little after 2 pm there was already a clear path to the mailbox. BUT it was NOT a dry path. Wet concrete is darker than dry concrete and this was quite dark. So no trip to the mailbox. A couple of packages came, but neither would fit in the mailbox, so they were left on my porch, and I got them in anyway. It had snowed more by then, also. I am sharing a non-weather story from Colorado, because even if I believed in coincidence, this one is way too big to believe in – and apparently it has happened elsewhere, and could happen anywhere. I don’t quite know how to prepare for it, other than to be able to recognize it if it comes.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Washington Post (no paywall) – Opinion – Biden’s Kyiv visit shows Putin seriously misjudged his courage
Quote – What many people fail to understand about Biden, the oldest president in our history, is the extent to which he is guided by a sense of mission. He came out of retirement and ran for the White House only because he believed he had the unique ability, and thus the obligation, to save the nation from another four years of Donald Trump. And he has faced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with the same burden of duty imposed by history.
Click through for full opinion. I don’t often get to see Eugene Robinson, but I always learn something, even if it’s just a new way of saying something I knew, or a position I hadn’t considered looking from. There’s a lot in here – I picked what I quoted because it made me think of “Rule 303,” which is the way Beau expresses duty. “If you have the means at hand, you have the responsibility to act.”

The New Yorker – Russia, One Year After the Invasion of Ukraine
Quote – I had immigrated to the U.S. as a child, in the early eighties. Since the mid-nineties, I’d been coming back to Moscow about once a year. During that time, the city kept getting nicer, and the political situation kept getting worse. It was as if, in Russia, more prosperity meant less freedom…. I asked [my friend Alexander] Baunov how long he thought it would be before he returned to Russia. He said that he didn’t know, but it was possible that he would never return. There was no going back to February 23rd [2022]—not for him, not for Russia, and especially not for the Putin regime. “The country has undergone a moral catastrophe,” Baunov said. “Going back, in the future, would mean living with people who supported this catastrophe; who think they had taken part in a great project; who are proud of their participation in it.”
Click through for full article. Every week in Everday Erinyes I quuote Masha Gessen on autocracy and autocrats. Keith, who wrote this, is her brother.

Food For Thought

Open Thread September 22, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:18 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 222022

Yesterday, although I’m not really ready to go back to three short takes, there were three stories so different but so connected I could not decide which one to leave out. Also, Tish James’s fraud investigation is now to the point where she can formally file (a civil) suit against Trump** personally, three of his children, and several officers. (The investigation has been done under a filing against the Trump** Organization, not anyone personally, so this is a bigger step than it may sound.) Also, though it wasn’t all that easy, I did manage to take out trash and recyclables for pickup tomorrow. Which pretty well wore me out for the rest of the evening. I need to post Shirley Serban’s parody of “Let’s do the time warp again,” which she calls “I’m feeling time-worn again,” in the video thread, because it expresses exactly how I so often feel. It won’t be today – I need to address my “Parody Project” backlog first – but maybe tomorrow.

Cartoon – 22 0922Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Talking Points Memo – The Search for Perla
Quote – [E]ven the barest look at the details we know [about the story of the Venezuelan immigrants shipped off to Martha’s Vineyard] make it very unlikely this was an official or on-the-books government operation. And yet it’s one Gov. Desantis has publicly taken credit for and said was paid for with taxpayer funds from Florida. [Representatives of LULAC, the Latino civil rights organization] went to Martha’s Vineyard on Friday to talk to the asylum-seekers and get more details about what happened. They were able to flesh out the story about “Perla” and her team in San Antonio.
Click through for quite a story. As far as I know, “Perla” has not yet been definitively identified. These people – these MAGAts – just will not stop criming long enough for investigations to make any progress.

Mother Jones – DeSantis Flying Migrants to Martha’s Vineyard Is Part of a 60-Year-Old Segregationist Playbook
Quote – Bell and Williams were among almost 100 people to be shipped under false pretenses to the resort town over the spring and summer of 1962 as part of a white supremacist campaign to send Black people from the South to northern cities. Overall, some 200 people were bused to Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles, and other cities in Indiana, Idaho, and New Hampshire. The political ploy was a retaliation for the Freedom Rides from the previous year, when a group of 13 Black and white civil rights activists with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) embarked on southbound buses from Washington, DC, to protest continued segregation in interstate transportation despite the Supreme Court having ruled that it was unconstitutional.
Click through for history. Not only will they not stop criming, they can’t even be bothered to think of anything new.

Daily Kos (Vetwife) – So many executive orders moving DA’s and Judges around in Florida. What is this about?
Quote – I took a look at DeSantis Executive orders and all I see for the most part is soooo much moving District Attorneys (called state attorneys in Florida) and Judges around. Were these people not elected? There are also some Executive orders marked “ Confidential” and you cannot see them. Not clickable anywhere so much for Sunshine State. We need to be looking under every rock this guy is hiding with his pen. God only [knows] what he is doing in secret.
Click through for more. Vetwife is community, not staf, but she is no dummy and has a nose for corruption. She implies that in FLorida both prosecutors and judges are elected. If that is the case, ALL of these executive orders MUST violate SOMETHING – if not the Sate law or Constitution, surely Federal law or the Constitution? IANAL, of course.

Food For Thought

Open Thread September 13, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:45 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Sep 132022

Yesterday, I added a video to the video thread after it had already published, because the breaking news in it appeared to me to be significant at lease. It was regarding an unplanned trip to DC made by Trump, in his jet, oddly dressed, with no publicity. The trip was late Sunday afternoon, and as of late Monday afternoon, there was still no word about it from the Trump** camp. The way Trump** broadcasts all of his movements down to the tiniest detail, the absence of publicity alone suggests that, whatever the trip was for, it must have been for some reason that was bad news for Trump**. And bad news for him is good news for us. That and one other thing inspired me so that I finished the September cartoons. (The other thing that cheered me was what Nameless posted about.)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Salon – Biden’s speech worked: Nearly 6 in 10 Americans agree MAGA is a threat to democracy
Quote – President Joe Biden gave a speech… [which] led to a great deal of media worrying about whether Biden’s speech was “divisive” or could backfire by recasting the fight to save democracy in “partisan” terms. There was reason to be worried. Americans tend to distrust politicians, viewing their public proclamations as political noise better dismissed than taken seriously. But in this case, it appears Biden’s choice to give the speech worked to focus voter attention on the very real threat to democracy posed by Trump and the MAGA movement.
Click through – Of course he wasn’t going to reach active MAGA pushers, and eventually we shall have to deal with them. For now, the important thing is to get ALL non-MAGAs aware of the clear and present danger it reppresents.

CPR News – 4 things we learned from the first-ever release of data that shows how Colorado DAs prosecute cases
Quote – Eight district attorneys across the state — some representing rural areas, some from suburban districts and two representing Denver and Aurora — voluntarily participated in a year-long data project to shed some light on the secrecy behind prosecutions across the state in hopes of seeing how their offices could improve how they operate. The data, linked on eight different prosecutor websites, reveals some differences in how prosecutors treat white defendants and defendants of color, including Black and Hispanic.
Click through for full story. To me,though the results are predictiable (and not great), the most hopeful thing about this story is that the participants instigated it themselves because that wanted to/thought they should be more transparent. That is hopeful.

Food For Thought

Video Thread 8/13/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:41 am Open Thread, Politics

Aug 132022

In Thursday’s video thread, the video from Beau was called “Let’s talk about an important message from New York. In case anyone missed it, that message was “Polio is back.” He goes into much more detail, of course.

Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump takes the 5th, while the FBI takes Republican Scott “Pardon Me” Perry’s cell phone.

Meidas Touch – BREAKING: Texas Paul REACTS to attack on FBI building in Ohio amid Republican Rhetoric

The Lincoln Project – Alike

MSNBC – Trump’s Raid Nightmare: The Feds Indicted The Powerful For Spilling State Secrets

Al Franken – The Case for Prosecuting Trump (Preaching to the choir? Sure.Preaching for the choir to sing louder, add some trumpets, drums, and cymbals to the mix. And take that to the voting booth.)

Beau – Let’s talk about Pelosi’s Taiwan trip….

Video Thread 8/9/22

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 11:51 am Open Thread, Politics

Aug 092022

Glenn Kirschner – DA Fani Willis puts Lindsey Graham in his place in her motion seeking his grand jury testimony

Meidas Touch – Greg Abbott plan to Infiltrate Beto O’Rourke rallies BACKFIRES as supporters switch sides

The Lincoln Project – Victor Orban at CPAC

Farron Balanced – Giuliani’s Ex Wife Wants Him Jailed As His Alimony Checks Bounce

MSNBC – What Happened To CPAC? Standards Have Plummeted At Conservative Gathering (Evidenly the first “C” in “CPAC” now stands for “Crazy”)

Beau – Let’s talk about DOJ, Breonna Taylor, and Louisville….

Open Thread 7/27/2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:53 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 272022

Yesterday, I went to sleep with the bedroom ceiling fan on, and, during the night, had to turn it off and grab a light blanket. Ah yes – Colorado. It’s supposed to be cooler through Thursday and start warming up again Friday. We shall see.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Letters from an American – July 24, 2022
Quote – On Friday, Axios began to publish a deeply researched and important series by Jonathan Swan, explaining that if former president Trump retakes power, he and allies like his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), and head of Trump’s social media network Devin Nunes are determined to purge our nonpartisan civil service and replace it with loyalists. In a normal administration, a new president gets to replace around 4000 political appointees, but most government employees are in positions designed to be nonpartisan. Trump’s team wants to gut this system and put in place people loyal to him and his agenda.
Click through for more, including how much damage he did along these lines while he was in office, with Schedule F in place. Now imagine the damage he could do without it.

CPR – 6 fire agencies in El Paso County join together to form an interagency wildland fire team
Quote – Those involved include the Hanover Fire Protection District, Fountain Fire Department, Stratmoor Hills Fire Protection District, Security Fire Protection District, Fort Carson Fire & Emergency Services and the Southwest Highway 115 Fire Protection District. The 18-member Wildland Fire Team is made up of volunteers specifically trained in wildland firefighting. While all of the locations have their own staff, Stratmoor Hills Fire Chief Shawn Bittle said the volunteer component will allow for increased manpower without impacting the agency’s restricted budgets.
Click through for story. Of course the City of Colorado Springs has a Fire Department. It does not serve unincorporated areas of the county. All those fire departments named are funded by Special Districts with the authority to tax residents. Elections regarding these Special Districts are the elections I think I have mentioned which one may vote in without being a registered voter, or even a citizen, provided they own property in the District (because “No Taxation Without Representation”). Obviously, they have limitations. I consider this development really good news – as well as a model for others who own property outside of municipal fire departments’ service areas, wherever in the nation they may be.

Food For Thought

Open Thread 7/25/2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:54 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Jul 252022

Yesterday, Despite not having slept all that well, I got the blog posts up and sent the weekly email, but I didn’t do much else. An unexpected but very welcom Sound Off! did go up before the end of the day – don’t miss it.

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Short Takes –

Psyche (via Aeon) – The power of Langston Hughes’s ‘melancholy citizenship’
Quote – Hughes calls the people ‘humble, hungry, mean … despite the dream’. Whether one is ‘the poor white, fooled and pushed apart’ or ‘the Negro bearing slavery’s scars’, ‘the red man driven from the land’ or ‘the immigrant clutching the hope I seek’, all must live in the space between abstract ideals and the bitter world. To create a world better than the one into which we are born, Hughes urges victims of colonisation and slavery to find ways to discover common ground with beneficiaries of past injustices.
Click through for full idea. Poetry is not scary. It’s mostly the expressions of simple truths in unexpected ways that make people see them as new, even if thet’re actually very old.

Letters From An American – July 23, 2022
Quote – Rising autocrats have declared democracy obsolete. They argue that popular government is too slow to respond to the rapid pace of the modern world, or that liberal democracy’s focus on individual rights undermines the traditional values that hold societies together, values like religion and ethnic or racial similarities. Hungarian president Viktor Orbán, whom the radical right supports so enthusiastically that he is speaking on August 4 in Texas at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), has called for replacing liberal democracy with “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy,” which will explicitly not treat everyone equally and will rest power in a single political party.
Click through for full letter. Richardson is not being alarmist. She makes it pellucidly clear what we are up against. This needs to be read or heard by every American, particularly every American who is not already deeply aware of politics.

Food For Thought

Open Thread for December 30, 2021

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:44 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Dec 302021

Yesterday, I got in touch with BlueHost (It requires both BlueHost and WordPress to run PoliticsPlus) The passwortd TC had given me had been reset, so I got directions on what to send to whom at BlueHost to get credentials of my own, amd sent it all off off. I may not need help from BLueHost to update the comment system, but eventuually I will need them, and I value their advice. So progress is being made (even if it looks a little like sausage is being made,) Thanks to everyone for your feedback. We will get where we are going – and we’re not suffering all that much in the interim, which is a great comfort. Oh, and I also took out trash and recyclables. What with the holiday I don’t even know for sure whether there will be pickup tomorrow, but I have no problem leaving the polycarts/ wheeliebins/whatever they are called out until the contents are collected.

Cartoon –

Short Takes

Law & Crime – Federal Jury Convicts Ghislaine Maxwell of Sex Trafficking and Enticing Minors for Jeffrey Epstein’s Abuse
Quote – After a whirlwind trial slated for six weeks wrapped up in half of that time, a federal jury on Wednesday found Ghislaine Maxwell guilty of sex trafficking and conspiring to entice minors for years of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse. Maxwell stood trial for six federal offenses for conduct spanning from 1994 to 2004, roughly breaking down into alleged violations of the Mann Act and a distinct federal anti-sex trafficking statute. She was convicted of five of them, adding up to the possibility of several decades imprisonment for Maxwell, who turned 60 years old on Christmas Day.
Click through for details. Is it just ne, or is it easier to get an convicion on a woman than it is on a man? (Not tht she isn’t guilty, but that there are so many men who are guilty and still at liberty.)

Reuters – Russia shuts Memorial Human Rights Centre in ‘one-two punch’
Quote – Russia’s Memorial Human Rights Centre was ordered to shut by a Moscow court on Wednesday, a day after its sister organisation – Russia’s oldest human rights group – was forced to close. The Human Rights Centre [kept] a running list of individuals it classifies as political prisoners, including Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. The list includes Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims convicted of terrorism that Memorial says were victims of “unproven charges based on fabricated evidence because of their religious affiliation”.
Click through for the story. Autocrats are not even pretending any more.

AP News – Judge refuses to dismiss alleged Proud Boys leaders’ charges
Quote – “Defendants are not, as they argue, charged with anything like burning flags, wearing black armbands, or participating in mere sit-ins or protests,” Kelly wrote in his 43-page ruling. “Moreover, even if the charged conduct had some expressive aspect, it lost whatever First Amendment protection it may have had.”
Click through for more. I don’t know anything about Judge Kelly (like, for instance, who appointed him), but he appears to understand the First Amendment very well.

Food For Thought:

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