Open Thread April 17 2025

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Apr 172025
 

Yesterday, Senator Van Hollen (D-MD) was in my prayers all day.  He is in El Salvador to do everything he can to bring back his constituent, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. I have two D Senators, but I doubt whether either of them would do anything like that. They are hung up on “collegiality.” Senator Van Hollen did inspire me to send a single-sentence email to both my Senators, though: “So – what are you going to do when he starts disappearing people who are legally residing in Colorado?” I do hope the Senator is safe himself – that is far from guaranteed. Speaking as a white person, I wish we could bring back Ellis Island, or something like it and screen immigrants, not for tuberculosis, but for white supremacy. Not by asking them whether they are a white supremacist, but with a psych screen. Elon would never have made it through that. Just in case anyone thinks I am overreacting (I know, not likely), here’s a link with thought. Also yesterday, Judge Boasberg issued a ruling that there is cause to hold the Trump** Regime in criminal contempt, and gave them a week to come clean (turn over all information he has requested.) HuffPost has the story.

This all along is what has worried and frightened me the most. And here we are. I may be wrong, but I don’t think Marcie at Wonkette is a lawyer, so I’m also posting the same story as explained by Joyce Vance, who is a lawyer, and not just a lawyer, a former DOJ prosecutor.

Nobody says it better or clearer than Joyce Vance. She doesn’t sugar coat it, and I certainly don’t want to either. And I am about out of words of my own at this point.

May as well add Heather Cox Richardson to the chorus. I really do not think there is any way to over-report this.

John Pavlovitz weighs in also. I think this can be called a righteous rant.

Had I found this in time, I would have used it Tuesday. But it wasn’t posted until late enough Tuesday that I had already scheduled Wednesday.Here it is now.

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Open Thread December 11 2024

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Dec 112024
 

Yesterday, with the bathroom issue fixed (at least for now) I tried phonimg the internet/phone people’s customer support, which turned out to be useless.  I tried to fine an email address, but apparently they only accept on line communication through Fakebook, Xitter, and Instagram, none of which I would touch.  Trying to think of some other way, I added to my draft a paragraph about hating chat and that I would log out as soon as I had posted it, I copied and pasted the letter requested a transcript, and logged out.  I am anticipating having to go to snailmail, and am prepared for that.

Heather Cox Richardson is always thoughtful and knowledgeable, but sometimes she produces a real zinger – stuff from history which is so pertinent to what we are experiencing that it almost makes the hair stand up on the back of one’s neck. IMO this is one of those times.

This from The Root – it’s totally unrelated to the US or to our politics but it’s so upbeat I felt I needed to share it And y’all needed to see it.

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Open Thread October 17 2024

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 172024
 

Yesterday, I finished my research and filled out my ballot. I sealed and stamped it, but haven’t mailed it yet. I’ll work that out by the weekend though. There were more propositions and amendments than usual, and the big book (and it was indeed a big book) which the state publishes was useless. I think I’m smart enough to figure out from the wordings and descriptions how to vote, but in case i miss something, I also wasny to know who is advocating for and against each one. That was where Colorado Public Radio really helps. And there were no County measures at all on my ballot. i did look through the flyer to double check, and there was one for the city of Monument (on the north side of Colorado Springs), one for the city of Colorado Springs (i do not live within the city limits), one each for two school districts, neither of which was mine, and one for a fire district which also was not mine. So, i’m not sure how my school and fire districts collect the taxes due them, but however it it, it will not change next year. That’s a good thing.

Heather Cox Richardson wrote this earlier this week, but I wouldn’t call it stale. Eric Hoffer, whom she cites to good effect, wrote “The True Believer” even longer ago, and his observations are by no means stale. I read it years ago, and have remembered a lot, but had forgotten his thought on why people double down on support even when the lies are blatant – or should I say expecially when the lies are blatant.

Personally, I consider every Republlican candidate to be repulsive these days, simply because they can’t win primaries if they’re not. But that’s a digression from the main point of this story from Atlanta Black Star.

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Video Thread 3/8/2021

 Posted by at 1:33 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Mar 082021
 

The Damage Report – Long-ish (under 6 minutes) but an important topic – and Ro Khanna.

Extremist military and veterans. I do apologize for no CC.

This is only a partial transcript.
Whoever coined the phrase “Once a Marine, always a Marine” did not have this in mind: A Marine Corps veteran using the Marine Corps flag to attack a Capitol police officer. Thomas Webster is one of more than 30 who have served in the military now charged with crimes at the Capitol.
“It doesn’t take an army to do what happened; it takes people with some skill set to lead those others,” said former FBI Agent Tom O’Connor, who spent two decades investigating extremists.
“Extremist elements in the United States have long tried to recruit former military and former law enforcement into their ranks for their skill set.”
And for the mindset of a culture trained to resort to violence when all else fails.
Army veteran Stewart Rhodes founded a group called Oath Keepers in 2009. “All you veterans out there, you’ve got to stand up,” he said in a video on the conspiracy theory-spreading website InfoWars. “Lead your local community in watching over their own backyards, over their own neighborhoods, and over their own towns.”

Now This News – The kids are all right.

Robert Reich on Guaranteed Income. (You know, the “work ethic” is really overrated. I have felt for decades that people who have wealth but choose to work just take jobs away from more needy – and often more competent – people.)

Trae on royalty. For a different take on the interview, check out this.  Though neither seems to be aware that royals, particularly those in the direct line, do work, and do pay taxes.

The quote to be carved in stone on the exterior of the Obama Presidential Library has been chosen.

Is someone in the Biden administration watching Beau’s videos?

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Open Thread – 8/20/2020

 Posted by at 12:16 pm  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 202020
 

It’s a busy, tired, painful day, here in the CatBox.  My infusion yesterday went well, and I’ve had no side-effects, so far.  However, except for an hour in the infusion recliner, I had to be in my wheelchair from 9:30 AM until 8:30 PM, and that’s so hard on my back that maximum pain killers barely takes the edge off the pain.  Store to Door delivered groceries today so I had to unpack them and put them away.  In addition, I spent over an hour on the phone on medical mayhem.  JD, would you please cover Sam Bee, as I’m doing something else.  Have a great day, everyone!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:18 (average 6:24).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0820TrumpVirusMap

US Cases: 5,702,837
US Deaths: 176,396
Plus all the GOP plague murder victims Republicans are hiding from us.

Long Take:

Watch: Democratic National Convention: Day 3

 

Kamala was magnificent. Barack Obama actually called criminal Fuhrer Trump* a threat to democracy. Such a statement by a former precedent. That and the nomination of the first African American and Asian American for VP make this a historic event!  RESIST!!

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: Sen. Susan Collins has, of course, expressed her concern about the sabotage of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) at the hands of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. What Collins doesn’t want all of her constituents—the people for whom she calls the USPS “a lifeline,” the “seniors, veterans, and those in rural areas who are depending on reliable mail delivery for essential goods and services”—to find out is that she’s the person most responsible for this mess.

DeJoy can say he’s making all of the cuts to services because of the dire financial situation of the USPS. Yes, we know he’s doing it to try to right the election for Trump, but the financial crisis at the post office has given him the opportunity to do so. And Collins, more than anyone else, is responsible for that. She’s the one who engineered this crisis. In 2005, Collins introduced the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA), which required the USPS to prepay the next 50 years’ worth of health and retirement benefits for every postal service employee. It is the only federal agency that is saddled with this requirement. At the time, she was the chair of the Senate government oversight panel, and she got the bill through her committee and onto the floor in 2006. It passed on a voice vote on Dec. 20, 2006 in the lame duck session before Democrats took back control of the Senate.

What the legislation required of the USPS was to calculate the entirety of its pension costs for the next three-quarters of a century—75 years—and spend the next decade putting away enough money to cover the majority of them. Which is insane. And has accounted for nearly 90% of the service’s red ink in the past decade. Right now, the USPS is $160.9 billion in debt for what it owes to prepay retirees, and has years’ worth of operating deficits because it can’t generate revenue under the restrictions placed by the law.

Collins is great at pretending she’s a center-left moderate, but she’s more like Goose Step Gordon Smith, the Senator I worked to help Jeff Merkley [D-OR] defeat. She’s always with us, when we don’t need her, but against us, when we do.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (Raw Story Channel): Sandra Smith grills Kayleigh McEnany about Trump’s praise of QAnon

 

Once again Kayleigh Lie-a-Lot proves she is a Republican with a PhD (piled higher and deeper) in Bullshitology.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast of protest): Family Guy – Republican Town Song

 

Is this great satire or what? Kudos to left-wing protestors!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Open Thread–5/12/2019

 Posted by at 10:50 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
May 122020
 

I was so wiped out the rest of the day yesterday that, except for a small supper, I went back to bed all yesterday afternoon and evening.  Then I overslept two hours this morning and still feel very tired.  But I had a better appetite at breakfast.  Have a Republican-free day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:09 (average 4:36).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Trump* Virus Update:

0512TrumpVirusMap

Cases: 1,388,283
Deaths: 82,018 (over 18,000 in May)
Recovered: 262,328

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: One week after the United States Senate returned to session, Senator Susan Collins, of Maine, said that she would self-quarantine to avoid possible contact with decisions.

Collins said that she had hoped to safely distance herself from any decisions while at the Senate but feared that the risk of accidental exposure to a decision was too great.

“I was troubled and concerned by how many decisions there were,” she said. “It did not feel safe to me.”

Collins said that she would self-quarantine until she is confident that the danger of being in the vicinity of a decision had clearly passed.

Dang, Andy! Was there ever a time that Collins’ did not test negative for integrity, whenever she makes decisions?  RESIST!!

From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Obama Calls Trump Administration’s Virus Response ‘Chaotic Disaster’


This is a very big deal! For former President Obama to speak out against criminal Fuhrer Trump* is completely out of character for him. He should have done so sooner!  RESIST!!

From YouTube ( a blast from the past): Buffy Sainte Marie-Circle Game

Ah the memories!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue No Matter Who Top to Bottom!!

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Open Thread – 1/4/2020

 Posted by at 7:58 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jan 042020
 

It’s a tired Saturday here in the CatBox.  I had a kink in my back last night that was so severe, that I finally gave up at around 2:00 AM and took an Oxycodone.  The Republican war to retain power still dominates the news, and since I covered that yesterday, this is my only article today.  Today and tomorrow are Holy Days in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, the Festival of Cards Gone Wild.  Good luck, Pat!  Tomorrow is also a WWWendy day to de-stink the rancid TomCat.  We have lots of chores to do do, so please expect no more than a Personal Update from me.  Have a peaceful weekend.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:03 (average 5:11).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From Crooks and Liars: The reasons that Donald Trump would need a massive distraction at this point are numerous. Every day seems to produce fresh evidence that the White House was fully aware that Trump’s delay of military assistance to Ukraine was simply against the law, and that multiple officials engaged in a criminal conspiracy to cover up for Trump and retroactively create an excuse for an inexcusable act. Somewhere right now, Mitch McConnell is probably drafting a statement claiming that the Senate could not possibly consider an impeachment trial “during a time of war.”

But onto that stack of dog-wagging rationales add this one: According to Forensic News, Trump’s loans from Deutsche Bank were underwritten by a Russian state-owned bank. That news reportedly comes from a whistleblower with access to documents from both Deutsche Bank and Russia’s state-owned VTB Bank. VTB Bank was also the proposed lender on the never-completed Trump Tower Moscow project.

The question of why Deutsche Bank would extend a series of huge loans to Trump has been dangling since before he ever announced his candidacy for president on a golden escalator ride. When Trump first went to Deutsche Bank, he was worse than broke. He had just finished bankrupting multiple casinos in New Jersey, and then had convinced investors to back a takeover of those casinos at a fraction of the original value. Then Trump deliberately allowed the investment group to go bankrupt so he could grab the whole deal himself at a fraction of what his investors had paid. Then he went bankrupt. Again. And along the way he was socked with a massive fine for money laundering at his now bankrupt (again) casino.

Trump was so fiscally radioactive that no American bank would let him in the door. But Deutsche Bank turned around and gifted Trump with loans that gave him a fresh start and an apparently miracle turnaround of his New York real estate empire. Those loans have always been the subject of head-scratching over just what Deutsche Bank could have been thinking. But if Forensic News is right, what Deutsche Bank was thinking was that it wasn’t risking a damn thing, because the Russian government was actually vouching for Trump through VTB Bank. If Trump didn’t come through, Vladimir Putin was offering to make it good.

As I have said for over a year, Trump* is Putin’s Pet Pervert!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Erin Burnett calls Trump’s 2011 video about Obama and Iran ‘unbelievable’

 

Is that projection or what? To be fair, if the Reich can show evidence that the “immanent threat” they claim is real, and that assassinating a leader of one sovereign nation in the territory of another sovereign nation can ameliorate that threat, I’ll be the first to say I am wrong. In the interim, the Republican track record for lying us into three wars, and the Trump* track record for lying about virtually everything, demand disbelief of every claim they make without proof.  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from the past): The Doors – Riders on the Storm (Official Audio)

 

I can’t stand the words to this song, but the music is incredible. Ah… the memories!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

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