Cartoon – Page 67 – Politics Plus

Open Thread May 15, 2022

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

May 152022

Yesterday, the radio opera was “Die Meistersinger von Nuremburg,” the only comedy written by Richard Wagner (who is most famous for the Ring Cycle.) It has a happy ending – and it also does have a few punch lines along the way (it absolutely skewerss pedants who narrowly concentrate on the letter of rules and cannot see beyond that to the spirit – which makes it pretty appropriate for the week – think of Alito.) Probably the best known highlight is the tenot aria “Walther’s Prize Song,” but the second best would be the aria “Wahn!” sung by the character of Hans Sachs (who was a real person) which loosely translates to “The whole world is nuts.” Which also makes it appropriate for the present day.

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Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – Cop Arrested After Allegedly Masturbating in Family’s Home During Service Call
Quote – It was not immediately clear what kind of call Officer Matthew Dominguez had been summoned to address, but sources told NBC Bay Area earlier this week that he had been caught by members of the family who walked in on him during the act. Dominguez, 32, has been placed on leave pending an investigation into the alleged incident
Click through for story – News of the Weird.

Marine Link – Linda Fagan Confirmed as First Woman USCG Commandant
Quote – Nominated for the role by President Joe Biden in April, Fagan will succeed Adm. Karl Schultz as head of the Coast Guard. Schultz, who has been Coast Guard Commandant since 2018, will retire at the end of this month. A change of command ceremony is scheduled to take place on June 1. Fagan became the first woman four-star admiral in the service when she took over as vice commandant in June 2021. Fagan is also the Coast Guard’s first-ever Gold Ancient Trident, as the officer with the longest service record in the marine safety field.
Click through for details. Another step forward in getting the upper echelons to look like America.

The New Yorker – Samuel Alito’s “Amelia Bedelia” Reading of the Constitution
Quote – Amelia Bedelia is a housekeeper who goes to work for a rich couple. They give her instructions—dust the furniture, draw the drapes, put out the lights—that Amelia, being extremely literal-minded, interprets exactly the wrong way. She pours dust on the furniture; draws a picture of the drapes; puts all the lights outside. The couple comes home to the chaos, and resolves to fire poor Amelia—until they taste a pie that she has made. It is so delicious that they can’t bear to let her go.
Click through for explication. Fabio Bertoni nails it – except that Alito has no talent so remarkable that sane people wouldn’t let him go.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 14, 2022

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

May 142022

Yesterday was Friday the Thirteenth, and it got me thinking about the fact that “In the United States, the number 13 has many positive associations related to the 13 original colonies. So on the Great Seal there are 13 stars, 13 red stripes, and thirteen arrows held by the eagle.” Also, when the eagle holds an olive branch in the other foot, that branch has 13 olives and 13 leaves. You can count themon the back of the dollar bill, and you can look for more hidden 13s there if you like; I forget what all of them are. Friday is a separate matter – I won’t go into all the rationalizations, but fear of Friday goes back to ancient times, and Friday the 13th was considered especially unlucky only because it was thought to be a double whammy. These days we tend to say “Thank God it’s Friday,” so it’s hard to say why anyone (in the US especially) should be concerned about Friday the Thirteenth.

Cartoon – 14 constitution

Short Takes –

BioSpace – Researchers Pinpoint Reason Infants Die From SIDS
Quote – According to Mayo Clinic, many in the medical community suspected this phenomenon could be caused by a defect in the part of the brain that controls arousal from sleep and breathing. The theory was that if the infant stopped breathing during sleep, the defect would keep the child from startling or waking up…. They found the activity of the enzyme butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) was significantly lower in babies who died of SIDS compared to living infants and other non-SIDS infant deaths. BChE plays a major role in the brain’s arousal pathway, explaining why SIDS typically occurs during sleep.
Click through for details. It has NOTHING to do with anything any parent or caregiver has any control over whatsoever. It is an effing enzyme. Unless it happens when the infant is actually on the parent’s arms, and the parent notices something wrong, and knows and performs CPR (which is a LOT of “if”s), there is not one bloody thimg a parent can do to prevent it. Of course, there is now – all infants should be tested as soon as possible for BChE levels. But if every parent who ever lost a child to SIDS could instantly know this, the weight of guilt leaving the earth might be enough to knock

the earth out of its orbit.

Crooks and Liars – Katie Porter Describes Shocking Quid Pro Quo Deal Under Trump
Quote – [Katie Porter:] “So, what happened here is the deputy secretary of the interior — the Secretary of the Interior at the time was Ryan Zinke, who is currently running for Congress. But the deputy secretary was named (David) Bernhardt. He took a secret meeting with a developer named Mike Ingraham, trying to develop a project in Arizona, in a very environmentally sensitive area. It was a secret meeting, never disclosed on any of Secretary Bernhardt’s calendars. It was never disclosed to our committee, and we were investigating. A couple weeks later, this Fish and Wildlife career employee, just doing his job for 30 years, he gets a call around a high-level politico wanting him to reverse his decision that the development would harm the environment,” she said.
Click through (there’s also a video). Of course, under TFG, no kind or amount of criminal behavior can actually shock anyone with a brain any more. But this certainly should be shocking, and demonstrates how desperately we need to restore integrity to govenment, so regain people’s trust, so that an incident like this would be shocking.

BuzzFeed News – Republicans Don’t Think Undocumented Immigrant Babies Should Get Formula Over Americans
Quote – Republicans are claiming without proof that baby formula used to feed infants at immigrant detention centers is siphoning away a product in short supply and instead want “American kids” put first…. None of the Republican lawmakers explained how feeding infants in detention was affecting formula supplies in the rest of the country, but suggested they should be left without food anyway.
Click through for story. More posturing from the “pro-life” crowd.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 13, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:11 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 132022

Yesterday, I paid a couple of bills. I didn’t venture outside, though I suppose I might have, because besides the evacuations the day before, we also has spring winds (to blow them away) – but that’s a straight stick which points two ways, – the winds could aldo have brought the fires (and their smoke) closer. Not difficult to justify doing what I wanted to do anyway (grin.)

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Short Takes –

truthout – DeSantis’s Congressional Maps Deemed “Unconstitutional” by Judge He Appointed
Quote – Smith will likely replace DeSantis’s gerrymandered maps with one of two that the Republican-controlled legislature had previously passed, which the governor had vetoed earlier this year. Though still advantageous to the GOP, those maps are seen as somewhat better (though by no means perfect), in terms of respecting Black voters’ voices, than the ones DeSantis demanded be passed after his veto.
Click through for article. Here’s my take on DeSantis.

Media Matters – Fox News melts down following revelation Karine Jean-Pierre called the network racist. She’s right.
Quote – It’s not just people on the left pointing out Fox’s racism. In 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, The Daily Beast reported that it “spoke to more than a dozen Fox News insiders, who all suggested that behind the scenes there is a growing despair among employees about the network’s role in demonizing and spreading fear about Black Americans in particular.” One Fox staffer quoted in the piece described some of the network’s personalities as “a white supremacist cell,” adding, “This is rank racism excused by Murdoch.” Another described Fox programming as “white supremacist crap.”
Click through if you can stand to. Shall we expect Fox staff to treat Karine with even more disrespect than they did Jen? (OK, I grant I was shocked when Doocy said on camera that he would miss her because she’d always been a “good sport.”)

Robert Reich – Personal history: The Supreme Court I argued before fifty years ago
Quote – Douglas, Marshall, and Blackmun were the intellectual leaders of that Supreme Court. Their opinions gave the Court its moral heft. They drew not only from the Constitution as written but also from the nation as it had evolved. They understood the moral leadership America needed to protect the rights of the voiceless and the powerless. Today’s Supreme Court majority doesn’t have a clue about the Court’s moral authority, and couldn’t care less.
Click through for history, nostalgia, and moral clarity. Today’s FFT is a meme drawn from this article. Feel free to share it.

Food For Thought

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 16: Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich testifies before the Joint Economic Committee January 16, 2014 in Washington, DC. Reich joined a panel testifying on the topic of “Income Inequality in the United States.Ó (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Open Thread May 12, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:38 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 122022

Yesterday, I woke up from a nightmare.I was talking with Mitch McConnell and he said something which almost made sense. It was horrible. I never used to dream about public figures Sigh.
Today is May 12. I’m using a cartoon made by TC, but every year on May 12 I remember that when I was a freshman in college and still visiting my high school bridge club because I didn’t feel ready for tournament bridge (this would have been 1963), every time there was a trick with four face cards, it was obligatory for someone to say, “Summit Conference.” And on a trick with three face cards it was obligatory for someone to sat, “May 12th.” (because on May 12, 1960, Khrushchev walked out on the summit conference.) Just one of those trivial to the point of being idiotic things that one can’t seem to forget. (And it really wouldn’t make a good cartoon, anyway. Too much explanation needed.)

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Short Takes –

The Daily Beast- A Second MAGA Clerk in Colorado Also Breached Voting Machines
Quote – Schroeder, who did not return a request for comment, is the second Colorado clerk accused of breaching voting machines under his supervision. The other clerk, Tina Peters of Mesa County, is currently facing a barrage of criminal charges for allegedly stealing a local tech worker’s identity, illegally copying her county’s election data, and leaking it to election fraud conspiracy theorists last spring. She later appeared at Lindell’s “cyber symposium” on supposed voter fraud where she implied, incorrectly, that the stolen data suggested election malfeasance against Donald Trump.
Click through for details. Colorado is a blue state if Democrats vote. But ever since Focus on the Family decided to settle in Colorado Springs, RWNJs all over the state have become more amd more loud and obnoxious. And lawless. Here’s a related article.

Crooks and Liars – ‘Songbird Of Mariupol’ Wants The World To Know That She’s Still Alive
Quote – For she is singing in a bomb shelter amid the shattered hell of Mariupol, accompanied by a low murmur from a chorus line of men sitting beside her. Her name is Kateryna. She joined the army last year after completing her music studies and, at the age of 21, she finds herself fighting for her life as a member of the heroic band of Ukrainian fighters making a desperate last stand in a besieged factory.
Click through for story and video. The video has CC (I don’t speak Ukrainan, but it looks good), and you can just tell she has a lovely voice, maybe perfect pitch, but the “accompaniment” doesn’t help.

AP News – Ambassador nominee for Ukraine seeks quick embassy reopening
Quote – Bridget Brink, who has spent the majority of her 25-year diplomatic career in former Soviet republics, spoke to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee ahead of what’s expected to be her easy Senate confirmation…. Committee Republicans and Democrats alike Tuesday emphasized getting Brink confirmed and in place in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as soon as possible, as Ukraine’s forces are in their fourth month of battling invading Russian troops, with the help of an extraordinary campaign of military and financial support by the United States and European allies.
Click through (it’s short). Let’s not forget the last Ambassador, Marie (Masha) Yovanovitch. Like (and along with) LtCol Vindman, she demonsrated truth and honor in the face of a world-class bully. Big shoes to fill. I wish Bridget Brink all the best.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 11, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:42 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 112022

Yesterday, I had a rather klutzy computer day. For instance, I sent an email attachment but forgot to attach it, and in my pictorial program accidentally hid all the toolbars and it took m a half hour or more to figure out what I had done so I could get them back. Everything is resolved now but I’m running late as a result.

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Short Takes –

The Washington Post – GOP donor described botched vote fraud probe in recording, prosecutors say
Quote – The filing Friday illuminates one of the most extreme tactics that far-right groups have employed in an effort to substantiate former president Donald Trump’s unproven allegations of widespread voting fraud in the election he lost. Groups have tried to gain access to sensitive election equipment, pushed for audits of the 2020 election by handpicked outside groups and recruited volunteers to scrutinize local election officials, sometimes leading to threats of violence.
Click through for the news, which is not new, but just coming out, plua I had to wait a couple of days to get a gift link so we can all get past the paywall. Fortunately, it is NOt being ignored.

Democratic Underground – 45 Convicted Republican Pedophiles:
Quote – 42. Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was charged with rape for allegedly paying a 15-year old girl for sex. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young.
Click through for complete list. Be aware these are not just people who happen to be registered Republican. They are elected or appointed officials and/or vocal activists. (I’m sure one could easily find 45 convicted pedophiles who are just registered Democrats but in no way involved in politics/activism – because we won’t stand for it.)

Amazon Watch – Peruvian Government Commits to Expel Narcotrafficking Settlers and Return Lands to Indigenous Communities
Quote – While Peru is in an ongoing political crisis, the Indigenous movement clamors for justice. The demands are clear: prevent the killings of threatened Earth defenders, pursue legal actions against the murderers, and guarantee Indigenous territorial integrity. According to the latest Global Witness report, Peru is among the ten most dangerous countries for Earth defenders. Since 2011, more than 45 environmental rights defenders have been killed there. Most recently, Indigenous leader Ulises Rumiche, was shot dead on April 20, 2022.
Click through for details. It’s not as if we don’t know that indegenous peoles everywhere on earth are having their very survival (not to mention their customs, thir quality of life, even their basic dignity) threatened on a 24/7 basis. But it isn’t often we are given a window into those conditions that shows as much as this one does.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 10, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:11 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 102022

Yesterday, I did a little constructive oversleeping. Even when everything goes slowly, any time I drive anywhere farther away than 5 or 10 miles, I stress and get very tired. (When I was in my twenties, I could actually lose weight drving long distances, even when eating as much as (or even a little more than) usual. I’m pretty sure that’s not true any more, but it’s still tiring. Hence the need for a little extra sleep. And it helps – though it probably would have helped more if I had awakened to a happier news day.

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Short Takes –

The Nib – Restaurant for Vultures
Quote –

Click through for graphic article. I like vultures. I had very few plushies when I was a kid, but one day on my mid-teens I saw a lushie vulture and had to have it, and “Nigel” became a beloeved companion. So this story – which is less about vultures than about the many ways we contribute to loss of biodiversity, even when doing things which seem very positive, caught my eye.

Los Angeles Times – Column: Cops, not books? This town’s library may become a police station
Quote – [Frank] Cervantes [Library Associate] didn’t want to give too many opinions, partly because he had a bunch of kids to look after. But he did emphasize the importance of having a library in a small town like McFarland. He himself grew up in the even smaller agricultural community of Mettler, an hour away. His hometown had no library, but his mom was able to take him to libraries in bigger cities. “It was the difference,” he quietly said, “between a bright future and the futures that some of my peers had.”
Click through. I can guarantee tht if they do this, crime (or at least “crime”) will increase. If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

No More Mister Nice Blog – The CDC Really Needs to Look into This Cluster of Right Wing Amnesia
Quote – I think I understand what’s happening here. The right needs to make the reaction to this decision the real story, in order to distract from the decision’s unpopularity and radical nature. Part One of this attempt to manufacture consent was the phony outrage at the leak, which the right blames on liberals, despite lacking any evidence to do so.
Click through for full blog. Right wing amnesia is nothing new But it’s getting worse … and their attacks on public education suggest that it’s currently far from bad enough to suit them.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 9, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 7:26 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 092022

Yesterday, of course, I visited Virgil. I was glad I left early, and glad I stopped for gas. I didn’t remember the road as well as I thought I did (and construction here and there didn’t help.) When I arrived and turned where the road sign said the complex was, I drove right past the visitation center to the complex gate – who told me eexactly where is was. Although all the prisins follow the same manual there are always details in which they are individual There’s a form that every facility requires, but his last facility wanted it filled out in pendil (in other words, by have every time) but they were willing t let it last longer than one visit unless something has changed. This faciity doesn’t care about pencil (which means I can fill one out in good dark ink, scan it, ans print it off) but they do want it every visit. There’s another form about CoViD sympotoms that the last place wanted to go through the questions with visitors verbally and fill it out for us. The same form, this facility wants us to fill out for them (not in pencil.) It’s short and sweet so I won’t be scanning it,. The gave me a (surgical) mask without question, and one of the shuttle busses has a wheelchair life. I also saw some dress code differences, though probably none I’s want to emulate (like flip flops – not for me.) Because of the bussing, one can’t just leave whenever one feels like it, as one could at the last facility – but that’s not going to be a problem, as the route is not almost due south and almost due east to get ther (and the opposite returning) as the last facility was, which made both sunrise and sunset problematic duting winter, but rather roughly south sotjeast (about 30 from due south) and roughlt due west going, and yje opposite returning, and that alone takes care of most of the sunlight issues. All this is probably more than anyone wanted to know; hope I didn’t bore you too much.

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Short Takes –

Wonkette – Nation’s Long Nightmare Over As Chuck Todd’s Daily Wankfest Banished To Streaming
Quote – Poor Chuck. When in under a year and a half your network moves you to a new time slot so the world can have another hour of Nicolle Wallace, and then out of that time slot to an online streamer, it feels like they are sending a message, and the message is not, “Great work, Mr. Cronkite.” Anyway, what can yr Wonkette say about Todd that isn’t being said very scornfully on Twitter? The man has been a scourge of the sort of view-from-nowhere bothsidesism and horserace politics that has fueled both our rage and our alcohol problems for many a year.
Click through for details. I doubt whether anyone here actually watched Chuck Todd… but it’s interesting that this comes so soon after the WHCD.

Crooks and Liars – Trump’s DHS Altered Russia Report To Help Trump
Quote – Trump’s acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf and others in his department altered parts of a report and delayed its release. The original reports stated clearly that Russia helped Trump in 2020 (never mind 2016?) for political reasons. On Special Report with Bret Baier, Fox News finally covered a negative Trump story.
Click through for story. You might wonder, what DHS other than Trump’s would do this? But if the GQP is capable of suggestiong that AntiFa did the insurrection to overthrow an election which their side won, then the GQP is capable of suggesting just about anything.

Salon – Did a justice’s wife leak Supreme Court drama?
Quote – We already know her husband, Clarence Thomas, is an extraordinarily angry and bitter person, thanks to his memoir, “I Am Still an Incredibly Angry and Bitter Person on Account of That Time Anita Hill Told the Complete Truth About Me.” (And Clarence Thomas is apparently buddies with CBS’s Jan Crawford.) And Ginni made a living, for years, touring the nation telling everyone how awful and unconstitutional healthcare reform was, which means she was probably pretty upset when her husband told her John Roberts voted to kill liberty forever. She’s also known for having really poor impulse control[.]
Click through for discussion. I don’t think it’s necessarily true that once a leaker, always a leaker, because some – many – people are capable of mental and emotional growth. But then, this is Ginni Thomas we are talking about here.

Food For Thought

Open Thread May 8, 2022

Posted by Joanne Dixon at 6:40 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

May 082022

Yesterday, The opera was Puccini’s “Turandot” – it may be the only opera which requires more suspension of disbelief that Verdi’s “Ls Forza del Destino” (and I’m not knocking them – both are wonderful – just not believable.) Turandot is where the aria “Nessun dorma” which became Pavarotti’s signature tune comes from. During intermission, the Met’s general manager Peter Gelb spoke about what the Met is doing to boost Ukraine, including sponsoring and helping to assemble an orchestra of Ukrainian refugees (“The Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra”) which is or will be touring to raise both awareness and funds. I’ve never seen the Met do so much for a cause, and it turns out Mrs. Gelb has some Ukrainian ancestry. Not surprising he is emotionally involved (not that we all aren’t). More power to the Met.

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Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – Republican, In Jail For Murdering His Wife, Wins Primary
Quote – Because nothing says traditional family values like killing your wife and still winning a spot for an election while in jail awaiting trial. And in case you were wondering, he’ll be on the November ballot unless convicted beforehand for his heinous act. He has confessed.
Click through for story (BBA). He intends to plead guilty, so technially I suppose it’s not his trial but his plea hearing which he is in jail awaiting. And he’ll go back to jail to await sentencing. and then who knoes. Looks to me like a perfect GQP candidate.

Colorado Public Radio – If Roe v. Wade is overturned, Colorado will become an island of abortion access
Quote – [Neta] Meltzer [with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains] said that if the Supreme Court decision comes down as it was drafted in the leaked ruling, it will have a ripple effect across the country. And Colorado will be an island of access, surrounded by states, save for New Mexico, that have partial or total bans on abortion. In the meantime, abortion rights advocates are gearing up. “We have been preparing for some time. We have been working with the clinics that provide care. We are working with abortion funding, and we are going to continue to try to coordinate to make sure we don’t turn anyone away,” said Karen Middleton, president of Cobalt, formerly NARAL CO.
Click through for details, although, because no one here is clairvoyant, they are tentative. But I’m proud of my state for this.

KUT 90.5 Austin TX – So the $35 sculpture you got at an Austin Goodwill was looted from a museum during WWII. Now what?
Quote – Young wanted to figure out what the sculpture was, so she did some Googling and she started to piece things together. She contacted an auction house in London that confirmed it was really old — like FIRST CENTURY old. Another auction house managed to find the head in a catalog of items from a German museum in the 1920s and 1930s. It was listed as a portrait bust of a man named Drusus Germanicus. And so began Young’s four-year ordeal trying to get rid of a 2,000-year-old sculpture.

Click through for another improbable story. I say improbable, but there could be thousands of stories like it, if we only knew. At least this one has a happy ending.

Food For Thought

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