Danger – Politics Plus

Yesterday, as I hinted Sunday would happen, I slept very late. But I did have time to discover that at least some merchants will allow a customer to change their email address, even if it is also the user name, without changing anything else in the account. Of course they want a second form of verification, but it doesn’t have to be by text, it can be by email or landline. I didn’t het many changed, but I am quite relieved. And I managed to put this together. I also found a couple of Belle eposide worth sharing, and as I almost always do, looked t=at the end for other videos wich might be ineresting. I was drawn to a speech by David Brooks. I’ve not been a fan of Brooks, but he started with acceptinf responsibility for what he and others of his ilk did to America, and demonstrated that he can laugh at imself, so I stayed. Toward the end, he parapgrased T. S. Eliot in a quote which spoke to me so loudly, I had to look it up, and will eventually put it into a meme. But not today.

https://harrylitman.substack.com
Harry Litman is a contributor – I think a founding contributor – to The Contrarian, but hw he has also kept his own Substack, “Talking Feds.” The attorney who joined Meidas Touch with his “Legal AF” is Michael Popok. And then there’s Joyce Vance (“Civil Discourse.”) All three are former DOJ prosecutors, and very familiar with how it is supposed to work. (I’m not intending to diss Glenn Kirschmer “Justice Matters” nor Andrew Weissman “Andrew Weissman” in the same categories.) In this article he has written a thought experiment rather than news. I won’t say you can find news anywhere, because you can’t, but you do have a lot of resources where you can find actual news. A thought experiment is harder to come by (although it may bee no less depressing.)

And then there’s John Pavlovitz, who wants us to hang on to hope without falling into complacency, challenging as that may be, and is always worthy of attention.

Wednesday already – and so much going on. Well, let’s dig in.

Cartoon

Short Takes

The Hill – The Memo – For years I was predicting a French-Revolution-style uprising based on the way government was ignoring, not just the will of the people, but also the needs of the people, including needs the people didn’t themselves recognize (such as climatee change). Then the Trump** presidency seemed so much more like the rise of Hitler that I shifted my concerns. But now it seems I was wrong. We are re-living, in some ways, the French Revolution – and we are now approaching the Reign of Terror stage, and mob rule. A mob with no leaders with any power to restrain it. Empty Greene seems like an unlikely Mme. Defarge (and I’d be astonished if she can knit), but there it is. (And, believe it or not, I wrote this first – and then found TC’s cartoon. My timing could not have been better.)

QConference – The “Conference” at which Michael Flynn made the remarks on camera which he now denies having made was observed by the author of this Twitter thread. I’m sorry, it’s not in a neat thread reader, but I found it worth going through. The chief “takeaways” – This a near-religious movement, and they are preparing to enact violence if they don’t get their way in future elections. The talk of war is now preparation for it.

Robert Reich – H/T Mitch – Of course the Reich on the left is right. What may be more of personal annoyance to me than a major danger to democracy – but it seems that, having lived through four years of a Trump** presidency (not to mention the campaign before and the insurrections after), we seem to have all forgotten who has the authority to doo whatm and who does not have authority to do certain things. This sentence from the article: “So there will be no investigation.” – I won’t say it’s just wrong, but it’s not an established fact. A House Select Committee has not beed ruled out. A DOJ investigation (has not been ruled out (and if they are already investigating and have not told us, they are not going to tell us before it’s over.) But it kind of gives a wrong impression. Keith makes a similar error as to who can do what, and I’ll address that in the video thread. I’m sure a big part of it is that those of us who recognize the enormity of what we are facing are somewhat in a panic. But a better handle on who can and should do what would, for one thing, help us target the right people in petitions. And it should also help us to think more rationally, and God knows we’ll need that.

Politics Plus

Open Thread March 11 2025

Open Thread for June 2, 2021