Glenn Kirschner – Trump and his criminal associates are flooding the courts with motions seeking to avoid prosecution
Future Forward USA Action – Trevor
Ring of Fire – Appeals Court Steps In To Save MAGA Congressman From Prosecutors
Brent Terhune – Trump’s Mug Shot
Disabled cat asks for one specific thing every day
Beau – Let’s talk about Biden starting early for 2024….
Yesterday, I though perhaps with all the hoo-ha and kerfuffle about the Barbie movie, maybe some of you would appreciate a mini-review fron a user at Democratic Underground. It did give me a chuckle. I won’t see it because it would have to be in a theater and the fumes from the ppcorn wouldgive me an allergic reaction – how big or what symptoms I can’t predict, but edema of aome kind would be involved. Also yesterday, my very best birthday present was Trump**’s third Federal indictment, this one in the election investigation. Woo-hoo! And the New Yorker also gifted me a Name Drop I could solve on the first clue.
Cartoon – 02 Taiwan
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Wonkette – Broken Elevator Denies Tammy Duckworth Entrance To Barbie Land
Quote – “I have a five-year-old and an eight-year-old. We have three Barbie Dream houses, including one I set up — all 900 pieces. So we were super excited for the movie.”… She uses a wheelchair and had confirmed ahead of time that the theater showing Barbie was fully accessible. This is a familiar practice for anyone with mobility issues…. When Duckworth arrived at the movie theater and bought tickets, she learned the elevator to the theater itself was broken…. She was especially frustrated that there was no signage explaining the problem, as if it was a minor inconvenience rather than an insurmountable barrier for someone like Duckworth.
Click through for Wonkette’s (especially appropriate here) attitude on this story. You know, my mobiity issues are age-related, and it’s conceivable (though not certain) that I could have avoided some of them by lifestyle chages or being more careful. Tammy gor hers fighting for our country. The theater staff should have carried her up the damn stairs (and down again after.)
Robert Reich – X Marks the Hate
Quote – I detest bullies…. Today, I want to do four things: (1) Summarize research showing that Musk’s Twitter/X has been spreading hate and malicious lies big time — research coming not just from the CCDH but also from the Anti-Defamation League, Media Matters, and Stanford University, among many others. (2) Tell you why this hate surge has been happening on Twitter. (3) Show how Musk’s lawsuit is designed to silence those who are revealing this surge. (4) And explain why Musk is so intent on silencing them.
Click through for all four points (but don’t skip the first paragraph). At risk of sounding like a broken record, I’ll say the Reich on the left is right (as usual.)
Food For Thought
Yesterday, President Joe signed an executive order establishing military Offices of Special Trial Counsel, which will be responsible for all prosecutions of sexual assault, domestic violence, and other violent crime – taking those prosecutions out of the chain of command (under which so many cases have died.) About damn time. And good forJoe! Of course MAGA s furious. Also, a superseding indictment came out in the Trump** documetns case, over which people who are interedted in law and crime are salivating. And my area had a little power failure. Annoying – but didn’t last long, and it came with lightning which came with rain and cooled things down a bit. I had had to break out a couple of the knitted bands I keep (wet) in thr refrigerator and put one around my neck and one around my forehead while all the fans were stopped.
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Associated Press News – Biden chooses former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley to lead the Social Security Administration
Quote – President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley to lead the Social Security Administration…. “Governor O’Malley is a lifelong public servant who has spent his career making government more accessible and transparent, while keeping the American people at the heart of his work,” Biden said in a statement. “As Governor, he made government work more effectively across his administration and enhanced the way millions of people accessed critical services.”
Click through for details. I haven’t heard his name for a long time, but Iseem to recall my impression was positive.
The 19th – Newly disabled people aren’t given a ‘how-to’ guide. Disability doulas are closing those gaps.
Quote – Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu began doing disability doula work long before they ever heard the term. From the time they were in middle school, they remember “being responsible for big, intense crisis situations” with their friends. Throughout high school, a close friend self-injured. Kaufman-Mthimkhulu would drive to her house and listen. They would also take care of their friend’s wounds, spend time watching bad TV shows and eat ice cream. What they didn’t do is blame or shame their friend. Now, years later, disability doula work is a core part of both Kaufman-Mthimkhulu’s personal practice and their job as director of peer support organization Project LETS, which works to organize community-based mental health support for people with disabilities.
Click through for story. I applaud their work. I hope they are allowed to continue and to grow.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner – Current Republican member of Congress calls out Trump for his lies, says Trump committed crime
The Lincoln Project – A Clear Crime
Thom Hartmann – Right To Vote Ended For People With These Common Disabilities
Brent Terhune – Dodgers Pride Night (a week late but way too good not toshare)
Starving Cat Shows Up To Guy’s Backyard Asking For Help
Beau – Let’s talk about a GOP mistake with over energizing their base….
Glenn Kirschner – Donald Trump’s threats to NY DA Alvin Bragg VIOLATE BOTH NEW YORK AND FEDERAL criminal statutes.
PoliticsGirl – TikTok Ban
Ring of Fire – Jim Jordan’s Staffers Whine That Manhattan DA’s Office Keeps Hanging Up On Them (I’d be inclined to send everything to VMX, with an OGM which apologizes to legitimate callers and explains why. Put one person – maybe hire someone for it – to traanscribe it all overnight.)
Mrs. Betty Bowers – The Game of Anti-Woke DISTRACTIONS
Hissing Feral Cat Falls In Love With The Guy Who Rescued Him
Beau – Let’s talk about a win at the Supreme Court for Americans with disabilities….
Yesterday, the radio opera was Madama Butterfly. That was the first opera I saw live (I was eight.) Then, when I was in college, I took the 12-year-old across the street to see it as her first opera. (The San Francisco Opera at that time had a “Spring Opera” season which was so affordable I could pay for two season ticket sof box seats out of my allowance.) Special for both of us. The tenor playing Pinkerton always gets asked how he approaches the character – this one I think nailed the concept -he plays him as “21 and stupid.” (He left out entitled, but that can be assumed, I think.) He really can’t be played as a villain, and especially not from the beginning. But the damage done by entitled stupidity is no less than that done by a villain in the end. One aria in particular is very famous and has been heard by myriads of people who have never thought f opera in their like – “Un bel di vedremo” (or just “Un bel di’).
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The 19th – Autistic people have been excluded from advocacy conversations. Julia Bascom is changing that.
Quote – April is Autism Acceptance Month, marked by hashtags, charity fundraising and celebrity parent interviews. Many articles will highlight autism hiring initiatives or, increasingly, famous people who are autistic themselves. You won’t see Julia Bascom in most Autism Acceptance Month coverage or any major ad campaigns. This is somewhat by design — she prefers not to be interviewed. Autism can make speaking difficult or draining for some, Bascom said. “In high school, I was a theater kid, but I primarily did stage managing. I like getting stuff done. I don’t like things being about me,” she told The 19th.
Click through for story. Back in the day when I was doing nursing home sing-alongs, a friend who sometimes helped told me she could not go to a niursing home without feeling overwhelmed by the years and years of contributions to the community that these peole represent. I try to take that to heart. Anyone and everyone can and does contribute. Something Republicans will never understand … mostly because they don’t want to.
Mother Jones – A San Francisco Public Defender Explains What the Media Are Getting Wrong About the “Crime Wave”
Quote – Earlier this month, Peter Calloway, a San Francisco deputy public defender and a resident of the Tenderloin neighborhood (where earlier this year, citing drug overdoses, Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency) went viral for a twitter thread that showed just how little basis the narrative [that San Francisco is plagued by overwhelmng crime rates] has in reality. A week later, the San Francisco Chronicle backed Calloway up with even more statistics, writing: “The data shows that crime shifted dramatically during the pandemic. But now that San Francisco is returning to pre-pandemic behavior, so are its crime rates.” It’s worth noting that cities with more old-school law-and-order prosecutors—including Sacramento, where District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, who is running for state attorney general on a more lock them up approach, governs—aren’t safe havens. In 2020, eight out of ten of the states with the highest murder rates were controlled by Republicans.
Click through for details. I pray that Boudin succeeds in dodging this recall with an even stronger showing than the first one.
Crooks and Liars – Another Oath Keeper Pleads Guilty To Seditious Conspiracy
Quote – This might be a good time to reflect on Jamie Raskin’s framing of the insurrection as 3 circles of sedition. The outer circle is the general public caught up in the fray. The middle circle consists of Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, neo-Nazis and other white supremacist groups, and the inner circle are those people in government who assisted. As Raskin noted in his speech, the circles sometimes overlap. In this case, Ulrich is solidly in the second circle. My sense of things is that we haven’t even begun to understand the ways these circles intertwine, but there can be no question about the fact that January 6th wasn’t just a riot.
Click through. If he is facing 20 years, possibly 20 + 20, in a plea deal, what might the sentence have been without the deal?It would appear his testimony is likely to be valuable.
Food For Thought
Yesterday I got my trash and recycling carts movedaway from the curb back to where they “live.”And that was plenty. It’s been a busy week for me, so I was glad to have some respite. I did a little knitting and a ittle gaming, and tried to get to bed earlier than I had been most of the week. I’ll try not to get spoiled.
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Report: DOJ Grand Jury Has Been Secretly Targeting Trump World For Months
Quote – The Department of Justice, as some of us said all along, is doing their job. They have been doing their job. This didn’t just happen in the past week because Congress members publicly complained. Even the reporters who wrote this piece get it wrong by saying the probe has “expanded.” These grand jury subpoenas didn’t just fall out of the sky, and it’s not in response to public pressure. Leaking the news? Yeah, that’s for the benefit of the public. But this is a hugely complex investigation, and they’re being careful not to screw it up.
Click through for details and some interesting reactions.
Navy ship to be named for late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Quote – Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro announced on Thursday, the final day of Women’s History Month, that the Navy would name a replenishment oiler ship after Ginsburg. The ship is part of the John Lewis-class of replenishment oilers which are named in honor of individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of civil rights. Other ships in the class are named after John Lewis, Robert F. Kennedy, and Sojourner Truth.
Click through for background. The entire class appears to be relatively new.
“CODA” Actor Troy Kotsur Becomes First Deaf Man to Win an Oscar: “This Is Our Moment”
Quote – “CODA” star Troy Kotsur just made history at the 2022 Oscars. The 53-year-old actor is the first deaf man to be nominated and win an award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Kotsur took home the award for best actor in a supporting role on Sunday for “CODA,” beating out Ciarán Hinds, Jesse Plemons, J.K. Simmons, and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Click through for story. Yeah, know, I don’t follow the Oscars either – the last time I watched was when Halle Berry won in 2001. But any diversity milestone in films is worth celebrating.
Food For Thought:
Yesterday, I managed to make two trips out to the recyclables bin and one tp the trash bin (and neither is actua;;;y full yet. I know there are disadvantages, but DST is far better suited to my biorhythm than standard time. The first day the sunset is an hour later is also the first day I can summon up the energy to schlep stuff around, which I have been putting off for days. (And I didn’t even get up all that early.) So I am on the side of peple who want to keep DST all year (which would also eliminae the stress that comes with “springing forward,” and studies suggest it would also save lives and energy, and have other benefits.) And – I almost forgot – Happy PI Day!
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The New Yorker – Did George Washington Have an Enslaved Son?
Quote – [West Ford’s] descendants have demanded that Mount Vernon recognize Ford for his contributions to the estate, which was near collapse during the decades after Washington’s death. They also argue—citing oral histories from two branches of the family—that Ford was Washington’s unacknowledged son, a claim that Mount Vernon officials have consistently denied. As that debate continues, Black civic organizations in Gum Springs are engaged in related battles to save their endangered community.
Click through for backstory and current issues. Absolutely no one that I can see except The New Yorker is covering this (but I didn’t search for small local news outlets.) Jefferson’s (white) descendants – most of them – have learned to live with the truth. AreWashington’s tough enough? Also, there is more than genealogy in this story.
Daily Kos (David Neiwert) – ‘Patriot’ threatens Nevada’s governor at restaurant, and Republicans cheer the eliminationism
Quote – This kind of rhetoric is not simply violent but eliminationist in nature: That is, it’s discourse intended not simply to oppose a political or cultural foe but to dehumanize and demonize them, to render them nonhuman objects fit only for elimination—vermin, diseases, existential threats. It’s a powerful precursor to real-world violence because it not only obliterates any compunction about killing, it positively creates permission for it…. [Joey] Gilbert … published a long post on Facebook…. “That time is upon us where these fraudulently elected leaders of ours will not be able to walk the streets alone,”
Click through for discussion. (My Daily Kos newsletter has stopped coming again, but Crooks and Liars is reprinting enough to keep me in touch.) Neiwert has put his finger right on my deepest fears. I lived through the sixties when one leader after another was getting shot and killed. I am still jittery about it. I am not expecting anyone to target me personally … but they don’t have to in order to ruin my life. This is real.
Women’s History – The Conversation – Deaf women fought for the right to vote
Quote – As a researcher of deaf history, including deaf women’s history, I work to illuminate the often hidden history of deaf people and their unique contributions to the world. I have unearthed historical information about deaf women suffragists and assembled it into an online collection chronicling what is known—so far—about these women and their lives. Despite harsh, discriminatory conditions, low pay, and lack of recognition, countless deaf women have fought with brilliance and dedication for personal and professional recognition, including for the right to vote.
Click through for several individual stories. This was publshed last year, but reprinted this year in Yes! Magazine. I prefer original sources in any case, but especially when the original source is one I know everyone can access.
Food For Thought:
