Open Thread August 15 2024

 Posted by at 6:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 152024
 

Yesterday, I learned there’s a new Randy Rainbow out. I also learned Randy has a sponsor now. I have doctored the URL to omit it – but I might point out that it is “Ground News,” which Trae Crowder has also accepted as a sponsor, so you know it’s going to be a reliable source. If you want the coupon, you can start it at the beginning. The parody is of “The farmer and the cowman should be friends,” from “Pklahoma,”which also is about division, so very appropriate. Here’s the link. With that accomplished, I also requested to schedule a donation pickup – and got today for a date. Well, I was ready; all I needed to do was move the chair I want to keep away from the boxes, and put out a note. Since I was going out to the porch anyway, I replaced my “No solicitation” sign, which was getting pretty worn, and put up a new one (if you are on our Mitch’s email list you probably saw it) “Warning! Retired person on premises. Knows everything and has plenty of time to tell it.”

Brooke Binkowski is new at Wonkette. She is a “counterdisinformationist*. In this article she addresses what counterdisinformation is and why it differs from fact-checking and debunking (both of which are also in her CV.) Even though she writes with Wonkette’s trademark irreverence (Rebecca appears to have a knack for hiring people who take to irreverence like ducks to water) some of her suggestions are quite doable. Of course, the more successful one is at it, the more likely one is to start receiving death threats, so take that into consideration too.

There’s a great deal wrong with people who to remove from society those wom they believe to be the “underclass.” But the one thing that may make them the most likely to rethink this is to point out that, without the “underclass,” they would have to clean their own toilets, scrub their own floors, at the very least harvest, and possibly also grow, their own food – and on and on. No, he’s not running for PResident – yet – but as an adviser th JD Vance, if Republicans win, he could still see the inside of the White House.

Belle Ukraine

Dog

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Open Thread August 14 2024

 Posted by at 5:50 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 142024
 

Yesterday, I didn’t accomplish much. But I did accomplish what I wanted to, so I’d say that’s all right.

Yes, this is a video. But it has CC and also (therefore) a transcript, which like all auto-generated transcript has some errors, but appears not too difficult to clean up. Frank Schaeffer is an author, among other things (here’s his Wiki), and as such he gets advance copies of numerous books to review, and he got a copt of Kevin Roberts’s book (which now won’t be published until after the election – I would hope it would be fatal to the Trump** campaign if it were. But since Schaeffer knows – let him tell you.

And, yes, this is a video also. It shows parts of a speech by Sean Fain, the leader of the UAW. It was made to be an ad, I presume on TV, so it doesn’t have CC, but it does have its own, so it is accurate. I did not plan for two videos today in addition to the normal two videos, but these two just captured me. Back to print tomorrow.

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Open Thread August 12 2024

 Posted by at 5:54 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 122024
 

Yesterday, I managed to see Virgil almost on time (I had to stop for gas on the way down, for one thing.) We played cribbage, of course, and he had the two best hands of the day – a 16 and a 17. He returns any and all greetings. The trip back was uneventful, but I got back tired, so I was slow to post.

Yes, this is alarmist. But, like Project 2025, if we don’t know about it, we won’t be ready – we won’t know what countermeasures to take, and we’ll lose time finding out. And we can’t let them win by cheating (again. Because if’s the only way they can win.)

Well, if I’m going to share one cautionary article, I may as well share this one as well, and it may as well be on a Monday. If kids were taught in school about the Political Compass, it would certainly be easier to identify where politicians are coming from – certainly in this election “right” are practically meaningless. It’s all about “up” and “down.” (Incidentally, they like to use “Authoritarian” and “Libertarian” for up and down respectively, but a better word for the latter would be “Egalitarian” IMO. It’s not only more accurate; it also hasn’t been stolen by crazies.

Belle climate

Dog

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Open Thread August 10 2024

 Posted by at 6:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 102024
 

Yesterday, I read Joyce Vance‘s post on the Special Counsel asking Judge Chutkan for more time – i.e. more delay. Being who he is, he has some very good reasons. But the line in the post which struck me and gave me hope was this: “[G]etting it right matters more than going fast.” Not that I haven’t always felt that way. But reading it from her hand strengthens my confidence that we can (aabd will) get it right in the end. Also, Robert Reich posted a bonus episode (not originally intended) of his DEBUNK series.

Of course this is one state. But the information that’s being used in this training would be useful anywhere. And our SoS has offered in the past to assist other states (IIRC that offer was made during the pandemic in regard to voting by mail.) I can’t imagine her turning down any other SoS who requested help on this.

If anyone had told me during the Nixon presidency that some day I would look back on that time as a kind of golden age, I would have scoffed. You probably would also. But looking back with Heather Cox Richardson, I now see that the greed and abused privilege of Nixon and his coterie were offset by the integrity of people in the Senate and the press who were determined to get to the truth. Then, as now a point was made of mounting impartiality in the investigators – then as now the President claimed he was the victim of a conspiracy – but then, as is not true now, most people believed the proven facts in the end. Who would have thought.

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Open Thread August 8 2024

 Posted by at 5:57 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 082024
 

Yesterday, +I noticed that election season is now in full swing – from the number of my emails. Aand that’s OK. In november I’ll have to do some unsubscribingfor my sanity. But tlections are important, and this one especially. Also, if you know even a tiny bit of French, you will appreciate that “Ms Beau” is now “Belle.” I hope y’all will give her a chance, as you did me when we lost TomCat. She’s been working with Beau a long time and the analysis is there. Also the hat, the shed, and the Tshirts (on a hanger to the right.) And when I say that he analusis is there, I’m basing tht on more than you see – the channel (Belle) is still posting 4 every day. I watch most of them, Occasionally I will skip if a title appears irrelevant to our blog, but, I try noy to do that because the titles are still enigmatic. Also, if you are too young for the reference in the cartoon below, here’s a link. Yes, it’s offensive, but somehow Trump** manages to be more offensive – even just in a cartoon.

There’s a lot in here that y’all already know, and some tha you may have known and forgotten, but also some things which are not new but are newly getting publicity. So there’s way too much to remember – but also some terrific points to make.

I’ve been trying not to bitch about it, but yes, grocery prices are too high. (And a merger of Kroger and Albertson’s would absolutely not help.) Glad to see the FTC will be looking at it.

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Open Thread August 5 2024

 Posted by at 6:10 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 052024
 

Yesterday, I went to the mailbox and picked up the note from Paul Whelan. The note I sent was dated December 15, 2022. He received it, or at least wrote a response May 8, 2023. The envelope has Russian stamps and postmarks with a postmark date of June 19, 2024. it was a lovely note. I had mentioned Virgil was incarcerated and he included “please do pass along my regards to your husband.” And just about then Virgil called, so I passed along his regards right away.

Pretty sure this means the entire State Department is also on the same page. I realize many feel this is way too late. But a nation cannot just desert an ally without warning – and particularly if there is a treaty, which under the Constitution is the law of the land. He has hated this from Day One. But he goes by the book because the country comes first.

This was written Saturday, but I didn’t see it until Sunday. So Friday, August 2, was the date Chutkan received the case back. No, she isn’t wasting any time.

Dog

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Open Thread August 3 2024

 Posted by at 6:15 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 032024
 

Yesterday, I started the day by looking for baby booties, and in fact found 9 pair (10 if I can find the mate to the last one.) I can’t just ignore a baby born on my birthday. So I am now ready, be it boy or girl. Also, since it was Friday, here is Robert Reich’s episode #10 of DEBUNK.  In regard to Beau, since I live in Colorado, I should tell you that I followed that Democratic primary – started in advance, right after the state Democratic convention, and it appeared there were two front runners. She wiped out both of them, seemingly coming from nowhere. Not that it will make a difference in a district as red as that, but she’s remarkable.

Wonkette sent me to this article in People magazine. But The Root also had thoughts. I can’t begin to sort out my mixed feelings about this – but one thought which leaps out is “Now all the gun nuts will be saying, ‘See! We told you it wasn’t the guns!'”

I’m not sure when I subscribed to Press Watch, but I’m glad I did. What POGO (Project on Government Oversight) does for the Federal Government (some would say “to” the Federal government), Press Watch does for – or to – the main stream media. I like that – and I think the Founders would too. They were under very few illusions about what can go wrong in a democracy.

 

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Open Thread August 1 2024

 Posted by at 6:01 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Aug 012024
 

Yesterday, my computer speaker died. Actually, it was a couple of days prior, but yesterday was when I actually went through the steps to learn whether some adjustmeny would fix it – and none wuuld. So I had to get out the new one I had planned to use on a newer computer and set it up. This one does work – good thing, since I will need it Saturday to stream that day’s opera. It’s possible that the old one still works – but it’s highly unlikely it will work on a newer computer. But it might work on an older one, and I do have several of those. Meanwhile, I’ll shop for another newer one.

This, dated Monday but more accurately from Tuesday (it may have reached Alaska and Hawaii while it was still Monday, but it was not still Monday anywhere in the lower 48 when sent) addresses SCOTUS (or SCROTUS if you prefer), its various issues, and what might be done and how it might get through. I am still no fan of term limits, so I made a little model.If this system has started with Reagan’s first term, it would have taken us until Biden’s pPresidency to win a slim majority under it – and thats assuming starting from scratch. If I go back to the actual composition of the court in 1980 and apply the concept (and assun that coonservative presidents never nominate liberals and vice versa), then by the end of Reagam’s term, and through Bush 1’s term, there qould have been 9 conseervative justices, and at the end the end of Trump**’s term we’d have exactly what we have now – 6 conservative and 3 liberal justices – just different faces..  Biden would be able to get that down to 5-4 and then o 4-5.  But after that the lomgest serving justices would be Clinton- appointed liberals, so there’s be no change in the court for a while.  (I didn’t take into considerations death, because it would likely not have been Scalia in that seat, and the same with Ginsburg.  I’m giving Ike credit for appointing liberal judges, because at least they would have been sane.

I assume you saw this news two days ago. But your source may not have included the audio with the departing Kevin Roberts admitting that he knows Donald Trump** is lying about not knowing about Project 2025 in order to fool Americans into voting for him.  (And at least one source now says he is not “stepping down” but “stepping over” – I find that believable.)

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