Mar 092023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Fox’s elections lies, Tucker Carlson’s J6 video sleight of hand, and the need for consequences

The Lincoln Project – CPAC Day 2 in 130 Seconds

VoteVets – Ban (140)

MSNBC – Chris Hayes: The Tucker Carlson villain origin story

Stray Cat Can’t Stay Away From Family’s House

Beau – Let’s talk about wolves and good news….

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Mar 082023
 

The Lincoln Project – CPAC Day 1 in 135 Seconds

Fluffy Owlets Grow Big and Strong to Return to Wild

Beau – Let’s talk about Hershey’s and what’s happening…. (Fortunately my side pretty much stopped hurting before I watched this – else I might have split it. bur what I want to know is – is oly the GQP entitled to outrage over candy? Or can I be outraged by Hershety’s because the name “Payday” mocks people who are “working for peanuts”? Or at Ferrero because the “100 Grand” bar is clearly obscenely inflationary?)

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Mar 062023
 

Yesterday, I was looking through videos for the video thread. Beau has been really hot lately, but I can’t share all of his because he’s doing 3-4 a day now and I wouldn’t have room for anything else. So I’m going to briefly sharethe information from one here. Last month, the 18th-19th, there was a “revival” in Kentucky (he didn’t specify, but “revival” sounds like Talibangelicals) and apparently someone who was there had an active case of measles. The possibility exists of new cases popping up just about everywhere in the US. I’m sure no one who reads here was there, and y’all already stay away from Talibangelicals, but it might be harder to avoid people who don’t systematically avoid Talibangelicals. The incubation period is 21 days, which would be March 11 or 12 (but of course anyone who caught it during that time frame would then have their own 21-day period.) If you ever go anywhere, or live with anyone who does, or have guests, check your immunizations and please be careful.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Letters From An American – March 3, 2023
Quote – Today (March 3) the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee demonstrated that they will actively fight back against Republicans’ false narratives…. Rather than permit them to establish a false narrative, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), and the top Democrat on the weaponization subcommittee, Stacey Plaskett (D-Virgin Islands), today released a deeply researched and footnoted 316-page report that shreds the Republicans’ story…. In a section of the report titled “An Analysis of Witness Testimony Shows That Committee Republicans Are Working to Advance a Politically Motivated Messaging Campaign Unsupported by the Evidence,” Nadler and Plaskett show how the witness testimony directly rebutted the Republicans’ talking points. Under examination, the witnesses disproved that the Department of Justice was trying to pad its case numbers regarding domestic violent extremism, that it had diverted resources from child abuse cases to pursue January 6 offenders, and that the FBI had overreacted to threats of violence against school administrators and local political officials, all Republican talking points.
Click through for more good refuting of bad and ugly. I am for statehood for Puerto Rico and DC, but danf, maybe the Virgin Islands first. Stacey Plaskett needs and deserves a VOTE in the House. And we need her.

Crooks and Liars – 58 Years Later, Black Vietnam War Hero Gets His Medal Of Honor
Quote: [Biden] continued, “And although the men who were with him on that June day immediately nominated Captain Davis to receive the Medal of Honor, somehow the paper — the paperwork was never processed, not just once, but twice. But, you know what Captain Davis said after learning that he would finally receive the Medal of Honor? Quote, ‘America was behind me.'”
Click through for more detail. I have read that he was named after Paris in the Iliad. I feel that Davis was a FAR better soldier than Paris – but it’s complicated, and Paris did, in a way, get the “last laugh.”

Food For Thought

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Feb 242023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Special Counsel Jack Smith subpoenas Ivanka Trump & Jared Kushner to testify about DJT’s crimes

The Lincoln Project – Wiser Instincts

Farron Balanced – Trump Says He’ll Use The Federal Government To Punish Your Children

Rep. Jamie Raskin’s message to PCCC members (hanky alert)

Wobbly Baby Goat Finally Runs With Her Best Friend

Beau – Let’s talk about water in Cincinnati and Kentucky….

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Feb 242023
 

Yesterday, the temperature did go up before it went down, although it never for as high as freezing. Today it should, and the next several days should be warmer still. There’s no snow in the forecast for a little over a week.

This article in one of my newsletters caught my eye… and then I saw that it had also caught Mitch’s eye. I know many of y’all are also on his mailing list – and also that the contents are no surprise – but it’s good to see that someone is in a position to prove it.

Cartoon – 24 0224Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – 10 Surprising Lessons of the Ukraine War So Far
Quote – While Ukraine has pleaded for fighter jets for a year, unmanned aircraft have stolen the show … “No Time for Sergeants” was once a TV hit in America. It has been a flop for the Russian army ,,, Speaking of time, it’s time for traditional navies to realize their time will soon be up … Poland is the new Germany. (And Estonia is the new France.) … Vladimir Putin may be a madman, but at least he has the common sense not to want to be obliterated in a nuclear war with NATO … Speaking of Putin, stick a fork in him. He may not be quite done yet, but he will be soon… and besides if anyone deserves to have a fork stuck in him, it’s Putin … TikTok is more than just an annoying teenage time-waster and Chinese espionage plot … Ukraine is already in the EU and NATO whether you (or Russia or Turkey[sic]) like it or not … With friends like Turkey[sic], Israel, the global South and Elon Musk, who needs enemies? … And the most important lesson of all is, as it will be for the remainder of this century, everything is always about China.
Click through for the explanation of each point. I am doing my best to respect the newly preferred spelling of Türkiye. If the UN can do it, I should be able to.

The Nib – The Great Debate: Martin Luther King, Jr. vs Robert F. Williams
Quote – While the debate between King and Williams was waged in dueling magazine columns in pages of the Liberator over the course of 1959, I like to imagine what it would have been like inperson. Maybe I’d be sitting with WEB Dubois, who followed the discussion closely.
Click through for full graphic. The hearts and minds of bigots cannot be won with violence. The hearts and minds of bigots also cannot be won with non-violence. They also cannot be won with legislation, but I believe legislation has the best chance of controlling their behavior, and of at least achieving justice when that doesn’t succeed. But for that to happen we need to elect majorities of sane legislators everywhere and at every level – and we need exclusively sane people in law enforcement and the courts. None of this is easy.

Food For Thought

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Feb 232023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Forewoman of Georgia state grand jury indicates multiple indictments are coming with no surprises

The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party

Robert Reich – How Corporate Greed Destroyed a Small Ohio Town

Parody Project – Walk Like a Drunk Russian

Stray Cat Is Best ‘Mom’ To Her Sister

Beau – Let’s talk about parents and education….

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Feb 212023
 

Glenn Kirschner – Emails between Fox News hosts expose Fox’s intentional election fraud lies. What happens now?

MSNBC – Burn: Neil DeGrasse Tyson roasts UFO theories, says ‘no to aliens’

Farron Balanced – Republicans Are Convinced Space Aliens Are Invading Earth

The Riccardis – Deranged, Dopey, and Deluded (not new, butvery pertinent still.)

Cat Cares For His New Sister’s Kittens After She Gives Birth

Beau – Let’s talk about Ukraine, West Virginia, and Texas…. So glad someone said this.Now if Beau, or someone, could only go back even farther in history to, say, the tenth century, and how Ukraine was civilized before Russia was even a twinkle in the Vikings’ eyes.

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Feb 192023
 

Yesterday, The radio opera was “Don Carlo” by Verdi, based on a play by Schiller (another playwright whose work inspired multiple operas, the best known besides this one being “Maria Stuarda” by Donizetti and “William Tell” by Rossini.) All three of those are based on actual historical characters, but hoo boy, is the history – and in this one characterization – off. And probably wrongest with Don Carlo himself.He is depicted as maybe a little hot-headed, but enlightened and idealistic. In reality, the best decription of this Spanish prince would be the line from “Greater Tuna” – “Vera, that boy ain’t right.” The one character in Don Carlo whom Schiller invented is Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa. He is the nicest and best human being in the opera. Well, we can’t have that in aplay/opera including the Spanish Inquisition, so he gets killed near the end. He does get the most beautuiful aria to die to in the opera, in fact one of thee best I’ve ever heard. So there are plenty of audience tears to water his imaginary grave. King Philip gets a nice aria too, and basses love to sing it, but given the context it strikes me as a bit ridiculous. His wife was engaged to his son first, and they had a chance to meet, and being two young healthy and attractive people (at least in theory) they naturally fell in love. Their marriage is supposed to be part of a peace treaty between Spain and France. When twice-widowed Philip decides to marry her himself, and for the sake of her country’s peace she agrees, I mean, what did he expect? Now, after all these years he’s whining “She never loved me.” Dude, you should be grateful that, not loving you, she was faithful to ypu in spite of all temptations. Such a Republican fantasy world. Possibly the most interesting character (at least the real-life one) is the Princess Eboli. She doesn’t come across as terribly nice in the opera, but she does come across as strong, and she was that, along with being beautiful She lost an eye in her early teens playing with a bow and arrows – not something one would exoect a girl to do – and wore an eye patch the rest of her life, and was considered the most beautiful woman in Europe anyway. In Spain even today, she’s kind of a feminist icon. She gets two arias, one just to entertain the court, flashy and tells a story, but not personal, and the big one in the last act, after she has betrayed the queen and confessed to doing so, which is right from the depths of honesty and contains, not one, but two mood swings. Ah, well. In actual news, one of out lost submarines (which the Navy refers to as being “on Eternal Patrol”) has been found, off the coast ofJapan’s largest island, just about where it disappeared in 1944. There’s more information here.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

PolitiZoom – Trump Thanks GA For ‘Total Exoneration’ Which Didn’t Take Place.
Quote – Once again we gather together, friends, to ask the eternal question: Is Donald Trump really that stupid or does he think that we are? Or, could it be both?… [A]pparently Trump didn’t get [the] memo. He’s off on a mad tangent now, that the redacted report which was released today is a “total exoneration” of him, because it doesn’t mention him by name. Whut?
Click through for details. I think he knows very well what the situation is and is just hoping to convince others. Why, since convincing others won’t stop prosecution? No – but it very well could get his dupes to take up arms.

The 19th – We asked lovers of Black literature to curate a Black resistance reading list. Here’s what they chose.
Quote – Each year, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, a group [Carter G.] Woodson founded, provides a theme for Black History Month. This year’s theme is Black resistance, which the group hopes will highlight the myriad ways Black people have used “to advocate for a dignified self-determined life in a just democratic society in the United States and beyond the United States political jurisdiction.” One way that Black people have always resisted oppression was through the use of the written word. During enslavement, reading, writing or teaching enslaved people to read and write was a crime punishable by torture, imprisonment or death.
Click through for full list. I wish I had had a list like this when I was in high school. i lived in a very white neighborhood until the age of five, and then moved into another one where I grea up. And went to very white schools. So white that I cannot remember anyone even mentioning black people until I read Huckleberry Finn and a couple of Rex Stout’s “Nero Wolfe” novels. At least all three of those were positive about black people – and “Huckleberry Finn” was also dismissive of whites who thought themselves superior, so I guess it could have been worse. And at least I did support the civil rights movement from the day I knew there was suxh a thing.

Food For Thought

Brilliantly created by our very own SoINeedAName:

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