On this date in 1945, we lost President Roosevelt. But, in spite of having to preside over a World War (which our side won, and I’m not sure we could have done so without him), he pushed for and got legislation which set us up for national prosperity which lasted 80 years. And which it has taken less than three months to trash.
I think I accidentally deleted the Open Thread for Friday. And I have no backup. So sorry. If you had commented, that will also be gone.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-alien-enemies-act_n_67f56408e4b046bb946e0242
The Supreme Court has made several decisions regarding immigration and deportation. including good, bad, and indifferent. The net effect is not all that good. HuffPost explains.
https://www.theroot.com/michelle-obama-has-an-answer-for-those-who-think-her-ma-1851775610
If you are not on social media, and don’t follow black news outlets, you may not even be aware of the rumors. I was aware of them and was also pretty sure they were BS. But then, I have lived through a lot of the same kinds of interactions she has, so I know the territory. The little video in the middle is pretty short and really part of the article so I recommend not skipping it (and yes, the fact that I watched it does mean that The Root has stopped disappearing mid-read for me. Yay!)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220226632
Be sure to at least scan the comments on the Democratic Underground post. I checked the link to Snopes, but feel free – it is a good solid link. Yes, this is what ICE is doing.
Yesterday, the ACLU was in court defending Rümeysa Öztürk. But they have enough staffers that one could sent out a blanket email asking individuals to urge Congress to vote NO on any bill targeting immigrants and/or international students. In case you didn’t get it (I know many did besides me), here’s a link to the petition. Also, don’t anyone tell the regime, but I suspect SSA is sending payments out a little early (just in case someone tells them not to send them; it can be too late; already done.) Second month in a row. Also, I was in email jail all day. The blood work was easy and quick, but it was the second day in a row I was away from home for a good chunk of time, and things just piled up.
I’ll risk being accused of redundancy and share these four articles, one from Wonkette, another from Robert Hubbell, and the third from Colorado Public Radio. Some euphoria is healthy, particularly when one still has more work to do. As we do.
A little dose of reality from John Pavlovitz. Not that we didn’t already know, but sometimes a pep talk is helpful.
Yesterday, I realized I hadn’t received a response to my email to reserve my visit to Virgil, so I looked up the phone number and called. They had not received the email, but made the reservation from my call. So I need to find what the bug is there and correct it. I guess I just didn’t have enough to do [sarcasm]. I also paid some bills and verified that I had already paid some others. And I set up a few days posts in advance – so if anything exciting happens over the weekend you’ll have to wait a bit to hear my take on it.
A no-paywall link from The Guardian on a story you may have heard about – the actress disappeared for two weeks by ICE – but here it’s told by her personally. Along with at least parts of stories from other women she encountered during her ordeal.
This is from Robert Reich from Thursday – but it’s still in plenty of time for anyone who wants to to get involved. So if anyone is looking for some good trouble, here’s one possibility.
Yesterday, Katie Porter announced she is running for Governor of California. Here’s her announcement video (I had to unmute it, so if you can’t hear it, check that.) I was so heartbroken to lose her from Congress – I hope she wins. (It’s also in the back of my mind that many Governors have gotten into the Senate from the Governor’s Mansion.) Here, i have been trying to export my bookmarks and passwords – whether I format the one which has uncooperative operating system and processor, or break down and get a new one, I’ll need that. I easily exported the bookmarks, but the passwords in this version of the browser cannot follow the instructions. I can and did export from the 8.1, but those are not up to date, although it will help. Exporting takes the form of a CSV file, so maybe I can edit it some before importing. One piece of good news is that although Yahoo mail does not work at all on the Win8.1, the Yahoo notepad still works just fine. I’ve gotten enough addresses changed that the new inbox is looking more like a real inbox by the hour, but am still working.
Joyce Vance on something other than law/politics. She explains why the choice.
Yesterday, The Conversation newsletter included an article titled “Making sex deadly for insects could control pests that carry disease and harm crops.” I suppose it’s worth a try. But it certainly hasn’t worked on humans. Also, I cut my hair. It’s not a professional job, but it will keep it out of my eyes for a while. After period of a couple of months last spring when it was shedding so fast it was starting to thin, then that stopped, and now its as thick as ever. Maybe even in a couple of places a little thicker. And definitely growing as fast as ever.
You may have seen this story elsewhere. Of my sources, Wonkette had the most thorough coverage. But I can’t read everything, I may have missed a better one.
Yes, I know, two from the same source the same day. This Wonkette article is not so much news as it is an op-ed – an op-ed which is really singing my song. If it is singing yours too, I don’t think Robin would mind if you printed a copy and mailed it to your federal legislators – who are actually the “Democrats” of the title. She doesn’t mean us.
As if we didn’t have enough injustice – The Conversation suggests it may get far, far worse.
Yesterday, VoteVets sent me an email containing their nickname for Elon Musk: “Dork Vader.” Who says military people have no sense of humor? And I did manage to get through my emails, though I had to speed through a lot of them.
All I can say is that, even if you already thought that ICE was nothing but a bunch of malicious bully Keystone Kops, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. But then, what else could anyone expect from this administration?
Cutting federal funds for medical research is personal to all of us, since any of us could at any time be stricken with some disease or condition which is the subject of research, on which our very lives might depend. But it’s also personal to Joyce Vance in a different way. I’ll let her explain.
Yesterday, I got the results of my bone density test and was disappointed but not terrible surprised to learn I have osteoporosis. I have no symptoms, but I do have the early signs, such as loss of height. I’ve taken calcium religiously all of my adult life, which may have slowed it down some. I’m sure my new PCP and I can come up with something which will help. Off topic – the reason I had to so the blood draw at a place which was so hard for me to find was not that the place near me was booked up – it was because the place near me was closed for repairs. That lab expects to reopen well before the next blood draw I’m going to need in early April. (I already made the appointment for that one. Apparently hypo- and hyperthyroidism are related to osteoporosis. Who knew? Probably Nameless and possibly Dave, but anyone else would surprise me.)
From The 19th from Monday, but we have a whole month to reflect. And this is real stories from real people, which IMO is always refreshing even if not always victorious.
The link to Brennan Center should work. After I copied it, I tried it and it worked for me. But since it looks like a blanket link to the site, I’ll mention thet the name of the srticle I had in mind is “Breaking the Law” and that it’s in the category “Checks & Balances.”
Yesterday (OK, just barely, but after midnight) I read this article from Democratic Underground regarding the Special Counsel’s notes on the Insurrection case. The link to the New York Times is probably paywalled, but if you copy the URL into the home page of archive.is, it will tell you when it was last saved (and I’m sure it will have been) and you can read it there. Or, since it’s a “developing story,” you can save it yourself and see whether there is anything new. Also yesterday, Wonkette featured a graphic sourced from the New York Times which is essentially the Political Compass with different names for the axes – distinguishing between “fiscally” and “socially” liberal and conservative. Those terms were in common use in the 1980s, but I haven’t heard them much lately. Particularly for people who don’t spend much (if any) time on politics, they may well be easier to grasp. The graphic includes only US actual voters from 2016, and shows pretty clearly what kind of people are obsessed with money. Since Hillary won the popular vote in 2016, it looks to me that there was a disproportionate number of Republicans in the sample. But it’s still valuable information. For one thing, it shows even more clearly than Robert Reich can explain why the Democratic party should NOT “move toward the center.” Also, the whole article is packed with information, and I’ll link to it tomorrow.
Harry Litman of Talking Feds (which is on both YouTube and Substack – sorry but I didn’t check to see whether or not this was a transcript) addresses the subject of preemptive pardons, going into almost every one of the pros and cons and the ethics behind all of them. The one thing he doesn’t address, which has actually been bothering me, is that technically, legally, accepting a pardon constitutes an admission of guilt. Common sense would suggest that this would not apply to a “safe harbor pardon,” but the GOP as a group has not shown any common sense since the Eisenhower administration. Also, if the Tangerine Palpitine keeps his promise to pardon al the January 6 conspirators, the implication of confession is something we are going to want to use, and oh boy, does that ever have the potential to get ugly. Much of what Harry says refers, not to Biden’s current approval rating, but to the approval rating of his legacy (a metaphor, but one that is a thing.) I implied above that I have no faith in the common sense of Republicans, and that’s the truth. I certainly don’t have a very strong faith in the common sense of historians – but I do have more faith in them than I do in Republicans. Since I won’t be around to see history’s final judgment, I’ll never know whether any of my opinions are going to be justified. But I’m putting my thoughts out anyway.
From Wonkette on ASL interpretation. Normal human beings (it’s normal to have both common sense and compassion) would not call the use of ASL interpreters in news broadcasts and videos “tyranny.” They are more likely to be delighted by it, since frankly, it’s fun to watch. Charlie Kirk brings to mind the (way too many) people who, if they hear anyone speaking anything other than English, jump to the conclusion that the speaker is talking about them, and not in a friendly way. How insecure can you get? Insecure enough to call ASL “the tyranny of the deaf,” I guess. When I was working as a costumer, including for musicals, we had a deaf singing actress and a blind singing actor. We were thrilled. We didn’t whine, we got creative – and we had an ASL interpreter at every performance. Sighted and hearing audiences loved it. But then, we are talking about normal human beings with normal common sense and compassion. (I could also rant about CC, but Wonkette has that covered.)
This is a compilation, and I’m pretty sure the first one is a rerun, but the second is new.
