Glenn Kirschner – Jack Smith goes hard after gag order; calls out Trump’s lawyers for making “false claims.”
The Lincoln Project – Meeting the Moment
Joe Biden – Delivers | Biden-Harris 2024
Scared Ketchup – Clarence Thomas Shaped Suppository Stops Woke Mind Virus (AI)
Meet The World’s #1 Cat Dad
Beau – Let’s talk about New Orleans, water, and engineers….
Yesterday, the radio opera was “Der Fliegende Holländer” (The Flying Dutchman”). This was the earliest of his operas to feature the theme of a man’s redemption through a woman’s love by means of her death. Yes, that’s totally nuts. But he wasn’t alone – literature, music and art all had influential practitioners in 19th century Europe who were obsessed with this idea. Most of his operas after this one riffed on the theme. Exceptios would be “Lohengrin” (he doesn’t need redeeming, and Elsa doesn’t die – maybe) and the Ring Cycle (unless Brynhilde’s immolation redeems Siegfried – but he’s already dead when that happens.) But I digress. In any case, the music of the Dutchman is impressive. It was written before he fine-tuned his “leitmotif” system but is already characterized by tone painting. A lot of music has been written by a lot of people purportedly depicting storms at sea, but Wagner’s in this opera is the one that convinces me. Senta is self-destructive and as dunb as a MAGAt, but at least she doesn’t take anyone else down with her, and her music convincingly depicts her obsession. And so on.
Also yesterday I received a petition from Move On titled “Convict Trump” I was shocked. I had to go to their website to send a message, but I thought it was necessary. Here’s what I said: “Have you lost your minds? No, I’m not going to sign a “convict Trump**” petition. Only a jury can convict Trump** (or anyone else), and they are not supposed to have any outside influence. Sending a jury a petition like this is jury tampering. Unless he makes a plea deal – that would result in a conviction – but do we really want that? Come back to me when you have a petition which is Constitutional. This one isn’t.”
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Short Takes –
Colorado Public Radio – Sen. Michael Bennet wants to strengthen the watersheds that help protect clean drinking water
Quote – The bill reauthorizes the USFS’s Water Source Protection Program (WSPP), which helps fund projects that prevent pollution at the source, usually by restoring forest health and watersheds. It would increase funding for the program to $30 million per year for the next five years for work done in partnership with local communities, water utilities or agricultural producers. WSPP also tries to prioritize projects that focus on drinking water or improve resilience to wildfire or climate change.
Click through for story. I’m certainly aware of watersheds. But it never occurred to me what, besides lack of precipitation, might threaten them, nor of what could be done to keep them strong. D’oh! So i’m very glad to know that I have been voting for a Senator who does know.
The Conversation – Forts Cavazos, Barfoot and Liberty — new names for army bases honor new heroes and lasting values, instead of Confederates
Quote – The renamings so far have come off without controversy – and with no one seriously defending why the bases should continue honoring Confederates. As Trevor Noah said on “The Daily Show,” “Imagine being a Black soldier training at a base that is named after somebody who didn’t even think of you as a human being.” Celebrities popular with conservatives have praised the base redesignations, too. For example, Mel Gibson applauded renaming Fort Benning for Col. Moore, whose memoir was the basis for “We Were Soldiers,” a 2002 film starring Gibson.
Click through for details. How many people know more than one or two names of Hitler’s henchment? Honoring Confederate generals is not history – it’s just disgusting. And if even Mel Gibson – not just a conservative favorite but a – not terribly nice person – doesn’t mind, then really no one should.
The 19th – Could access to child care be the key to helping parents clear arrest warrants?
Quote – Cierra was among dozens of people who came out in early June for the so-called warrant clinic, one in a series of nationwide events that aims to address active warrants, usually those tied to outstanding traffic violations and misdemeanors. The periodic one-day events can be life-changing. People with lifted warrants can get back a driver’s license. They can apply for jobs. They can seek services that help with housing and food insecurity. They can also vote. “We are adding capacity to the justice system,” said Anza Becnel, the creator of the warrant clinics and the founder and executive director of Growing Real Alternatives Everywhere (GRAE), a nonprofit that helps organize the clinics. “We are adding capacity to things that we’ve identified that the community needs.”
Click through for more. If you didn’t realize this was a problem … you’re not alone … and you’re probably white.
Food For Thought
Yesterday, it was pretty quiet (she said thankfully.) I”ve been working on some doll clothes latelt, which has the advantages that the pieces are small (therefore light), they go fast (compared to human-sized sweaters), and they can be done with small amounts of yarn (with the caveat that, if I overestimate the amount of yarn I have, I may have to do some emergency re-designing.) Another disadvantage is that the stitches are so small they can be hard to see. That is less of a problem when the yarn is smooth and more of problem when it is fuzzy, of course, but the fuzzy yarns can be so effective in those little projects that I can’t resist using them sometimes.
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Short Takes –
NM Political Report – Homeless shelters aren’t equipped to deal with New Mexico’s most troubled foster kids. Police see it for themselves.
Quote – More than 1,100 times from January 2019 through June 2022, someone at a shelter housing foster kids in New Mexico called emergency dispatchers for help with runaways, violent outbursts, disorderly conduct or mental health crises. Many of the kids placed in these shelters by CYFD have severe mental health or behavioral problems, including PTSD and depression, but shelters don’t provide psychiatric services. Kids break down, get into fights, destroy property, threaten staff or run away. Sometimes they say they want to kill themselves or try to. In these moments of crisis, it’s police and paramedics, not mental health professionals, who intervene.
Click through for full report, which is a joint product of ProPublican and a BGO called “Searchlight New Mexico.” If this is happening in New Moxico, you can bet it is also happening elsewhere. One word: priorities.
npr – Swimming pools and lavish gardens of the rich are driving water shortages, study says
Quote – More than 80 metropolitan areas around the world have faced severe shortages in the last two decades, a figure that’s only projected to rise, impacting more than one billion people in the next few decades. And the threat doesn’t discriminate between hemispheres or climates. Moscow, Miami and Melbourne, Australia, were among the most impacted in the last decade. For the purposes of the study, researchers zeroed in on just one location, Cape Town, South Africa.
Click through for full study. They used Cape Town because it was easy (for less than admirable reasons.) Humanity has known since before there was English to say it in that the love of money is the root of all evil (Radix malorum est cupditas, if anyone cares.) Beau of the Fifth Column (who appears regularly in the Video Thread) prefers to call it “power coupons.” Maybe we all should.
Food For Thought
Yesterday, I learned a new word – new to me, at least. A forb is an herbaceous flowering plant other than in the grass family. I get a “Bird of the Week” email from the American Bird Conservancy, and this week’s bird, the Chestnut-collared Longspur, they tell me, seeks shelter among grasses and forbs. Who’da thunk. I also continued listening to a Rachel Maddow podcast, “Ultra,” about a plot from 1940. There are 8 episodes altogether, and each episode has a complete ranscript whic has been edited and proofread, and indicates at all times who is speaking. It doesn’t get any better than that. Also, the episode I listened to on Wednesday included a few commercials, and the transcripts do not. The full 8-episode podcast corcens events which happened in 1940 of which you have probably never heard (I hadn’t) but which are spookily similar to today. (The one person whose name I had heard was Father Coughlin, and I was aware he was terrible, but exactly how terrible, no.) The fact is, eternal vigilance really is the price of liberty. And yet, it’s also true that Democracy requires a lot of mutual trust in order to finction well. Those two truths constantly work against each other, yet neither one is safe alone.
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Short Takes –
truthout – Fracking Firm Agrees to Pay a Small Town’s Water Bills for 75 Years
Quote – After years of legal wrangling, the company formerly known as Cabot Oil & Gas agreed to plead no contest to 15 criminal violations of state environmental laws and pay nearly $16.3 million for the construction of a new public water supply for Dimock. Activists say some Dimock residents went years without access to clean tap water, and Coterra Energy, the company that bought Cabot, will pay their water bills for 75 years under a plea deal with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. It remains unclear whether Coterra would be permitted to frack the area in the future, but production was halted years ago as the scandal unfolded.
Click through for story – This is something we don’t see every day (but probably should.) I was thinking that if one ever wanted a prosecuting attorney, the prosecutor in this case would be the one you’d want… but he’s not available. He just got elected Governor.
Crooks & Liars – Russian Propagandist Admits: If Russia Loses, We’re All Going To The Hague
Quote – “I want to say that if we manage to lose, the Hague, conditional or concrete, is even waiting for the janitor who sweeps the paving stones behind the Kremlin wall. What do we need from the fact that another district of Kyiv will be left without electricity or not? The scale of the catastrophe for our country, if we manage to do it [lose] is unimaginable. To be afraid of The Hague – do not go into the forest, ”said Simonyan. However, propaganda host Vladimir Solovyov summed up at the end that if Russia loses, there will be no The Hague. According to him, if this happens, then “the whole world will go to dust.”
Click through for a little more. Yes, this fear has substance. The Iternational Court has formed (or is forming) a court specifically to investigate Russian war crimes.
The 19th – Bipartisan bill would require human trafficking hotline to be posted in every U.S. port of entry
Quote – Senators introduced on Thursday the Human Trafficking Prevention Act, bipartisan legislation which was shared first with The 19th. The bill would direct the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security to ensure the hotline is also visible in every individual plane, bus and train restroom. The companion bill, introduced by Reps. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat, and Darrell Issa, a Republican, passed in the House in July. Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, one of the bill’s primary sponsors, said transportation hubs are a “common-sense place to intercede” by letting victims and bystanders know who to call for help.
Click through for details – I’m going to try not to be snotty, and just say this is a good idea, and it’s good that it’s (at least to some extent) bipartisan.
Food For Thought (updated by me.)
Yesterday, I heard from my mechanic in response to the email I sent the previous night. I’m a long-time customer, and they have been known to squeeze me into their schedule if I had an immediate need, so I made sure to include that this time I don’t, and they responded that they can get to it in the next day ot two. Now I just need to hear from Virgil. He must be terrified He should have gotten my note, but I had not heard from him by 7 pm.
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Short Takes –
CPR – U.S. House passes Neguse-backed wildfire and drought bill addressing firefighter pay, forest health and recovery dollars
Quote – With wildfires and drought becoming increasingly existential problems for Colorado and neighboring states, the House took action Friday, passing a package of nearly 50 bills that Rep. Joe Neguse says “meets the moment for the West.” Neguse is a lead sponsor on the package, known as the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act, as well as the author of some of its specific provisions. It passed the House on a nearly party-line vote of 218-199…. Among the provisions in the bill are millions of dollars to help Colorado River reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the establishment of centers to focus on best practices for prescribed burns so that these potentially-destructive mitigations are done right, an increase for the base wildland firefighter pay, and steps to address forest health, such as removing underbrush and dead trees.
Click through for details. It appears to cover just about everything. Thankfully, not all our reps are like Boebert. (In a related story, the state has eased fishing restrictions on a cople of reservoirs which are fast losing water – because they’d rather have the fish get caught than suffocate.)
DU (IcyPeas) – Minutes after Guy Reffitt was sentenced to 7 years in Capitol riot case… his daughter calls for “life in prison” for Donald Trump
Quote – Her exact words were “Trump deserves life in prison if my father is to be in prison for this long.”
Click through – the story here is told in tweets. The daughter isn’t wrong.
Food For Thought –
Glenn – Steve Bannon’s ruse rejected by Trump appointed judge; Trump still using the big lie to sow division
Meidas Touch – Texas Paul DEBUNKS new Deranged Hunter Biden Conspiracy Theory
The Lincoln Project – The GOP’s Crazy Candidates
Robert Reich – The Secret to the GOP’s Assault on Your Rights | Robert Reich
Brent Terhune – The worst drag race I ever been to
Beau – Let’s talk about dominoes from the Colorado….
Yesterday, having done the research on who picks up donations and who doesn’t, I scheduled a pickup with the Vietnam Veterans of America. The earliest date I could get was August 25, but that will work out actually – I can add to it in bits and pieces. It’ll be the first pickup but I’m sure it will not be the last.
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CPR News – A 150-year-old San Luis Valley farm stops growing food to save a shrinking water supply. It might be the first deal of its kind in the country
Quote – Farmers and ranchers across the San Luis Valley face a deadline: Their underground water source is drying up from a combination of overuse and a decades-long drought driven by climate change. To restore a balance of supply and demand, farmers and ranchers across the valley need to drastically cut how much water they pump out of the ground, according to the Colorado Division of Water Resources. If they don’t, the state has threatened to step in and shut off hundreds of wells, which local water managers say would devastate the valley’s agriculture-driven economy.
Click through to understand the dilemma. When I first came to Colorado in 1976, it was to Alamosa in the San Luis VAlley. That is where Virgil and I met and got married. We only left because we couldn’t find work there. CPR says this story is “hopeful and heartbreaking.” I concur.
Robert Reich – How to handle radical Republicans
Quote – Can we get real? There is nothing conservative about these so-called “conservatives.” They don’t want to preserve or protect our governing institutions — the core idea of conservatism extending from Edmund Burke to William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater. They are radicals, intent on wrecking these institutions to impose their ideology on everyone else. The Supreme Court’s Republican appointees have all but obliterated stare decisis — the conservative principle that the Court must follow its precedents and not change or reverse them unless clearly necessary, and with near unanimity…. Meanwhile, Senate Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell, are abusing the filibuster and undermining the legitimacy of the Senate.
Clickt through for suggestions. I agree there is nothing conservative about “conservatives” – and there hasn’t been for decades. “Radical” is certainly more adequate, refernceing the “roots” of government and society (which they want to completely tear up.) But radical slao has a positive meaning – wanting to reform government and society from the roots up – so I’, loath to give that th them. “Reactionary” may be the most accurate. Or “extremist” – except that they like that one.
Food For Thought
Glenn Kirschner with Stephanie Miller: Trump Will Hold onto His Lies Until the Day He Dies.
Meidas Touch – Texas Paul REACTS to Olivia Rodrigo and Megan Thee Stallion SLAMMING Roe Decision
The Lincoln Project – He Wanted to Help
Dakota Water Wars Part 5 – Ignoring Tribes, Ignoring Laws (I would point out that when the speaker castigates the DOJ official opinion, that was Trump**’s DOJ)
Mrs Betty Bowers – The Not-So-Supreme Court
Beau – Let’s talk about Trump’s denials from the committee….