1.4-5-6 Open Threads
Hope all Nesters and Lurkers had a good and healthy Holiday Season. 🙂 The big attention-getter at my casa is the daily monitoring of the James Webb Telescope. The latest is the opening and tightening of the protective Sun Shield. So far, so good. The success involved in this mission is astounding when one stops to think about it. I can’t wait until the initial cosmic data starts to arrive. The Hubble Space Telescope was/is a monstrous achievement. James Webb will be a worthy successor. All hail human knowledge done peacefully. Our Nest is Open. 🙂
Thanks orl!
Bernie’s 2022 New Year’s resolution
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/04/bernie-sanders-labor-strikes
🙂
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/03/enough-enough-outrage-big-pharma-hikes-prices-442-drugs
Unfortunately
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/588084-democrats-hit-pause-on-bidens-climate-social-spending-package
Its 2022 and between now and the midterms i doubt much will pass as the congresscritters flee home for most of this time left until midterms and meet with voters? Oops i mean the people with the suitcases of $$$$$
Schumer failed Bernie. Now Bernie is trying to move on and highlight other successes. I think BBB is dead in the water.
As do i
FRightwing crooks and their allies have been telling Floridian voters to pound sand for years. Not sure if they were all rounded up and convicted, there would be enough genuine prison space for them all. 🙁
In the wake of the Texas power grid failure
https://twitter.com/IsrJablonski/status/1478382398639333404?s=20
We all paid for that mess in TX as my heatiing bill went up over $100 a month during that time frame over the year before.
smae in oregon. Everyone got on the bandwagon while they could
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/04/opinion/capitol-riot.html
Even though hospitalization and death rates aren’t at their highest,they are bound to go up because they lag the infection rate.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/04/us-counts-over-1-million-new-daily-covid-cases-in-global-record-.html
making me question my intelligence in applying for school district positions, but now is the time to get in for us somewhat marginalized people and I could really use the money and I do like kids and education.
I may not have to worry about it. lol
thanks for the post, orl! or is it the diary?
I’ve seen them called threads, posts or diaries. Pick one.
Hammer Heart Photography lower left.
🧵
Hell yea Orl !!!!!
On you post:)
If not him some other GQP nutjob will start the process
Cruz predicts a GOP House will impeach Biden ‘whether it’s justified or not’
Someone needs to crucify Cruz and all the yahoos like him. Really sick of the glorification of the stupids. And yes, it has consequences.
Trump Tried A Coup In Plain Sight — And Has, So Far, Gotten Away With It
In 232 years of elections, Trump became the first loser to try to overthrow the republic to remain in power, but remains the Republican Party’s leader anyway.
S.V. Date
By
S.V. Date
01/04/2022 11:21am EST
Join HuffPost and BuzzFeed News for a Twitter Spaces conversation about how the Capitol riot is still altering U.S. politics on Jan. 4 at 1 p.m. ET. Sign up to be notified when the Space begins here.
WASHINGTON — What if you attempted a coup but people were unwilling to wrap their heads around what you had done?
A year after Jan. 6, 2021, that is the peculiar situation in which Donald Trump finds himself. Instead of being carted off in handcuffs for inciting an insurrection against the United States, or even just being banished from federal office for life by the Senate, the former president instead remains the leader of one of the two major political parties and is openly considering another run for the White House in 2024.
Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council analyst in the Trump White House, was among the first to call what Trump tried a “coup,” just five days afterward, writing in an essay: “I’ve been studying authoritarian regimes for three decades, and I know the signs of a coup when I see them.”
Eleven months later, she is appalled that most Americans still are unable to grasp how close they came to losing their democracy.
“A total failure of imagination. This was a coup. It still is. It’s ongoing,” she said of Trump’s continued attempts to delegitimize Democrat Joe Biden’s election win and return to power. “If we were looking at this overseas, we would say: Absolutely, that’s what it was.”
Jonathan Weiler, a University of North Carolina political scientist and co-author of “Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics,” said he can appreciate the desire of many Americans to ignore politics for a while, after four years of Trump’s endless, self-created crises. “A natural and self-protective need we have to take our foot off the gas sometimes,” he said. “We can only be revved up for so long.”
For their part, Trump allies describe Jan. 6 as a protest that got out of hand, that never had a coherent plan to reverse the election results, and no coordination with Trump or his staff. They ridicule the use of the word “coup” to describe the horde of Trump’s followers who wandered the building taking selfies, arguing that such a group was not remotely capable of bringing down the government.
In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo with the White House in the background, President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Washington.
In this Jan. 6, 2021, file photo with the White House in the background, President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Washington.VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS
That characterization, though, ignores the larger context of the day and the weeks leading up to it. Trump had, in fact, explored hanging on to power by ordering the National Guard to seize voting equipment in states Biden had won and ordering new elections, but had opted against it when many of his top staff, including the White House counsel, threatened to resign en masse. Top military officials had months earlier made clear they would not participate in any of his election-related schemes.
Trump had only his ragtag group of rally goers at his disposal, interspersed with right-wing militia members, out of necessity, not choice. His last-ditch attempt to intimidate his own vice president and Congress into rejecting the election results and reinstalling him for a second term was his only option left after Mike Pence refused his entreaties to do so willingly.
Also unstated is what might have happened if Trump had had a vice president and military leaders more loyal to him personally — former chief of staff Mark Meadows, say, and retired Army Gen. Michael Flynn — than to the Constitution.
Rick Tyler, a GOP consultant who worked on Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 bid for the Republican nomination, said the country was fortunate Trump was so inept in pulling it off.
“I now believe if someone clever enough and competent were to attempt autocratic rule, far too many would go along,” he said. “I don’t believe the left is immune to the same phenomenon of a seductive, charismatic leader. In fact, I have no doubt Trump could have won had he run as a Democrat.”
Normalizing Autocracy
What Trump has been able to do with his coup attempt follows a pattern of formerly beyond-the-pale conduct that he, by doing it out in the open or even bragging about it, has been able to effectively “normalize.”
More at; https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-coup-attempt_n_61c2733fe4b04b42ab6602a2
When you think about it none of the big fish have any charges filed, only the sheep that followed Cult-45s every word and went into the capital have gotten lite sentences many still do that the election was stolen.
Why hasn’t NY indicted and convicted this worthless POS?
Because the system, like a fish, rots from the head.
Exactly they’ve had the evidence for a long time.
Bitcoin etc. is ludicrous
Cryptocurrency and bitcoin are the two latest $$$ scams going.
That benefits the rich
I agree. However, crytocurrency is one avenue of financing the cannabis industry. I keep hoping the SAFE Act will get passed, but until then, it’s challenging for cannabis companies to do business with banks.
I actually liked it a lot. Reminded me of Dr. Strangelove
It certainly paid homage to Dr. Strangelove in many respects. I couldn’t get into it until the last 25 minutes of it. I was looking for more humor and I don’t think McKay delivered it quite as well as The Big Short. Or at least I think the timing of the jokes was not as good.
I thought the song Look Up was priceless though.
I take issue with movies which require critics to tell you what is being satirized in order to understand the humor.
Other Golden Globe movie contenders.
I saw Dune. While I appreciated the stylistic upgrades compared to its predecessors, the storyline was not compelling to me. I think Timothee Chalamet is having a great run as an actor and was the bright light in Dune. His range is amazing. His character in Don’t Look Up was my favorite.
Also King Richard. Storyline familiar but still enjoyed it as I think Will Smith’s performance is solid.
I would like to see Belfast, Coda , and Power of the Dog. However, Power of the Dog may be too gruesome for even me to watch.
I thought The Eyes of Tammy Faye was pretty good, although I thought the portrayal of Jim Baaker was better than his character’s wife.
Spencer was disappointing. Kirsten Stewart was thrust into a bad script and tried to do her best.
I liked Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos. He’s overlooked in my view as he can actually sing well.
I never was a Dune fan and that includes the novel. I saw the latest version, and was disappointed. I love scifi and one of my all-time favorite novels, period, is Childhood’s End. But Frank Herbert….I dunno….art is subjective. 🙂
Bitcoin is ludicrous
Anyone dumb enough to buy into these scams deserves what they get. It’s called predatory/vulture capitalism and it’s very easy to understand.
Pick you’re saying, A fool and his money are soon parted, Thiers a sucker born every minute anyway saw an ad for an IRA setup using these coins as the investment vehicle which is crazy in my opinion. This is a scam invented by the rich to suck money out of people who can ill afford to lose it. Meanwhile the rich laugh all the way to the bank as it were. Thankfully my kids took my advise and stayed away from this as they did ask me about it.