So there's a lot riding on Joe Biden's speech tonight. I have not seen the draft, but I suspect like almost everything he does, he will land in the center, disappointing those with firm convictions at either extreme.
He's not going to come out against the death penalty, in favor of removing border walls or cutting back on prisons or cessation of jailing non-violent offenders, or even for federal legalization of marijuana. If he supports lowering pot from a Schedule I substance to a Schedule 3 substance, he is still missing the point. Marijuana should be removed from the controlled substance list entirely. Now that would be progress. [More....]
He may talk about diabetes drugs. But what about the other life-saving and life-prolonging drugs with ridiculous prices that Government insurance programs like Medicare (and private insurance) don't cover? Heart disease (not drug overdoses) is still the leading cause of death in this country.
Obesity (with or without type 2 diabetes) is a strong indicator for risk of serious heart disease, but new drugs that treat obesity are out of reach of millions because of the $1,000. a month price tag. I'm glad that Oprah can afford it, but what about everybody else? What help will Biden promise for the poor?
He's going to go after the portions of voters he can count on and those he thinks he can win over: He'll be strong on Roe v. Wade for women. He'll say we need to continue supporting the Ukraine. He will remind Israel he supports Palestine becoming a state. He'll support labor. He'll have statistics that will differ wildly from Trump's.
If he talks about the economic progress we've made since COVID-19, and says jobs are up and inflation is falling and all is right with the world, I think the Secret Service should take him shopping at a supermarket. That just is not true and we all know it. The prices for groceries and household products have soared. And show no sign of stopping.
In the end, none of it matters because there will be no change. As María in Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays would say, "Nothing applies".
What does matter: Biden is poised and has the demeanor of a statesman rather than a carnival barker. He can continue to restore the international respect we lost during Trump's last foray. Biden can work with an opposition Congress, he did it for decades. Biden honestly believes the country needs his ideas and that he has a job to finish. Given the alternative, I think he should have the chance.
Since none of the issues I most care about are on tonight's agenda, and Donald Trump is too batsh*t crazy to take seriously, I'm not sure I'll have strong opinions on tonight's speech.
For Biden's sake, and America's, I hope it goes well.
If you are watching the speech, here's a place to discuss it. ]]>But I missed the real mark: It's Eric's wife Lara Trump who Donald Trump is promoting for Co-Chair of the Republican Party.
Can no one in this family get where they want to go on their own credentials and experience? Apparently not. Except for Jared Kushner, who finally got it through his thick skull that he is rich enough not to have to step in the dog doo that follows his father-in-law everywhere he goes. In a recent interview, Jared says he won't be involved in a second Trump administration, should there be one.
]]>Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. He denies the charges.
Prosecutors intend to prove that Trump resorted to business fraud as a means of concealing the true nature of the payments so as not to hurt his chances of winning the presidency in 2016.
What a difference a year makes. When this Indictment was announced, it was a big deal. Now, it seems so hum-hum. Trump indicted? What else is new?
]]>
Sad news. Singer and 60's icon Melanie (Safka) has passed away at age 76. She was one of a kind. Her voice was so rich, so unique and powerful. I loved listening to her albums, especially the ones with "Brand New Key" and Beautiful People.
Her children posted the news on Facebook. They ask:
... that tonight (Jan. 24), at 10 p.m. CT, “each of you lights a candle in honor of Melanie. Raise, raise them high, high up again. Illuminate the darkness, and let us all be connected in remembrance of the extraordinary woman who was wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend to so very many people.”
R.I.P. Melanie.
This is an open thread, all topics welcome.
]]>Winning the Republican caucus vote in Iowa does not translate to winning the Republican nomination for President. Caucuses are different than primaries and mean a whole lot less. Just look at the statistics for Iowa Republican caucuses in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Also, the candidate with the most number of delegates is the one who wins a party's nomination, not the one who won the most votes or has the greatest percentage of the vote.
Trump's win is slightly more than a nothing-burger, but not by much. It certainly does not mean he will be the party's nominee.
Iowa has 730,000 registered Republican voters. Only 110,000 showed up to vote yesterday. Donald Trump got 51% of the 110,000 votes and won all but one county. He lost by one vote to Nikki Haley in Johnson County. Overall, Ron DeSantis came in second, with 21,000 votes to Haley's 19,000 votes.
In 2016, 186,874 Republicans voted with Ted Cruz beating Donald Trump in Iowa, with a large amount of evangelical voters. The vote total was 186,874 votes.
In 2012, 121,501 voters turned out (20% of registered Republicans and 5 percent of all Iowans eligible to vote). Rick Santorum won by a 34 vote margin over Mitt Romney. By the time the convention came around, Santorum got no Iowa delegates, Romney got 6 and third-runner up Ron Paul got 22.
In 2008, 120,000 Republicans voted in the caucuses, with Mike Huckabee winning by 10,000 votes over Mitt Romney. Huckabee dominated the evangelical vote by more than 27 points over Romney. Huckabee got 13 delegates to Mitt Romney's 9 delegates and John McCain's 5 delegates.
The mainstream media yesterday feigned and flaunted their entrance polling. Especially about their attitudes towards Trump as a potential convicted felon and their belief the 2020 election was stolen.
This is such a small sampling of voters. America is so much bigger. ]]>
For much of the world, this was not a good year.
In welcoming 2024, let's hope it brings peace to the Middle East and the Ukraine. And hope that we finally can put the corona-virus and all its mutations behind us.
And last but not least, can disaffected and marginalized Americans, as well the rest of the Republican party, please shake off their bitterness and discontent long enough to realize that Donald Trump is nothing more than a dulled and failed artifact of the past.
With that, TalkLeft wishes everyone everywhere a happy, healthy and prosperous new year.
]]>Update: Our server was down for most of today and this evening. Thanks to Colin, our webmaster, for restoring it!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.
If I had my choice of somewhere else to be this holiday season, I think it would be the Arctic Circle-- Finnish Lapland, maybe, home of Santa Village, to see the reindeer. Or on a cruise from the southernmost tip of Ushaia, Argentina, across the Drake Passage, to Antartica. Or maybe, to Tasmania, the Australian island that sits just below it. When I look at the photos of the ocean there, it seems like it is situated at the absolute edge of the world.
Those are pretty puzzling choices for me, since I hate winter and can't stand being cold. I think its because I want to be somewhere isolated and free from the opinions of under-informed, bitter, angry and marginalized Americans -- and especially from politics. [More..]
Since I don't want to discuss anything connected to Trump unless it's that he's going to face a criminal trial before November, 2024, I'll talk about TV I've really liked in 2023.
Yes, it's all foreign TV, but easily accessible on Netflix, Amazon Prime and the like:
#1 drama series: Turkey's "The Tailor" (Netflix)
#2 drama series (also viewed as dark comedy): Israel's "Queens" (Amazon Prime, about an Israeli mafia family whose women take over when the men are all killed on their yacht. (it's dark and funny, kind of like South Korea's "Vicenzo" which I loved two years ago)
#3 Food show: South Korea's "Jinny's Kitchen" on Amazon Prime, takes place in Lake Bachalar, Mexico.
#4 Travel/Adventure reality: Race Across the World (hard to find now); House Hunters International
#5 HGTV Home reality shows: Hillary Farr's "Tough Love" (decorating); Galey Alix's Home in a Heartbeat
Senor de los Cielos is back for Season 9 in January. If you missed season 8, it tells the whole story of Alex Saab (albeit romanticized), who in real life was traded for Americans held hostage in Venezuela this week. He never should have been kidnapped as his jet touched down in Cape Verde for a fuel stop en route to Iran, and sent to America to face charges in the first place. Congrats to his legal team.
Three of the four foreign prisoners held in the U.S. that I've argued should be sent home have now been traded -- Konstantin Yaroshenko and Viktor Bout from Russia, and Alex Saab. Who is still being held? Mehdi Masroor Biswas aka Shami Witness, whose trial has taken 7 years -- he's been in jail in India without bond since December, 2014, for being a relayer/aggregator of ISIS news on Twitter. I've been following the trial on the Indian court's website all along. It's just about over. Court is held once a month.
This is an open thread, all topics welcome.
]]>After eleven years of ups and downs in his legal travails for fatally shooting his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, former Paralympian champion Oscar Pistorius will be released on parole on January 5, 2024. The BBC's Top Ten Moments in Oscar's trial is a good summary. If you want to read the play-by-play as it happened, with legal analysis, check out my 40-plus posts covering the case from bail hearings, through trial, sentencings and first appeals. [More...]
His first trial ended in September, 2014 with a verdict by Judge Thokozile Masipa acquitting him of murder but finding him guilty culpable homicide, (manslaughter). She sentenced him to 6 years in prison. He served one year of the sentence in a maximum security prison, and in October, 2015, was released to house arrest.
Meanwhile, the state was appealing the trial judge's dismissal of the murder charge. Two months after he was released to house arrest, the Appeals court overturned the trial judge's verdict and declared Oscar guilty of murder on the original murder charge.
He was resentenced to 13.5 years (instead of 15 years) in prison, because had already served 1.5 years in prison and on home arrest on the culpable homicide conviction.
His first time up for parole in March, 2023, the Department of Corrections decided he hadn't served 50% of his sentence, and wasn't eligible for parole. (All inmates in South Africa are eligible for parole after having served half their sentence.) The technical details:
The problems have arisen over the 2017 ruling by South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal to increase his murder sentence. The court said it was sentencing him to 13 years and five months and not the mandatory minimum of 15 years for murder in South Africa because it took into account the one year and seven months he served after the manslaughter conviction between late 2014 and mid-2016.
But the Supreme Court didn't take into account another year and four months Pistorius served in prison between when he was first sentenced for murder in July 2016 and when the Supreme Court increased his sentence in November 2017, lawyer Knight said. That extra year and four months makes Pistorius eligible for parole now, the lawyer said.
Oscar appealed and won. In other words, he should have been released last March.
He will be released on January 5, 2024, with a lot of conditions. He will be living with his uncle. His parole doesn't end until December, 2029.
]]>24 Hamas hostages were released today. They include 13 Israelis, 10 Thais and one Filipino.
The Israeli hostages were all seized at the Nir Oz kibbutz on October 7. They are : Margalit Moses, Adina Moshe, Danielle Aloni and her daughter Emilia, Doron Asher and her daughters Raz and Aviv, Hanna Katzir, Keren Munder and her son Ohad, Ruti Munder, Yaffa Adar, and Hannah Perry.
200 trucks carrying humanitarian aid proceeded through the Rafah, Egypt crossing,where they transferring food, medicine, supplies and fuel to international organizations.
Israel's Prime Minister and the IDF spokespeople today said Israel remains committed not only to the release of all hostages, but to continuing its military battle to destroy Hamas forever when the humanitarian pause ends.
]]>The terms of the deal have been reported over and over again. I guess once more won't hurt: [More...]
The hostages going to Israel will be picked up by the International Red Cross. They will drive them to a check point where they will be picked up by military, who will take them to hospitals. After being checked out and tested, their families will be waiting to see them. The Palestinian prisoners will be taken to the West Bank and then sent to their homes. (None of the Palestinian prisoners to be released are from Gaza, thus none will be going to Gaza).
A few hiccups that could still arise: First, Hamas does not control The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another terror group. The group is reportedly holding up to 30 of the Israeli hostages. It also has not agreed to a pause in fighting. It could try launching some rockets to torpedo the deal. Israel, however says, it will not respond to minor and isolated rockets, only to an attack that is a real threat.
]]>She and former President Jimmy Carter were married for 77 years. Here is the statement he issued today.
Our condolences to former President Carter and the entire Carter family.
This is an open thread, all topics welcome. ]]>
Donald Trump has finished his testimony. Ivanka is next, and last.
I suspect Ivanka either will claim a lack of knowledge or inability to recall to questions as to property values. Shorter version: Ivanka, like Don Jr., will claim "It's not my job". But Ivanka was involved in sales. There's the Ocean Club in Panama City.. There's Trump Soho.
Her own lawyer said, when Trump was first elected:
“She has the conflicts that derive from the ownership of this brand. We’re trying to minimize those to the extent possible."
Donald said Ivanka was going to be his "eyes and ears".
In her own words:
"I'm involved in every aspect of our new construction projects,” Ivanka said in a 2008 interview. “[A] lot of what I do is get involved in the acquisition process, from sourcing the potential opportunities and then the initial due-diligence process, but then, of course, I follow the deals through to predevelopment planning, design, interior design, architectural design, sales and marketing, and, ultimately, through operations.”
...In a November 2008 interview, Ivanka Trump bragged that she had “sold 40 units in Panama last month.” She added that “it’s a 1,000-unit building, we’ve sold over 90 percent of it.” The units, she said, had been going at a “500 percent premium to anything the luxury market has ever experienced prior to our entry.”
It will be interesting, to say the least, to learn what Ivanka has to say tomorrow.
]]>We get the Government we elect.
Please don't forget to vote. ]]>Happy Halloween to all of you who just love, love, love this holiday. If you costumed up as a real person or character, please let us know who you chose.
For any of you who went trick or treating, let us know if you got your favorite candy and what it is. And if you put a "no candy here" sign on your front door, let us know that, too.
I think it's good to put a little merriment in the air for one night -- we could all use a night's relief from the horrible suffering, cruelty and death we're watching and reading about 24/7 in the Middle East. May the war be over soon.
This is an open thread, all topics welcome.
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