Saturday Open Thread - 8/9/25: Odds and Ends
Good morning, good people! I hope you are all in fine fettle and enjoying your weekend.
There is never any good news, but occasionally, there is a good source of opinion and even satire concerning the constant bad news. Gallows humor, I suppose.
A few weeks ago, I subscribed to Lee Camp's Redacted Tonight channel. I watched his RT show back in the day, and was actually surprised he is anywhere to be found.
He hammers Israel for their genocide. Up until I saw this 14 minute video, I had no idea he was a Jew. I enjoyed him skewering Jordan Peterson.
On a high note, an old and sick man with cancer of the brain interfered with the cops when they came to arrest his druggy daughter. I watched 4 body cam videos, the man has no defense that I could detect. He appeared to be lucid and understood what was happening, rushed in to interfere.
He hired me. I am charging him $500. My usual fee is way more, but there ya go. He will bring me $100 monthly until he pays it. The asst. District attorney and I struck a deal for me to postpone the case for 6 months, then the man's case will be dismissed if he watches a family fitness video class online. The DA said for a man in his dire circumstances, his punishment is paying for an attorney. If he dies before then, he goes on to a Higher Court having never been convicted of a crime here on this earth.
My crazy week of ups, downs, knowns, and unknowns finally settled into a steady reality that life is what you make of it, how you value friends and loved ones, and how you must treasure each day.
It can be a string of pearls, with thought, effort, and love.
This is an open thread, open to all ideas and discussions. If any of you have any idea that helps the rest of us, do not hesitate to share it, friends!
Comments
Happy Saturday, good people!
Lots of changes are going on in the world, including the rush to the CBDCs and 24/7 surveillance. We may be at yes, sir, in short order. But until then, say what's on your mind.
Go for it!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
In the universe of free thought
.
Still, indefinitely perhaps.
Thank you for sharing your observations
of life in your corner of America,
the tunes and open thread.
Much appreciated.
Zionism is a social disease
Good morning, Cap'n!
People are in prison for having criticized the Israeli government in European countries that have leaders actually saying the "g-word." Wtf? There is some bill on the books awaiting a vote to do the same in The Land of the Free (to suck up to Israel.) Will I be defending those thought crime criminals on my way to retirement?
My secretary gave me a little book full of lawyer jokes that had some actual transcripts from many trials, Here is one: Lawyer: I want to ask you questions about your 20yr old son. Witness: His name is Nathan. Lawyer: How old is Nathan?
And another: Lawyer: You are under oath to tell the truth and your answers must be oral. State your name: Witness: Oral. Lawyer: What is your address? Witness: Oral.
Enjoy your weekend, dear friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
When I appeared regularly
...in the state district court here for criminal cases, the court would only grant one continuance. A second continuance required some reasonable basis. The judge really wouldn't give any further continuances unless there was some constitutional basis that she knew would blow the case up on appeal. The prosecution pretty much never cooperated.
I had a case similar to the one you described, with an indigent old client who was living with a predatory daughter who pretty much stole his social security money every month. They were arguing about it, she went off on him like she was prone to do, pushing him around, throwing stuff at him, so he picked a butter knife (no point, no sharp edge) and started brandishing it her to get her to back off. Neighbors I guess heard all the screaming and called the cops. Arrested and the prosecution charged him with assault with a deadly weapon.
I told the judge at the first appearance I thought my client was not competent, and needed a mental eval. There was an HHS rep in the courtroom, who said my client wasn't legally qualified for the agency to pay for an eval. So the judge denied the claim. I got a second continuance, said I needed to develope the defense evidence. When I came back for the second status hearing, I told the judge that it was outrageous that I couldn't get a competency hearing for this old guy (of course he was black, most people in pretrial confinement were black) and that it was a violation of his rights to schedule his trial without the competency evaluation. The judge basically told me I was full of it.
Ha, ha. There was a reporter in the courtroom, and he cornered me when I left the courtroom. I told him what the HHS rep had said at the previous hearing. I then I explained that what this boiled down to was the state didn't want to pay for the eval because $$$$$$. He published this in the local paper which is widely circulated in the county. The judge went f...ing bonkers. She paid for the eval out of the judicial budget, and had him released from jail, and had a voluntary agency put him up in some kind of assisted living place. Case over. Defense counsel's career basically over at this point, as superiors and judge had the knives out. Blacklisted after this.
What's OLOP or whatever you said yesterday OTC? I liked the comment you made about 69-72 the war era etc.
edited for mistakes
語必忠信 行必正直
Good morning, soryang!
Well, I am a fellow black list member. I raised objections about picking a 95% white jury in a case where a black man was accused of murdering a white man. The jury selection took place on MLK Day, which was a voluntary holiday, not yet official. Any black person who failed to show up for jury duty was excused, not punished. Well, I wrote and argued the appeal, and the dissent used that issue to argue that the man was entitled to a new trial. The Opinion was published in the Southwestern Reporter 2nd Series, and that was the last time any court in Texas was held on MLK Day, long before it was declared an official holiday. That was the last court appointed criminal appeal I ever got. That was supposed to be my career.
Incompetency exams are paid for by the county and are easy to get. 20 years ago, the rate of incompetency being the result was 20%. Now, it is 60%. Drugs do that. Continuances are rarely denied here. It is possible my client will die from cancer in the next 6 months.
OPOL was a favorite contributor at Dailykos who became one on C99. An author, a convicted felon who became an advocate for his fellow inmates, a traveler who lived for a time in Central America, and everyone's friend, a true, peace mongering hippie we that knew him will always miss.
You and I are living proof that no good deed goes unpunished, my friend.
Enjoy your weekend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Wow!
Love that MLK story, OTC. Thanks for explaining OPOL. I was looking for its possible meaning, and I found one parent, one language. Which is kind of amusing, because this is the way we lived. My daughter benefited from this.
語必忠信 行必正直
Good morning otc, thanks for the OT, tunes and Lee Camp.
Farmers' market today, also must clean grill from doing a spatchcocked chicken thwe other day. I also get to go tend to a friend's chickens today and tomorrow while she's away and it will be at least high 80s today.
Meanwhile the Z man is saying that the Ukies won't give up any land and the orange dotard is alleged to have proposed some sort of land swap. Putin ought to say "fine, all of Natostan keeps insisting tht we intend to overrun all of Europe, so we'll swap; we give Zman as much of Lithuania as he can hold and we get as much of Ukiestan as we want. We admittedly have no legit claim to Lithuania, but he has no legit claim to eastern ukiedom either." zit would be fun to see Lavrov start spouting "Crimea, Donbass and Luhansk have a right to exist and they have a right to defend themselves" and see what Team Idiot has to say about that.
Hmmm, that felt good.
The scrub jays are reminding me that I haven't fed them yet, so I'd best get it in gear.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning, el!
Chicken (shit) duty in the hot sun? Hoo, wee!
Our charcoal grill lasted 3 or 4 years, as they typically do. We gave it to a friend to salvage to make him a few bucks. If Dear One wants to fool with it today, it would be a good day to buy a new one and get it seasoned.
Get in touch with Witkoff, see if your plan would catch Trump's attention for 3 seconds. Make that 2 seconds. That's his limit.
Well, Ukraine was someone else's idea. And, here we are.
Glad you enjoyed Camp. I expect him to be consored off the internet in fairly short order.
Feed all birds, domestic or otherwise, and have a great weekend, dear friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
That's a superb argument...
...because it contains fully the concept of justice for the human population of the former Soviet Union.
.
The landmass that is now called "Ukraine" (as of 1997) was originally created by the Russian Tsars as a block of "borderlands" to act as a buffer zone between Europe and Russia — because Russia was continuously invaded by Europe via that passage. Kiev, the former Russian capitol, was abandoned in the borderlands because it had been attacked and destroyed by Europeans so frequently.
The so-called Ukrainians are Russians who speak a Russian gutter-language. They outlawed spoken Russian because it makes them sound stupid.
Good morning...
Been a busy one here ...still playing catch up. Got all the errands run this AM. This is the weekend of the "World's Largest Yard Sale". So, there was plenty of traffic as people shop for more stuff.
A couple of my buddies set up and do quite well. Not for me. I'll keep my own junk.
Tried something new recently...put a fuel additive designed to clean the injectors. Boosted our newest car's mileage another mpg, and made my old 92 model run better. So I guess it was worth it.
well take care and have a good day. Thanks for the OT!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Drove a TR-4 with twin Strombergs for a while.
After the change to unleaded fuel I started adding a can of 104+ to each tank of gas and it ran much, much better than without. Those additives can make a real difference at times. Gasoline isn't fungible because the refiners mess with it. Chevron owns Texaco, but my previous wheels, Ram 2500 Hemi, ran fine on Chevron (and Valero), but ran for shit on Texaco.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good morning, LO!
Man, every mpg saves, so congrats on the experiment.
What we see around here are old trucks. Decades old and running like a charm. Mostly Fords and Chevys. Apparently parts are available for trucks made in the 70s and 80s. Whereas, my 2021 Hyundai needed a fuel injector replacement and it took the dealership 2 weeks to get it delivered. Hmmm...
Well, I have a day planned to do nothing. Maybe some deer will show up to entertain me eventually.
I am curious about the shooting that occurred at the CDC headquarters. Seems the shooter blamed the vax for making him ill, according to his parents.
It didn't have to be this way, my friend.
Take care of your junk! Take that anyway you wish!
Enjoy your weekend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Regarding Lee Camp
He is shooting fish in a barrel as he rebuts Zionist rationalizations for following the geopolitical strategy of Adolf Hitler. I can't disagree with any of his sarcastic slam dunks of the outrageous and transparent bullshit coming from Israel. He is in synch with Caitlin Johnstone with his extreme anger they display in their internet presentations.
It is all so wearying. Reminding me of the Vietnam War that I did not have to fight in due to the luck of the draft lottery. For all my junior and senior high school years, it was a perpetual nightmare as the dead GIs were coming home by the thousand. The anti-war minority made a lot of noise, so much so that they ended the draft. Phew!
I do not recall much more in the way of outrage over how many people we killed. The first anti-war success in the national media came when Walter Cronkite turned on the war. Because we were losing!
Here is how Wiki relates the grizzly facts:
The low end estimate for indo-chinese deaths at our hands comes to 1,265,000.
Lots of us were outraged by our GIs slaughtering The Enemy. Never even close to a majority.
There is nothing new about mass slaughter. I share the indignation. But I have not seen much success stemming from it.
People are no damned good, as my Uncle Jack used to say
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
fwf,
you are here, truly, by luck of the draw.
Not only did I attend funerals of my high school classmates, I am still attending funerals due to Agent Orange.
I toured Laos and Cambodia, never made it to Nam. We heard stories about locals who had been informants and cooperated with our military. When we pulled out, those people were slaughtered for being spies. I mean, descendants were telling me stories about their grandfathers and uncles who thought the family would be taken to the US, but they and their families were all killed by their betrayed citizens.
Cronkite, in one news broadcast, became the head of the anti-war movement. We do not have such a media person today. We do not have the freedom of movement or speech today for organizing protests that we had back then. You could spend the weekend protesting, go back to work Monday. Now, you can't even get an interview for a job. Or denied enrollment into a university. You could be kicked out of school. Pitting one's own very survival against the survival of Palestinians takes brave souls willing to sacrifice everything.
Will we oldsters lose our pensions or Social Security if we don't toe the line? Would any of us be shocked if it came to that?
After our success back then, I never expected it would come to this.
I am proud of us, fwf. We were simply all that. Maybe the youth can find a way.
Thanks for your comment, and have the best weekend you possibly can, friend
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
That's why the Democratic Party leaders today....
....are composed largely of human filth.
Good afternoon, PR!
I seldom bother criticizing Republicans. They are committed to Hoovering up all capital from the 99%, and that is what they do, day in, day out. They are not duplicitous.
Democrats do the same Hoovering while posturing as the party of the middle class.
Hell is not hot enough for them, as they lie, cheat, and steal from their constituents.
There is no solution to this problem until it becomes illegal to take campaign contributions and to practice insider trading. From that starting point, we just might reclaim democracy.
Enjoy your weekend, friend. Thanks for posting that map of Ukraine.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Interesting chart
More at the link
Ukrainian Support for War Effort Collapses
語必忠信 行必正直
Well, well...
Fighting to the last Ukrainian has lost its' cache'? Losing their lives to kill Russians without a single loss of Americans isn't as cool to them as it is to Lindsay Graham?
I did read somewhere that our chats with Russia were "productive", whatever that means.
What it means to me is that we are making a pivot to China, continuing to bring the globe to nuclear annihilation, sooner rather than later.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Another Lee Camp video
This is 25 mins with topics being the dangers of AI and the strange orders for the IDF soldiers to stand down and let the Oct. 7 Hamas attack happen.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981