01/20 Open Thread - Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 9:20am
Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. [Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking.], 08/28/1963.
~~ Martin Luther King Jr.
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On this day in history:

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1404 - Europe's first public bank, the Taula de canvi, opened in Barcelona

1567 – Portuguese forces drove the French out of Rio de Janeiro for good.

1649 – Charles I of England went on trial for treason and other "high crimes".

1783 – Great Britain signed preliminary articles of peace with France, setting up the end of the American Revolutionary War
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1839 – In the Battle of Yungay, Chile defeated an alliance between Peru and Bolivia and broke up that alliance.

1841 – Hong Kong Island was occupied by the British.

1887 – The US Senate allowed the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.

1949 – Truman announced the Point Four Program for economic aid to poor countries

1954 – The National Negro Network was established in the US with 40 charter member radio stations.

1974 – China gained control over the Paracel Islands after the Battle of the Paracel Islands between the naval forces of China and South Vietnam

1981 – Twenty minutes after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan Iran released 52 American hostages whose prior release had been held up by Iran at the request of the GOP to create a political campaign talking point.

1986 – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was celebrated as a US federal holiday for the first time.

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Some people who were born on this day:

In natural science the principles of truth ought to be confirmed by observation.

~~ Carl Linnaeus the Younger

1029 – Alp Arslan, sultan
1526 – Rafael Bombelli, mathematician
1573 – Simon Marius, astronomer and academic who made the first observations of the Galilean moons of Jupiter
1716 – Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, archaeologist and numismatist, first to decipher palmyrene and phoenician
1741 – Carl Linnaeus the Younger, botanist and author
1775 – André-Marie Ampère, physicist and mathematician
1856 – Harriot Stanton Blatch, suffragist and organizer
1879 – Ruth St. Denis, modern dance pioneer

1883 – Enoch L. Johnson, New Jersey businessman
1883 – Forrest Wilson, journalist and author
1888 – Lead Belly, legendary singer, songwriter, guitarist, prone to social commentary
1895 – Gábor Szegő, mathematician
1910 – Joy Adamson, painter and author
1918 – Juan García Esquivel, pianist, composer, and bandleader
1920 – Federico Fellini, director and screenwriter
1922 – Ray Anthony, trumpet player, composer, bandleader, and actor
1923 – Slim Whitman, country and western singer, songwriter and musician
1926 – David Tudor, pianist and composer (think Nash)
1931 – David Lee, physicist and academic
1931 – Hachidai Nakamura, pianist and composer (think Sukiyaki)
1952 – Paul Stanley, singer,songwriter, guitarist, and producer
1957 – Andy Sheppard, saxophonist and composer
1960 – Scott Thunes, bass player
1979 – Rob Bourdon, musician and songwriter

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Some people who died on this day:

What we think or what we know or what we believe is in the end of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do

~~ John Ruskin

Actual and aspiring politicians take note of the above and make it your action principle; what you do is what you are - what you claim to believe or think you believe is irrelevant, Talk Is Cheap!

1900 – John Ruskin, painter and critic
1921 – Mary Watson Whitney,astronomer and academic
1947 – Andrew Volstead, can you say "Volstead Act"?
1962 – Robinson Jeffers, poet and philosopher
1965 – Alan Freed, DJ, not like "DJ badass whoop-de-do", but a real Disc Jockey
1996 – Gerry Mulligan, saxophonist and composer who was part of the birth of cool
2012 – Etta James, singer and songwriter
2012 – John Levy, bassist and manager
2022 – Meat Loaf, singer and actor

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Some Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such:

Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Leadbelly's Birthday (Unofficial)

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Today's Tunes

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Lead Belly

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John Hardy

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Easy Rider

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Midnight Special

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The Bourgeois Blues

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Juan Garcia Esquivel

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Ray Anthony

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Andy Sheppard

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Scott Thunes (want some bass with that nail job?)

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Gerry Mulligan

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Etta James

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Stormy Weather

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At Last

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John Levy

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Heh - I had hoped to bookend Leadbelly and Etta, but just can't skip Levy. Ah well, here's Meatloaf too

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I won't be here when this posts

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Ok, it's an open thread, so it's up to you folks now. So what's on your mind?

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Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com

Open Thread, Martin Luther King Jr Day, Leabelly, Etta James, Meatloaf

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Open Thread
Martin Luther King Jr Day
Leabelly
Etta James
Meatloaf
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Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 10:01am
snoopydawg's picture

.

who haven’t been charged with a crime.

https://www.ksl.com/article/51233113/biden-issues-pardons-to-protect-mil...

Shitlibs were outraged when the Supremes actually defined presidential immunity and think that it gives the president the power to do whatever he wants. But do they see any problem with what Biden did? Of course not.

I wonder how the courts will rule on this ?
Heh…. Congress could pull every one of them in and question them on their crimes since they can’t plead the 5th. Let’s see what Biden pardoned them for. Because if they accept the pardon they are admitting guilt.

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by usefewersyllables on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 10:47am
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@snoopydawg

they sure are:

The Justice Department sent a message Wednesday to Jan. 6 defendants: Accepting a pardon from Donald Trump is “a confession of guilt” for your crimes.

“[A] pardon at some unspecified date in the future ... would not unring the bell of conviction,” federal prosecutors argued in a Jan. 6 case before U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols. “In fact, quite the opposite. The defendant would first have to accept the pardon, which necessitates a confession of guilt.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/11/doj-trump-january-6-pardons-gui...

Sorry, Biden, you can't have it both ways. I suspect that Trump will find ways to torment his enemies regardless of any pardon silliness, in any case. I suspect that many of them will find the IRS auditing them for the previous 7 years, and certainly for the next 4, for example...

Gonna need more popcorn.

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 11:09am
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@usefewersyllables

Many of them took a plea deal because the justice department would add on more charges and they’d get a longer sentence if they went to trial. And since the trials were held in shitlib central they certainly would have been found guilty.

If you remember the Supremes taking a torch to the chevron defense it changed how they were prosecuted.

IMDoc on Fauci:

I think Fauci has done more to destroy the credibility in the profession of medicine than almost anyone in my lifetime. Believe me, I hear it all day from my bright blue PMC patients. Anytime the topic of vaccines comes up especially. Despite what MSNBC and CNN are telling America, the beating heart of anti-vaxx is actually Bright Blue America.

That being said, I am fully behind the pardon for Fauci. It will stain him for the rest of his life and for all of eternity in the history of medicine. Why else would Biden need to pardon him if he had never done anything wrong.

His behavior in the AIDS crisis was equally reprehensible. Why anyone thought this time would be different is a mystery. Lying and hiding things about older drugs. Exposing critically ill AIDS patients to drugs that were killing them right and left. For years, being allowed to scare the entire population into being deathly afraid of a virus – knowing all the while it was almost exclusively confined to a few groups. I came of age during that time. It was something to behold. Never forget.

Many of the people who died of AIDS actually died from the medication that Fauci approved because it ruined their immune systems. There were other and better drugs to treat it, but he refused to authorize them. Just like he did for Covid.

Awful man!

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by QMS on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 12:57pm
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@snoopydawg
.
including his two brothers, their wives, his sister and her husband.
Guess the speculation of the Biden Crime family is true after all.
https://www.rt.com/news/611335-biden-family-pardon/

also

Joe Biden has issued preemptive pardons for former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who led the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as members of Congress who investigated the January 6 Capitol riot.
https://www.rt.com/news/611306-biden-pardons-fauci-cheney-milley/

Crooks one and all. Maybe justice can snag Biden for VP corruption?

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question everything

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 2:20pm
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@QMS

Biden issued immunity from prosecution.
As far as I know no one has been charged with a crime so how can they be pardoned for nothing? Biden said he pardoned them because Trump promises investigations.

Biden said that was why he was pardoning them. Plus:

The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.

Yeah good luck selling that point. It doesn’t even make sense either.
But from my understanding if a person does accept a pardon he is admitting guilt.

Hopefully this gets challenged, but would it really matter? America’s justice system is a joke anyway.

And guess what’s back for a rerun?

IMG_1264.jpeg

Today Crooke said that many Americans are going to be in for a rude awakening when Ukraine falls because they believe the propaganda about Russia losing men and equipment and that they use washing machine chips for their weapons. Plus Putin has cancer and Russia is running out of weapons.
I can attest to this.
Heh… I cant wait for the day.

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by QMS on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 2:45pm
QMS's picture

@snoopydawg
.
Biden's words mean anything in the legal sense.
Playing the 'protect my crooks family'
from the wrath of trumpet card is pure CYA. He has
already proven justice can be politicized. His handlers
are scrambling their eggheads to minimize damage.

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question everything

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 2:36pm
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@QMS

and par for the course. Shitlibs are praising Biden for pardoning his family, but I’m sure you can imagine their outrage if Trump had pardoned his.

One wrote a diary thanking Biden for being a great president, but half of it was about Trump. They’ve been bitching for years about people covering everything Trump does, but half the diarrhea diaries today are about Trump.

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by usefewersyllables on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 10:50am
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again this morning- and honestly, I am the most gobsmacked by that occurrence that I've ever been. I felt certain that Uncle Joe would push the button, just for spite. Maybe they pulled his plug preemptively.

Now, if we can just get through today without becoming plasma, perhaps things will be damped down a bit for a while. One can always hope...

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 11:13am
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@usefewersyllables

That’s what I said to Sam this morning. Guess we survived not getting blown up after all. And then we hi-5’d each other because we survived Biden’s wretched presidency.

Good riddance Joe and for all times sake:

FJB!

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by on the cusp on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 11:29am

A bald eagle flew past the house this morning.
Must be celebrating something.
Biden giving a pardon to his family members from Jan. 1, 2014, is sort of a "tell".
Conspiracy theorists were once again proven to be correct.
What a world, friend!
Thanks for the OT!

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 11:47am
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@on the cusp

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/joe-biden-leonard-peltier-clemency_n_6760...

Finally Joe Biden does something worthwhile.

I wish he had pardoned Steven Doninger and Julian Assange. But beggars and all.

Oops. He commuted his sentence.

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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 12:09pm

as usual.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 12:57pm
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@humphrey

Blaming the oligarchy on Trump is TDS to the max. America has been an oligarchy for decades, but the media just noticed it?

Need a new meme.

FTM

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.

Submitted by Linda Wood on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 12:51pm

with this man's words.

https://original.antiwar.com/martin_luther_king/2025/01/19/beyond-vietna...

Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break the Silence
Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam

by Martin Luther King
April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York

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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 1:03pm

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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 3:46pm

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5096041-biden-pardons-family-cor...

by Jonathan Turley, Opinion Contributor - 01/20/25 3:35 PM

With only 15 minutes to go as president, Joe Biden snatched infamy from the jaws of obscurity.

With record-low polling and widely viewed as a “failed” president, Biden completed his one-man race to the bottom of ethics by issuing preemptive pardons to members of his own family.

The pardons were timed to guarantee that the media would not focus on yet another unethical act by this president. He need not have worried. For four years, the media worked tirelessly to deny or deflect the corruption scandal surrounding the Biden family.

The pardoning of James Biden, Sara Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John Owens and Francis Biden brought an inescapable clarity to the corruption of what is known in Washington as Biden Inc.

I have written about the Biden family’s corruption for decades. Influence-peddling has always been the favorite form of corruption in Washington, but this city has never seen the likes of the Biden family. Millions of dollars were secured from foreign sources and distributed to various Biden family members.

Biden repeatedly lied about the influence peddling. He long denied knowing about his son’s foreign clients or business. He denied ever meeting Hunter’s clients. Later, photos and emails showed that Biden had clearly met these clients and knew about the business deals. He was fully aware that his family was cashing in on his name and various offices.

Even Biden’s claims about handling the Trump cases were recently contradicted. While long claiming that he left these cases to the Justice Department and took no position on the merits, the Washington Post recently reported that Biden was irate over the failure to prosecute Trump before the election. He also reportedly lashed out at Attorney General Merrick Garland and said he regretted his appointment in light of the failure to nail Trump.

Having posted this I have little doubt that Trump will also benefit from future corruption.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Mon, 01/20/2025 - 4:18pm
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@humphrey

I was hoping that Turley would respond to the pardons.

Biden, however, may have been too clever by half this time. In the final moments of his presidency, He broke into the open and exposed not just himself but his allies in the media. Reporters are now fully visible as willing dupes in one of the greatest corruption scandals in the history of this country.

Yep. I think it’s a declaration that he and his family are guilty as charged.
It will be interesting to see what republicans do now. If they are serious about accountability they will hold hearings for all those who Biden pardoned. I especially want Fauci to appear. Paul wanted him charged with perjury, but that’s mute for now. But we need information on his role in creating the Rona virus. But I doubt that the government is interested in any exposure.

Republicans never got very far on their investigations into the Biden crime family. But then they totally ignored what Hillary did with her pay to play.
But if congress started looking into the foundation scams they might have been caught up in it too.

After Hillary lost the election the money got diverted into the McCain foundation. Where’s that money now and where was it spent?

Bueller???

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Scientists are concerned that conspiracy theories may die out if they keep coming true at the current alarming rate.