Joanne Dixon

Video Thread 6/10/22

 Posted by at 11:55 am  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 102022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Trump recruits & deploys the Proud Boys on 1/6, making him part of the PB’s seditious conspiracy

Meidas Touch – Harry Litman REVEALS identity of Secret Star Witness for Jan 6 Hearings

The Lincoln Project – Last Week in the Republican Party – June 7, 2022

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Dives Into Scapegoating of D.A. Boudin (Of course the recall is over – and, sadly, our side lost – but the opportunty to learn is always present. Incidentally, I could actually agree with Tom Cotton to this degree – there are WAY too many Republicans running around loose.)

CNN – Ex-gun industry insider speaks out about Republicans and NRA

Mini Horse Tries So Hard To Make His Very First Friend

Beau – Let’s talk about an analogy to help people understand the climate….

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Open Thread June 10, 2022

 Posted by at 7:00 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 102022
 

Yesterday was fairly routine. I did watch the second hour of the hearings – and I have to say I was glad they adjourned – I don’t know how much more I could have withstood. I watched here, so I got no commentary. After looking around afterwards, I started looking for any other sources, especially those which might continue to be available in case anyone else missed anything. The first one I found was PBS (I have set this to start just as the hearing does, so it may be a little choppy.) Meidas Touch also made it avaiabe trough The Tony Michaels podcast. It was still going when I found it, so I didn’t try to look for a starting time. Those commenting there are likely, some of them, to be familiar (Texas Paul is one, but others have also been seen in the Video Thread here.) I did look for MSNBC, but didn’t have a lot of time to look, and only found a clip on it.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – Here’s What A Real Expert Has To Say About Active Shooters
Quote – This event isn’t a real team building exercise, however, but a powerful new PSA put out by March For Our Lives, the gun control group that formed in the wake of 2018’s Parkland school shooting. The PSA, titled “Generation Lockdown,” seeks to build support for the passage of a bill in the US Senate that would expand background checks for guns.
Click through for video and article. I put this here rather than in the Video Thread because the article, I believe, adds content. Someone at DU commented that if this doesn’t break your heart, you probably don’t have one. – let that be a hanky alert.

The Daily Beast – Putin’s Favorite Copycat Gears Up in Panicked Wartime Frenzy
Quote – In the past few days Lukashenko and his advisers have made a flurry of announcements about plans to bolster the Belarusian military. First, they announced Belarus was creating a people’s militia to give a boost to the country’s armed forces. Then they announced both a new military unit on the country’s southern border with Ukraine and new military mobilizations exercises.
Click through for details. Frankly, this scares me. Belarus isn’t very big – but then, neither is a straw.

The New Yorker (Daily Shouts) – Racism Outshines Platinum Jubilee
Quote – On Friday, at a service of thanksgiving for Her Majesty at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Racism, attending with its partner, Colonialism, turned things up a notch in haute couture by the House of Anxiety, a dazzling coat composed of thousands of individual boos directed toward Meghan and Harry as they entered the church. When asked about the custom creation, House of Anxiety responded, “White supremacy demands hating the other, and hating the other is the moment.”
Click through for article. “Daily Shouts” is a humor column which often comes very close to realiy because its readers are expected to be alert to satire. But frankly, I think this one is TOO close (Harry and Meghan did not, at least I don’t think so, leave early because of any disrespect to Elizabeth, but because two neo Nazis told Harry to his face that Archie was “an abomination” who ought to be “put down.”)

Food For Thought

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Video Thread 6/9/22

 Posted by at 12:09 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 092022
 

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ indicts Head Proud Boy Tarrio for seditious conspiracy. Now indict the Proud Boy’s leader -Trump (but see my comment on Rachel below)

Meidas Touch – Michael Cohen EXPOSES Donald Trump’s Strategy for the Jan 6 Hearings

CNN – Bernstein identifies the ‘real sleeper’ of the January 6th hearing

MSNBC Maddow – I’m posting this just for the first 5 minutes. It made me wonder – are the Seditious Conspiracy charges against the Proud Boys and others possibly trial runs (no pun intended) to make sure they get the evidence on the big boys right and get convictions? Tha might also explain a lot of the delay in DOJ going after the big fish.

Al Franken – Potential Jan 6th Hearing Bombshells (Not IMO his funniest, but still Al, and not terribly long)

Guy Tries To Befriend A Stray Cat For Over A Year

Beau – Let’s talk about masculinity and whether it’s toxic….

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Open Thread June 9, 2022

 Posted by at 7:02 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 092022
 

Yesterday, CPR News gave me all the information I needd to decide which Democrat to vote for the challenge Douglas Lamborn (or as I generally call him, Duggie Lamebrain.) There wasn’t much diffeence actually. I went with the one who had the stronger resume, who as also the one who got onto the ballot through the state assembly, which means if there is any money at all coming from DCCC, he’s the one who will get it. Of course there may noy be any. My district is +20 Red. Lamebrain himself has two primary challengers, both from the right – but that may turn out to be one too many. Election Day is the 28th, so we’ll know by July.

BTW, I put an Al Franken video into today’s video thread. I can’t claim it’s one of his funniest, but it is timely, and it’s under 8 minutes.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Crooks & Liars – Trump Demands Minions Push Back Against Jan. 6th Hearings
Quote – Instead, some operatives are offering their clients talking points to prepare them for the inevitable questions that will arise around the hearing, but with the goal of steering the conversation back to domestic issues.
Click through for not-very-long but very-revealing story. Seriously, do they think the survival of demicracy itself is not a “domestic” issue?

CPR News – Thousands of Democrats are changing their voter registration in Lauren Boebert’s district ahead of the primary
Quote – Thousands of voters have recently left the Democratic Party in Western Colorado — some as part of a grassroots effort to defeat Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert in her upcoming primary election. Among them is Steven Hallenborg of Montrose. “Well, I’m a lifelong Democrat, and now I’m unaffiliated,” he said. Because he changed his affiliation, he now can vote against Boebert in the June 28 Republican primary.
Click through for numbers. Unaffiliated voters receive two ballots but may only return one – their choice which one. That osn’t a lot of Democrats, but it could be enough to make a difference.

The Daily Beast – Free Gas Cards Are the GOP’s New Campaign Gimmick—and It’s Legal (BBA)
Quote – Lucky drivers pulling up to a packed Chevron gas station south of Atlanta last Saturday finally saw a little relief at the pump, in the form of a $25 gas voucher straight from the goddaughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece. The catch: They had to sit through a pitch for her political candidate of choice—college football hero, Olympic bobsledder, Russian roulette aficionado, and now aspiring Republican senator Herschel Walker.
Click through for details. The thing that leaps out at me is – more proof that it’s impossible to predict the political position of anyone based on the known positions of even their closest family and friends.

Food For Thought

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Video Thread 6/8/22

 Posted by at 11:53 am  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 082022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Liz Cheney on Trump’s “extremely well-organized conspiracy” while Gohmert wants to lie with impunity

Don Winslow – #RepublicanSchoolDay

CNN – Extraordinary’: NYT reporter says Pence aide gave warning before January 6

Rebel HQ – Uvalde Police Enlist Biker Gangs To Intimidate Media

MSNBC – Deadline White House – “Bug-Eyed Gibberish”

Huge Mastiff Mix Has The BEST Reaction To Getting Adopted

Beau – Let’s talk about when a bee isn’t a bee but a fish…. After the last tewo Beaus I for one needed this one.)

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Open Thread June 8, 2022

 Posted by at 6:44 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 082022
 

Yesterday, my shoulder was fine in the morning (not unusual) without having had to do anything for it the night before (unusual lately.) I’m not suggesting that will be the new normal -but if it isn’t, I think I now know exactly where to place the TENS pads to help make it so.  Also, in the afternoon, my primary ballot came.  There’s not much choice on it – the only contested primary is for someone to run against Doug Lamborn, and that’s a lost cause, i fear.  However, I will do the due diligence and pick which one I think is the stronger  In this district, there’s no point in going for the more progesssive one.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – Blake Masters Blames Gun Violence on ‘Black People, Frankly’
Quote – Masters boiled the issue down in an April 11 interview on the Jeff Oravits Show podcast, telling the host that “we do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence…. It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis shooting each other. Very often, you know, Black people, frankly,” Masters clarified. “And the Democrats don’t want to do anything about that.”
Click through for article. I swear, I thought he was going to say that black people are JUST SO SCARY that white people JUST HAVE TO shoot them out of panic. Irony is not dead – but apparently you can’t see it unless you’re woke.

Crooks and Liars – Man Just Sitting Around Randomly Shoots And Kills 8-Year-Old
Quote – The sheriff says the shooter was “probably just methed up and has a history.” Maybe people with a “history” of being methed up shouldn’t have guns.
Click through for details if you can stand them, but the quote basicaly tells the story.

Robert Reich – The Week Ahead: Why everything depends on Liz Cheney
Quote – Cheney’s responsibility this week will be similar to Baker’s 49 years ago — to be the steady voice of non-partisan common sense, helping the nation view the hearings as a search for truth rather than a “witch hunt,” as Trump has characterized them. In many ways, though, Cheney’s role will be far more challenging than Baker’s.
Click through; don’t be put off by the headline. He makes a solid point.I honestly hope she reads this and (whether or not she reads this particular iteration – Carl Bernstein is saying much the same) chooses to live up to it.

Food For Thought

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Video Thread 6/7/22

 Posted by at 12:21 pm  Open Thread, Politics
Jun 072022
 

Glenn Kirschner – DOJ Indicts Navarro & Bannon but not Meadows & Scavino. Here are three possible explanations why.

Meidas Touch – Texas Paul REACTS to Louie Gohmert’s Humiliating Meltdown

The Lincoln Project – Two Faced Elise

Don Winslow – #RepublicansDontCare

Thom Hartmann – Will Passing “Gun Control” Be A War?

Stephanie Miller – John Fugelsang – “The Republican Cult is Turning on Each Other.”

Beau – Let’s talk about teachers in Texas and Ted Cruz…. (a followup to the one from yesterday and maybe even sadder)

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Open Thread June 7, 2022

 Posted by at 7:03 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jun 072022
 

Yesterday, I had said I planned to rest, and I guess I did. I slept almost 4 hours passed my (only a suggestion) alarm time. When I did get up, my back was really complaining (which the TENS fixed up pretty quickly), but my shouldr felt fine. I think (hope) I have found the sweet spot to assuage that particular pain point. In any case, I have material – two stories about Colorado, one a good example and the other a horror story – and also a story on a crime prevention tactic hat actually works (so of course it has no chance against Republicans.)  Today’s cartoon memorializes the first known summit conference in WEurope (I for one would not be surprised t learn that native Americans were doind it long before that.)

Also, please, everyone, cick back (under the comments, on the left) to the post published just before this Thread for Nameless’s wonderful post. (And here I thought I was the queen of workarounds. This is brilliant!)

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The 19th – Colorado is the first state to abolish anonymous sperm and egg donors. Activist Erin Jackson on why that matters.
Quote – In 2021, Jackson, who had no prior advocacy experience, joined a handful of other activists in starting the U.S. Donor Conceived Council, a political advocacy group. Sen. Stephen Fenberg, the president of Colorado’s state senate, reached out to Jackson to ask what donor-conceived people want to see happen in terms of regulation of the fertility industry. Jackson was armed with data she had collected outlining the types of policy positions her community wanted to see. Fenberg ran with it: Jackson and the U.S. Donor Conceived Council were instrumental in shaping first-of-its-kind legislation in Colorado.
Click through for details. Ethics is complicated. The original concept of anonymity was based on the assumption tha donors had a right to protection, but this ignored the fact that those who resulted had a right to information too. What you don’t know CAN hurt you.

CPR News – Victim IDs released in coal slide at Pueblo power plant
Quote – The men worked for Utah-based Savage, a contractor for Xcel Energy that operates the plant’s coal yard. Witnesses reported that the accident happened on a feeder pile for the station’s coal-fired power plant, which is Colorado’s largest…. Rescuers found the bodies of the two men buried beneath about 60 feet of coal after a day-long search. The men had been standing about 30 feet up a slope of the pile when the slide occurred, according to the Pueblo Fire Department.
Click through for background (including a lin to the original story). This is an extremely good argumant for terminating the use of coal world-wide. (Not that Republicans care about people dying as long as they are making money.)

Vox – A study gave cash and therapy to men at risk of criminal behavior. 10 years later, the results are in.
Quote – That’s such an incredibly good deal that it sounds too good to be true. But it’s been borne out by the research of Chris Blattman, Margaret Sheridan, Julian Jamison, and Sebastian Chaskel. Their new study provides experimental evidence that offering at-risk men a few weeks of behavioral therapy plus a bit of cash reduces the future risk of crime and violence, even 10 years after the intervention.
Click through for full story. It’s far more complex than a single quote can communicate.

Food For Thought

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