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kpete
kpete's Journal
kpete's Journal
December 9, 2021
Colbert on Fox's XMAS Tree Flambee -"Of course, it would never have happened if the tree had a gun.
https://twitter.com/leftcoastbabe/status/1468857515706228736?s=20
December 9, 2021
by: Charles Blow
..............
There was a point, earlier on in the pandemic, when vaccines were still scarce, when I tried to be tolerant with the holdouts, tried not to shame them, tried not to be angry with them, tried to allow them time to educate themselves about the benefits of getting vaccinated.
But that time has long since passed for me. Call me one of the intolerant. That’s what I am. I will not coddle willful ignorance anymore. I will not indulge the fool’s errand of “I’m still doing my own research” anymore, either.
This virus has already killed nearly 800,000 Americans and infected nearly 50 million. We are now averaging about 120,000 new cases a day.
This virus is deadly and unrelenting. The only way out of this situation, for our country and the world, is through the vaccines. We must dramatically shrink the number of people vulnerable to the virus — or else we risk allowing our population to act as a petri dish for the growth of variants.
https://nedhamsonsecondlineviewofthenews.com/2021/12/08/opinion-im-done-trying-to-understand-or-educate-the-unvaccinated-the-new-york-times/?shared=email&msg=fail
Call me one of the intolerant. That's what I am. I will not coddle willful ignorance anymore.
I’M DONE TRYING TO UNDERSTAND OR EDUCATE THE UNVACCINATED –by: Charles Blow
..............
There was a point, earlier on in the pandemic, when vaccines were still scarce, when I tried to be tolerant with the holdouts, tried not to shame them, tried not to be angry with them, tried to allow them time to educate themselves about the benefits of getting vaccinated.
But that time has long since passed for me. Call me one of the intolerant. That’s what I am. I will not coddle willful ignorance anymore. I will not indulge the fool’s errand of “I’m still doing my own research” anymore, either.
This virus has already killed nearly 800,000 Americans and infected nearly 50 million. We are now averaging about 120,000 new cases a day.
This virus is deadly and unrelenting. The only way out of this situation, for our country and the world, is through the vaccines. We must dramatically shrink the number of people vulnerable to the virus — or else we risk allowing our population to act as a petri dish for the growth of variants.
https://nedhamsonsecondlineviewofthenews.com/2021/12/08/opinion-im-done-trying-to-understand-or-educate-the-unvaccinated-the-new-york-times/?shared=email&msg=fail
December 9, 2021
Robert Reich
..........
In the looming fight over whether to preserve the Senate filibuster, the mainstream media gives equal weight to both sides’ claims of radicalism. But ask yourself which is more radical – abolishing the filibuster to save American democracy or destroying American democracy to save the filibuster?
The old labels “left” versus “right” are fast becoming outdated. Today, it’s democracy versus authoritarianism. Equating them is misleading and dangerous.
Why doesn’t the mainstream media see this? Not just because of its dependence on corporate money. I think the source of the bias is more subtle.
Top editors and reporters, usually based in New York and Washington, want to be accepted into the circles of the powerful – not only for sources of news but also because such acceptance is psychologically seductive. It confers a degree of success. But once accepted, they can’t help but begin to see the world through the eyes of the powerful.
..............
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/09/whats-really-wrong-mainstream-media
What's really wrong with the mainstream media -by Robert Reich
What’s really wrong with the mainstream mediaRobert Reich
..........
In the looming fight over whether to preserve the Senate filibuster, the mainstream media gives equal weight to both sides’ claims of radicalism. But ask yourself which is more radical – abolishing the filibuster to save American democracy or destroying American democracy to save the filibuster?
The old labels “left” versus “right” are fast becoming outdated. Today, it’s democracy versus authoritarianism. Equating them is misleading and dangerous.
Why doesn’t the mainstream media see this? Not just because of its dependence on corporate money. I think the source of the bias is more subtle.
Top editors and reporters, usually based in New York and Washington, want to be accepted into the circles of the powerful – not only for sources of news but also because such acceptance is psychologically seductive. It confers a degree of success. But once accepted, they can’t help but begin to see the world through the eyes of the powerful.
..............
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/09/whats-really-wrong-mainstream-media
December 8, 2021
- Nov. 6 2020 texts w/ a lawmaker about alternate electors in certain states
- texts btwn Meadows and an Ellipse rally organizer
- texts about the need for Trump to issue a statement stopping the 1/6 attack
https://twitter.com/sbg1/status/1468607749042937860?s=20
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1468604304303050757?s=20
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1468606306520948740?s=20
Here are some of the comms the 1/6 committee says Meadows turned over:
"I Love It"- Nov. 6 2020 texts w/ a lawmaker about alternate electors in certain states
- texts btwn Meadows and an Ellipse rally organizer
- texts about the need for Trump to issue a statement stopping the 1/6 attack
The text messages you did produce include a November 6 2020, text exchange with a Member of Congress apparently about appointing alternate electors in certain states as part of a plan that the Member acknowledged would be "highly controversial" and to which Mr. Meadows apparently said, "I love it"
https://twitter.com/sbg1/status/1468607749042937860?s=20
https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1468604304303050757?s=20
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1468606306520948740?s=20
December 7, 2021
by crahnke
My father was the youngest of eleven, my mother the youngest of ten. We are a fertile bunch. Mother claimed to have strained my oldest sister through two kinds of birth control that were available back in 1946. When I was five, she forged my father’s signature in order to get a hysterectomy so she could stop getting pregnant, back when women had no authority over their own bodies.
In Idaho at seventeen, I learned firsthand that the rhythm method didn’t work very well on rabbits, after the sperm donor disappeared into the navy. I became an early adopter of quinine sulfate on the advice of a waitress I worked with, nights and weekends my senior year of high school. No, not hydroxychloroquine, but the natural antimalarial, also touted as a possible abortifacient. It could be purchased over the counter at any pharmacy, even though it raised pharmacists’ eyebrows. Two months of doses high enough to make me dizzy and I miscarried after my waitress night shift the week before high school graduation. Whether the quinine sulfate had anything to do with it is not known. Abortion was illegal in Idaho in 1969.
In Colorado at eighteen, I got my first birth control pills. In Hawaii at nineteen, it became clear that I needed very high hormone doses to regulate my cycle. IUDs had just become available, and I happily got in line. And then that Dalkon Shield fell out into my hand at an inopportune moment, so I got a Lippes Loop.
I finally settled into a relationship with a nice guy. He had been raised Catholic, with all the guilt about sex that may (or may not) confer, so he justified intimacy to himself by talking about how he wanted us to have kids someday. At 22, midway through undergraduate work, Lippes let me down and I was pregnant again. And the nice guy said, ‘Well, I didn’t mean NOW!’ Abortion was legal in Hawaii and I didn’t need anyone to sign for me.
We got married when I was 24. I was back on birth control pills at the high hormone levels I required for regulation, and continued to wait for my husband to decide whether he actually wanted kids. I was ambivalent, fairly certain that the world had quite enough representation from my family’s gene pool. With no such commitment to children forthcoming, I started graduate school. And waited. At 29, I finally said ‘enough’ and had a tubal ligation. I did not need my husband’s signature in Hawaii to be sterilized, even though taking control of my reproduction ended the marriage. I awoke in recovery with three other women - well, two teenagers and one woman older than me. The teens had abortions, I was a tubal ligation and the woman was hoping to find out if she could try again after her most recent miscarriage. No sense of justice in that recovery room; the only one of us who wanted children couldn’t keep one, and the rest of us were doing what we could to not have a child.
Women who don’t want children should be able to not have children without having to seek permission from the patriarchy to stop the machinery. If you didn’t come equipped with the parts to incubate human babies, you should not get to vote on the regulation and deployment of those parts. Go raise actual rabbits.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/6/2067924/-I-come-from-a-long-line-of-rabbits?utm_campaign=trending#comment_82404755
I also come from a line of catholic rabbits.
I come from a long line of rabbitsby crahnke
My father was the youngest of eleven, my mother the youngest of ten. We are a fertile bunch. Mother claimed to have strained my oldest sister through two kinds of birth control that were available back in 1946. When I was five, she forged my father’s signature in order to get a hysterectomy so she could stop getting pregnant, back when women had no authority over their own bodies.
In Idaho at seventeen, I learned firsthand that the rhythm method didn’t work very well on rabbits, after the sperm donor disappeared into the navy. I became an early adopter of quinine sulfate on the advice of a waitress I worked with, nights and weekends my senior year of high school. No, not hydroxychloroquine, but the natural antimalarial, also touted as a possible abortifacient. It could be purchased over the counter at any pharmacy, even though it raised pharmacists’ eyebrows. Two months of doses high enough to make me dizzy and I miscarried after my waitress night shift the week before high school graduation. Whether the quinine sulfate had anything to do with it is not known. Abortion was illegal in Idaho in 1969.
In Colorado at eighteen, I got my first birth control pills. In Hawaii at nineteen, it became clear that I needed very high hormone doses to regulate my cycle. IUDs had just become available, and I happily got in line. And then that Dalkon Shield fell out into my hand at an inopportune moment, so I got a Lippes Loop.
I finally settled into a relationship with a nice guy. He had been raised Catholic, with all the guilt about sex that may (or may not) confer, so he justified intimacy to himself by talking about how he wanted us to have kids someday. At 22, midway through undergraduate work, Lippes let me down and I was pregnant again. And the nice guy said, ‘Well, I didn’t mean NOW!’ Abortion was legal in Hawaii and I didn’t need anyone to sign for me.
We got married when I was 24. I was back on birth control pills at the high hormone levels I required for regulation, and continued to wait for my husband to decide whether he actually wanted kids. I was ambivalent, fairly certain that the world had quite enough representation from my family’s gene pool. With no such commitment to children forthcoming, I started graduate school. And waited. At 29, I finally said ‘enough’ and had a tubal ligation. I did not need my husband’s signature in Hawaii to be sterilized, even though taking control of my reproduction ended the marriage. I awoke in recovery with three other women - well, two teenagers and one woman older than me. The teens had abortions, I was a tubal ligation and the woman was hoping to find out if she could try again after her most recent miscarriage. No sense of justice in that recovery room; the only one of us who wanted children couldn’t keep one, and the rest of us were doing what we could to not have a child.
Women who don’t want children should be able to not have children without having to seek permission from the patriarchy to stop the machinery. If you didn’t come equipped with the parts to incubate human babies, you should not get to vote on the regulation and deployment of those parts. Go raise actual rabbits.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/6/2067924/-I-come-from-a-long-line-of-rabbits?utm_campaign=trending#comment_82404755
December 7, 2021
Suspect in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been arrested in France.
XLNT - now do the prince...
A Saudi man suspected of involvement in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has been arrested in France, reports say. Khaled Aedh Alotaibi was arrested at Charles-de-Gaulle airport on Tuesday, French media report. He is one of 26 Saudis wanted by Turkey over the journalist's killing.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59561881
https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1468266581411209219?s=20
December 7, 2021
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/peter-meijer-freshman-republican-impeach/620844/
"If...willing to come after you inside Capitol-what will they do when you're at home w-your kids?"
The Atlantic has a very good profile of freshman Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), in which he describes what he saw during the Capitol insurrection:
“On the House floor, moments before the vote, Meijer approached a member who appeared on the verge of a breakdown. He asked his new colleague if he was okay. The member responded that he was not; that no matter his belief in the legitimacy of the election, he could no longer vote to certify the results, because he feared for his family’s safety.”
Said Meijer: “Remember, this wasn’t a hypothetical. You were casting that vote after seeing with your own two eyes what some of these people are capable of. If they’re willing to come after you inside the U.S. Capitol, what will they do when you’re at home with your kids?”
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/peter-meijer-freshman-republican-impeach/620844/
December 7, 2021
https://link.motherjones.com/public/25949081
John Lennon and the NRA--Four Decades Later By David Corn December 7, 2021
On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I made my first and only political speech. "We've just heard this song that says, 'After all this time, we must surely be learning," I began. "But are we? There are 10,000 handgun deaths a year. Are we learning how we can prevent that?" I noted that not only Lennon but important members of our community had been killed by guns recently and that efforts to enact restrictions on guns routinely fail. "Why?" I asked. "Because people who work there"—I pointed across the Reflecting Pool toward the Capitol—"listen too much to the people over there"—I pointed in the direction of the NRA building. But, I added, now was an appropriate time to show that other Americans had different views. I asked the people there to come to the rally. And I'm afraid I said something corny like, "Imagine if everyone who feels as you do today showed up." When I was done, the scrawny fellow gave me a hug; the people applauded. I darted off to start putting up the flyers.
https://link.motherjones.com/public/25949081
December 7, 2021
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate General and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
For the past 23 years, the monument to Forrest was right there off I-65 near Nashville for all to see. Thousands of cars passed by the hard-to-miss statue every single day.
The late Jack Kershaw sculpted the 25-foot statue in 1998 and it was placed on Dorris’ land surrounded by Confederate flags. It was vandalized several times over the years, including a dousing with pink paint which Dorris decided to leave on the statue.
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/nathan-bedford-forrest-statue-along-i-65-being-removed-after-more-than-2-decades
Good Riddance, Fallen Wizard
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate General and the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.
For the past 23 years, the monument to Forrest was right there off I-65 near Nashville for all to see. Thousands of cars passed by the hard-to-miss statue every single day.
The late Jack Kershaw sculpted the 25-foot statue in 1998 and it was placed on Dorris’ land surrounded by Confederate flags. It was vandalized several times over the years, including a dousing with pink paint which Dorris decided to leave on the statue.
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/nathan-bedford-forrest-statue-along-i-65-being-removed-after-more-than-2-decades
December 7, 2021
"Democrats Have a Branding Problem"
& least we aren't nazis?!?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/democrats-face-broken-branding-problem-biden-agenda-n1285501
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