Digby, Dana, and Rick, my favorite columnists

My two favorite columnists are Dana Milbank and Heather "Digby" Parton, and runner up Rick Wilson. The later is known by her fans simply as Digby. After his most recent column I could nickname Milbank as Dana the Divinely inspired.

Above: Dana Milbank (left) and Heather "Digby" Parton

 

Heather "Digby" Parton who writes columns several times a week for Salon and publishes on her blog, Hullaballoo, and Dana Milbank who writes a regular column for The Washington Post, are my two favorite  columnists.

Unfortunately you need a subscription to the Post to read Dana's columns. This is his most recent column:

Dana, speaking for God, country, and I suppose you might as well throw in an apple pie a la mode... 

... begins this column this way:

And, lo, it shall come to pass, on the eighth day of the eleventh month of the Year of our Lord 2022, that Our Heavenly Father shall gather the inhabitants of His Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, from the Sacred City of Filial Love to His Earthly Paradise on the Monongahela, and from all other dwelling places therein; and He shall say, “Riseth up ye and goeth to the polling places; and therein casteth ye thy ballots in such manner that the Heavenly Host doth thunder, ‘Yea, Doug Mastriano, assuredly and verily thou art a cuckoo bird.’ ”— the Gospel according to nobody in particular

He concludes:

Will the good people of Pennsylvania succumb to conspiracy lunacy masquerading as scripture? Or will they, and voters everywhere, decide that this is just one more sign that the false prophets of MAGA have gone entirely too far?

God willing, voters will know them by their fruits. 

His Washington Post column tops their Opinions section above the conservative columnist Hugh Hewitt who is also a Fox News regular. I never gift Hewitt with a click. You can see his Wikipedia profile here and compare it to Milbank's profile here where you can see that Milbank is no stranger to experiencing the consequences of pushing the limits of snarky satire. For example from Wikipedia: Milbank and Chris Cillizza appeared in a series of humor videos called "Mouthpiece Theater" which appeared on The Washington Post's website. An outcry followed a video in which, during a discussion of the White House "Beer Summit", they chose new brands for a number of people, including "Mad Bitch Beer" for Hillary Clinton. Both men apologized for the video and the series was canceled.

The brief Post profile describes Dana as sketching the foolish, the fallacious, and the felonious in politics. Here's his Twitter page.

Then there's Digby. Her Salon columns, fortunately, you can read here without a subscription. These, as of this posting, are her three most recent ones:

This is Digby's Twitter page.

To say Digby is as prolific as she is clever is an understatement. On her blog Digby's Hullaballoo she and colleague Tom Sullivan (he is a North Carolina-based writer who posts at Hullabaloo and Scrutiny Hooligans and a former columnist for the Asheville Citizen-Times. His posts have appeared at Crooks and Liars, Campaign for America's Future, Truthout.org, AlterNet, and TomPaine.org.) Between them they post several stories every day. 

I like Digby's shameless self promoting reference to herself as "what rugby sez.." It reminds me of the photo of myself I used on my Twitter page.

Here are a few choice examples of the snarky wordsmithing which has made her one of my two favorite columnists. It is from her recent column about Trump's MAGA judge not being able to save hIm:

• It will be interesting to see if Trump's lawyers make the case that he magically declassified all those documents with a Vulcan mind-meld when he was still president as his minions have been saying all over television ever since the search.
• Trump himself has not intelligibly addressed this latest state of affairs but he has been emitting periodic primal screams as events unfold.
• They would be safer in Central Park because Donald Trump doesn't live there, an easy target of all of America's adversaries who know he has all the common sense of a bath mat.

My runner up  for favorite columnist is Rick Wilson. 

Wilson is a Lincoln Project co-founder who is sometimes on MSNBC.  I wrote about him in a Daily Kos essay here. He's not as funny as Dana and Digby but he does have a scalpel sharp wit but  sometimes it is a bit too cruel for my sensibility.

Here's his Twitter page:

Here's my most recent tweet which reeks of a probably futile attempt at self-promotion. Perhaps Dana, Digby, or Rick will retweet it...

Do you have a favorite columnist? Do you read Dana and Digby? Scroll down the page to make a comment.

After 1700+ posts Daily Kos bans me for life

Saying goodby to Daily Kos where I've been banned from posting stories for life.

I reviewed Daily Kos on this website.

Please scroll down to the bottom of the page to read and make comments.

There's a big difference between advocating for violence, which should be verboten on progressive websites where readers can post, and writing about violence and your attitude about self-defense if your community is threatened by armed insurrectionists.

I've been posting on the progressive website Daily Kos (read Wikipedia page about it) for several years. I've put on more than 1700 stories. Any member of their community, i.e., those who have registered there, can post a story. Quite a few of mine had the distinction of being on the Recommended List, and in the past year this was changed to a Trending Stories list of 18 reader posted stories.

Of the last five I posted three made this list including the one I put on a few days ago. That's the one that got me banned.

If you tried to read the Daily Kos story illustrated as shown below a few hours after I posted it you'd have gotten an access denied or other similar message because it had been taken offline. There was with no explanation as to why this was done sent to me.

It turns out that I have been banned, suspended, cancelled, rendered kaput, and unceremoniously dumped there. I supposed whoever made this decision would say I burned my bridges if I ever had more than one, or my solitary bridge to the world of Kos, but from my point of view they burned the bridge for me. 

I was one of the very few community members who ever posted an original opinion, idea, perspective, or thought however lame some of them may have been. I'd say that my absence is their loss. I was also the only experienced psychotherapist to regularly post essays about the psychopathology of Donald Trump.

This ban not only means that I cannot post my own stories on Daily Kos where on a few occasions as many as 2,000 readers looked at them, but I can't comment on any of the other stories there. I can still read them and see the comments other people post.

Nobody can see the story that prompted this. I tried to recreate elements of it here but unfortunately didn't copy it so I am unable to post the original.

You can help share my story by emailing the link to this blog to your friends or putting it on social media. I put if on twitter myself here.

If anyone happens to be able to post on Daily Kos wants to risk being banned themselves they can post a story along the lines of "What the hell happened to Hal Brown" and post a link to this blog page.

Here's the full photo of me as a reserve police officer, which I was for 20 years, both in Michigan and Massachusetts.

The  reason I used the police photos of me, a much younger version, was to explain my own experience with law enforcement and firearms. While never in the military I was trained to use a them as a reserve police officer. I had occasion to draw my revolver (we all used them before police departments switched to semi-automatic pistols) a few times when on foot patrol we entered dark store when we found open doors. I also drew my weapon once while in the woods look for an escaped country jail prisoner and stood by the road with a shotgun when we backed up sheriff's deputies who had stopped a carload of men on the expressway. 

Here's the screen I got when I tried to look at the story:

Here's a screen grab of my profile on Daily Kos (click any image to enlarge):

Even though you can't read the story shown above you can still read any of my other stories here. I have been banned but I haven't been erased.

I am quite sure someone flagged my final story because they thought I was advocating violence which I assuredly wasn't. I expect I was banned permanently because if you are suspended temporarily you are sent a message explaining why and for how long. I'd been suspended before, each time for a week. On those occasions the stories that got me banned stayed online. Most recently it was for the last sentence in this recent story about Judge Cannon. Several years ago it was for a 2018 story about homosociality which was banned because someone erroneously thought it was homophobic: The Term "Homosocial" Describes Autocrat Admiring Misogynist-in-Chief Trump to a "T"

I don't think whoever read it grasped the nuance of my story when I was banned for posting it - Daily Kos is not big on nuance. Not only is my story offline but unfortunately I didn't copy it to post on my blog, something I generally do. Therefore nobody can look at what I wrote to judge for themselves whether in any way, shaped or form I was advocating violence.

I told the personal story of how the other day I was sitting on my girlfriend's fourth floor balcony which overlook a row of duplexes in our continuing care retirement community where we live. I live in one of the duplexes. We were talking about the potential for violence here in Portland what with the fact that groups like The Oath Keepers and Proud Boys being attracted to our liberal community where in the past they engaged in violent clashes sometimes with Antifa members.  

Now of course they have escalated their threats to warn of armed violence should Trump be indicted and there are articles about what could happen if Trump is reelected as far as what is often called a new civil war.

I wrote about how her balcony offered a good spot for a snippers nest where if it came to it I could get dirt from our resident gardens and fill sandbags and buy a deer rifle at the nearby gun store. I wrote that if the leader of an armed group threatened our little mostly liberal community of elderly folks, taking out the leader as he marched down the street could make the others turn tail and run.

I suppose one could say that is advocating violence. I contend it is using violence as self-defense.

As I think of why someone at Daily Kos banned me with telling me why all I can come up with is that a reader flagged my story as break the rule against advocating violence and an administrator gave the story a cursory reading and decided to ban me without telling me they were doing so, and to remove the story entirely, judging that I was advocating violence.

It should be a no-brainer that I was writing about self-defense, albeit from a rather dramatized and I wouldn't argue if someone might say it conveyed a macho viewpoint although friends would tell you I come across as anything but macho.

Before it was taken offline it moved to about No. 12 of 18 stories on the Trending List, thus showing that lots of readers were interested in it. 

The are numerous stories posted on Kos and very few make this trending list. Three of my last five including this made the list. The story before it got removed had something like 50 recommendations, and over 80 comments with few exceptions agreeing with what I wrote. 

About 450 people took the poll (which indicates about how many people read it) with about 90% saying that if it came to defending democracy against an armed insurrection they personally would seriously consider fighting back with their own firearms.

These numbers are very high considering it had only been online for several hours.

I doubt I will ever be able to post political opinions on Daily Kos but will continue to post them on my blog. I hope those of you who liked what I wrote on Daily Kos will read what I post on my blog.

I am not up to trying to recreate the story at this time. Instead, below are the images I used and which are related to the story which related my thinking of an imaginary situation where the retirement community where I live was attacked by armed insurrectionists and I was on a balcony where I could use a sniper rifle to slow them down or make them turn tail and run. It was pure fantasy and by no means was I advocating violence.

I referenced how Portland became a magnet for groups like Proud Boys and Oath Keepers and that I lived in the closest retirement community to the end of one of the light rail stations from downtown Portland. 

Each of the following photos fit into the narrative of my story. The gun shop website is for a store a few blocks from where I live.

Link to above Salon article.

Above is website screen grab for gun store, one of two which are less than a mile from where I live.

This is the link for the above article.

Link to above story

Photo I took of a car in front of me.

Link to above story/

Another Trump vehicle in front of me.

Below are photos I took of the cars in front of the Trump flag man's house.

If anyone has their own website and wants to republish anything I posted on Daily Kos let me know and I am sure in most instances I will give you permission to do so. 

Most recent blog readership by country.

Lacky Cannon with no shame gave Labor Day Christmas present to Trump

 

I doubt it was an accident that  Judge Aileen Cannon released her opinion on Labor Day. I think she expected that by doing this it would get the least news coverage from the major media. I turned on MSNBC last night when Rachel Maddow would usually have her show repeated at 9:00 PM on the west coast to see what her legal experts were saying. I especially wanted to hear what University of Michigan Law School professor Barbara McQuade had to say since this is where Cannon got her law degree.  U of M Law, as it is referred to in the state, is rated the 10th best law school in the country. Instead MSNBC was airing a long special about the Game Stop stock market investing which made some people millions. 

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This attempt to give a gift to Trump backfires she will have succeeded in currying favor with him and his cult which to the extent they can return the gift in the future could benefit her career.

This happened to be a vacation day for some television shows but I suspect that Department of Justice lawyers were called in to work as soon as the decision was conveyed to the DOJ. 

While Twitter and progressive websites covered this with opinions like the following I expect that most Americans were occupied enjoying having a good time enjoying the traditional last day of summer and not paying attention to the news.

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Those of us who were following this yesterday read comments or heard from law professors  who among other things said that their first year students would be expected to write far better opinions.

I have no way of knowing whether any of this opinion reporting got through to Judge Cannon or if it did whether she cared.

Trying to put myself in her place I know how I’d feel as a retired psychotherapist if something I wrote about the psychology of Trump on Daily Kos was ripped apart by even one psychology professor, let alone by at least a dozen, in a comment either here or on the Duty to Warn private Facebook group started by Dr. John Gartner that I am a member of, I would be hanging my head in shame. 

DAVE MATHEWS AND DONALD TRUMP

CLICK HERE or above to read on Daily Kos and view videos.

This is a little story about two stars. One is Donald Trump and the other is Dave Mathews, founder and lead singer of The Dave Mathews Band.

If you're a fan you know all of the following about Dave Mathews. If not here's an excerpt from his Wikipedia page:

He is best known as the lead vocalist, songwriter, and guitarist for the Dave Matthews Band (DMB). Matthews was born in Johannesburg,^[2][3] and moved frequently among South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States while growing up. Matthews started playing acoustic guitar at the age of nine.

From 1991 to 2003, Matthews predominantly focused on songwriting and performing with the Dave Matthews Band, which he started in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 1991. He also has done various solo performances and produced other records. During the period from 2000 to 2010, his band sold more tickets and earned more money than any other act in North America.^[4] The band's 2012 album Away from the Worldmade them the only group to have six consecutive studio albums debut at number one on the Billboard charts. This record was extended to seven consecutive number one albums with the 2018 release, Come Tomorrow.

In addition to music, Matthews has had multiple acting roles.^[5] He has also won two Grammy Awards: one with the Dave Matthews Band in 1997 for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group ("So Much to Say") and one in 2004 for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance ("Gravedigger") from his solo album.

One could argue convincingly that Trump was once literally a star since he had the lead in a television series:

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I can't find a photo of his dressing room door and I tried, but I wouldn't be surprised it it had a big star on it and looked like this:

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Donald Trump has been compared to a number of animals. I likened him to a scorpion (here). I won't go into this here since it is beyond the scope of my scientific analogy.

I want to suggest that he may be like a starfish. Here, appropriately, is an orange one.

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This is Asterias rubens, known as the common sea star. It is capable of extensive arm regeneration, but will perish if the central disk suffers serious damage.

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As children who pay attention in grade school science class learn starfish have the ability to regenerate lost arms. This is from Wikipedia.

Starfish, or sea stars, are radially symmetrical, star-shaped organisms of the phylum Echinodermata and the class Asteroidea. Aside from their distinguished shape, starfish are most recognized for their remarkable ability to regenerate, or regrow, arms and, in some cases, entire bodies. While most species require the central body to be intact in order to regenerate arms, a few tropical species can grow an entirely new starfish from just a portion of a severed limb. Starfish regeneration across species follows a common three-phase model and can take up to a year or longer to complete.^[2] Though regeneration is used to recover limbs eaten or removed by predators, starfish are also capable of autotomizing and regenerating limbs to evade predators and reproduce.

Due to their wide range of regenerative capabilities, starfish have become model organisms for studying how the regenerative process has evolved and diversified over time. While the overall morphological processes have been well documented in many starfish, little is known regarding the underlying molecular mechanisms that mediate their regeneration. Moreover, some researchers hope starfish may one day serve as inspiration for therapeutics aiming to expand the extent to which humans can repair and replace damaged cells or tissues.

I wrote a story which I posted here and on Daily Kos titled "With three legal investigations into Trump there could be a different kind we don't yet know about."

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Trump's star is dimming and his perils have increased in other ways in addition to the legal jeopardy he is in. Primarily I see that as he becomes more and more extreme and unhinged he loses support among those who see him as too unstable to carry the banner for the GOP. Rational Republicans if reports are to be believed are looking to someone like DeSantis who is on their side in the culture war but doesn't espouse QAnon conspiracy nonsense and doesn't look like he's ready to be carted off to a psychiatric hospital in a strait jacket. These are people who see snippets of his long rambling rally rants and have don’t want anything to do with him. They see that his Pennsylvania rally was held for two candidates that have been considered likely losers, Doug Mastriano and Mehmet Oz. 

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They also see coverage like this (not that many of them read Salon or RawStory): 

Trump handed Democrats a "major gift" in Pennsylvania: former Republican lawmaker — "I am not so sure that the former president Trump did anyone any good with that speech," Charlie Dent says. Salon 

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 Why did Trump choose to showcase a Nazi sympathizer as Jan. 6 prisoner at Pennsylvania rally: CNN reporter asks. (RawStory)

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Do non-MAGA cult Republicans want to be associated with people that look like this?

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It is also an accidental gift to us that “rally rant” happens to be a catchy and descriptive alliteration for his speeches. Preface it with “rambling and raging” and it’s even better. 

And then there’s Dave Mathews who isn’t running for anything:

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I have friends who are at a Dave Mathews concert this Labor Day weekend for their traditional  extravganza at the beautiful Gorge Ampitheatre along the Columbia River south of Seattle where fans appreciate two hour sets by the band. It doesn't matter to fans that they play a selection of their new and old songs. I would venture a guess that you won't see a single MAGA hat among the crowd who spend the long weekend there camping out, socializing, and enjoying the music of the Dave Mathews Band and other acts. By just about every measure aside (a couple of photos here) from being members of the human race, as diverse and colorful group that Dave Mathews fans are one could say they are more highly evolved than the typical MAGA cultist. They are far removed from the throngs we see in photos and videos of those at a Trump rally. 

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At his rally in Pennsylvania Trump went on for nearly two hours reprising his old crowd pleasing favorites and adding attacks at the FBI and the DOJ for searching his house at Mar-a-Lago and seizing documents. "It was not just my home that was raided… it was the hopes and dreams of every citizen who I've been fighting for since the moment I came down the golden escalator in 2015, wanting to represent the people," he said to boos from the crowd. Of course there no mention of what was reported in HuffPost that  "Actors Reportedly (were) Hired To Cheer Trump's 2015 Campaign Launch" and covered elsewhere.

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My point, if you haven't figured it our by now, is that if each investigation into Trump's criminal behavior and everything he does to loose a significant number of his supporters can be said to represent an arm of Trump the Starfish. He can only lose a limited number of them before the central disc, that is, the core of the corpulent one, is damaged beyond regeneration.

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If this happens he becomes a like a fish in prison.  In prison slang: in men’s facilities, this is the term used for new prisoners. A fish is new to prison politics and the reality of how facilities are managed.

Addendum:

You’ve suffered through videos of Trump ranting at his rallies. Here’s a 2009 video of a solo:

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This is quite contrast with Donald Trump. Hell, without knowing anything about his political acumen I’d say he make a better president than Trump six ways from Sunday. According to this he’s “a liberal, a Democrat and he's not afraid to say it.”

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This is an except from this 2017 Hollywood Reporter article: 

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14 Hollywood Stars Who Immigrated to the U.S. and Became Citizens — Many actors and musicians who came to America from other countries are voicing their concerns over President Trump's latest travel ban.

Dave Matthews was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. At age 2, Matthews moved with his family to Westchester County, N.Y., where his physicist father took a job at IBM. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1980. 

While the singer-songwriter has said he doesn't affiliate with one particular political party — though he called Republicans "disconnected" and "nonsensical," he supported Barack Obama during his two presidential campaigns. He initially supported Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders but later helped campaign for Hillary Clinton after she became the Democratic nominee.

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Here’s a 12 minute video of the entire band performing in New York’s Central Park in 2018:

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