Unemployment claims at 53-year lows!
“This morning, we learned that new unemployment claims are now at a level not seen since 1969. America’s historic economic recovery is strong. Americans are getting back to work.” ~ President Joe Biden
JoanMar, members of Daily Kos: The dull, the ignorant, the loud, the haters, and the traitorous came for Judge Ketanji Jackson Brown this week… she who had the temerity to have put herself in the position that she could be offered the nomination to the SCOTUS, and the audacity to accept! Racial hatred, hypocrisy, and gaslighting tried their best to overshadow and overpower Black excellence, professionalism, beauty, and Black Girl Magic. Frothing, grandstanding members of a party that is home to donald-effing-trump, “Gym” Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Roy Moore, and other assorted scums-of-the-earth put on a show that was worthy of their slave-owning fore-parents.
But this is 2022 and not 1822. Amidst the sound and the fury of the criminally impotent and the reticence of the Democrats, a hero stepped forward. Nope, there’d be no lynching on his watch. This Black woman was not going to be left out there to fight all by herself. Not this time. Senator Cory Booker, who made absolutely no attempt to hide his great love and admiration for Judge Ketanji Davis Brown, would have his say...for the record.
At the end of the day, it will not be racist white men showing their racist arses that will define this hearing. It will not be the bitchiness, incoherent ramblings, and superior air of Marsha Blackburn that people will be talking about 10 years from now… Cory Booker made damn sure of that.
Senator Booker had a mission on Wednesday. He understood his assignment and he met the moment. He made the soon-to-be Justice cry, and he had me and Black women around the nation bawling our eyes out.
Transcript (done by yours truly):
You got here how every Black woman in America who has gotten anywhere has done, by being like Ginger Rogers said, “I did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards in heels.” I wanna tell you when I look at you, this is why I get emotional...I’m sorry, you’re a person that is so much more than your race and gender. You’re a Christian. You’re a mom. You are an intellect. You love books. But for me, I’m sorry...I...it’s hard for me not to look at you and not see my mom. Not to see my cousins...one of whom had to come here and sit behind you. She had to have your back! I see my ancestors and yours.
Nobody is gonna steal the joy from that woman in the streets. Or those calls I’m getting, or the texts. Nobody is gonna steal that joy. You have earned this spot. You are worthy. You are a great American. That is the story of how you got to this desk. And so you faced insults here that are shocking to me…well actually, not shocking. But you are here because of that kind of love and nobody’s taking this away from me. So you got five more folks to go through! Five more of us! And then you can sit back and let us have all the debates. And I’m gonna tell you, it’s gonna be a well-charted Senate floor. Because it’s not gonna stop. They are gonna accuse you of this and that. Heck, in honor of the person who shares your birthday, you might be called a communist! But don’t worry, my sister. Don’t worry. God has got you. And how do I know that? Because you’re here, and I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.
Today you are my star. You are my harbinger of hope. This country is getting better and better and better. And when that final vote happens and you are sent onto the highest court in the land, I’m gonna rejoice. And I’m gonna tell you right now, the greatest country in the world, the United States of America, will be better because of you. Thank you.
A thing of beauty. Thank you, Senator Booker.
The rest of her essay is damn good not bad either! Thank you, JoanMar, for allowing me to uplift you. From Friday’s Black Kos, Week In Review.
And here, JoanMar, 2 more platters of homemade, organic, free-trade dark chocolate with almonds, for you alone or to share with family and friends (and I made plenty more for readers and members of Daily Kos and Gnusies!).
Terry Gross, NPR: Crowdsourcing has created a new form of online open-source investigation, as epitomized by the group Bellingcat that was founded by my guest, Eliot Higgins, in 2014. Higgins and people affiliated with Bellingcat, while at their computers, have uncovered evidence that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fired chemical weapons at his own people, figured out who controlled territory during the Libyan civil war, identified the Russian intelligence agents alleged to have poisoned MI6 double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia and found evidence that the 22-year-old woman alleged to have stolen Nancy Pelosi's laptop on January 6 was a neo-Nazi sympathizer who used coded neo-Nazi language in a video and in that video gave the Heil Hitler salute.
And we started identifying soldiers who were in Russia who were part of a convoy where the missile launcher that shot down MH17 was transported in. We knew that convoy existed because a bunch of Russians along the route filmed it and posted it on social media, so we could reconstruct the route of the convoy, which led us back to their air defense base, the 53rd air defense base in Kursk, in Russia. And they had a page on VKontakte, which is, like, Russia's Facebook, where all the soldiers followed their own brigades. And we could then look at those soldiers' profiles and start finding photographs of them inside this convoy that transported this missile launcher.
And we were able to basically reconstruct the entire brigade structure based off their own social media posts. And that led us to finding more and more soldiers who were involved with the conflict in Ukraine, coming from Russia and actually fighting in Ukraine, even though they were serving Russian soldiers. And that was because they were posting stuff about it on their own social media profiles. So we could find photographs of them in Ukraine, use geolocation to figure out exactly where that was and then say, this is a Russian soldier from this brigade, this unit, inside Ukraine. And that extended not just to soldiers but tanks and armored vehicles and other equipment that had been sent from Russia to Ukraine, but because of the amount of kind of video documentation, you could find the same, you know, tank in Russia and then find a photograph of it a few weeks later in Ukraine with the same markings, numbering, down to the smallest scratches and dents and prove that these were Russian tanks inside Ukraine. [See original for links, which I could not copy.]
This Week, Gnuville, USA
The act of striving is in itself the only way to keep faith with life: Saturday's GNR
GoodNewsRoundup
Good News Roundup for Friday, March 25, 2022: Courage Is Contagious
chloris creator
Good News Roundup 3/24/22: And Now For Something Completely Different
MCUBernieFan
Wednesday Good News Roundup - March 23
niftywriter
We Have the Power - GNR for Bluesday March 22nd, 2022
NotNowNotEver
From the GNR Newsroom, its the Monday Good News Roundup
Jessiestaf
Sunday Good News ¤ 2 Polls: Who Won the Week? AND Have you been sanctioned yet?
2thanks
Science
Bill Bryson: “There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally, they credit the wrong person.”
Kosack lynnekz revised Bryson’s quote this way: “There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally, they credit the wrong person. Finally, they credit the man instead of the woman that did all the work!”
Our map of Gnuville: 742 of us have shared our global locations!
To leave your mark, please Reply in the comments to tljdk or the map-building comment. Please include your city and state only, NOT street number and street. (Please persist, we are volunteers.)
Image: Two maps of the United States, one above the other. The maps indicate the approximate locations of members of the Good News Roundup community in 2019 and 2021. The lower map contains many more blue pin-markers than the upper map. Upper image: A map of Gnuville from February 15, 2019 with about 50 Gnusie pins. Lower image: A map of Gnuville from March 21, 2021 with 582 pins across our orb.
If you join us regularly, are you Following us? More than 400 Kosacks Follow us.
Tech Talk for Kosacks
- Load-More Workaround (Revisions of 3/15/2022 in bold): On a desktop or laptop, to banish the Daily Kos “Load More” buttons, click this link, which opens the main Daily Kos page and shuts off the Load More buttons at the same time. You must Reload any open Daily Kos pages. After that, you’re good to go, but you may need to come back here and click that link again in a few weeks. The DK Help Desk asked me to add this: The “Load More” option also resets the user back to the display of the old-style, React comments.
- Got a Daily Kos tech question? Let us know. No question is too basic, even “What’s a Kosack?” or “What’s a Gnusie?”
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Where Ever is Herd
Morning Good News Roundups at 7 x 7: These Gnusies lead the herd at 7 a.m. ET, 7 days a week:
- The Monday GNR Newsroom (Jessiestaf, Killer300, and Bhu). With their five, we survive and thrive.
- Alternating Tuesdays: NotNowNotEver and arhpdx.
- Wednesdays: niftywriter.
- Thursdays: Mokurai the 1st, 2nd, and 5th (when there is one), WineRev the 3rd, MCUBernieFan the 4th.
- Fridays: chloris creator. Regular links to the White House Briefing Room.
- Saturdays: GoodNewsRoundup, the one and only!
- Sundays: 2thanks. A brief roundup of Roundups, a retrospective, a smorgasbord, a bulletin board, an oasis, a watering hole, a thunder of hooves, a wellness, a place for beginners to learn the rules of the veldt. For instance, we do not welcome grammar-police comments in Roundups.
Sun-High Good News Roundup: It’s a long dry trek between 7 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. ET. About half way between is noon or 1 o'clock. If you'd like to create a midday oasis post a Good News Group diary regularly at about that time, please let me know via kosmail. The team will support you. If morning is a better time for you, Mokurai says he can trade times.
hpg posts Evening Shade diaries at 7:30 p.m. ET every day! After a long day, Gnusies meet in the evening shade and continue sharing Good News, good community, and good actions. Find Evening Shades here or on the Trending List.
oldhippiedude posts Tweets of the Week on Sundays at 6 p.m. CT. Our second evening Gnusie hangout zone! In search of a TOTW diary? Look here or here or on the Trending List.
For more information about the Good News group, please see our detailed Welcoming comment, one of the first comments in our morning diaries.
The 6 R’s of the Resistance
Joe Biden is now our President. However, we continue to stay vocal and active, we continue to pull Joe to the left, and we continue resist the GQP.
- Refresh and Rest: Take care of you, the hero: Eat well, exercise, and rest.
- Resist: Protest on the streets, call senators and representatives, etc.
- Rebel: Run for office, GOTV (Get Out The Vote), support a progressive.
- Revolt: Change the laws, change the culture, build your communities.
- Rely: Trust that millions of others are fighting the good fight.
- Rejoice: Joy promotes resilience and gives rise to hope.
How to Resist: Do Something …
From chloris creator:
Indivisible has created a Truth Brigade to push back against the lies.
Propaganda, false characterizations, intentionally misleading messages, and outright lies threaten our democracy and even our lives. We can effectively combat disinformation, despite the well-funded machines that drive it. They may have money, but we have truth and we have people. People believe sources they trust. When we share and amplify unified, factual messages to those who trust us, we shift the narrative. When we do this by the thousands--we’re part of the Indivisible Truth Brigade, and we get our country back. Join us.️
Our own Mokurai is a member. You can see all Truth Brigade diaries on this page.
From GoodNewsRoundup
Most important: DON'T LOSE HOPE. This is a giant and important fight for us but, win or lose, we keep fighting and voting and organizing and spreading truth and light. We never give up.
On Daily Kos:
We welcome comments in Roundups every day regarding:
- National or local Good News.
- Links, stories, music, videos, quotes, tweets. (No tweets or images of the saffron chlamidiot, please.)
- Your resistance activity.
In my Sunday smorgasbord Roundups, I especially welcome the following types of comments:
- Who won YOUR week?
- Questions about Daily Kos tech issues or our map.
- Good News Roundups and you.
- How are you resisting?
In comments of all Roundups, we do not welcome:
Top Image: Starhawk created this diary’s top image of the rampant gnu and gave it to the members of the Good News Roundup group (Gnusies)! Thank you, Starhawk! This is a quite detailed sketch of a gnu drawn in brown, green, and black. A happy and dynamic gnu dances on its left hind leg in a classic rampant heraldric pose. Joyful letters prance above and behind the mane: “Happy Dance.” Signature: Nick Korolev, 2021.
Our Roundup is almost open!
Thank you for fighting for truth and justice with all us Gnusies! 40% of our Readers don’t visit every day, 50% of us do, and 10% are here for the first time! We all do what we can. For 4 years, we’ve shared positive news, laughed, organized, resisted, rebelled, revolted without being revolting, relied, rested, mentored, created, crossed rivers, chewed our cud, puffed methane out both ends, and laughed. Here’s looking at you, kid, and standing upwind!
As always, please share more Good News than I can find or provide.
This is a group diary, and by my power I declare this Good Gnus Salo(o)n open! Let the good-news sharing and community building begin!
Power with, not power over ❤️ ✊ ❤️
2thanks (he, him)