What good is an oath to a liar?

A couple items from Melissa McEwan of Shakesville:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the guy investigating connections to Russia, is talking to the nasty guy team about having the big guy himself talk to the investigator while under oath. The nasty guy team is in a panic. He is a liar. He will lie even while under oath. That will add perjury to his crimes. So, yeah, his lawyers are trying to make it not happen, in spite of their client’s stated enthusiasm for the idea.



McEwan does a bit of reading between the lines. Carter Page is falling under Robert Mueller’s study because Page appeared to be acting as a Russian agent. Page had been an advisor to the nasty guy’s campaign. But the GOP in Congress are trying to discredit Mueller and the investigation, and not Page.

McEwan asks an important question: Why?

The question is why, and clearly it's more than just their intransigent fealty to party above country, because, if Trump were ousted, they'd be left with Mike Pence, who is at least as partisan as Trump and probably even more so, and, beyond him, Paul Ryan.

The only conceivable answer is because they're all compromised, in one way or another.
...
If if we know one thing about Republicans, it's that they're powerfully motivated by self-interest. And it seems like they've got a compelling reason to protect themselves.

I’ll only add that McEwan has a pretty good track record of figuring out what the nasty guy is doing well before the public sees the result – a much better track record than the media talking heads. A track record good enough to make one wonder why media sources don’t give her a microphone.

Theater in Michigan

On Saturday evening I interrupted my intensive movie-going to attend a performance with live actors.

I heard that Metropolitan Detroit has the most theater seats outside Manhattan. I don’t know if it is (still) true. If it is true a big reason for our claim is the Fox Theater, which seats about 5000 (and I was there for a sold out performance of A Prairie Home Companion back in 2012).

The Detroit Metro area has a large collection of small theaters doing live shows spread across the area – Planet Ant in Hamtramck, Ringwald in Ferndale, Tipping Point in Northville, Meadow Brook in Rochester, Detroit Repertory in Detroit, and lots of others I haven’t been to yet and know very little about and even more theaters that pop up and disappear without a whole lot of notice.

There are also the big guys like the Fisher and its Broadway in Detroit, The Purple Rose in Chelsea (on the far side of Ann Arbor so maybe it doesn’t count as part of the Detroit scene), and Hilberry and Bonstelle, both part of Wayne State University.

I went to one of these small theaters on Saturday, perhaps the smallest I’ve been to. This is the Slipstream Theater Initiative in Ferndale. I think this company shares space with a couple other companies. I counted 26 seats in the performance space (we filled 19 of them) and a “stage” that is pretty small.

The play was Tales from the Mitten written by the performers Luna Alexander and Dan Johnson. The name refers to the lower peninsula of Michigan which looks like a mitten. For much longer than I’ve lived in the state when residents are asked where they live (or where their cottage is) the hold up their right hand and point. Even the area north of Port Huron and east of Saginaw is known as the Thumb.

This show is about life in the theater world in Michigan. Alexander and Johnson are playing themselves. Each scene is the two of them auditioning for roles in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of some town’s Shakespeare Festival (there really is one in Jackson). So each scene begins with Alexander arriving late for the audition and finding Johnson sitting there. I’m sure the actors had to pay close attention – now we are doing the sixth version of this dialog and it ends up here.

The rest of the scene usually doesn’t portray the actors auditioning (though in one scene they are instructed to swap the leads in Romeo and Juliet). Rather, they got caught up in some part of the audition process. Are they aiming to join Actors Equity, which would give them decent pay and benefits, but would price them out of the smallest theaters? Alexander asks the audience is this the audition where I have to decide whether the role is worth the sexual advances of the director? Johnson asks whether it is worth taking on the role written by a well-meaning white author, directed by a well-meaning white director, for the benefit of a well-meaning white audience, yet that role is riddled with offensive (or at least clueless) black stereotypes. Are they the right “type” of the part? When they are asked what they do how to deal with the reaction: An actor in *Michigan?* It’s a hobby, right? They ponder how to get bums in seats – the well known plays already done a zillion times or something new and current – while keeping their own artistic development from withering.

In between scenes we hear a voice doing takeoffs of the Pure Michigan ad campaign. In the fall Michigan has the best apple cider – which you can enjoy while creeping along the many Michigan highways because nobody has yet removed the orange barrels from the summer highway construction season.

The heart of the show is when Johnson and Alexander take turns at an audition where they are told not to act, but to tell why they got into theater. Both stories were quite touching. I’m sure they were true.

California does redistricting

Yesterday evening I attended an event put on by Voters Not Politicians, the campaign, for which I’m a presenter, trying to end gerrymandering in Michigan. This event had three people from the Citizen Redistricting Commission in California. That state did in 2008 what we are attempting to do now. These commission members told about what it was like to be a part of the first such commission in their state.

The event was held in the Troy Community Center. Troy is a suburb north of Detroit, so a bit of a commute for me (and in rush hour traffic). Their Community Center is a nice building with sports facilities (including an indoor family pool), and banquet and meeting rooms. We were in one of the meeting rooms.

Actually, we overwhelmed the meeting room. There were chairs for 120 and I think there were 180 of us there. The center wouldn’t bring in more chairs, saying we were beyond the room’s stated capacity. But they didn’t have a larger room available. So many of us, including me, stood through the program. Yes, a lot of interest in our campaign, even if the invitation went mostly to campaign volunteers.

The California redistricting commissioners serve a 10 year term, though nearly all of the activity is in the first year as they draw the maps and defend them in court. At this point they are visiting other states to explain what they did in hopes they (like us) will do the same.

In California 32,000 people applied to be on the commission. A state agency (deemed the most impartial) went through the stack and pulled out those that were capable of serving. I think that left about 60 people. The first eight members were chosen by lottery. They then chose another six that would balance the membership by region of the state, ethnicity, and perhaps a few other things. The law required there be 5 GOP, 5 Dem, and 4 independent members, with approval requiring 3 votes from each group.

They began meeting in January 2011. The first big issue was money. They were given $3 million, which they quickly figured out wasn’t enough. They’d have to be frugal. They couldn’t ask for more because everyone in the legislature didn’t want them to exist. In addition, they had to rent an office, hire staff, figure out how to function as a state agency that no state official wanted to help, decide how the group was to function, get trained in ethics, and figure out how to work with the state open meeting laws (every meeting was livestreamed and no discussions outside of meetings). They agreed to a rotating chair, and once they began having daily meetings the chair switched once a week.

So, three months to get set up. Then two months of meetings for public input. Then two more months of map drawing. Then two weeks of public comments on the completed maps, a final certification vote, then handing it all off to the Attorney General. During this time being a commissioner was a full time job.

In those two months of public meetings they listened to 2,700 people. Most of these public meetings were in places that weren’t big enough (that frugal budget thing). The average meeting length was three hours, some went as long as five. They also received 20,000 public comments, mostly emails. All of it was posted online.

Most people talked about communities of interest – we have this common thing so want to be in the same district. A community of interest was whatever the people said was important to them. This was usually such things as a school district or farmers around a common water source. One speaker told about meetings in Napa Valley. In one, grape growers wanted to be in the same district. In the next, premium grape growers said if you need to divide us, draw the line between us and the ordinary grape growers.

Communities of interest could conflict, especially around Los Angeles. It wasn’t possible to put each ethnic group into its own district. Which group got split? They decided to favor the group that would get the most benefit at a particular level of government – if grouping one way boosted the chances of a federal program then that guided how the Congressional map was drawn. Sometimes the affected groups met ahead of time and worked out a unity map showing their compromises.

It was pretty obvious that groups were trying to game the system. The big clue would be a series of speakers (or a series of emails) with exactly the same wording. Another would be one speaker ratting on another: “That previous speaker isn’t a ‘concerned citizen,’ he’s a staffer for this official.”

Even with a meager budget they hired a map company. They had to weed out those that had worked to gerrymander previous maps. The map company employees were there during meetings running the map programs under the direction of the commission members. The area under discussion displayed on a big screen (and online). Members would say what would happen if a certain line was moved two miles to the west? The map people made the change and the computer would recalculate the various statistics, such as population and ethnic makeup. The programs intentionally did not contain political party affiliation.

Various public-minded foundations helped with money, including a campaign to get more ethnic people to apply to be commissioners.

People who study district maps have declared California to be the most competitive. The new maps brought in fresh minds to the state government.

The commission is a part of the state constitution (as we are proposing in Michigan). Even so, once the new legislature was seated the commission asked for some supporting laws. These included raising the budget to $10 million and revising the timeline so the commission starts in August rather in January, giving them a year instead of less than eight months. The commission also wrote a handbook for their successors. None of the current members will be on the next commission, though they will be able to consult.

The consequences of a White House bigot

I’ve seen reports that violence against LGBT people went up last year (though I don’t have a link handy). Also over the last year, as found in a survey by GLAAD and the Harris Poll, support for LGBT Americans has gone down, the first time in four years. Within the findings people report they are less comfortable with LGBT people and less supportive of LGBT issues. In addition, fewer people identified themselves as an LGBT ally. All that means more LGBT people experienced discrimination.

All that prompted some analysis from Melissa McEwan of Shakesville. This is what we get when we put a bigot in the White House. With that:

People may declare themselves to be an ally because society expects them to. When society drops that expectation the ally falls away. A person may also be an ally when it is popular, but stop when it isn’t.

And her important point: “A public expectation of support for marginalized people matters. Hugely.” Support for us depends, in a big part, on the perception that it is unacceptable to not show support. A bigot in the White House means it is acceptable for a bigot to express and act on those bigoted views.




An important point McEwan shared on Twitter:

Reminder: You might think it matters if you seem to be smarter than most Nazis. It doesn't. What matters is that you're not meaner than most Nazis. They will do things that you will never do.

Integration test

I continued my movie attendance to fill my cultural calendar. Today’s movie was The Shape of Water. I enjoyed it, though a couple times I closed my eyes to the violence. Elisa, the main character, cannot speak, so when she communicates she does through sign language. The Amphibian Man (as listed in the credits) also cannot speak, so Elisa teaches him a few signs. Both Elisa’s friend and her co-worker interpret her signs and there is an important moment when she knows the other person does not understand her signs.



For a week now there has been a story about a classified memo that people are clamoring to have released. It supposedly documents something shocking (shocking, I tell you!) that would force the end the Mueller investigation. This is supposedly “bigger than Watergate.” Dems say it is nothing but hyped up blather.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos tells the story behind the story.

By Thursday evening a week ago this memo was all over conservative news with talking heads gushing about how damaging it was. On Friday morning came a Twitter storm with the hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo – and most of these accounts didn’t have a human behind them. GOP lawmakers used the news stories and Twitter storm as “proof” of their earlier accusations.

Sumner says it wasn’t hard to figure out the author of the memo is Rep. Devin Nunes, who has a history of trying to stir up chaos to protect the nasty guy and do so with false statements. Because Nunes wrote it rather than, say the FBI, it isn’t actually classified. GOP members call for its release – which they can do any time they want to. Which means the GOP is getting more mileage out of a document they say they can’t release than they would out of the document’s contents.

As for that Twitter storm, well the Russians have been carrying out social media tests for quite some time now. Which leads Sumner to conclude this whole episode was an integration test.

* Republicans pushed a story to traditional media, planting the seed that there was some underlying fact.

* Fox News punditry played up the importance of the story, giving it visibility on the right, and providing ominous, open-ended statements that there was more to come.

* Russian bots launched into the story in coordination with prominent social media accounts on the right, creating a “trending” story

* The apparent strength of the story in social media brought it back to the attention of traditional media, which treated both the Republican claims and the social media outcry as if there was a real demand.

The GOP, conservative news, and Russian bots will likely further integrate their coordination and will have such a system in full operation well before November's election.

Commenter The George disputes the success of this test. Russian influence was known within 12 hours. Within 72 hours Nunes was known as the author. And, most importantly, mainstream media ignored it.

But perhaps testing the technique was enough. Inflaming the base is a nice benefit.

The Oscar nominees have been announced. You can find the complete list here. I’ll mention only a few.

The gay love story Call Me By Your Name, which I saw, is nominated for best picture, for best adapted screenplay, and its young actor Timothee Chalamet was nominated for best actor in a leading role.

While a gay love story in the best picture category is wonderful, it isn’t the first gay story in the category. There was Brokeback Mountain, more about homophobia than love, and Moonlight, about growing up (with gay undertones) that won best picture last year.

Greta Gerwig is a female nominated for best director for Lady Bird, which is also up for best picture.

Jordan Peele is a black man nominated for best director for Get Out, which is also up for best picture. That movie also features Daniel Kaluuya, a black man, for best actor.

Rachel Morrison is the first female to be nominated for cinematography for Mudbound, a story about racism.

Tom of Finland, which I saw a couple days ago, is Finland’s submission for foreign language film, but did not make the final list.

Only two years ago people complained about Oscars So White.

Partisan considerations

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that the map of congressional districts is gerrymandered so much in favor of the GOP, giving their candidates 70% of the seats while getting only 50% of the votes, that it is in violation of the state constitution.

The justices demand a new map by Feb. 9. They’re quite willing to create their own by Feb. 19. They intend everything to be in place to be used for the primary election on May 15.

GOP defenders complained that the courts had never specified what constitutes unconstitutional gerrymandering. They also said it is impossible to not take partisan considerations into account.

The national Supremes recently let North Carolina off the hook while working up a ruling in the Wisconsin case. But this suit was brought under the state constitution, not the federal one. Thus, it can’t be appealed to the federal level.

This case highlights why an independent commission (what I’m working towards) is necessary. First, the highly gerrymandered map was used three times before the suit got to the state Supremes. Second, the GOP admitted it is impossible for them to make a non-partisan map.

More than a million

The Women’s March in Los Angeles drew about a half-million people. New York and Chicago combined were another half-million. Thousands in smaller marches in many other cities. I haven’t seen estimates of combined totals. In addition, there were well-behaved crowds and no Nazis.

So how much coverage was there in the Sunday morning talk shows?

20 seconds.

So tell me again that having news organizations managed by men (some of whom are accused of sexual harassment) made no difference in the last election.

Reasonable

I listened to another episode of More Perfect, stories of major cases at the Supreme Court. This one was 68 minutes.

Back in 1984 Dethorne Graham was suffering from insulin shock an acting erratically. Police roughly subdued him and cuffed him. Graham was incensed by his treatment and sued the police department for excessive force. In 1989 the case reached the Supremes.

During the hearing there was lots of talk about what the cops were doing. Justice Thurgood Marshall kept coming back to Graham. What had he done to deserve that kind of treatment? The lawyer sputtered a good long time over that question. Chief Justice William Rhenquist wrote the unanimous opinion that the cop’s behavior must be reasonable.

The case went back to the lower court with this standard in mind – and Graham lost.

And over the last couple decades every case of a cop killing an unarmed black man has used this ruling to acquit the cop.

The ruling wrapped the definition of reasonableness rather tightly. The jury can only look at the moment that prompted the cop to pull out the gun. In that exact moment – such as the suspect reaching into a pocket and pulling out … something – was the cop acting reasonably in opening fire?

This standard is now being challenged and various Circuit Courts have come to different conclusions. Rhenquist’s ruling also had a tiny bit about looking at the total situation. So far the Supremes haven’t taken a case that might resolve the differences.

One challenge to this ruling says that if a cop was afraid because he claims the suspect was drawing a gun – there had better be a gun. If not, then the cop goes to jail.

Another challenge is over that little bit about the total situation. And one important piece that Marshall hammered at: Did the suspect deserve to die for what he did?

I had a couple related thoughts. The episode featured a cop who was scared of the suspect, so shot him. Would that cop have been so scared if the suspect was white? One of the cases mentioned in this episode was Tamir Rice, the pre-teen who was carrying a toy gun. Why did the cop shoot him on sight and not even bellow out “DROP THAT!” Why didn’t the cop take a couple seconds to determine if there was a threat right now?

Troubleshooting guide

Susan Grigsby, writing for Daily Kos, laments out Constitution doesn’t have an appendix with a troubleshooting guide. Many instruction manuals have a place to look when things don’t work as intended. But we don’t have one for our democracy. What should we do when Congress refuses to do the checks and balances on the Executive? What steps to take when Congress refuses to do its job (that financial stuff, which this shutdown is all about, should have been handled by October 1st with an actual budget). What’s the remedy when extreme wealth creates historic levels of inequality and control of the media? What steps should we take when perjury charges should be brought against Cabinet secretaries and aren’t? What’s the plan when gerrymandering is so bad the vote can’t be the remedy? Sure wish we had that troubleshooting guide. Or a reset button.

Strong and virile and uninhibited

Mention the name Touko Laaksonen and you’ll get a lot of blank looks. Mention Tom of Finland and the eyes of gay men (of a certain age) will light up. My second movie of the weekend was a the bio-pic Tom of Finland.

I went to Cinema Detroit to see it. Normally, when I go for a matinee I walk directly to the box office and have a wide choice of seats. Not this time. There was a line at the box office. And most seats in the 90 seat theater were taken. All but a handful were gay men. And I didn’t see any youngsters learning about gay history.

The movie starts with Touko as a Lieutenant in the Finnish Army in WWII. He learns which other men in his outfit are also gay – and that includes his commanding officer. After the war, Touko still has a hard time because gays are frequently assaulted and that includes by the police. Touko has artistic talent and gets a job in and advertising company.

But it is the art he draws for himself and a small circle of friends that helps him get through daily life. This art is of gay men, strong and virile and uninhibited – gay and proud. Many are in leather or in uniform or in the clothes of masculine occupations.

Touko finds a lover, who urges him to get his pictures published. They do find a publisher – in Los Angeles. Touko becomes Tom of Finland.

In America the art is appreciated. Doug is able to meet Jack because Jack has one of Tom’s pictures in his gym locker and Doug is able to show he has one too. Doug becomes Tom’s American agent.

The year of any particular event isn’t identified. I kept wondering how much time had passed. Though the year was obvious when we got to the start of the AIDS epidemic.

Tom is indeed celebrated because his art showed it was OK to be gay.

I first encountered the art of Tom of Finland probably back in the 1980s. I paged through one of his books in a bookstore. At the time I didn’t feel comfortable enough being gay to actually buy the book and take it home. It was too risky and risque. To see some of his art for yourself just go to Amazon and search for Tom of Finland books. The covers will show enough.

I’m delighted that this movie is Finland’s entry to the 2018 Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Gays in Finland are treated a whole lot better today than they were after WWII.

Women’s marches, round 2

There was a big article in the Detroit Free Press last Sunday about another round of women’s marches on the anniversary of the Women’s March on Washington a year ago. The paper listed a couple marches in Michigan, but Lansing felt too far away (though I’m quite aware it isn’t really) and Marquette is too far away.

Yesterday, I saw a link to the national website and checked if locations had been added. Several had been. The closest was probably the march in Windsor, Ontario, but that carried a few too many complications. Next closest was Ann Arbor in the diag of the University of Michigan.

So I went. I got there plenty early and walked around a bit and watched people gather. The weather was sunny with temps in the upper 30s F. Though the event was set to start at 2:00 the podium stayed empty until about 2:10. First up were three Native American women with their songs of welcome and blessing. Alas, they showed a deficiency of the sound system, which picked up their drums quite well, but wasn’t as good as picking up their voices. Then came a three person band with guitars and protest songs. Their sound setup was much better.

The speakers started at about 3:00. I didn’t keep track of all who spoke. I’ll just mention a few.

The first was a Muslim woman from Sudan who is a student at U of M. She decried all those who wanted her to fit in their prescribed boxes. But she doesn’t fit – being a black Muslim defied expectations. She said she doesn’t want to and shouldn’t have to fit in defined boxes.

A couple politicians spoke, remarking on the resistance of the last year and the work still to be done. Don’t look at the crowd and think we’ve got this. The march – and your involvement – must continue until at least November.

A speaker told her story of being a survivor of domestic violence. After suffering a few years of abuse she left. Her ex-husband began stalking her. He’s now in jail and threatening to kill her and her children as soon as he gets out. She talked about domestic violence statistics and the work that needs to be done. She made an important point: We should be teaching our youth the red flags of abuse. She wished she had known them before she married this guy. He surely showed signs ahead of time that she didn’t know how to recognize.

An Asian woman talked about how she is seen as little more than a sex symbol. To many men Asian women are sexy, more so than white women, and that sexy part is all these men see.

The crowd size was pretty good, a nice turnout. Here’s an attempt at a wide-angle view of the crowd:

Close to 4:00 I decided I was getting too cold, even though there were only two more speakers.

Daily Kos has several posts (five so far – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about events elsewhere across the country. These posts include photos. Estimates of crowd size say many exceeded last year’s events. A few that look to be quite large are New York, Asheville, NC, Washington, DC, Cincinnati, and Austin. The march in Missoula, MT was led by indigenous women. I rarely read Kos comments, though I did this time to see more pictures.

There was a table at the Ann Arbor event to allow people to make their own signs. I didn’t make one, though I enjoyed reading the signs around me, some of them quite clever. Here are a few I saw in person and online:

A certain person seems to exhibit all of the seven deadly sins.

“I’ve seen smarter cabinets at Ikea.”

“Does this ass [photo of the nasty guy] make my country look small?”

Held by a child: “I said ‘s**thole’ and lost privileges for a week!”

“Elect a clown, expect a circus.”

No need to be hasty

A federal court ruled that the Congressional districts in North Carolina were drawn for partisan advantage and must be redrawn. The state’s GOP appealed to the Supremes, who said, well you don’t need to do it now.

The lower court required an acceptable map be produced by the end of the month so that it could be used in electing representatives next November. With the hold from the Supremes, this year’s election will likely use the gerrymandered map.

As disappointing as that is to hear, the Supremes have a reason. They heard a gerrymandering case from Wisconsin and accepted one from Maryland. Wisconsin was told they didn’t have to redraw the maps until their case is decided (likely in June). If Wisconsin doesn’t have to draw their map until then, North Carolina doesn’t either.



The nasty guy’s administration is back to handing out licenses to discriminate. To make that easier a “division of conscience and religious freedom” has been created within the Office for Civil Rights in the US Health and Human Services Agency.

So the civil rights this office is to uphold are those of healthcare workers, not patients. And the standard for care is religious belief, not medicine. We know quite well who they intend to target.

A driving motivation is malice

The nasty guy was inaugurated a year ago tomorrow. That has prompted Melissa McEwan of Shakesville to express her thoughts of the first 365 days of the nasty guy’s reign. She begins by saying:

One of the driving motivations of Trump's presidency has been breaking the federal government.

Breaking it by choosing to lead federal departments people who don't believe in the objectives of those departments, like Betsy DeVos. Breaking it by choosing to lead federal departments people who have no qualifications to lead those departments, like Rick Perry. Breaking it by ensuring no career bureaucrats with experience and decency would want to work for it anymore. Breaking it by creating warfare with intelligence agencies. Breaking it by wanton deregulation. Breaking it with ineptitude and malignity and laziness and corruption. Breaking it by starving it of resources. Breaking it intentionally.

Another driving motivation is malice. He is breaking the government so that it can’t serve the people, only him.

But perhaps a silver lining? Nope. Lots of people are crediting the nasty guy with the huge number of women running for office, for people waking up to politics, or the resistance. McEwan answers:

I believe the nation's first female president would have inspired more women to run for office, too, without the debasement of women as a cost of that increased engagement. I have no gratitude to people only waking up to politics now, when the republic is dangling on the edge of a f***ing cliff. And everything good about the resistance existed long before Donald Trump.
…
I refuse to breathe life into any narrative that credits Trump for anything of value that existed long before his presidency or would have happened, anyway, with far less collateral damage.

As for his accomplices in Congress – written on the day that something better happen or the government will be shut down – McEwan answers a question posed by, and quotes from, Damian Paletta and Erica Werner of the Washington Post: Can the GOP govern?

No. That has been apparent for a very long time.

And of course a big part of the reason they can't govern is because they don't want to govern. Governance is fundamentally at odds with destruction, and the Republican Party has become very explicitly a party committed to destroying the government.
...
Congressional Republicans spent most of 2017 trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act and passing their disgusting tax bill, "spending little time focused on how to pay the government's bills this year." Senate Republicans aren't even "expected to vote on a budget resolution at all this year, a move that would have been unthinkable in recent years, as they said it was a cornerstone of good governing."

What do you mean by “facts”?

Fusion GPS did some research on the nasty guy and compiled a dossier (I don’t have a good summary at the moment). The leaders of the effort were Glenn Simpson a former journalist, and Christopher Steele, a (former?) British spy. The two were hauled before the Senate Intelligence Committee,, where the GOP members did all they could to obstruct. The House Intelligence Committee took a turn. This time Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) took charge and brought into the open lots of breadcrumb trails for investigators to follow.

A person with the Twitter handle The Hoarse Whisperer read through the transcript of the testimony (so we don’t have to) and created a Twitter thread of what he found. Here are a few items.

There was a bit of GOP nonsense as Trey Gowdy opened with the question: “What did you mean when you used the word ‘facts’?”

But onward. It seems Russian mobsters were laundering money through condos and golf courses owned by the nasty guy. This is quite important because those golf courses don’t actually make money.

It also seems the nasty guy isn’t rich. His basic source of income is a trust set up by his father. Not a surprise he didn’t release tax forms.

His business skill is so bad that by the mid 1990s no American finance company would lend to him. So he would get pre-sales, commitments to buy units in the new buildings. Many of these were from Russians with money to launder. With a good percentage of a building already sold, financing was easier to get. But once the financing was in hand many of those pre-sales disappeared. And the deal went into bankruptcy.

The motive isn’t profit

How independent is our news media? Sarah Kendzior studies authoritarian regimes, so is paying close attention to the nasty guy. Stories are now leaking out that some highly important news did not appear before the election. Kendzior tweeted:

During the presidential campaign:

* WSJ killed op-ed on Trump's mafia ties
* Multiple outlets, most notably NYT, lied about Trump's Kremlin ties and FBI investigation after being briefed on them
* Multiple outlets killed Trump porn star and hush money stories

Those are just the stories on Trump we *know* were killed. There are likely more.
…
In August 2016, I wrote a thread on the sycophantic Trump coverage, which worked *against* any financial incentive the media had. When that happens in a struggling industry, ask why.

In January 2017, I wrote a thread on NYT pro-Trump propaganda. This is only one example; NYT is still doing this. Ask why an outlet would work against both the truth *and* their bottom line.

What is the motive? It's not profit. Most voters didn't vote for Trump. Most people do not support KKK. Many cancel subscriptions in protest.

When media outlets write misleading headlines that alienate their audience and affect revenue -- as a bigoted autocrat rises -- take notice. It's bad enough when media promotes bigotry and authoritarianism for ratings. But lack of financial incentive implies worse factors in play.

Had the nasty guy worked out some combination of threats and bribes to get the campaign and administration coverage he wants? Was our news media compromised well before last year’s election?

Multiple fires

My social calendar for the rest of January is light. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is doing Pops concerts and other things I’m not interested in (that will change in February with their French festival where I’ll attend 5 concerts in 3 weeks at the same time the Olympics are on). So I’ve got a list of movies to see and I’m aiming for two a week. Last week was Coco (when the story is about a boy wanting to be a musician what’s not to like?) and Bombshell (which I discussed here).

Today I saw Wonder, about a boy with a disfigured face. I enjoyed it very much. It is more than the boy overcoming adversity. I thought it filled in all the main characters pretty well. And the boy, when he is among people who know him, is a pretty cool kid.

As for the second movie this week – check back in a couple days.



Last week residents of Hawaii were given a big scare when the emergency alert system said a ballistic missile was headed to the islands and they had 15 minutes to seek shelter. An agonizing 38 minutes later they were told the announcement was false. News reports said someone had pushed the wrong button.

The American news hasn’t said much about a similar false alert in Japan. Two such incidents in one week in places with a common enemy? People, including Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, are now saying this probably isn’t a coincidence. Someone (and a good guess who) is meddling with the warning systems. The claims that a worker pushed the wrong button may be a cover for something much more dire.



Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, thinking about budget authorization needed by tomorrow, tweeted:

Quick timeline: Last year POTUS actually says “we need a good shutdown.” Then, DACA is revoked. Then, CHIP expires. Then, no deal on budget. Republicans set multiple fires that they cannot put out. We are willing to work with them, but it’s impossible when they act this crazy.

Michigan’s LGBT newspaper Between the Lines, by way of the Washington Blade, has a good story about Danica Roem, the first openly transgender legislator, in her first day as a member of Virginia’s House of Delegates.

Fear and legacy

Michelle Allison is, according to her Twitter page, a dietitian in Toronto and is half American and half Canadian. She wrote a Twitter essay that caught my attention because she succinctly asks a question to which I’ve been proposing to answer for quite a while.

Why, in a supposedly egalitarian democratic society that is quite hierarchical and unequal, would those resting near the very top of the hierarchy (largely white, male technophiles) be the ones clamoring for more? Why are the Thiels of the world, for one e.g., obsessed with upending the (barely functioning) democratic institutions that extend to the rest of us a tiny, imperfect modicum of liberty in favour of an explicitly autocratic vision that would have us be serfs and slaves? Like WHY do the people who have EVERYTHING in the current system, WHY must their shitty futuristic fantasy influence an election, when there are tons of people who have more ethically defensible visions of a future with expanded rights and equality for all people? Why do the people who have it all, who live on the bleeding edge of technological advancement, contribute in massively influential ways to our culture, who are massively financially rewarded, NEED EVEN MORE? To the point of doing away w/ enlightenment ideals and democracy itself?

I’m pretty sure the phrase “the Thiels of the world” refers to Peter Thiel. I had to look him up and, of course, found a Whkipedia page on him. He has a husband. He started PayPal, so is rich, worth about $2.6 billion. He is a devout Libertarian (a viewpoint I summarize as: I’ve got mine, too bad you don’t have yours) and a strong monetary supporter of GOP candidates. He wrote the book The Diversity Myth criticizing political correctness and multiculturalism and claiming it dilutes academic rigor. So, yeah, we know what kind of guy he is.

I would offer a different perspective on Allison’s question of why do people who have everything need even more. In my understanding it isn’t that they want more, it’s that they want us to have less. They want to make sure the chasm between their more and our less cannot be crossed.

Back to Allison and her question…

I’ve been answering her question with my understanding of ranking, the belief that there should be a hierarchy in society with men over women, white over black, straight over gay, Christian over non, rich over poor, etc. Though we are taught to rank it is something the human brain accepts quiet easily. Ranking is a strong force – people are willing to go so far as to kill to protect their rank in society.

Allison may supply a reason why ranking is such a strong force: we’re totally freaked out about death.

It seemed impossible to understand, and then my index card reminded me: because when you can't navigate your fear of death, can't even SEE it, nothing is ever enough. You can reach the top of the existing hierarchy and at the end of it, you're still human, still going to die.

Thiel is terrified of dying, openly invests in technologies that offer immortality. The neoreactionary platform has several literal immortality mechanisms baked in: futuristic AI, the technological singularity, transhumanism. It's The Highlander all over again. Nerds.

But the current system doesn't offer as direct a path as they would like to this glorious, immortal future--even though it's the one the rest of us need (and need to fight tooth and nail to expand, given how un-egalitarian it actually is) in order to have any rights at all. They've climbed to the top of the shitty hierarchy we currently have, that is at least democratic in name, and now demand an even less democratic, more hierarchical system. Because even though they have every systemic advantage a human can have, they're still not quite immortal.

The antidote to this is MORE democracy and egalitarianism, not less, and the hierarchical structure of our current system is what enabled these people to climb to the top and ram through their vision of an even less equal future, while others fought and died to have basic rights. If you give people a ladder to climb to be nearer the gods, they will climb up it, realize the gods are still not near enough, then set the thing on fire until it consumes them like a pyre. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, except usually the ladder is made of other people. I don't believe in immortality, and I don't consent to being a burnt offering. That's all.

I also had to look up The Highlander. It is a 1986 movie about immortal Scottish warriors.

I’ve read about this fear of death in one other area. John Shelby Spong, retired Episcopal bishop, wrote about the fear of death in his book Why Christianity Must Change or Die. I bought the book at a convocation of LGBT people in the United Methodist Church and read it maybe 7 or 8 years ago.

Spong worked from the theory that fear of death underlies all religion. Even in modern culture, where the hold of the church has lessened, our societal mental health is still strongly influenced by our fear of death.

I’ve just experienced six family deaths in just over two years. Death is indeed on my mind a lot. But should we fear it? Christians say there is a life after death that is glorious! Why would we fear it? I roundly reject an afterlife of Hell – a loving God would not condemn us to that. If He did, He wouldn’t be loving. Is our fear of death a sign we don’t trust the promise of an afterlife? Atheists say there is nothing after life, so again nothing to fear.

There is a scenario that does make me fearful – something catastrophic is about to happen and within a few minutes I won’t exist in this world anymore. An example is the 1986 space shuttle disaster in which the rocket engines exploded yet the crew likely didn’t die until the orbiter hit the water a few minutes later. A modern scenario would be hearing about an incoming nuclear missile (what Hawaii erroneously heard last week). So let me die in my sleep.

Again, back to Allison…

She describes “immortality projects,” which she defines as attempts to “leave a legacy” or belief systems that offer the possibility of some form of afterlife. One aspect is various aspects of culture are immortality projects because the objects or ways of doing things endure beyond a single human’s lifespan.

The immortality projects that fascinate me, however, are the ones that create systems of inequality, and use the strategic oppression and marginalization of a group of people as the foundation upon which those who think of themselves as superior can stand and reach for eternity. … I just know that the part where some people get shit on and other people get a path to heroism and leave a legacy is what interests me.

But maybe it isn’t the fear of death but the fear of living a life without much consequence. How much of a legacy do we leave that touches more than our our family? Will those in the future know us beyond our names in a genealogy database or on a headstone? Does anyone alive know anything about any of my great-grandfathers? The last one died when I was five. Did any of them change much in history?

And what will be my legacy? Will anyone read my writings or play my music even a decade after I’m gone?

I’ve been saying ranking is strong enough to prompt people to kill and otherwise make the lives of those below them in the hierarchy quite miserable. Allison is saying the fear of death prompts people to attempt to scramble to the top of the hierarchy in hopes of creating a legacy that will live beyond them. Is being taught about hierarchy (a teaching that happens constantly) strong enough to make us killers? Is the fear of death and a need to leave a legacy that strong?

I’ll be pondering this for a while.

Some Norwegian ideas

There has been a lot of press about the nasty guy’s profane comments about immigrants from Haiti and Africa (and his comments are profane even if the expletive is left out). The nasty guy said why don’t we get more immigrants from Norway?

The response from Norway: Why would we want to come?

Norway is the happiest country in the world. Also one of the richest. They have an egalitarian society that strives to give everyone equal opportunities regardless of ethnic, gender, and social background. The social safety net is generous, including parental leave. Higher education is free, healthcare too. Every political party promotes liberal values and human rights.

Norway’s people may not want to go to America. But America would do a lot better letting in some Norwegian ideas – such as the idea of a woman as head of government.

Daily Kos regular Bill in Portland, Maine found this little comparison:

In Norway, elections are 74% government funded, Political advertising on TV and radio is banned, and voter turnout is 81%.

In the US, elections are 80% funded by corporations and the super-wealthy, much of it for negative TV and radio advertising, and voter turnout is 48%.

Time for the USA to make a change.

Do it for the chocolate

Our warming planet likely means flooded New York City, more fires and mudslides near Los Angeles, and millions of migrants when sea levels rise or drought turns an area into an unlivable desert. The world needs our help.

You don’t do it for the hordes of migrants? Don’t do it polar bears? Sigh.

At least do it for the chocolate.

Yeah, chocolate may become a victim of global warming. The sensitive cacao plant grows only in rainforest areas in a narrow band about 20 degrees north and south of the equator. Temperature, rain, and humidity need to be fairly constant through the year. Half of our chocolate comes from Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana in West Africa. The cacao crop could be severely damaged if global warming makes the area too hot or too dry. The threat is real enough that cacao may go extinct by 2050. The University of California with the Mars candy company are exploring what to do about it.

Mars is working on two fronts. The first is reducing the carbon footprint of itself and its suppliers. The second is to try to create a stronger cacao plant through genetic engineering.

Constitutional protection but no amendment

I listened to a couple more episodes of the series More Perfect, stories about the Supremes.

The first one was related to the Citizens United case I wrote about yesterday. The show’s staff put on a 35 minute debate about the First Amendment and did it in two parts. The first part was about the Amendment itself. I’m not sure who the main debaters are – I thought there were two debaters in each of two parts, but the episode’s webpage lists only three names. One side pushed hard on how do we shut down the Nazis? Perhaps we declare their speech to be harmful. The other side presented his view succinctly and in a way that would please my friend and debate partner: Would you want the nasty guy’s minions deciding what speech was harmful?

The second part was should Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to ban hateful speech? They aren’t government, so the Constitution doesn’t directly apply. On one side was a black man who wanted to shut down Nazi groups. His opponent raised a number of points:

* Banning objectionable content is really hard to do. Algorithms cannot distinguish between users spouting hate speech and users trying to counter hate speech. Humans taking on those jobs have to deal with users who report “objectionable” content because they want to shut down people with whom they disagree. It seems we lose as many speakers on our side as we banish from their side. And under the current systems, there is no appeal.

* If algorithms were developed to accurately shut down hate speech sites, it wouldn’t take long for government or other outsiders to say: Here’s our definition of hate speech. Use it.

* It is much better to engage with those with opposing views rather than ban them (another point my friend likes to make). An audience member added to this one. He changed some pretty conservative views because someone engaged with him through social media. The black debater responded: I’m tired of having to educate white people. Gay people are tired of having to educate straight people. Women are tired of having to educate men.

This debate didn’t discuss what I see is an important part of First Amendment discussions, though the black debater alluded to it. What do we do about speech that is downright harmful? This is speech that is so damaging or so relentless that the receiver cannot respond and whose only option is to get off social media – then call their therapist for an emergency visit.

The debate also didn’t get into fake news or into Russian meddling through social media.



The second episode, almost an hour, was about women’s rights. In the mid 1970s the Equal Rights Amendment was making the rounds of the states. But it was ratified in only 35 of needed 38 states. It failed. So perhaps there was a way to given women constitutional rights without a constitutional amendment?

Up to this point the 14th Amendment and its Equal Protection clause was understood to refer to race – and nothing else. Racial discrimination cases were examined with strict scrutiny – those who created a discriminatory law had better have a very good reason for it. But sex discrimination cases didn’t have to meet that standard. A state bans female lawyers because a courtroom is no place for a lady? Fine with us.

Before Ruth Bader Ginsberg was a Supreme Court Justice, she was the head of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. And she was looking for the perfect case to take to the Supremes to suggest the 14th Amendment covered women.

She found it in a case from Oklahoma. Females could buy beer starting at the age of 18 but males had to wait to the age of 21. Yes, the guys were being discriminated against. But, said Ginsberg, even laws that discriminated against men was based on inaccurate stereotypes of women. Even so, the case would validate the idea that sex discrimination of any kind should receive the same scrutiny as racial discrimination.

Ginsberg made two shrewd moves. First, she had a local lawyer actually argue the case before the Supremes. She coached him on the points to make that would build the foundation for what she wanted (also: this is a gender case because if you use the word “sex” the men of the Supremes will have only one thought). He was enough of a bigot that he didn’t want to work with her, though he did incorporate her points. He was out of his depth and floundered before the justices. Ginsberg expected that.

Second, she wrangled one of her other cases to be heard directly following the beer case. For this one she did the arguing. The justices were sufficiently annoyed with the floundering lawyer that they took time out of the second case so that Ginsberg could explain what she wanted out of the first one. Yeah, an incompetent man followed by a competent woman.

And she won. She got the Supremes to establish that the “all persons” of the 14th Amendment included women.

Prompt disclosure of expenditures

Radiolab continues its More Perfect series on stories about the Supremes. Perhaps the most important and most consequential case out of that court in the last decade was Citizens United, which dealt with campaign finance. This program takes an hour to explain the background and effects of the case. A couple things from the program:

* When the case was heard in 2009 Justice David Souter wrote a stinging dissent explaining why Citizens United’s position of unregulated campaign finance should be rejected. On the last day of the court’s term in June that year everyone was expecting to hear the ruling on this case. Instead, two things happened: Souter retired (which had been announced earlier), and, something that rarely happens, the remaining justices announced the Citizens United case would be reheard in the fall. Because Souter’s dissent isn’t in the actual ruling we won’t know what he wrote until he decides to release his papers or maybe not until 50 years after his death (he is still alive).

* Justice Anthony Kennedy sided with conservatives to say there should be no limit to campaign spending by corporations because money is necessary to disseminate free speech. The imbalance between a huge pot of money on one side and very little on the other side isn’t a problem because there should be full disclosure of the source of the money. From the ruling (as condensed by Wikipedia):

... prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are "in the pocket" of so-called moneyed interests... This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.

Except that didn’t happen. Those disclosure laws were either gutted on never enacted.

Half the story

We’ve been hearing several news stories of big corporations announcing that because of the big tax cut law see what we’re doing for our employees! Be highly skeptical. They are, after all, praising a GOP law. Parker Molloy used Twitter to show a couple examples of the half of the story these corporations have mostly kept out of the spotlight.

* Walmart issues big bonuses and raises its minimum pay to $11/hour! Sam’s Club, a subsidiary, closed dozens of stores and laid of thousands of workers. Walmart is laying off thousands of co-managers. The Walmart bonuses only go to employees with 20 or more years of service. And that pay raise is only because Target increased pay to its workers. And if your state already mandates at least $11/hour you won’t see anything more.

* Comcast handed out $1000 bonuses! Comcast laid off hundreds of workers just before Christmas. AT&T did the same – both bonuses and layoffs.

And all those people laid off from such places there is no such thing a severance pay.

One reply to Molloy said, “It's almost like these companies are participating in a massive PR effort to convince people corporate tax cuts are good, and the media is willingly going along with it.”

Stand still and look stupid

I was at the Detroit Institute of Arts this afternoon. I first went to the special exhibit of paintings by Claude Monet and Frederic Edwin Church. There were less than a dozen Monet paintings from early in his career. My favorite was of his wife and son standing on the crest of a windy hill. The Church part, which ends Sunday (the Monet part stays open for another month), focuses his travels around the Mediterranean in the late 1860. Many items on display are quick studies done when he traveled to various sites. He did some full scale works when he returned to America. The most eye-catching is his view of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives in which the Temple Mount is bathed in bright light (yeah, a lot of religious symbolism there). He also painted a few artificial scenes in which Greek ruins and Crusader castles and perhaps a few other time periods are jumbled together. We’re told his point is that civilizations crumble. My favorite Church painting is displayed prominently in the DIA, though was not part of this exhibit. It is his painting of the eruption of the Cotopaxi volcano.

After lunch in the cafe I visited the two galleries for temporary exhibits. One had images of homes from fanciful to cute to decrepit. The photo gallery had a series on Detroit Hip-Hop artists (I’ve heard of Eminem, but none of the others).

Then on to the Detroit Film Theater and the documentary, Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. It begins with a quote from Lamarr, “Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” He movie starts in her native Austria where she is seen as smart. She noticed that when she entered a room she turned heads. So by age 16 she tried for the movie business. In 1938 she fled Austria, less because of the Nazis and more because of her first husband – she got tired of being the ornament on his arm.

So off to Hollywood, where she was known as “the most beautiful woman in the world.” It was a curse more than a blessing. Playing roles just because she was beautiful was never enough and her career was rocky. When not acting (such as when she was supposed to be sleeping) she used her smarts to invent things. One was a design for an airplane wing for Howard Hughes. The big one was a frequency hopping system to prevent Germans from jamming American torpedoes. The Navy dismissed the idea because it came from a beautiful woman. That technology is now a core piece of WiFi, Bluetooth, cell phones and several other technologies. Lamarr never got paid for her idea. We still don’t allow smart and beautiful women to reach their full potential.

A moron v. a criminal

There has been a storm of commentary following the release of the book *Fire and Fury* by Michael Wolff. It describes how chaotic the White House is with an incompetent staff and child-like president. The nasty guy has denounced the book, denounced Steve Bannon who said not very nice (but accurate) things about his former boss, and declared he is a “stable genius.”

Sarah Kendzior studies authoritarian regimes and sees how this one follows the script. She says that even while it portrays the nasty guy in really bad light, it is useful to him. Being a moron means he couldn’t have knowingly committed a crime.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville notes that only now, almost a year into the nasty guy’s reign, the political media is beginning to talk about how he is psychologically unfit. This talk of mental illness annoys her. It is offered as an excuse for him being a terrible person. Why aren’t we talking about his personality? Why are we using mental illness to excuse the terrible things he does?



Senator Diane Feinstein released Glenn Simpson’s full testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the “Trump dossier” and its relationship to Russian meddling and the nasty guy’s possible collusion. I’m not going to wade into that mess, at least not today. I’ll only mention one of the nasty guy’s responses on Twitter:

The single greatest Witch Hunt in America continues. There was no collusion, everybody including the Dems knows there was no collusion, & yet on and on it goes. Russia & the world is laughing at the stupidity they are witnessing. Republicans should finally take control!

McEwan’s response, also on Twitter:

"Republicans should finally take control!" What can this mean, exactly, when Republicans already hold the executive and legislative branches, and there's a conservative majority on the Supreme Court? The only thing it *can* mean is that Trump wants Democrats entirely disempowered. And let's be clear about what that is: It's the United States president calling for the end of democracy.

Back in the early 1980s the Republican National Committee was accused by Democrats in engaging in various activities the Dems said were voter suppression, a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Rather than going to trial the RNC agreed to a court enforceable consent decree. If the RNC violated the decree it would be held in contempt of court. Punishment would be quick. Dems were very good at reminding the RNC of this threat.

In 2009 a federal judge limited the decree to eight more years. If the Dems don’t come forward in that time with evidence the decree is lifted.

Though the nasty guy’s campaign talked of voter suppression (of GOP voters) a judge determined the RNC was not involved, so the decree was allowed to expire on December 1st.

Which means there is no decree if the nasty guy uses the RNC for suppression of Dem voters in the next election. Dems could still open a new case, but that could take years.

This case was about the RNC doing voter suppression. It wasn’t about state legislatures implementing laws with the same effect and probably doesn’t include whatever the nasty guy and his Department of Homeland Security cook up.



I write frequently about ranking, the widespread belief that there is and should be a hierarchy to society with straight white Christian men on top. I hear and read lots about the effects of ranking – racism, misogyny, homophobia, and all the rest – but very little about the overall concepts behind them. Here’s an example that does. Michel Martin, weekend host of All Things Considered talked to La June Montgomery Tabron of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Tabron said:

For us, it starts with the belief of a hierarchy based on human value. And what we believe is this belief has been rooted in all of us - is conscious and unconscious. And what we believe is, through dialogue, you can shift that belief. And once you eliminate this belief in the hierarchy of human value, then you can begin to treat all of us as one humanity and create policies and systems that support everyone in the country.

Americas!

I didn’t know there is such a thing as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. It is a part of the Organization of American States and nearly every country in North, Central, and South America is a member, though Trinidad and Tobago has withdrawn. The court responds to human rights issues brought to it by member states.

This court is in the news because it issued a decision ordering member nations to legally recognize same-sex families and transgender people. The ruling explains the word “family” has evolved and now includes those with different genders and sexual orientations.

Because same-sex couples have historically been oppressed, separate but equal substitutes, such as civil unions, is not sufficient. Yes, some people oppose same-sex marriage for religious reasons, but in democratic societies there should be a mutually peaceful coexistence between the secular and religious.

Transgender people must be given the same dignity and respect as everyone else. Transgender people should be allowed to change their name, gender, and photograph on identity documents.

Costa Rica brought the case, saying do we really have to give property rights to same-sex couples? Do we really have to allow transgender people to update identity documents? Costa Rica has said they will comply with the ruling.

This ruling sets a precedent for all countries in the OAS. 19 of these countries do not yet have marriage equality. Each country must apply the ruling to itself, so this could take a while. Even so, it is a massive LGBT victory in the Americas.

Gov’t screws up, citizens accused

The nasty guy and his minions are becoming well known for their cruelty. Here is, alas, another example. And this one is quite vile.

Way back in March Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, Cassandra that she is, gave a warning back in March. The nasty guy and his minions had already tried the Muslim travel ban (perhaps twice by then). McEwan, always perceptive about what the nasty guy is doing, said that illegal immigration may have been the focus then, but legal immigration would also be a target. The nasty guy and his supremacist buddies don’t like *any* immigration – certainly not after they or their parents arrived.

There is a new Operation Janus run jointly by the Department of Justice and US Citizen and Immigration Services to revoke citizenship of those already naturalized. The process of getting citizenship is long and complicated and requires lots of forms over several years. It is easy (and likely routine) for some little detail to go wrong, such as fingerprints not getting filed the right way, or any one of the myriad steps that overloaded humans along the way must handle. And now the nasty guy’s minions are now saying if the whole process wasn’t perfectly pristine this is evidence that citizenship was obtained fraudulently. And that’s grounds for revoking the citizenship and leaving a person exposed to deportation.

It’s likely that a pristine application process is rare. A lot of people are going to get screwed. Citizens will be blamed when government employees aren’t perfect. Which, McEwan reminds us, according to the minions, that not a bug, that’s a feature.

Commenters remind us that this is the same tactic used to purge voter rolls.

In case you aren’t up on your Greek mythology, Cassandra had the gift of accurate prophecy but cursed so that no one believed her. McEwan has claimed that title because her predictions of the nasty guy have been pretty accurate, yet it seems no one believes her.

A new voice

Holden Madagame is a transgender man. He’s also starting a career an opera singer. But those two have a hard time fitting together. He did a great deal of voice study as a mezzo-soprano before his transition. When he realized he needed to transition he faced a dilemma. What would taking testosterone do to his budding career? Would he have to choose between a career and feeling comfortable in his own body? But he was feeling so bad trapped in the wrong gender he wasn’t singing anyway. A teacher at University of Michigan encouraged him to go for it. So he started the transition. He now has a tenor voice good enough to sing professionally. He had a lot of work to get used to the new voice, though that was helped a lot by what he had already learned – breath control, diction, languages, stagecraft, and how to practice. Someday he’ll be known as Holden the tenor, though for now he is Holden the transgender tenor, a role model for younger transgender singers.

Experiencing diversity

Huntington Woods is a suburb north of Detroit. The Huntington Woods Library, similar to many libraries across the country, holds story time for little kids. Someone comes in and reads a book to them. The Huntington Woods Library story time will be much more interesting in January and February – the readers will be drag queens. The library’s Youth Services Director Joyce Krom heard about similar events in San Francisco, New York, and Boston. For the first reading Krom invited local Miss Raven Divine Cassadine, who wore a white gown and tiara and read the books “Be Who You Are” and “My Princess Boy.” Also taking part was Mr. Red Ribbon Dylan, who talked about being bullied.

Yes, there was some pushback. But nearly 100 kids came and parents offered tremendous support. Parents talked about making sure their kids had early memories of experiencing diversity.

Pre-owned

Lake Superior State College has issued its annual list of words that should be banished due to misuse, overuse, and general uselessness. Here are a few from this year’s list.

I’ll start with one that was pointed out to me a long time ago: Hot Water Heater – water that is already hot does not need to be heated. It is simply a water heater.

Let Me Ask You This – wholly unnecessary statement. Just ask the question already.

Pre-owned – what’s so disgraceful about “used?”



The misnamed and bogus Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity has been disbanded. The goal of this group, widely known but never admitted by its members, wasn’t to boost the integrity of our elections (such as prevent meddling by Russia), but was to figure out ways to suppress voting.

But don’t cheer over the end of this group. Kris Kobach, Secretary of State for Kansas, a leader of the group and a prime instigator of voter suppression, says this is only a “tactical shift.” The effort has been shifted to the Department of Homeland Security. This move has a few advantages for those interested in suppression, as noted by Melissa McEwan of Shakesville:

* DHS is already running the nasty guy’s immigration policies and he believes he lost the popular vote because millions of non-citizens voted. DHS is a good place to comb through voter rolls looking for non-citizens.

* The commission got mired in lawsuits.

* The actions of the DHS are a lot less public.

If you are talking about a “blue wave” in the 2018 midterms you had better also be talking about what Kobach is doing.



I had mentioned the race for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in which Democrat Shelly Simonds won by a single vote. The control of the House hinged on this race. The count was later declared a tie when a rejected ballot was reconsidered by a court and awarded to Republican David Yancey.

Since my posts in December, Simonds challenged that last ballot. And was refused.

So the two names were put into canisters, which was put into a bowl, and one was drawn – Yancey. So the GOP will control the House 51-49. Dems have a bit of legal maneuvering to try, but it is doubtful they’ll get anywhere before the House votes on a new (GOP) Speaker.

So efforts are turning towards dealing with Virginia’s gerrymandering. I note the Dems almost flipped the House in spite of being highly gerrymandered.



Photographer Xavi Bou took videos of birds in flight, then composited the series of images into one. This creates what might be thought of as birds leaving the equivalent of footprints in the sky.

Young love

This afternoon I went to see the movie Call Me By Your Name at the theater for limited run movies in Royal Oak. I saw it because it is a gay love story highly rated by critics – Metacritic gave it a 93 out of 100.

The movie centers on Elio, the 17 year old son of a professor of antiquities living in Lombardy, Italy. Oliver is an American graduate student who has come to stay with the family and work with the professor for six weeks of the summer. The love story takes a while to unfold, partly because Elio is still trying to figure out his orientation. I’m delighted there is very little homophobia, especially for a movie set in 1983. This is a love story in which the two lovers happen to both be male. At the end Elio’s father is amazingly wonderful. I recommend it. A bonus – since the story takes place in summer Elio spends a great deal of time without a shirt.

I think the movie will be in Royal Oak for at least another week. I understand one can watch it online, though I don’t know if “free” means interrupted by commercials.

Please rip off our community

I had a lovely visit with my brother and his family over New Year. His granddaughter, now 3 weeks old, is easy to hold – when she’s not squalling. The boys – 19 months and 4 years – were as rambunctious as expected, though their father was good at issuing time-outs when needed. The older boy managed to stay up to midnight on New Year’s Eve, though he was in bed promptly afterward. The adults complained a lot about how cold it was outside, which prevented the boys from working off some energy.

The trip south featured a snowstorm in Toledo. My progress was interrupted by some kind of backup in Findlay, Ohio. There was highway construction that funneled us down to one lane, but that process was a lot slower than I would have guessed – I managed 3 miles in 45 minutes. I got off for lunch and asked the waitstaff for an alternate route back to the highway. They were gracious in providing directions, but didn’t know what would cause such a delay.

There was so much slush and salt on the roads on Christmas day and after that by the time I got to my brother’s place my car was more pink than red.

On the trip home I began at a car wash (conveniently adjacent to the hotel). For this trip the sun was out and the sky mostly clear (though still cold). The only delay was in Toledo for a 10 minute backup.



Amazon, the retail behemoth, announced in September that it was seeking a location for a second corporate headquarters. That prompted cities and states to submit bids to tempt Amazon to choose them for HQ2.

Nancy Kaffer of the Detroit Free Press saw Detroit’s proposal. Such a proposal would have been impossible for Detroit just 10 years ago. To be able to put together such a bid Detroit and state gov’t assembled a pretty good team to create a comprehensive package. It features something others don’t – Detroit’s easy access to Canada offers a two-nation headquarters. Detroit has come a long way in 10 years.

The Hoghtower Lowdown, written by Jim Hightower, says that what Amazon did was take “milk the taxpayer” to a whole new level.

That game is usually played by a big corporation playing off one city against another in trying to get the sweetest pot of tax breaks and gimmies. Nearly every large corporation plays that game. But Amazon simply said we’re building a new HQ, here are the jobs we’ll bring and the money we’ll invest, and these are our requirements in tax breaks. Then Amazon sat back and let the bidding war take over. As Hightower puts it, state and local officials have …

rushed to Bezos’ corporate castle to grovel, dance, beg, and stage dog-and-pony spectacles in the perverse hope that Amazon might choose *their* taxpayers to rip off.

Hightower documents the ways this is a ripoff.

Taxpayers get stuck with a huge tab for those new jobs. New York paid Yahoo $2 million per job, Louisiana paid Valero Energy over $15 million per job. The tax breaks are huge, the trumpeted job counts are a mirage, and the investments do not pay for themselves in increased employee taxes.

Workers get shafted two ways. First, these behemoths are notorious for paying poverty wages. Second, the competition drives out local businesses. Jobs lost far exceed jobs gained (even if inflated job numbers are actually met).

Communities suffer too. The small and locally owned businesses (which really do create jobs) don’t get corresponding tax breaks and gimmies. The towns face empty storefronts. Communities also become homogenized. Tax revenue is lost both because it is sucked up by the behemoth and because the local job creators are pushed out of business. They lose revenue for roads and schools. Inequality grows.

We should all say what Little Rock, Arkansas said to Bezos: “Hey Amazon, we need to talk.” Our human scale and non-hectic quality of life “would be totally wrecked” by your demands and “we can’t sacrifice that for you.” That letter appears as a full-page ad in the Washington Post – which Bezos owns.