No land, no job, no prospects

Keri Leigh Merritt wrote the book Masterless Men: Poor White and Slavery in the Antebellum South. Ian Reifowitz wrote a review of the book for Daily Kos and also included an interview of Merritt with Robin Lindley of History News Network. Merritt also participated in the discussion in the comments.

Reifotwitz starts us off with a common assumption:

The general impression I had of the pre-Civil War South was that the white population operated essentially as a single entity when it came to the system of slavery that dominated the economy, politics, and legal system of the region. I figured that just about all whites from top to bottom reaped the benefits of the so-called peculiar institution, even if those at the top received the lion’s share.

Merritt’s book refutes that idea by examining the poor whites in the time before and after the Civil War.

About one-third of the white population in the early 19th Century – about 1000 families – controlled all the land and most of the wealth and used slavery to generate that wealth. Another third was the middle class. These were landowners whose estates were too small to own slaves or merchants, lawyers, and bankers. The last third was the poor whites.

These poor whites were mostly illiterate because there were no public schools. They couldn’t get jobs because who would pay a white man when the labor of a black man was free (after the high purchase price). They couldn’t buy property because the price was too high (and the wealthy made sure it was). They had no access to white privilege. About the only difference between a poor white and a slave was the regularity and brutality of the beatings. The poor whites and slaves had much in common and sometimes bartered with each other.

The poor whites were kept illiterate for the same reason slaves were – so that they didn’t know another option in life. Slaveholders saw these poor whites as a nuisance who had to be controlled to keep slavery profitable. The government of the Deep South (Mississippi to South Carolina) was for and of the slaveholders. During the interview Merritt said:

Scholars such as Manisha Sinha have written about how the leaders of the secession movement were oligarchs. They were aristocrats. I show evidence of this too – they simply didn’t believe in democracy. They didn’t want poor people voting regardless of color. They didn’t think impoverished people should be involved on a political level at all. In the 1840s and 50s, slaveholders were increasingly attempting to remove civil liberties from poor whites. Furthermore, if you look at the laws passed by the Confederacy, you see more evidence of disdain for both poor whites and democracy itself.

Commenters to the post noted the similarities between between Antebellum landowners and today’s GOP. It seems the North won the war and the South won the peace. A commenter quoted from Conservative Southern Values Revived on Alternet in 2012. First a mention of people like Warren Buffet who use their wealth for the betterment of society. Then…

Which brings us to that other great historical American nobility -- the plantation aristocracy of the lowland South, which has been notable throughout its 400-year history for its utter lack of civic interest, its hostility to the very ideas of democracy and human rights, its love of hierarchy, its fear of technology and progress, its reliance on brutality and violence to maintain “order,” and its outright celebration of inequality as an order divinely ordained by God.

During the leadup to the Civil War the poor whites started withholding their support for the institution of slavery. In response, the slaveholders created an “explosion of propaganda” predicting a racial war between freed slaves and poor whites. This propaganda was full of incendiary, vile, and vicious racist language.

When war broke out many poor whites were forced to fight for the Confederate cause, even though they didn’t support the cause that benefited only their overlords – “rich man’s war and poor man’s fight.”

After the war the lives of the poor whites improved – they were also emancipated. The value of land dropped without slaves to work it and poor whites could now afford it. The Homestead Act allowed many to move West. Public schools were established.

But all this was driven by former slaveholders and their desire to make sure former slaves were worse off than any white. The lives of whites improved to keep them above blacks. These former poor whites were also taught to be racist, leading to their cooperation in Jim Crow laws.

Fine Vermont tradition of town meetings

When I first heard about Bill McKibben he was introduced as both a conservative and an environmentalist. That allowed him to have the respect of other conservatives and talk about environmental issues using their language. I hear he’s gotten quite a ways with that strategy, though not with much success with the current crowd in control of Washington. He’s written a dozen books about the environment, some aimed at a general audience.

McKibben also founded 350.org which advocates for the environment. That 350 refers to the parts-per-million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, a value we should not cross if we want to avoid large effects of global climate change (the site says we’re now above 400 ppm). The main efforts of the site is to advocate to keep fossil fuels in the ground.

McKibben has now written fiction, a novel. It’s Radio Free Vermont, a Fable of Resistance. It is the story of Vern who is a radio announcer about to retire, Perry who is a tech whiz, Sylvia who is a lesbian who teaches classes to newcomers on how to live in Vermont (this is how you drive in mud), and Trance who is an Olympic biathlete with a gold medal.

Vern is asked to do his radio show at the opening of a new Walmart. He is to go around talking to workers and customers. But he plants a few people he “encounters” who talk about who Walmart exploits to keep it profits low. From the safety of Sylvia’s house Vern starts releasing folksy podcasts decrying huge international corporations and promoting local coffee shops and micro brew ales. This turns into the start of a secessionist movement, especially after Trance takes over the microphone from the Governor at another opening event, talks about small being better than big, and runs an independent Vermont flag up the pole.

As one might guess McKibben started writing the story after the nasty guy was inaugurated.

There is some nice discussion of the virtues of small and of building community. There is also talk about what we’re really getting (or not getting) from Washington. We also hear about the fine Vermont tradition of town meetings. The town as a whole (or at least those that show up) meets once a year to discuss town business (time for a new snowplow?), schools, the budget, taxes, and anything else townspeople want to put on the agenda – such as advising the legislature what the town thinks of the idea of secession.

The story is rather laid back (as is Vermont) and the tense moments are usually resolved with brains rather than violence. A breezy read.

Pennsylvania districts

This past Monday the Pennsylvania Supreme Court released its version of new Congressional district maps. Earlier, the court had declared the GOP drawn maps, in place since 2011 were unconstitutional due to partisan gerrymandering. The court told GOP lawmakers they had a deadline to redraw the maps. I doubt few people were surprised when that deadline was missed. So the court did it (well, hired a professor who is an expert in gerrymandering issues).

Using this new map in the fall election Democrats are likely to pick up 3 seats and perhaps a few more. My brother in Pittsburgh is pleased.

GOP members of the PA legislature are taking their case back to the US Supremes (who rejected their suit once before). The claim is this new map is now gerrymandered in favor of Democrats.

Ultimate insult

In an excerpt from Jessica Valenti’s book Full Frontal Feminism she lists several slurs directed at women, then several slurs directed at men. They’re nasty, so I’m not repeating them here. She continues:

Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult. Now tell me that’s not royally fucked up.

It’s not about the profits

There have been many news and blog posts on a multitude of sites discussing various aspects of the American gun debate. These article appear after every mass shooting (and even after some of the minor ones) and that certainly includes the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida last week.

Many of these articles include the idea that the NRA is wielding its campaign of no gun restrictions to boost the profits of the gun manufacturers. If the article’s author doesn’t mention it commenters usually will.

But I don’t think that’s true. I think it something else, something deeper and more pervasive: racism.

First bit of evidence: There is a National Tracing Center in West Virginia. When a cop anywhere in America wants to run a trace on a gun to discover its owner the request comes here. They do about 370,000 traces a year. When a gun is sold a record of the sale comes here. The center receives about 2 million sales records a month.

Two million new records a month. 370,000 requests to access those records each year. This is an operation that has Big Data at its core. Except…

Computer databases are banned. Yeah, really.

In 1986, thanks to the NRA, Congress passed a law saying there cannot be a searchable database of America’s gun owners. The NRA’s reason: It would be a tool to confiscate guns. Government evildoers are going to attack any day. You don’t give the enemy an inventory of your weapons.

It’s like a library without a card catalog (remember those?). At least the National Tracing Center has microfilm…

This goes way beyond maintaining profits for gun makers. This is a situation where a product is used to kill someone and the owners of that product do all they can to make sure the perpetrator cannot be caught.

Second bit of evidence: Back in 2016 Danny Glover was at a Martin Luther King event and, apparently in response to a question, said:

The Second Amendment comes from the right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native Americans. So, a revolt from people who were stolen from their land, or revolt from people whose land was stolen from, that’s what the genesis of the Second Amendment is.

The same idea had been proposed by Mother Jones back in 2008. Well regulated militias refers to state militias that were used to suppress slave revolts.

In this blog I’ve talked a lot about ranking, or a societal hierarchy – male over female, white over black, Christian over non, straight over gay, rich over poor. The list goes on. This is a strong force in America. People define themselves by their place in the hierarchy and are willing to use violence and even killing to maintain their place or move up in the ranking – and prevent those people from moving up.

The fastest and most thorough way to enforce or challenge the hierarchy is with a gun. Many a black man has received his first gun with the thought you ain’t gonna mess with me no more. Many a white man buys a gun for protection – to make sure his place in societal ranking is not challenged.

So the reason why the National Tracing Center can’t have a computer, why so many are fearful of the government taking their guns, why Democrats are demonized is to make sure those whose place in the hierarchy feels threatened can keep a tool to enforce their superiority. Putting up with mass shootings in schools and night clubs is a small price to pay for the ability to keep that enforcement.

And those deaths may not be seen as a price at all. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos writes about Dana Loesch, spokesperson for the NRA, who recently gave what many see is a vile speech.

Because it’s only following a shooting that the NRA can prove its real worth to its real supporters. It’s only in the face of horrid tragedy, complete with dead children and agonized families, that the NRA does its real job—creating talking points, deflecting the conversation, putting the blame anywhere but where it belongs. And their real clients, the people they really care about, are extremely grateful. Because they love mass shootings, too.
…
It’s that without the NRA to protect your guns, all those gun grabbers would take them away.

The NRA doesn’t just want people afraid. They want people afraid for their guns.
…
The NRA gets to prove its worth in two ways: It builds up the fear that someone is coming to snatch away guns, and it makes sure that reasonable conversations about sensible changes to gun laws can’t happen.

Why might people be afraid for their guns? Because guns are so important in enforcing societal ranking. And people care so much about their rank they’re willing to kill.

It isn’t about the profits (though they’re sweet). It’s about keeping the ability to enforce societal ranking.

Protected by the math department

Senator Marco Rubio was a featured speaker at a town hall meeting. He’s pretty good at showing charm and empathy or whatever it is politicians do. Then Cameron Kasky came up on stage. During the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. student Kasky hid in a closet with his brother.

Kasky: “So, Senator Rubio, can you tell me you won’t be accepting a single penny from the NRA?”

Rubio: “People buy into my agenda.”

Kasky: “So you won’t take more NRA money?”

Rubio: “That’s the wrong way to look at it. People buy into my agenda.”

Kasky: “In the name of the 17 people who died, you can’t ask the NRA to keep their money? I bet we can get people to give you exactly as much money.”

Beyond that, Rubio’s answer was irrelevant. To me this exchange shows that Rubio wants what the NRA is peddling and the NRA buys into Rubio’s agenda because they like the pro-gun aspects of it.



In response to this particular shooting the nasty guy has proposed arming teachers. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos starts the rebuttal with just the financials. Arming and (minimally) training 750,000 teachers would cost about $1 billion. Ask any GOP politician for $1B in books and teacher pay.

Commenters supply a lot of other reasons why this is a bad idea.

* Even professional marksmen – soldiers – are terrible shots when under stress.

* If teachers had guns the shooter would target them first. Even if a particular teacher is unarmed.

* “Parents terrified that this literal life and death experiment will be performed on their children.” We do not want our children to be caught in the crossfire or even witness such an event.

* Shooters like collateral damage. Teachers would want to avoid it.

* Do we want our students to sit in classes with teachers who are visibly armed?

* How does a teacher keep it out of the hands of the kids yet have it quickly available when a shooter walks through the door? How does the teacher make sure a student doesn’t use the teacher’s gun to become a shooter?

* How do the cops, when they finally arrive, tell the difference between a shooter and a teacher with a gun? Those cops can identify colleagues through uniforms.

* Is a teacher going to have much effect using a handgun facing down an AR-15?

* What happens when a teacher’s gun is missing?

* Teachers are notoriously underpaid and can be stressed out. How do we prevent a teacher, after a really bad day, turning the gun on a student having a really bad day?

* Who do you arm at the movie theater, another target of shooters? The high-school aged ticket-taker?

* Would the GOP agree to arming black teachers?

* Are we going to start hiring teachers based on whether they are willing and able to engage in a firefight?

* President Reagan was surrounded by Secret Service and was still shot. The math department from the local high school would surely offer more protection.

* Want to arm teachers? Let’s also arm senators and remove the security checkpoints in senate chambers.

Conclusion: really bad idea.


I’ve written about students taking it on themselves to include protest in their high school curriculum. Curtis Rhodes, Superintendent of schools in Needville, Texas had declared that students who disrupt or walk out in protest over guns will be suspended.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville responded:

Take the suspensions, kids. Trust this old lady that, in the grand scheme of your life, a mark on your record definitely won't matter. But standing up for your principles always will.

Commenters respond that explaining such a mark would delight college admissions officers.

Twitter user KingofTorts also responded by saying such walkouts and protests are free speech rights. He offers lawyerly services to students who are suspended.



This a suitable cartoon for the situation. A takeoff on this one from last October, which came out after the nasty guy visited Puerto Rico and did a particular act while there.



McEwan tackles the idea that mass shooters must be mentally ill.

There is no mental illness that causes someone to pick up a gun and start murdering people, and only affects men.
…
Women are routinely accused of being "crazy" in every conceivable way and for every conceivable reason in every other aspect of our lives.

We are "crazy," we are "insane," we are "hysterical," we are "emotional," we are "irrational," we are *every euphemism for mentally ill under the sun*, we are "psycho bitches."

But when it comes to mass shootings, suddenly women are so uniquely sane that our failure to have the mystery mental illness that causes "people" to pick up guns isn't even remarkable.

We're crazy when men need us to be crazy to avoid accountability and we're sane as the day is long when we don't want to talk about toxic masculinity or access to guns.
…
If mental illness is the primary issue, then why is only men who are picking up guns?

So, says McEwan, let’s talk about toxic masculinity. And access to guns.

Young agitators

The survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida – the youth who saw 17 of their colleagues killed – are saying that’s enough. No more. Never again. They are organizing, sharing their voices with media (and juggling interviews), and lobbying GOP representatives at every level. It is one way to deal with the shock and grief.

Sarah Chadwick, a 16 year old student, sent a tweet to the nasty guy saying she didn’t want his condolences, she wants gun control. It went viral.

Twitter user JeLLe (who I don’t think is a student) has a nice graphic in response to those condolences.

Those students aren’t just talking. A hundred of them boarded buses and went to the state legislature at the other end of the state, 400 miles away. If you’re going to do nothing you need to see the people your inaction affects. But even while the students were in the gallery the legislators voted down an attempt to revive a bill to ban assault rifles. Completely heartless.

Of course, those GOP elected officials don’t want to hear such personal stories. They’re doing all they can to smear and discredit the kids. Like saying the kids are puppets of the left or at least are being “coached” – sheesh, kids need to be coached to say “Please don’t kill us!”?

Actually, the kids were coached. As would any kid who had taken a decent government class in high school. Emma Gonzalez, one of the student leaders, is taking Advanced Placement Government, and says they’ve had three debates about guns this year. They’ve studied and know the talking points – and now have first hand experience on how empty the talking points of the right are. I’ve heard one say your right to own a gun is not more important than my safety. Gonzalez said:

The people involved right now, those who were there, those posting, those tweeting, those doing interviews and talking to people, are being listened to for what feels like the very first time on this topic that has come up over 1,000 times in the past four years alone.

Olympic technology

A busy few days between the Detroit Symphony Orchestra French Festival (programs 3 & 4 this week) and Olympic figure skating – in addition to the other things I do. Watching the Olympics has been a technological adventure.

I bought my TV in 1982. No big deal because for the last few years I turn it on maybe a half-dozen times a year. Connected to it is a VCR machine given to me by my friend and debate partner because he wasn’t using it anymore (back during the Winter Olympics of 2014). Though not used much the TV is showing its age. It used to take a half hour to warm up and clear the snow (yeah, it is connected to cable) and when I turned it on earlier this past week it was still snowy after an hour. So while I could watch opening ceremonies on it I decided to try live-streaming, which worked pretty well.

Then came the men’s figure skating short program Thursday evening. That afternoon I couldn’t get live-streaming to work. All I got was the network logo and 3 blinking lights saying it is thinking. Never anything more, never an error message. I called my internet provider. They were unable to help and sent my case to the team that handled difficult cases. They were to call back within 24 hours.

I watched it live – well, the TV was on all evening and I looked at it about every 15 minutes to see if they had stepped away from skiing. I think they went to skating around 10:00. The network broke for news a bit after 11:00 with comments that the best skaters were still to come. So I recorded to about 1:30 am.

I watched it Friday morning. And what I thought was advertised as prime time viewing actually ended around 1:00 am. Glad I didn’t wait up.

So Friday evening I set the VCR to record the men’s long program, setting it for 8 pm to 1 am, and went off to the concert. While I was gone that call finally came.

I called them Saturday afternoon. I spent an hour on the phone with the technician. He couldn’t get it to work with Firefox, my browser of choice, so we switched to Chrome (which is installed, but rarely used). He finally determined that Adobe Flash was out of date. Not surprising, since Firefox doesn’t play well with Flash and never gets used. So I did a Flash update and some browser tweaking and I got live-streaming to work on Chrome.

Back on Firefox I tried it and finally got an error message: Flash is out of date and is a security risk.

So back to Chrome. The video of the men’s long program wasn’t easy to find. A few listed streams were the highlights – such as a particular skaters several quad jumps. The tech guy persevered and found how I could watch 3 hours of the event. But it was time to prepare for the evening concert.

This afternoon and evening I watched it – all 3 hours. And a zillion commercials. I found I could not jump over the commercials. And if I happened to back up a bit to far I had to wait through a batch of them again. It didn’t take long to find the mute.

I think there were 30 men in the short program. On what I had recorded I saw the Americans and the top six. Out of those 24 advance to the long program and are put in blocks of six skaters according to their standings after the short program. In this 3 hour video I saw blocks 4, 3, and 2. I enjoyed American Nathan Chen’s wonderful performance, a rebound after a disastrous short program that left an expected medalist in 17th place (he won the long program and finished 5th). There was also gay American Adam Rippon in a fabulous performance. He didn’t have the quad jumps of the leaders, so couldn’t earn a medal. Even so, he was excellent at what he did.

But there was no block 1 in this video, nothing of the top six.

I did find separate videos of the performances of the medal winners. But not of the other three in the block.

Strange.

Rippon’s competition is over. In the men’s program he placed 7th in the short program and 10th in the long program, for an overall position of 10th. In the team competition, which I didn’t watch, he and the USA team took bronze. Quite good. For the second week of the Olympics he has been hired by NBC. And once back in America he won’t be taking his bronze medal to the White House.

Live streaming worked well enough that I will probably use it for ice dancing and ladies programs.

Who needs national security?

Rob Porter is still in the news, even after a week. He’s the deputy White House paper shuffler who resigned when both ex-wives accused him of domestic violence. What is keeping his story in the news is that he was working with classified documents with temporary security clearance because he hadn’t yet (and probably couldn’t have) gotten permanent clearance. A wife-beater could be blackmailed.

Another part of the story is the huge number of top-level staffers without adequate clearance. One may wonder why that’s an issue when the nasty guy, the one at the top, is so indiscreet.

So a lot of ex-staffers who have seen a great deal of classified material, even though they shouldn’t have, know stuff of great interest to lots of foreign governments and sinister actors. And some of those ex-staffers have already shown their disdain for the country. Every one a walking national security threat. But since the guy at the top has no respect for security, this problem won’t get fixed.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville adds that the nasty guy is an insecure braggart and to someone like that the only purpose of information is to prop up his ego – and can only do that when he spills it.

There is one solution: Get rid of him. But the only people who can have refused.

Over 20,500 voyages

Andrew Kahn created an interactive video-map which I found on Slate. The map shows every documented slave ship from Africa to the Americas from 1550 (the first one about 1564) to 1860. That is 300 years, over 20,500 voyages, and more than 10 million enslaved Africans.

The surprise: We usually think of slavery as a North American issue. But less than 4% came to our shores. Out of those 10 million, 4.8 million went to Brazil, 4 million went to the Caribbean, and 1.3 million went to Spanish Central America.

After those mind-numbing stats Kahn reminds us those numbers reflect documented voyages. The actual number of enslaved Africans is likely twice the numbers above.

Slate has a history of American Slavery. I may have to visit other chapters.



I’ve mentioned the spat between gay figure skater Adam Rippon and the vice nasty guy. Between the Lines, Michigan’s LGBTQ newspaper, has a nice comic about it.



Yeah, another school shooting. I apologize for sounding so cavalier. I’ll mention only a couple things that Melissa McEwan of Shakesville noted.

* Lots of talk about mental illness. As is done after every shooting. McEwan notes that not all potential shooters have access to mental health care, not all can be kept in treatment until its conclusion, and not all can be ‘fixed’ by that care.

* Schools are required to have active shooter drills. This shooter, who had been a student at that school, had been through those drills and knew how they worked. Then he used it to his advantage.

Truth and Reconciliation film

Yesterday I saw a documentary about the difficulties of gay pastors within the United Methodist Church who try to live within the denomination’s rules. Details at my brother blog.

Fairy tale mashup

A week ago I wrote that I wasn’t going to see any movies for a while, after seeing eight since the start of the year. I wrote that based on knowing the schedule for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra French Festival (Thursday’s program of music by Maurice Ravel, including both piano concertos, was wonderful!). But I didn’t notice an item on my calendar about the Oscar Shorts. For most movies I drive to the theater, buy a ticket, and see the film. The Detroit Film Theater warned us this show tended to sell out so I bought ahead. I had a ticket for Friday evening. That was canceled due to snow. So Saturday I called to exchange dates and went that evening. When I arrived (ticket in hand) signs said the show was sold out.

The Oscar Shorts is a show of all five films nominated for Academy Awards in the category of short animation, followed by the five films nominated for short live action. The whole evening ran over three hours (including a 25 minute intermission).

In the animation category most were 5-7 minutes.

Dear Basketball, a puff piece by Kobe Bryant on his love for his sport. He now has a film company.

Negative Space, from a French team. The narrator talks about being taught how to pack a suitcase by his father, which leads to a wry comment at the father’s funeral.

Lou, by the marvelous Pixar team. All the stuff in a Lost and Found box at an elementary school assembles itself into a being that takes on a playground bully. This one was my favorite.

Revolting Rhymes from Britain. This one was a half-hour. A wolf meets up with a woman who is about to go to a babysitting job. The wolf is lamenting his nephews, one killed by Red Riding Hood, the other by the Three Little Pigs. Thrown into the mix is Ms. Hood’s friend Snow White who cares for seven short men who bet everything on the horse races. It was a fun mashup of several fairy tales.

Garden Party, also from France. The animation in this one was good enough that it looked like live action. Frogs do what they do amongst the remains of a garden party, though we see several of the windows of the house have bullet holes.

A big deal was made warning us of the “disturbing imagery” that would appear at the end of the last entry. I’m sure they did that because children tend to come for these animated short films.

I felt they should have made a bigger deal about the “disturbing imagery” of the live action films. The program (if one stopped to get it) said the section was rated R. Perhaps the DFT knows children don’t stay for the second half.

In the live action category most were about 20 minutes with one as short as 13 minutes. Three of the five had violent themes. It is important to tell the stories, but a lot of violence for 90 minutes.

DeKalb Elementary was based on real events. The story opens in the school’s office. A man walks in and pulls out a gun. At that point I stopped watching, though I couldn’t stop hearing (and I was too far from the aisle to leave). The receptionist talks him out of shooting anyone.

The Silent Child is from Britain. The youngest child of the family is deaf. A social worker starts teaching her sign language. The mother wants to get her into a regular school but thinks the school won’t accommodate a child who can’t lip-read. This one was my favorite, partly by default.

My Nephew Emmett is set in 1955. Emmett Till of Chicago visits family in the Deep South and looks at a white woman the wrong way. The men of the woman’s family want to teach the lad a lesson. This is the uncle’s story of how he tries to protect the lad. I didn’t watch the final big confrontation. Yes, this one really happened.

The Eleven O’Clock is from Australia. A psychiatrist’s 11:00 appointment is a man who has delusions of being a psychiatrist. The joke got old fast.

Watu Wote / All of Us is from Germany, though set in Africa. A woman buys a bus ticket for the 31 hour trip from Nairobi into Somalia. The bus company tells her about violence at the border, though assures her the bus will have police escort coming to the border. But at the critical time the police car has engine trouble. I didn’t watch the end of this one either.

Dial down

Lots of snow across southern Michigan today. It started at perhaps 3 AM last night and is still going. Early forecasts were for 3-5 inches, then 6-10, then 8-12. Most schools declared a snow day, some doing that before the first flakes fell. Many evening events have been canceled (like the one I have a ticket for). Others are proceeding with various policies for those who don’t want to brave the roads. I haven’t been out yet, so haven’t measured accumulation. Why shovel while show is still falling? (A friend said, “Why shovel? It will be gone by May!”)

That means I can watch the Olympic opening ceremonies on TV tonight.

While waiting for that, a few things to share:

Alex Bertulis Fernande says she was told by an art teacher to “dial down the feminism.” She shared a picture of her latest art: a dial with two settings – “raging feminist” and “complicit in my own dehumanisation.”



On Wednesday House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gave a speech in the House. For eight hours (in heels!) she read stories about Dreamers, people who came to America as children and whose status is threatened by the nasty guy and the GOP. This now holds the record as the longest continuous speech in the House. Thank you, Ms Pelosi. I heard Speaker Paul Ryan finally consented to hold a debate on immigration.



Melissa McEwan of Shakesville has a post about three items that are part of our ongoing constitutional crisis:

* Senator Tim Kaine (Hillary Clinton’s running mate) is trying to get the release of a memo outlining the nasty guy’s interpretation of his legal authority to wage war.

* The Government Ethics Office has blessed a Patriot Legal Expense Fund to pay the legal bills of those under investigation. The source of the money going into this fund? Campaign donors… money left over from the inauguration… foreign agents defending traitors… the usual. The name implies if you aren’t defending against an investigation you aren’t a patriot. Yeesh.

* To do much of anything in the White House a person needs a security clearance. Yet dozens of people – such as Jared Kushner, the nasty guy’s son-in-law and top advisor – are still working with temporary clearances (if they have one at all) that are supposed to be used for only 3 months. One reason why a security clearance may not be given is the applicant has shown to be dishonest. Another reason might be their rich and have complicated businesses. Neither is all that compatible with democracy.



Jeanette Manfra, head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security has confirmed that Russians tried to penetrate voter registration rolls in 21 states and were successful in a small number of them. So what is being done to protect the 2018 elections from Russian meddling? Um…



I wrote about Adam Rippon, gay figure skater, and his trip to the Olympics. Rippon saw that the vice nasty guy is the head of the USA delegation to the games and strongly objected. He said this vice character is well known for his strong anti-LGBTQ stance, even funding debunked gay conversion therapy. Rippon also said he would refuse to attend a post-games celebration at the White House. Gay skier Gus Kenworthy agreed that having the vice lead the delegation is a “bad fit.”

The office of the vice nasty guy called Rippon’s comments totally false (“fake news!”), claiming the vice supports all US athletes. The man asked Rippon to set up a meeting. Rippon declined until after the games.

The vice’s homophobia has a long and well documented history. Rippon was smart to decline.

But think of it this way. Rippon is trying to do all the necessary physical and mental preparations for competing on the world stage, with the added effort of doing it as an out gay man. And the vice nasty guy wants to play mind games.

Play by our rules

I’ve written about the gerrymandering case in Pennsylvania, in which the state Supremes demanded new maps pronto in time to be used for this year’s Congressional elections.

The state GOP sent a request to the national Supremes asking for a stay while cases from Wisconsin and Maryland go through the national court. The request went to Justice Alito, who oversees federal courts in PA.

Alito refused the request. Yes, Alito. Some say it is because Alito saw the weakness in the state GOP position. Other say it is a standard conservative position – drawing district maps is a state issue. That is probably the line he and his conservative colleagues will use in the Wisconsin/Maryland case.

Not only is the GOP refusing to cooperate in creating replacement maps (to be completed in 9 days) they are now threatening to impeach the five justices who ruled against them. Since the GOP has a majority in the state House and a supermajority in the Senate (both due to the gerrymandering the justices struck down) they might be able to pull off the impeachment. We don’t need democracy!



The Ohio Senate has passed a redistricting reform bill. A citizen’s group had threatened to get the issue on the November ballot, prompting the legislature to act. This new plan must pass the House, then pass the voters in May.

This way of doing it won’t create a citizen’s commission. The maps will still be drawn by the legislature. But there are restrictions. Most of the counties cannot be split, 18 counties can be split in two, and the five largest can be split in three. In the four rounds of the process the minority party must have significant support. If they get to the end and the minority party refuses to support it, then the map is good for four years instead of ten. It’s not as good as an independent commission, but much better than what Ohio has now.

No business is local

I listened to another episode of More Perfect, stories about the Supreme Court. This is the last one of this season of episodes. It’s all about the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which says Congress can regulate commerce between states. It got used in some interesting and unusual ways. This episode is 53 minutes.

At one point in our history (I don’t have a year) it was used to replace all state currencies with a national currency.

During the Great Depression the federal government offered price support for wheat, but also put a cap on how much wheat a farmer could grow. A farmer was fined for growing too many acres. He objected, saying he wasn’t going to sell the extra acres, only us the wheat on his own farm. The Supremes responded that the wheat he grew on his own farm was wheat he didn’t have to buy and that affected commerce between the states.

Ollie’s Barbecue Restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama during Jim Crow offered sit-down service for white people, but only carryout service for black people. The 14th Amendment about equal protection had been ratified nearly a hundred years before, but shortly afterward had been essentially gutted when the Supremes said that phrase about “no state shall make or enforce any law” means the state government, not local governments and not perhaps the Birmingham Restaurant Association.

When the Civil Rights law passed in 1964 owner Ollie McClung was sued and the case went to the Supremes. The gov’t lawyers said Ollie has violated the Commerce Clause. His lawyers said his business is entirely local. Gov’t lawyers said nope, your meat comes from other states. In addition, your refusal to serve black people means it is much harder for them to travel from state to state (black people had to be very careful when they traveled across the South to avoid car problems in hostile towns).

Ollie lost and began to serve black people in the restaurant (though the first few days were confusing to the black waitstaff). He still maintains that the Commerce Clause was used incorrectly.

In 1994 President Bill Clinton signed the Violence Against Women Act which provides a federal civil remedy for victims of gender-motivated violence. That year Christy Brzonkala was raped. In 1999 she used the VAWA to sue her rapists. The act claimed its authority through the Commerce Clause. Her lawyer argued that, similar to black people tended to stay home during Jim Crow, women’s value to commerce was also reduced after sexual violence. The Court said no. The act had nothing to do with commerce. It also said it had nothing to do with the 14th Amendment.

Though not mentioned in this program, by 2015 and case for same-sex marriage the Justices did rely on the 14th Amendment (now at full strength) and our right to marry wasn’t based on the amount of business we brought to the wedding industry. We didn’t have to plead our case on our monetary value.

Predatory society

Umair Haque, writing for Eudamonia and Co., provides us with a few scary pathologies (out of many more) about life in America.

* In a 23 day period in January there were 11 school shootings. That’s about one every other day. These kids have given up on life and their elders have given up on them. When they aren’t killing classmates they are killing themselves. The point: This doesn’t happen anywhere else, not even in Afghanistan or Iraq.

* In many countries in the world on can get opioid pain killers without a prescription. The point: Only in America is there an epidemic of opioid use and misuse. We have mass self-medication of the hardest of hard drugs.

* There is a growing population of “nomadic retirees.” These aren’t the people free of all need to work who have bought RVs to live out their lives wherever they want. These retirees are indeed wandering from place to place, but they’re living out of their cars and looking for work. The point: Other countries may not have old age pensions, but they do have strong social bonds. The community takes care of everyone. In America extreme capitalism has blown apart our social bonds.

* Americans appear to not be disturbed about these things.

If these pathologies happened in any other rich country — even in most poor ones — people would be aghast, shocked, and stunned, and certainly moved to make them not happen. But in America, they are, well, not even resigned. They are indifferent, mostly.

We have become a predatory society.

The predator in American society isn’t just its super-rich — but an invisible and insatiable force: the normalization of what in the rest of the world would be seen as shameful, historic, generational moral failures, if not crimes, becoming mere mundane everyday affairs not to be too worried by or troubled about.

Haque explains these issues aren’t just unique in the world, they appear to be unique in modern history. They aren’t statistical quirks, they are extreme outliers. They aren’t visible until compared to the rest of the world and to history. These and many other pathologies are a part of an American collapse.

Gay old man on skates

The Olympic Games have their Opening Ceremony on Friday. I’m a fan of the Olympics because it is a place and time when so many countries gather in peace – though they have to spoil it by keeping track of how many medals each country has won. So I’ll be watching (likely recorded and delayed) the opening and closing ceremonies. I’ll also be watching a lot of the figure skating, a sport with an artistic side (it’s also – spoiler alert – quite gay).

To underscore that last point, here is Adam Rippon, the first openly gay figure skater (note the word “openly”). At 28 he’s also the oldest skater to make his first appearance at the Olympics – his teammates are ten years younger. He did a 10 minute radio interview with Robin Young of Here and Now. The webpage includes transcripts of interview highlights.

Rippon was, alas, bullied when he was younger. When he found skating he discovered it was a sport he was good at. It was also a sport where he could be himself. He decided a few years ago he needed to be out, even it it cost him his career (from such things as judges scoring him low). But his performances improved and his wins increased after coming out.

Back in 2014 (the last Winter Olympics) I wrote about the internal conflicts in figure skating at the time. Most of the men who take up the sport are assumed to be gay (and several of the famous ones are) but a gay sport didn’t play well with audiences and sponsors, and therefore judges. So athletes didn’t dare come out until their career was over. And that is what makes Rippon’s trip to the Olympics so noteworthy.

Gus Kenworthy is also gay and also going to the Olympics. His sport is freeskiing. He’s also featured in a “Shoulders of Greatness” commercial for Head & Shoulders shampoo. Included is a moment with him and the rainbow flag. What isn’t on his shoulders is the weight of staying closeted.

Team, not tribe

I’ve heard several commentators discuss the current political climate as tribalism: we’re more loyal to our tribe (R or D) than our country. Award-winning author Alexandra Erin tweets that they’ve been using the wrong word. Not tribes, but teams. Specifically sport teams. In high school, perhaps earlier, we’re required to attend rallies for our teams. We learn to identify with our teams. We buy their jerseys and pennants.

Yeah, the Super Bowl is this evening. I’m busy ignoring it. A big reason I ignore sports is the emphasis on winning and losing, which is ranking. Spectators like sports for the bragging rights – my team is better than yours. And, as Erin points, out we’re taught this form of ranking through an emphasis on school spirit.

But back to Erin:

When I see people sitting out a general election or worse because they're mad their guy in the primary was "robbed", this behavior doesn't strike me as "tribal".

It reminds me of team spectator sports.
…
I'll say "vote for the Democrat" in a general election 99 cases out of 100, but that's not because rah rah rah go team, it's because on a pragmatic level that's the best move available. (And part of how we get to a world where we have better moves available.)

We don't need teams. We don't need to decide we're on someone's team to support them when it's right or make the mistake of thinking they're on our team because they are pushing in the same direction as us for a spell.

Imagine if we didn't have that defensive reaction when we find out someone on our "team" did something terrible. Conversely, imagine if we could process that someone we pull together with did something disappointing and not have to cancel their membership.

I mean, the biggest piece of evidence that the FBI wasn't involved in a partisan push to stop Trump from winning the election is that *they actively shielded him and helped torpedo his opponent*.

So no, I don't stand with them.

I stand for what's right.

A resounding call to end ranking.

Personal loyalty

Garry Kasparov was the 13th World Chess Champion. He is now a champion of human rights and the Chair of the Human Rights Foundation. As part of this role he is a vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin and authoritarian regimes. He recently tweeted:

Genuinely curious. How do Trump's defenders explain why this entirely self-interested man defers so consistently to Putin, and only Putin? He's had every opportunity to refute this loyalty, which predates his election. Innocent until proven guilty, but Trump tries so hard to appear personally compromised when it would be so easy not to. Remember that personal loyalty is what Putin cares about most, so he can tell his gang, "the top guy is mine, don't worry".

Commenters ask: Blackmail? True believer in fascism?

Say no to appeasement

My month long movie marathon ended today. Next weekend I’ll be attending the Detroit Symphony Orchestra French Festival and watching the Olympics. So it may be a while before I see another movie, though there is one more on my list. I imagine this one will stick around (it is nominated for Oscars).

Today’s movie was Darkest Hour. This is the story of Winston Churchill (wonderfully played by Gary Oldham) during May 1940 from just before he is asked to be Prime Minister to his famous “We shall fight them on the beaches...” speech given in Parliament at about the time of the Dunkirk evacuation (IMDB tells me the speech was given after the evacuation while the movie portrays it as happening during).

My favorite scene is when Churchill talks to common people in the Underground. IMDB explains that Churchill did talk to common people, but probably not in the Underground. I enjoyed the way he made the other passengers feel at ease, though I kept thinking this train is taking a really long time to get from one station to the next.

Churchill becomes Prime Minister because much of Parliament is tired of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler. Even so, Churchill appoints him to his war cabinet, similar to Lincoln’s Team of Rivals. It is there Chamberlain and his protege Lord Halifax (who many thought would become Prime Minister) continue their campaign to try to get a peace deal with Hitler. This is as Belgium and France fall. Much of the movie is about Churchill concluding appeasement won’t work and that most English people didn’t want it.

In my reading and hearing about bullies, much of it from the blog Shakesville, I learned that when a bully is appeased he now knows what he can get away with and will try for more – certainly continuing what he was doing and likely upping the level of abuse. I kept waiting for Churchill to tell Chamberlain that. Didn’t happen. Though that understanding may not have been around at the time. Then again, Chamberlain would have denied it.



Since the beginning of the year I’ve seen eight movies. When I got to the sixth movie I saw that it was a portrayal of one person pulling rank (and I’ve written about ranking frequently) and another resisting. I also realized this is a frequent, perhaps nearly universal, story and movie theme going at least as far back as David and Goliath. These tales are almost always written so that our sympathies are with the resister and not with the abuser (as it should be!).

In that light, here are the movies I saw so far this year (with links to posts mentioning them):

Call Me By Your Name – There was only a bit of ranking at the end of the movie (I won’t explain more so that I won’t spoil it – this one is worth seeing).

Bombshell – Hedy Lamarr had a hard time in Hollywood because she refused to fit the mold the studios tried to force her into. She resisted the ranking.

Coco – Miguel experiences some ranking from his grandmother who bans music from her life because her musician grandfather left the family. He experiences more of it from a famous musician who tried to rank himself above others.

Wonder – Because Auggie is disfigured he is pushed to the bottom of the social hierarchy. With resistance and a winning personality he breaks the hierarchy.

Tom of Finland – Because Tom is gay he is assaulted and learns to be careful. He eventually finds a community that values him for who he is and what he can do.

Shape of Water – The lowly cleaning woman defies the nasty boss.

The Last Jedi – Resistance of ranking is the whole story. One side wants galaxy domination and the other is doing all it can to keep that from happening.

Darkest Hour – The British resolving to resist Nazis.

Yes, ranking is a part of eight out of eight movies. In some it intrudes only a little bit. In others ranking and resistance to it is the whole story.

Who is going to stop him?

That Devin Nunes memo was released today. It has left Melissa McEwan of Shakesville feeling very demoralized.

The Nunes memo accuses the FBI of being biased against the nasty guy. But consider if the memo wasn’t released. People would howl that “the truth” was being hidden (which they’ve been doing for two weeks). That brought out McEwan’s refrain: either way, it doesn’t matter.

Can you prove with logic that the nasty guy’s position is garbage? Cite what laws he is breaking? Point out what his Attorney General is doing wrong? Cool! But it doesn’t matter. Who is going to stop him?

Is the press going to suddenly become responsible? Republicans going to hold the nasty guy accountable and put country over party? They’ve been working towards this moment for at least 20 years, perhaps 30 or 40. Will social media execs value democracy over profits? Will we magically eradicate misogyny that prevent men from listening to women? Women have been sounding the alarm since the nasty guy declared his candidacy about 20 months ago. Will the base turn off Fox News and lay down their guns? Are we really going to have fair midterms despite suppression, gerrymandering, dark money, and Russian meddling?

Even if Democrats win the midterms will there be a peaceful transfer of power?

Those Republicans who aren’t power-hungry are likely compromised. A Dem majority would work to expose GOP crimes. GOP members would likely do some nasty things to prevent that.

You say the Mueller investigation will save us? Even if he’s allowed to complete the investigation and whoever is his boss allows it to be released and the Republicans in Congress act on it, then we get the vice nasty guy, who is just as slimy yet more competent than his boss. And if the GOP boots him too, then we get Paul Ryan or another of the GOP House leadership.

Even if there doesn’t seem to be a way back we must continue to speak against this future.

Sixty years in space

Goodness, the browser tabs have accumulated. Time to go through (some of) them.

The vice nasty guy has announced an aggressive campaign strategy. He will fly around the country to raise money for House and Senate GOP and to praise GOP accomplishments (which are, hmm, that thing that gives our taxes to the rich and, um, oh yeah, a slew of conservative judges).

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville interprets:

Setting fundraising aside, Pence will be accomplishing two things with this cross-country hobnobbing: 1. He will effectively be mounting a campaign that he's ready to be president, just in case. 2. He is laying the groundwork for the explanation when Republicans mysteriously have totally unexpected electoral success in the midterms. It won't be because Mike Pompeo rigged it with the Russians, but because Pence worked so gosh darn hard and visited all those places Washington doesn't care about blah blah fart.

A while ago I looked at the false alerts of incoming ballistic missiles that were issued in Hawaii and Japan. I shared the fear that the warning systems in those two places may have been hacked. Sarah Kendzior, who studies authoritarian states, reviews those incidents. She then discusses where the nasty guy gets his news and that he’s been duped by impostor tweets. She then shares another fear:

If a false alert goes out, and Trump hears about it through Fox News, a Fox News imposter account, or another dishonest social media account, will he launch a retaliatory nuclear strike without further verifying the information with NORAD or consulting advisers? False nuclear strike alerts are terrifying for the population in their own right–the Hawaii alert caused one man to have a heart attack–but the greatest danger may be the combined effect of the president’s gullibility, impetuousness, and enthusiasm for war.

I mentioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found the various district maps in that state to be highly gerrymandered. The Court ordered lawmakers to redraw the maps and do so promptly, or it would.

Senator Scarnati president pro tem of the PA Senate essentially replied: Nope! The Court usurped legislative authority and so he won’t cooperate. It looks like the Court also asked for the data used to draw the current maps. Scarnati responded with too bad, I don’t have it.

Commenters speculate Scarnati is right on one part. The Court may say the maps were unconstitutional, but they shouldn’t have said if you don’t draw the maps we will. Which leads to the question if the Senate doesn’t how does the Court enforce its ruling?

The state GOP contacted the US Supremes and asked for a stay in the ruling, because they are working on the Wisconsin gerrymandering case. Since the PA court based their ruling on only the state constitution the US Supremes should have said it isn’t up to us. But, instead, they asked the League of Women Voters, who brought the suit, for more info. That suggests a stay might be granted.



Several corporations have been proclaiming how that big tax shift law is benefiting their workers. I’ve written before the story usually isn’t what these companies proclaim it to be. Here’s another piece of the story. Only 9% of Fortune 500 companies have shared their tax cut windfalls with workers. That means for over 90% of these companies the tax cut windfall is being used to boost the pay of executives or benefit the shareholders by either giving dividends or boosting the stock price. And the workers get nothing.

Want a favor from the nasty guy? This worked: Give your employees a small bonus (and $1000 is rather small compared to corporate cash on hand), then announce it and link it to the tax shift law in a way that the nasty guy will see it. He’ll praise you, declare you an ally, and smooth the regulatory way. Disney did this as its proposed merger with the Murdoch empire comes before the Department of Justice.



Another story from More Perfect, stories from the Supreme Court, this episode is about a half hour. This one isn’t about a particular case, rather it’s about women on the Court. A law student analyzed a huge number of oral arguments at the Supremes over the last decade or so. What he found is that the male justices routinely interrupt the female justices. One effect of that is the women stopped using polite language, such as, “May I ask a question?” Alas, that reduced, but didn’t stop, the interruptions. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was asked, “What is the ideal number of women on the court?” Her answer: “Nine.”



Josh Weed is a Mormon and that church doesn’t like LGBTQ people. Something about their doctrine is built around the family, so a person had better have one and of the right kind. So Josh married Lolly. They have been used as an example of how a gay man and a straight women can have a successful Mormon marriage. It was so successful that their marriage was cited in the Supreme Court same-sex marriage case in 2015 as a reason why marriage should be denied to same-sex couples.

Josh and Lolly have announced their divorce. They said their deep platonic love was no substitute for romantic love. They offered an apology to LGBTQ people.



To explain Net Neutrality Burger King created a commercial about Whopper Neutrality. If you don’t pay the hefty premium you have to wait for your meal.



Sixty years ago the American Space program began. On January 31, 1958 we launched our first satellite, Explorer 1. In the four months that its battery lasted its sensors showed the existence of the Van Allen belts, which protect earth life from solar and cosmic radiation. Explorer 1 actually stayed aloft for 12 years and 58,000 orbits.

Yeah, it’s a crisis

I finally went out to see the latest Star Wars movie. During my intensive (for me) movie watching over the last month other movies had higher priority. I knew this one would be around for a while.

Yeah, it was violent. Expected for a movie with “war” in the title. A complaint: It was not nearly as much fun as many of the others. A complement: I thought it was much more psychologically complex than most movies.

Another complaint (spoiler alert): A female officer is left on the big rebel ship as everyone else makes their escape. Why did she wait for so many of the escape ships to get blown up before she used her ship as a weapon?

I’m going to miss Carrie Fisher who isn’t around to be in Episode 9.



When is a crisis in the government a constitutional crisis? That term can get overused and thrown about over a situation that is bad, but doesn’t actually threaten some or all of the Constitution.

For example, the nasty guy issuing a travel ban against Muslim countries is not a constitutional crisis. It is indeed bad, but the Constitution provides remedies through Congress and the Courts.

In contrast, if, after impeachment, the nasty guy were to barricade himself in the Oval Office, that would be a constitutional crisis.

I wrote about whether a crisis imperils the Constitution back in May. This was the time that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate the links between the nasty guy and Russia. At the time there was already talk of the nasty guy obstructing justice and there was already obvious inaction by Congress. This is what I wrote at the time:

What about now with evidence of obstruction of justice? I would say no, because the Constitution lays out the remedy of impeachment.

So, take another step: What about a lawless president and a Congress refusing to step in with the Constitutional remedy?

In my opinion: Yes. Now the Constitution itself is in peril.

I bring all this up because, alas, there are a couple more examples that happened this week.

First up: Last summer Congress passed a bill calling for sanctions against Russia. The bill passed with such huge majorities (House and Senate combined voted 517-5) that the nasty guy felt forced to sign it. Even if he hadn’t there were way more than enough votes to override his veto.

Earlier this week, at the deadline for implementing the sanctions, the nasty guy informed Congress that the sanctions had not been implemented and would not be. He claimed that sanctions weren’t necessary.

Which means the executive branch has overruled the legislative branch.

When these sanctions were passed Vladimir Putin threatened painful retaliations if they were implemented. And that means the nasty guy caved to Putin’s bullying.

This is a constitutional crisis because: (1) the president is doing the bidding of a foreign power to the detriment of the country he is supposed to lead, (2) in doing so, the president is refusing to implement a law passed by Congress, and (3) Congress has done nothing in response to the defiance.

Hmm. The nasty guy is more afraid of consequences from Putin than from Congress.

Second example: I’ve reported about a “classified” memo that Rep. Devin Nunes created that supposedly proves that the FBI is hopelessly corrupt and totally biased against the nasty guy. The FBI director says the memo leaves out enough facts that the memo can no longer be considered accurate. The nasty guy says he will release it anyway. The Dems have written a memo that debunks the Nunes memo, and the GOP leaders are blocking its release.

Part of this is to undermine the Mueller investigation into the nasty guy’s Russian connections – no matter what Mueller comes up with, people will have justification of declaring it fake news. And part of this…

Leah McElrath on Twitter adds:

Trump’s attempts to delegitimize the IC [Intelligence Community] and FBI have laid the groundwork for an eventual purge of those bodies and replacement of their staff by “his” people.

McElrath includes tweets in which Speaker Paul Ryan is quoted as using the word “cleanse” with the FBI, the nasty guy considering using private security companies to replace the IC, and Kellyanne Conway admitting the nasty guy has plans to replace the IC with “his own people.”

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville tells us this is a constitutional crisis because: (1) the president is trying to shut down an investigation into the subversion of our democracy by a foreign government, (2) he is aided by a majority in Congress – no checks and balances here, and (3) this is now an open conflict with the minority party and the IC.

Now take a moment to think about what it means if the FBI is replaced with “his people.” First, it means we’ve lost a critical check on a lawless president. Second, think KGB.

G. Willow Wilson used a Twitter thread to add an important point:

It's a mistake to think a dictatorship feels intrinsically different on a day-to-day basis than a democracy does. I've lived in one dictatorship and visited several others--there are still movies and work and school and shopping and memes and holidays. The difference is the steady disappearance of dissent from the public sphere. Anti-regime bloggers disappear. Dissident political parties are declared "illegal." Certain books vanish from the libraries. … People still have rights, in theory. The right to vote, to serve on a jury, etc. The difference is that they begin to fear exercising those rights. Voting in an election will get your name put on "a list." So if you're waiting for the grand moment when the scales tip and we are no longer a functioning democracy, you needn't bother. It'll be much more subtle than that. It'll be more of the president ignoring laws passed by congress. It'll be more demonizing of the press. Until one day we wake up and discover the regime has decided to postpone the 2020 elections until its lawyers are finished investigating something or other. Or until it can 'ensure' that the voting process is 'fair.'

Your friendly neighborhood anti-regime blogger is right here keeping you informed for as long as possible.