Protections in a trade deal

The nasty guy, along with Prime Minister of Canada Trudeau and President of Mexico Peña Nieto, signed the USMCA (also known as NAFTA 2.0) trade deal. The nasty guy is, of course, crowing that it is the best trade deal in the history of the world, even though it isn’t much different than the original NAFTA.

But a few GOP members of Congress are pissed over the deal. One of the changes is LGBT employment protections. Trudeau insisted that the agreement redefines the word “sex” to include “sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Rep. Doug Lamborn complained that the nasty guy administration has been doing such good work unifying policy around excluding sexual orientation and gender identity and this trade deal is ruining that work. “A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy.”

I think a trade agreement is a fine place to adopt social policy, especially this one, though also including worker rights and environmental protections.

A right to life … and food

There is a United Methodist Building in Washington, DC, squeezed between the Supreme Court and the Senate Office Buildings. I’m not sure how they got that plum location. There is a “church sign” on the corner facing both the court and the Capitol. Currently on that sign is:

“I was a stranger, and you tear gassed me.”
… Wait a second

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons posted a picture on Twitter. You can find the original passage in the book of Matthew in the Bible, somewhere in chapter 25.

I looked at his Twitter feed and at the top is another sign:

A caravan of 5000 migrants confronted Jesus. He fed them. Matthew 14:13-21.

The replies to that tweet were indignant of the church (and Guthrie) of misusing Scripture. Of course, he had lots to say about conservatives misusing Scripture.



Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican from Kentucky (and chair of the 2nd Amendment Caucus) tweeted:

How long until someone runs on the platform of #FoodStampsForAll? If healthcare is a right, is food as well?

This is just one in a long list of Republicans spouting off that if people want to eat they had better work for it. Melissa McEwan of Shakesville has been keeping that list. In a previous episode in the series she reminds us that people die without food. So the GOP is saying people don’t have a right to life – in direct contradiction to to the Declaration of Independence and to what the GOP says about the unborn.

The replies to Massie’s tweet pointed out the hypocrisy:

Molly Rod: Now tell us all about your personal relationship with your lord and savior Jesus Christ, Tom. Can't wait to hear about that.

FrivYeti: Well, we've found the modern "Let them eat cake", I guess.

Frostinglickr: Being pro-starvation is a hot take.

SunShineIce: I would argue that plentiful food, by its very nature, would be a necessary component of "health care".

TCCICV: Not to mention a vital component to the “life” part of “life liberty and the pursuit of happiness

MrOzAtheist: Your economy deliberately manufactures poor people. You have a huge disparity between CEO earnings and lower level worker earnings. There are so many “yes, we need this job done, but you have to be poor doing it jobs”. Then you say, if you’re sick, and poor...bad luck. You suck.

Pat Caldwell: Wasn't the $1.9T handout (TaxScam) to the 1% and large corporations supposed to trickle down so everyone had food and healthcare? What happened?

Richard Dickson: Running on the "Hurry up and die already" platform, I see.

Joe in Memphis: Food and healthcare are not rights, but guns are. Gotcha.

Cvfan: How dare a necessity to stay alive be a right!

Dylan McKenna: Interesting question, Congressman. Under which circumstances is it not morally objectionable to let another person starve to death? Looking forward to your reply.

Filibuster Keaton: When I was a child, we relied on food stamps to eat. Now as an adult, I have a college degree in political science and I’m going to make sure you are replaced. Aren’t you so PISSED I was fed?

McEwan reminds us the above tweet comes at a time when Russia is being very aggressive against Ukraine. And this round of aggression came at a time when Ukraine was remembering Holodomor a time when millions of Ukrainians were starved by Joseph Stalin.

That prompted a reply from RachelB

When Republicans think that people are not entitled to food, this is what I think of: Stalin attempting to starve his own people into compliance. This is the model of authority they admire. This is the company they want to keep.

Strange blog stats

This blog is hosted on Blogger, now owned by Google. I’ve been using this system for the entire 11 year history and 3869 posts of this blog. I forgot to mention the blog anniversary a couple weeks ago.

I think more than a year ago (hard to tell because I can’t get some types of past data) I started getting spikes in the blog readership. In one hour there would be 75 or more page reads while page reads in other hours would stay under 10. They would happen about every other day. Those same days there would be a spike in readership in Italy of about the same number. I thought that was strange so I did the “send feedback” thing wondering if there was a problem. I never got a reply and the situation continues. I’ve been getting about 2,000 page reads a month.

Then in the middle of this month. I got a spike of 7,661 page reads in one day. I think (though can no longer check) that most of those page reads were in a very small number of hours. A couple more spikes in the following days, so the total for four days was 13,511 page reads.

Yeah, really strange, especially since that is three times the total number of posts on the blog. Even stranger, the Traffic Sources report says all those hits were linked to my blog from google.com. All came from within the United States.

That makes me wonder if someone or several someones downloaded the entire contents of my blog. Perhaps they want to do some kind of data analysis of what I’ve written? If so, for what purpose?

Objective controversy

The nasty guy has ranted many times against CNN news. Sarah Kendzior, who has studied authoritarian regimes, tweeted an explanation of those rants:

He does this to give the appearance of universally acrimonious relationships with cable media, which is false, but makes his crony outlets seem more "objective". FOX is a Trump admin megaphone; CNN hires his campaign team as commentators. This is more effective than state TV.

In reply Twitter user Parrhizzia had a few things to add:

This. CNN’s goal is balance, not truth. “Both sides” given equal time and equal weight. That was seen clearly this weekend in regard the climate change report. This is EXTREMELY dangerous as it gives cover for the Republicans as they rapidly become more radical

But they go further; by the MSM presenting them as a valid or rational party, by false equivalences between massive disparities, by presenting their most moderate members as the mainstream, they’ve allow for further unchecked Republican radicalization.
...
Trump is not a black swan. He is not an alien from space. He is the natural and obvious next step of the tactics and radicalization of the Republican Party, which has accelerated from Nixon, Oliver North, Atwater, Stone, Gingrich, Rove, Palin to now Bannon and Trump.

This radicalization is a greater threat to the US than “radical Islamic terrorism”. Unless the Republican collapse can be arrested, unless they can return to being the party of Eisenhower, I worry that the next step AFTER Trump will be truly terrifying. The media MUST step up.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville also has a complaint about the mainstream media, explained in a Twitter thread:

"Controversial" is a word that has long been used by press to cover all manner of sins — and to maintain an illusion of objectivity by not taking a side on the "controversy," as though not condemning abuse is a neutral position. But its current service to bothsideserism is gross.

Donald Trump and the various members of his vile administration are not "controversial figures." His policies of malice are not "controversial." People in power who perpetrate abuse and the people who object to it and/or are harmed by it are not two sides of a "controversy."

And I want to emphasize, again, that using "controversy" (or "debate," or variations thereof) to affect neutrality is bullshit. There is no neutral in Trump's vast abuses. There is only condemning and resisting it, or abetting it, either actively or passively.

It takes some hefty denial to manage to convince oneself that weasel words like "controversy" are somehow superior to the complicity of silence.

Deadliest decision

A couple little things in the news.

The kids who survived the school shooting in Parkland, Florida created March For Our Lives and campaigned across the country for an end to gun violence. They’ve become rather effective at it. The leaders have now been awarded the 2018 International Children’s Peace Prize. It was awarded by Desmond Tutu who received the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-apartheid leadership. The youth traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to receive the prize. Congratulations for a well deserved award.



That huge climate change report the nasty guy’s administration released last week (done Friday of Thanksgiving week in hopes nobody was paying attention) says some pretty dire things. That prompted Melissa McEwan of Shakesville to write:

I have observed many times before that the Bush v. Gore might have been the deadliest Supreme Court decision of all time, and this is precisely why. Of course it isn't certain that we wouldn't have wasted 15 years (and even more) of response time had the decision not halted the recount in Florida and Gore had been allowed to win the election via the completed recount. But it is far more likely, inestimably more likely, that we would be on a completely different course than we are now had our president been the man who has dedicated his life, before and since, to climate change.

Messy collapse or neat collapse

Yesterday I wrote about coal not coming back because it is now cheaper to build new new wind and solar installations than to operate an existing coal plant.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos takes a look at the current state of the coal industry, including the way it is financed and the bonds it must cover to restore the landscape when the mining is done. Part of the way it is financed is through the projected value of the coal still in the ground (Sumner explains in detail). That value is rapidly falling. The book value of the companies is falling and could “disappear in a puff of accounting smoke if challenged.” There is vast overcapacity. The industry could collapse.

Which is a good thing since burning coal is so disastrous to the environment – greenhouse gases, toxic waste, acid rain, mercury, radiation.

Except coal still supplies a third of our nation’s electricity. If coal collapses before alternatives are online there would be huge economic consequences.

So we could have a messy collapse or we could have a neat collapse. A messy collapse is when all the companies fail together. A neat collapse is when the fail one at a time and the others take up the slack for a while.

Democrats should be planning to help coal die with dignity by implementing plans that transition workers away, speed up implementation of reclamation plans, and assist power companies in getting replacement systems online.

The massacre generation

Julia Savoca Gibson is a college freshman. She wrote a perspective piece for the Washington Post. She says her entire life has been framed by violence. She is part of the massacre generation. She doesn’t remember 9/11 because she was a year and a half old. She does remember the Virginia Tech shooting. The lockdown drills at her elementary school. A teacher in 7th grade weeping as she told the class about the Newtown shooting – the town where the teacher’s grandchildren lived. The Orlando nightclub. Las Vegas. Parkland, and demonstrations classmates organized.

She recently attended a Jewish Shabbat service. The next morning she heard about the Tree of Life shooting. She had a haunted thought that the shooter might have come to the service she attended. She attended the vigil and will remember her Jewish friends’ eyes.

I remembered that for anyone born near the year 2000, this is all we’ve ever known.

I remember filling out my absentee ballot a few weeks ago. I remember voting, hoping that weeks, years, decades from now I’d be able to remember that we changed.

The young don’t vote? They do now. The difference is school shootings.



Another shooting incident on Thanksgiving Day. Victor Laszlo tweeted:

For the second time this month, a good guy with a gun tried to stop a bad guy with a gun — and was murdered by the police for the crime of being good while black.

The NRA has said nothing.

Neither has the KKK — and for precisely the same reason.

The BenShot company makes whiskey shot glasses that look like they’ve been struck by a bullet. Yeah, I’m laughing. But I’m not laughing at what the father and son company owners gave their employees for Christmas. Every employee got a gun. Even if they didn’t want one. Even though having a gun makes one less safe.

I read that and had a very strong reaction. If that happened to me I would immediately hand in my resignation. I wouldn’t want to be there even if an exception was made for me because I would know all my colleagues had guns.

Restructured on love

About two weeks ago, while the world was marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Diana Butler Bass used a Twitter thread to discuss what happened to theology during and after the war. Well known theologians of the 20th Century, such as Paul Tillich, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Karl Barth, Rev. Giuseppe Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII who convened Vatican II), and Rabbi Solomon Freehof, were all deeply involved with WWI as a soldier or chaplain. Several developed PTSD as a result of their experiences.

They struggled over who God was or what he represented. They had seen evil and their previous understanding of God was shattered. Their writings were about universal ideas, about justice and a global community.

All these visions emerged from the horror of gas and mud and bullets and bombs and the uselessness of a hideous war. The theologies were more honest about human nature and doubt, more attuned to the suffering of the world, appreciative of freedom, restructured on love, and emphasized the authority & voice of regular people, the "laity," as God's body.

They set a theological table for much that would come later -- the theologies of liberation and ecumenism and liturgical renewal -- by either opening new theological conversations or inviting argument with their shortcomings.

Bass asks us how has our theology changed in this century? We’ve experienced 9/11 and two wars, one we can’t get out of. Women have been shouting Me Too. Students are crying over slain classmates. Immigrants are oppressed. Are we examining our theology in the wake of these events?

Let us work with passion and heart, taking our experiences seriously, re-reading and wrestling with our ancient texts, searching for paths of love, hints of beauty and grace.

Hadrian and Antinous

The opera this afternoon on Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) (I hear it out of Windsor) was Hadrian by Rufus Wainright. Yes, that Rufus Wainright, the pop singer. He’s been fascinated by opera for quite a while. This is the second opera he’s written. The first had mixed reviews, but the Canadian Opera Company saw enough promise to commission a second opera.

I’m pleased a gay pop singer chose a gay relationship for the center of the opera. Hadrian was an emperor of ancient Rome. One thing he is known for is his love for Antinous (another is Hadrian’s Wall in England).

Act 1: Hadrian is near death, grieving the loss of Antinous. As part of a chance to eliminate enemies he accepts a deal to relive two days of his life.

Act 2: The first of those days is the day he met Antinous. The youth had saved the emperor’s life. There are prophesies that Antinous will sacrifice himself for the emperor.

Act 3: The second day is six years later, Hadrian’s wife Sabina knows their marriage is without love. She leads palace intrigue, and Antinous is killed.

Act 4: Back in the later time as Hadrian dies the plotters realize Hadrian really did love Antinous. The two are reunited in the afterlife.

Yeah, that is a simplification of a 2½ hour plot.

The music is in a modern style and quite different from what the singer would use in his pop concerts.

I’m not impressed with the music or the story. I’m delighted that a gay relationship is at the core. I’m also delighted that such a story didn’t scare off the Canadian Opera Company.

Kids in an awful position

In a Twitter thread Leah McElrath lists a few incidents where middle-school students reported incidents of guns near their school. The kids discussed each incident on social media before getting adults involved. McElrath wrote:

The students are 11-15 years old. ALL of these incidents were discussed on social media BY KIDS before adults became aware of them. The CHILDREN had to make triage decisions about reporting.

We are forcing CHILDREN into the position of making life and death triage decisions involving potential gun violence by their peers and by adults. We are doing this because we are allowing an international arms dealing organization to dictate gun policy.

We are ALL being held hostage by the NRA. The NRA is an international arms dealing and domestic terrorist organization. Its influence has grotesquely distorted childhood in America. It is insane. It is unacceptable. It must end.

An obvious question is why do the kids need to discuss it? Why not simply immediately turn the situation over to the police? A couple commenters answer:

Because reporting your peers to law enforcement is a perfectly normal thing to expect kids to have to do. Especially kids of color who face the extra risk of being beaten up and/or killed by the police.

Ahh. Yeah. Well that's why Leah correctly characterizes it as kids having to make life or death triage decisions. These kids know that risk. That's why, sometimes, they don't report it. They're being put in an awful position.

Coal isn’t coming back

Proposals to end gerrymandering won easily on election night in Michigan, Missouri, and Colorado. The one in Utah was declared passed just a couple days ago after all the ballot counting. It won by 50.3-49.7%. The Utah proposal isn’t as independent and robust as I would hope, for a few reasons. First, the commission is appointed by the governor and legislature, though both parties get seats. Second, it advises. That means the commission can draw up maps and the legislature can substitute their own. Third, the proposal becomes a law that the legislature can repeal. The legislature is heavily GOP. They’re faced with whether they fear a public backlash over such a naked power grab if they repeal.



Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discusses an important cost analysis. First:

For the last several years, it’s been considerably cheaper to build a wind farm than it has been to build a fossil fuel-based power plant.

And then:

But, as reported by CBS, the cost difference between coal and renewables has now passed another milestone. It is now more affordable to build a new wind farm or solar installation, from scratch, than it is to simply operate an already existing coal plant.

So, no, the nasty guy is not bringing back coal jobs.



Nate Silver, the statistics guy at FiveThirtyEight, has another way of discussing the strength of the Democrat win. He compared the number of votes a president got compared to the number of votes the opposition party got for House races two years later going back to 1950. The midterm election is usually seen as a rebuke of the president, even with low turnout. A couple examples: in 1964 Lyndon Johnson won with 43.1 million votes. Two years later GOP House members received 25.5 million votes, or 59% of what Johnson got when elected. That year the Democratic majority in the House grew. In 1968 Nixon won with 31.8 million votes. Two years later with Watergate scandals raging, Democrat House members got 29.1 million votes, or 92%. Again, the Dem majority grew.

And this year… In 2016 the nasty guy won with 63.0 million votes. This year Democrat House members got 60.5 million. That’s an amazing 96%, higher than before.



Democrat Stacey Abrams, in a carefully worded statement, did not concede in the race for Georgia Governor to Brian Kemp. She did, however, say she saw no legal way forward, so was no longer pursuing it. Instead, she will work towards free and fair elections in Georgia.

Mother Jones magazine tweeted what Abrams was up against. And what she will be fighting to change. This tweet was, of course, an introduction to a full Mother Jones article.

This race was a disgrace:
* 1.5 million voters purged by Brian Kemp
* 53k registrations on hold
* 4.5 hour lines to vote
* 214 polling places closed
* Dems falsely accused of cyber crimes
* AND Kemp oversaw his own election

In a Twitter thread, Leah McElrath talked about her daughter expressing doubts about becoming a mother because the world is such a mess and she can’t imagine bringing a baby into it. The daughter is 13, an age of becoming aware of national and international events. The daughter also has plenty of time to reassess.

McElrath’s daughter may have time to change her mind, but commenter Carly doesn’t. She said she was told that due to health issues if she wants a baby she needs to have it quickly or not at all. Again, given the state of the world, should she?

Several others report that Millennials feel they shouldn’t have kids. Beyond the mess, political and environmental, of the world they’re also concerned about job insecurity.

A rake to the Finnish

The nasty guy has been claiming that the horrendous damage by fire in Northern California is because the forests have not been properly managed.

When the nasty guy was in Europe meeting heads of state Sauli Niinistö, president of Finland make a comment that it is a land covered by forests and they have a good monitoring system. “We take care of our forests.” Of course, coming out of the mouth of the nasty guy it got mangled. He said Finland spends “a lot of time raking and cleaning” their forests.

That prompted the Twitter hashtag #haravointi (raking). The Finns responded with various images of them raking and mocking. Some examples of what was posted (at least in English):

“Rake America Great Again” / “Make America Rake Again”

“Rake News!”

“Rake against the Machine” (photo of a rake leaning on a garden tractor).

A video of a man raking a beach to prevent sea level rise.

A photo of a woman in the forest with a vacuum cleaner.

A suggestion that synchronized raking be added as an Olympic sport.

“Here in Canada we have automated with our forest Roomba.”

“I have been so wrong! I thought we were suppose to drain the swamp. No! We are suppose to rake the forest. Thank God we do not have to rake the swamp. That would be so dangerous.”

“Rake, Rake against the dying of the light.” Apologies to Dylan Thomas.

“A rake to the Finnish.”

And one more: two men using a giant comb on the desert.

Leah McElrath, in a Twitter thread, talks about the magnitude of the destruction of the Camp Fire did to the town of Paradise, California. Workers are sifting through ash to find bone shards of people who didn’t make it out.

Then McElrath wrote:

Trump deceptively pushes a land “mismanagement” narrative because he is laying groundwork to privatize public lands/expand logging. When you hear Trump or any Republicans talk about “forest management” or “land management” in relation to these wildfires, you need to replace the words with “expanded logging company access” or “privatization of public lands.”
...
There is no indication forest “mismanagement” played any role whatsoever in the #CampFire. That is simply false.

Commenters add: The forest is managed by the Secretary of the Interior – a person who works for the nasty guy. The mismanagement claim fits the conservative narrative that the government can’t do anything right, so let the private sector do it.

Red brain, blue brain

In the last year I’ve been enjoying the NPR show Hidden Brain. It is on in my area at 11:00 on Sundays, so I listen to it after church and on my way to meet friends for lunch. That means I tend to hear about half an episode.

A month ago the first half of the episode was intriguing enough that I wanted to listen to the whole thing. I finally did so online tonight, taking notes as I went.

The episode is titled Red Brain, Blue Brain; Nature, Nurture and Your Politics. Host Shankar Vedantam talked to John Hibbing, a political scientist of University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Hibbing is one of the authors of Predisposed: Liberals, conservatives, and the biology of political differences. The online audio is 26 minutes.

Hibbing found many correlations between political views and other things in our lives. For example, conservative like order, liberals embrace ambiguity and diversity. Conservatives tend towards meat and potatoes. Liberals embrace ethnic foods. Conservatives like predictability. Liberals are more experimental. Conservatives decorate their homes with sports memorabilia and keep things tidy. Liberals are more likely to have lots of books and a diverse shelf of CDs in a space that is more messy. Conservatives like purebred pets. Liberals like mixed-breeds and think of the pet as a member of the family. Conservatives want poetry that rhymes, novels with a clear resolution, and music with a clear melody. Liberals tend more towards free verse, appreciate less tidy novels, and more accepting of the spontaneity of jazz. Conservatives like tradition. Liberals like innovation.

Yes, these are averages and based on correlations. So while it is possible to make a pretty good guess of political preferences by the food one eats and the music one listens to, it is definitely not a strict correlation. I’m a liberal that isn’t into jazz. Even so, there are differences in temperaments – genuine psychological differences between liberals and conservatives that goes beyond politics.

So what shapes our politics? Originally, our views are shaped by our parents and other prominent adults. After a while we test our politics against our world view and come up with our own opinion.

When people hear about these correlations they don’t like them. No one want to think to be a good liberal I need to eat in ethnic restaurants. We’re being ourselves. And or politics is also being ourselves.

So on to bigger things, such as how we perceive threats. An example is a rant by Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA. He listed a large number of threats we face. To conservatives these threats are numerous and are very real. To Liberals the world isn’t all that threatening and we don’t want to build our lives around these inconsequential threats.

Guns are one issue where each side baffles the other. Immigration is another. Conservatives see immigrants are a threat. Laws need to be strong. Citizens need to be well armed. The government needs to spend lots on defense and empower police. We need the death penalty. Those who make it here need to be extremely vetted. We don’t understand why anyone would be opposed to safety. A good citizen is one who is prepared to defend home and country from these threats.

Both sides accuse the other that they don’t get it. But each threat (or lack of threat) is real from their perception. We think if they don’t agree with us it is because they are deliberately obtuse or biased. We have a hard time believing other people don’t see the world as we do.

Hibbing and Vendantam turn to the science. Is there a source for these differences? Is that source our home environment? Growing up in a conservative home a person is influenced by much more than political views, such as foods, types of pets, and the way the home is decorated. All these traits may tend to come together. So is political preference just about nurture?

Hibbing was able to access a large study of twins. This data included political views. His team looked at fraternal twins, who have similar genes, and identical twins who have the same genes. Twins grow up in the same household, eat the same food, and listen to the same politics from their parents. So a lack of difference in political views might be traced to genetics.

And, indeed, that was found. About 30-40% of our political views are influenced by genetics and 60-70% are influenced by the environment (go ask a scientist what that really means). The scientific community was a bit upset that the influence of genes over politics was more than zero.

There are several traits that we now see as biologically based, such as being left-handed or being gay. With that recognition usually comes tolerance. Will that same tolerance come to political views?

I have a personal answer to that last point. If you want to eat just meat and potatoes, go right ahead. While you do that I’ll enjoy the area Thai, Indian, Mexican, and Lebanese restaurants. But it is hard to be tolerant of a conservative viewpoint when their stated goal is malice and harm – of the immigrant, of other races, of other religions, of the poor, of LGB and especially T people, of women. Of everyone but straight white Christian men. That isn’t just a different opinion, a different way of looking at things. That results in pain, suffering, oppression, and death. That needs to be resisted.

There is another episode on a similar topic. That will have to wait for another day.

Discarding democracy

Little things that have accumulated in my browser tabs…

Hunter of Daily Kos discusses an article from the New York Times which noted that the nasty guy said a great deal about the caravan of refugees crossing Mexico and how they were a threat to American national security – but he stopped mentioning the subject as soon as the polls closed. News sources appeared to lose interest at the same time. Gosh, could the nasty guy have been using the caravan as a political ploy? Hunter notes that this is another instance of the press merely repeating the propaganda of the nasty guy without investigation or context. This propagandist knows how to manipulate the press against the American public. And they’re way too willing to be manipulated.



Now that the election is over there is lots of people saying, well, if you don’t like the result, you should just move. In a Twitter thread Robin Marty takes on such foolish ideas.

Does no one realize how hard moving is? Leaving families? Uprooting kids from schools? Looking for new jobs? Finding housing? Don’t they think about how much money and privilege all of that takes? What if you are in college? You should just switch schools? What if you work for the state? No big, just leave? What if you have family in care centers or assisted living? Ditch them?
...
People don’t need to move if they want a different government. They need to actually be allowed to vote for the government they really want - and for their votes to count. And to have as many representatives as they should. And that comes from staying and fighting, not leaving.

Yeah, the recounts in Florida are proceeding. The hassles include overheating counting machines. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos looks at what might happen when the counting is over, at least for the Senate race between Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Rick Scott. Quoting a bit of the New York Times Sumner wrote:

The decision to seat a senator is ultimately decided in the Senate. With Trump and Scott and other Republican officials daily hurling around the words “stolen” and “fraud” even though there’s no evidence of either, it sits the Senate up to make its own decision should the recount tip the outcome in Nelson’s favor.

If that were to happen, though, it is not unthinkable that Republicans would consider using their majority power in the Senate to refuse to seat Mr. Nelson and to give the seat to Mr. Scott instead — especially considering how he and his party have repeatedly insisted, without offering evidence, that the ballot review process has been riddled with fraud and misconduct.

The nasty guy has been tweeting about the election results in Florida and Georgia where counting is still going on. The prompted Leah McElrath to explain in a Twitter thread what he’s doing. He says things to inflame the base (never mind they are lies or are even contradictory). He’s creating confusion. He notes which parts of his story draw the greatest reaction from his audience and refines his story. When presented with evidence his base will believe what their own minds are telling them. His target is discredited.

IMPORTANT: In this case, however, the subject of Trump’s defamatory campaign is not an individual or even a group. It is the normal process of democratic elections. He feels rejected by democracy, so he is *discarding* it. Literally.

And he is also telling his base to mistrust and discard democracy as well.



According to data from Daily Kos and Washington Post and my own use of a spreadsheet we can see the makeup of the new House. The GOP is to hold 204 seats, of which 89% are white men. The Democrats are to hold 231 seats and their delegation is much more diverse: 38% are white men, 20% are white women, 23% are men of color, and 18% are women of color.



Attorney General Jeff Sessions is out the door. Chief of Staff John Kelly might soon follow. That prompted Sarah Kendzior to tweet:

Typical in autocratic governments. They fire frequently to create chaos and leave a void, weakening external checks. The void is then filled by an increasingly narrow circle of loyalists. The longer in power, the more paranoid the ruler gets, and the narrower the circle becomes.

We see an example of those weakened external checks in the appointment of a “temporary” Attorney General who can do a great deal of damage before the Senate confirms a replacement (some time after the nasty guy actually nominates a replacement).



Watching the nasty guy skip a Veterans Day commemoration in France last weekend Twitter user Jason noted:

Thinking about trump dodging the WW1 cemetery due to rain I was reminded of something that @sarahkendzior wrote: "Serving one’s country is a sacrifice, and sacrifice terrifies Trump. The idea that one would risk oneself–out of love, loyalty, or duty–is alien to him.”

Below Jason’s tweet is a reply with a rewrite of a famous WWI poem.

Jason quoted Sara Kendzior. Here’s Kendzior explaining it a bit more.

This is my lane

The American College of Physicians created a position paper in which they outline their public health approach to reducing deaths and injuries from firearms. The shooting at a Synagogue in Pittsburgh made the news as did the shooting at a bar in Thousand Oaks. They were about ten days apart. What didn’t get much coverage was the mass shootings – four or more deaths – averaging one a day in between (and probably since).

But the NRA didn’t like the recommendations from the ACP. They tweeted:

Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane. Half of the articles in Annals of Internal Medicine are pushing for gun control. Most upsetting, however, the medical community seems to have consulted NO ONE but themselves.

That definitely stirred up the doctors, who tweeted a flurry of rebuttals that, alas, are rather graphic (the link above includes them). Some of what they wrote:

Dr. Esther Choo: “We are not anti-gun: we are anti-bullet holes in our patients. We consult with everyone but extremists.”

Dr. Jeannie Moorjani: “I would like to graciously extend the invitation to the author of this tweet and anyone else from the NRA to join me at the hospital the next time I care for a child who has been hurt or killed by a gun that wasn't safely stored or was an innocent bystander.”

Dr. Judy Melinek: “Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn't just my lane. It's my f****** highway.”

Dr. Stephanie Bonne: “Wanna see my lane? Here’s the chair I sit in when I tell parents their kids are dead. How dare you tell me I can’t research evidence based solutions.”

The NRA, always persistent, complained that the studies in their paper don’t really have “evidence.”

The ACP responded where evidence is limited, we say so. All our recommendations were reviewed and approved by our health policy committee, which includes gun owners.

In addition, the NRA is the reason why there isn’t much evidence. A 1996 law prevents the CDC from advocating or promoting gun control. Dr. Melinek says, “What we are against is not researching…”

Rock v. rifle

The nasty guy tweeted that when refugees in the caravan throw rocks at the military on the border, “consider it a rifle.” He says the refugees are already “viciously” throwing those rocks, though I don’t think anyone has an arm that can blast a rock over several hundred miles. Melissa McEwan of Shakesville responds:

He wants a clash at the border. He's doing everything he can to try to ensure that it happens. Because malice is the agenda.

Joe Kassabian, a veteran of Afghanistan, says:

We had rocks thrown at us all the time in Afghanistan. Responding with lethal force is a fucking war crime.

Meteor Blades of Daily Kos says yeah, those refugees are fleeing poverty, violence, and highly dysfunctional governments. They are also fleeing climate change. Changing weather patterns have ruined crops for a couple years now. Guatemala is consistently listed in the 10 most vulnerable nations to climate change. This caravan of refugees may be a few thousand. The flow could swell to millions.

Lies are lies

A few people have used Twitter to explain how the media fails us.

Lois Beckett is a West Coast reporter for The Guardian, though the views in her Twitter feed are her own. She is sick of the media proclaiming hopelessness and stalemate after each mass shooting. There are ways to prevent such shootings, things that are already law. The fixes are not simple and don’t work all the time. Even so they should be tried. But these solutions are not well known, even by government officials. And media is good at making things well known. So, media, switch from hopelessness to action.

Michael Stuchberry reviews the rise of Hitler. The Munich Beer Hall Putch was a disaster. But during his trial Hitler was allowed to speak for hours and to cross-examine his witnesses. It was all nonsense but sounded great to a weary, scared German population. He was imprisoned under light guard, which meant he had the time and resources to focus his ideas into *Mein Kampf*.

Stuchberry concludes:

Basically, the German Weimar state, as it were, give Hitler all the time, resources and media training he'd possibly ever need to become a popular demagogue, during his trial and incarceration. It focused him, it gave him something to work for.

When presented with fascists, don't play by their rules. Don't concede ground to them. Don't give them the oxygen to spread their ideas. Repudiate them loudly, and forcefully. Stop them before they can grow into something more deathly persuasive.

We are making the same mistakes that plunged the world into darkness just under 75 years ago. In our attempt to ensure that all our voices are heard, we're giving a pulpit those who'd have all voices silenced. Do not ever think it can't happen again.

Chelsea Peretti wants more people to call things what they are. Why are we resigned when the nasty guy calls journalists the enemy of the people? Why are we calm in discussing how elections are being stolen? Why is there debate about whether the nasty guy is an autocrat? She concludes:

Lies are lies. Cruel is cruel. Racist is racist. Cheating is cheating. Votes are votes.

Though not through Twitter, Melissa McEwan of Shakesville has a few things to say to the media:

1. Both sides are not the same.

To downplay the eliminationism of the right under the auspices of maintaining "objectivity" is not objective at all — it has been and continues to be a profoundly dishonest misrepresentation of reality.

2. The nasty guy is serious about his vile nativist agenda. Stop pretending he isn’t.

3. This is not a normal presidency. Stop pretending “it’s not legal” matters to the nasty guy and his backers in Congress.

The whole reason that Mitch McConnell held open 100+ federal court seats plus a SCOTUS seat for the next GOP president is so the laws won't have to matter for Republicans anymore.

Power for me, not you

A couple more election stories:

We heard a lot about the Senate race in Texas which, alas, Beto O’Rourke lost. What didn’t get a lot of coverage was the 19 black women who ran for judgeships. All 19 won! Of those, 17 were in Harris County (Houston).

When GOP Scott Walker was governor of Wisconsin the GOP controlled Legislature ceded a great deal of power to Walker and his efforts to break unions. But now that Democrat Tony Evers has won the job of governor Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said:

If there are areas where we could look and say, 'Geez — have we made mistakes where we granted too much power to the executive,' I'd be open to taking a look to say what can we do to change that to try to re-balance it.

Yeah, a GOP governor can have lots of power, but a Democrat governor can’t. And we’re going to make sure he doesn’t. They have until January 7 to jam it through.

It’s autumn in Michigan

My front yard.

The tree they came from (last week).

Why vote when it doesn’t count?

I occasionally listen to an online episode of Radiolab. This 70 minute episode this week was, of course, about voting. The story starts by noting the rise conservative autocrats in various countries around the world, leaders who claim allegiance to democracy, but actually want to destroy it. When they get into power it is usually through a democratic vote. Don’t the citizens know what they are doing? A researcher worked through data from the World Values Survey which talked to many people around the world.

Three questions in the survey dealt with democracy: What do you think of a strong ruler who doesn’t have to bother with Parliament or elections? In 1995 24% of respondents thought this was a very good or fairly good thing. Recently that grew to 33% around the world. In France and Britain that has grown to about 50%.

How important is it for you to live in a democracy? About two-thirds of Americans born in the 1930s and 1940s put a great deal of importance to living in a democracy, saying it is really essential. For those born since 1980 it is less than one-third.

Do you think rule by the military is a good system of government? Twenty years ago about 6% of Americans thought that was a good idea. A couple years ago that had grown to about 16%. And among young, affluent Americans 35% thing military rule is a good thing.

This shows there is not a deep attachment to democracy. People are saying let’s try something new. How bad could it get? It can’t be worse. Can it?

But dictators are permanent. Democracy admits up front that we won’t get it right, things will always change, and that’s a good thing. In a couple years we can vote in new people.

So if people think democracy is broken, let’s fix it. Yeah, that means tackling corporate money, lobbyists, gerrymandering, voter suppression, Electoral College, and even the two-party system.

Yeah, that’s a lot to deal with, especially in an hour-long program. Perhaps we can deal with one – voting, or at least the idea that a person’s vote doesn’t count.

What we have now is similar to a 1980s computer. We need to update the operating system.

The last 50 minutes of the program worked through three examples of rank choice voting. The voter doesn’t just vote for a favorite, he or she also votes for a second choice, and third, etc. perhaps for as many candidates as there are. The voter could also refuse to put a candidate in his ranking.

When the ballot counting starts votes are all awarded according to the first choice on each ballot. If one candidate gets over 50%, we’re done. This process deals with majority, not plurality. If no candidate gets over 50% the candidate (if lots of candidates, maybe more than one) with the fewest votes is eliminated. The ballots listing that candidate as first choice are examined and redistributed according to the second choice. The process – eliminating the bottom and redistributing according to the next choice – is repeated until one candidate gets over 50%.

In places where this has been used, such as Ireland, San Francisco, and Maine, the debate has become more civil. Candidates want to be seen in a positive light to get the second choice.

A few years ago there were four candidates for San Francisco mayor. The bottom two teamed up – vote for me and vote for my partner candidate for second choice. It almost worked. One was eliminated immediately. The other got enough votes to eliminate the second highest and almost squeezed into first place.

This method of voting could have made a big difference in the 2016 election. There were enough Never Trump voters that as the bottom candidates were eliminated the second and third choices would have given another candidate the win over the nasty guy. And in the general election as the Libertarian and Green party candidates were eliminated, votes transferred to Hillary Clinton would have made a difference in the three close states.

Rank choice voting sounds good to me.

Here’s another case of a really good idea that won’t get implemented because the people currently in power don’t like democracy and benefit from the way things are done now. Sigh.

The news is supposed to be all about me

Drat, the post election euphoria didn’t last nearly long enough.

In the midst of the election results news yesterday the nasty guy fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He must have been annoyed that the news wasn’t about him, so did something vile to make sure he was the focus of attention again. The temporary AG, until a new one can be confirmed, isn’t Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, it is Chief of Staff Matthew Whitaker. A sensible question is why him? Whitaker and the nasty guy appear to agree on one thing: Whitaker’s role at the Justice Department is to shield the nasty guy from justice.

And, of course, that means threatening to shut down Robert Mueller’s investigation of the nasty guy and Russia. Though by now, a day later, he may have already done it.

The group Nobody Is Above the Law asked people to sign up several months ago, when the nasty guy needed some sort of distraction and threatened to fire Rosenstein. This group said that if the investigation was under threat they would call for protests the next day. So yesterday I got a notice a protest was set for this afternoon at 5:00. I had originally signed up for a protest in Ann Arbor, but when the notice actually came I found a protest in my own little suburb, one of 28 around Michigan and hundreds across the country. So I went to the local one.

I counted 80 people who braved the late afternoon cold. I’m sure a few more showed up while we were there. The organizer brought extra signs. I met a few people I had worked with on the gerrymandering campaign. We walked in an oval and chanted for about an hour.

Our little protest was along a busy street and next to the police station. Nearby is the district court and the street back to the court has an appropriate name. We had been marching for a while, chanting “No justice, no peace” when I noticed how appropriate that street’s name was.

Here’s another way the nasty guy inserted himself back into the news cycle. Jim Acosta is White House reporter for CNN and a regular target of the nasty guy’s ire. Yesterday Acosta asked a question about the nasty guy’s incendiary language. The nasty guy tried to shut down the question, Acosta persisted. A female WH intern tried to take the microphone from Acosta. Acosta fended off her grab.

The WH suspended Acosta’s press pass. He was accused of assaulting the female intern. Quite quickly the WH issued a video saying it “proved” the assault. Those familiar with video work just as quickly said the film had been doctored.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville noted:

This was clearly a set-up. And it should terrify and enrage all of us that the White House is engaging in this sort of manipulation, propaganda, and personal attacks on journalists as the president's war on the free press continues to escalate.

And fuck everyone who is calling this "a distraction." This isn't a distraction. This is what life looks like under an authoritarian regime, and we had better damn well be paying attention.

Andrea Mitchell reports the confrontation was planned in advance to distract the media from the Democratic victory. A woman was chosen to attempt to grab the mic so the WH could flip the narrative that had been used against Brett Kavanaugh.

McEwan added:

The time between when I say, "This administration is doing X" and people call me a hysterical conspiracy theorist, and then I'm proven right, keeps getting shorter and shorter. #Cassandra

For those who don’t remember their Greek mythology, Cassandra was a woman who always told the truth but was never believed. That led to nasty consequences during the Trojan War.

Taking oversight seriously

Election news:

I worked quite a bit this fall for Proposal 2 to end gerrymandering in Michigan. We won! The victory was a big one – 61% to 39%. Proposal 3 to establish voter rights won by an even bigger margin. Even Proposal 1 to legalize recreational marijuana passed. That one will contribute to lessening minority incarceration.

The Michigan Democratic Party nominated four women for statewide races – Senator, Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State. All four won. Congratulations to Debbie Stabenow for Senate (though she won by a much smaller margin than expected – something about not doing a lot of campaigning). Congrats also to Gretchen Whitmer for Governor and Garlin Gilchrist, a black man, for Lieutenant Governor. Congrats to Jocelyn Benson for Secretary of State, who prepared for the job by interviewing secretaries of state around the country and writing a book about best practices. The SoS has a role in administering the new redistricting process and Benson has said she supports the citizens commission (unlike her GOP rival). And Congrats to Dana Nessel for Attorney General. She is a lesbian and played a key role in winning marriage equality a few years ago.

Yay, Democrats took back the House! A few of the wins:

* Rashida Tlaib, my new Rep here in Michigan, and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota are the first Muslim women in Congress.

* Sharice Davids of Kansas and Deb Haaland of New Mexico are the first Native American women in Congress. Davids is also lesbian.

* Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman elected to Congress at age 29. This is important. Previously women who entered Congress did so after raising children, giving them a much shorter chance of a political career. The young women who are entering Congress are doing so at the same age as men, giving them an equal chance at leadership positions in future years.

* Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia are the first Latinas to represent Texas.

Overall, the House added 11 women, now at 95, and the Senate added two, though the number of GOP women dropped a bit. That means there will be 118 women in the next Congress. Alas, that’s still only 22%.

A big factor in the Dem takeover of the House is the states, especially Pennsylvania, where gerrymandered district maps were replaced. A couple other states with court-ordered mid-decade redraws were Florida and Virginia.

Even with gerrymandering Michigan flipped two seats. Iowa flipped two (likely due to the soybean tariffs) and Oklahoma (!) flipped one. A few other states flipped seats.

In other races:
* Jared Polis, a gay man, will be governor of Colorado.

* Back in 2011 Zach Wahls was an internet sensation for his impassioned speech to argue against a constitutional amendment in Iowa to ban same-sex marriage. He did it because he is the son of two moms. Last night Wahls was elected to the Iowa Senate. Pretty good for a guy only 26 years old.

* Chris Pappas, a gay Democrat in New Hampshire, was elected to the US House.

* Ayanna Pressley became the first black Congresswomen from Massachusetts.

* Lesbian Angie Craig unseated anti-LGBT Jason Lewis for a Minnesota seat in the US House.

* Democrat and lesbian Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin kept her US Senate seat.

Congress is reflecting the diversity of America a bit more.

Democrats took the governor’s office from the GOP in at least seven states. The Governor’s office in Georgia is still too close to call. Brian Hemp’s efforts as Secretary of State to suppress Democratic voters is helping Brian Hemp’s efforts to be the next governor. Two governors’ races are unsettled because of voting “irregularities” – to put it mildly. The Democratic candidate in both is black – Stacy Abrams in Georgia and Andrew Gillum in Florida.

Ballot proposals:
* A couple years ago Massachusetts passed a law protecting transgender rights. A “bathroom panic” brigade got a proposal on the ballot to overturn the law. In yesterday’s vote the law was protected!

* Redistricting proposals to end gerrymandering also passed in Missouri and Colorado. A similar proposal in Utah is ahead but way too close to call.

* Florida approved restoring voting rights to felons who have served their sentence. This overturns a highly racist policy.

Delicious defeats:
* Kris Kobach, who has worked hard in Kansas and for the nasty guy to rig elections for the GOP, lost his bid to be governor of Kansas.

* Scott Walker, who pushed through some bad anti-union laws while governor of Wisconsin, lost by just 1.2% – and after 2016 recounts he passed a law prohibiting recounts from a candidate that wasn’t within 1% of the winner.

* Kim Davis made headlines in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples as part of her job of clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky. She was voted out.

Annoying wins:
* Greg Pence, brother of the vice nasty guy, won an Indiana seat in the US House. It’s the same seat the vice nasty guy held before becoming governor of Indiana.



Democratic House leadership is already talking about the “oversight” they intend to impose on the nasty guy. The nasty guy responded by saying if the House investigates me I’ll have the Senate investigate the House – when they’re not stuffing the federal judiciary with nasty guy clones. Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, added a few threats of his own over “presidential harassment” meaning harassment of, not by, the president.

In a Twitter thread Ally Maynard assembled a list of candidates the nasty guy endorsed and who lost. I didn’t compute the ratio of losses to wins, but it appears to be pretty high.

Vile but logical

A bit of fun stuff before we get to the not fun stuff. Newlywed same-sex couple Noah and PJ have a first dance at their reception. They don’t just clutch each other and sway to the music. They launch into a joyful, energetic, and intricate dance routine! This took rehearsal, which they did with love. The video is five minutes.



An aspect of our modern communication systems is “ghosting” in which a friendly email chat just … stops. One party seems to disappear. Various dating services and even Gmail are trying to restart these conversations by “nudging” the silent person. Melissa McEwan of Shakesville does not like this attempt at electronic intervention. Quite frequently the reason why one side goes silent is the other is being abusive or at least creepy. McEwan adds:

"Ghosting" happens offline, too, of course. And, generally, when we talk about ghosting offline, people intuitively understand that we all cease communicating with other people for all sorts of reasons, and there's no universal fix-it, nor does every case need to be "fixed."

But somehow that very basic understanding of human interaction goes out the window when there's a profit motive for failing to understand it.

McEwan has talked about stochastic terrorism before. This is when a leader makes violent suggestions and one of his followers acts on them. The leader declares he had nothing to do with the violent act and calls the perpetrator a “lone wolf.” McEwan brings up the topic again:

For days now, many people have been expressing shock that Trump would continue to use this incendiary rhetoric even after the mailbombs and the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue. But to imagine that such acts of violent hatred would give Trump pause is to fundamentally misunderstand that malice is the agenda.

For Trump, the fact that individuals are taking it upon themselves to harm his political opponents and marginalized people is proof that his words are working precisely as intended.

The nasty guy and his backers also like to portray those lone wolf attackers as “crazy” and “mentally unstable,” that their actions are irrational. McEwan has a few things to say about that:

But whether any or all of these men have mental illness, none of them behaved irrationally. It's utterly vile, unethical, and illegal behavior, but it also completely logical behavior to respond to decades (or more) of incendiary rhetoric that casts a population as a present threat with eliminationist violence.

That's why there has been no let-up (despite sustained press inattention) in anti-choice terrorism in decades. Killing abortion doctors and bombing or otherwise attacking clinics is an aggressively indecent but logical response to hearing that people who provide and get abortions are committing mass murder.

This isn't "senseless" crime. It's a sense that makes a perfect, devastating sense by obscene standards.

The fact that someone will see violence as a rational and necessary response to demonizing people as existential threats to you is exactly why and how stochastic terrorism works.

Crazy or with mental health issues? Keep in mind how hard the GOP is working to make sure insurance doesn’t cover mental health.



Ed Pilkington at the Guardian wrote about attending a week’s worth of the nasty guy’s rallies. He talked to a man in the crowd, who seems quite willing to shoot his sister in a civil war because she is a Democrat and would be on “the wrong side.” McEwan adds:

So, just to be clear, a white Republican dude says — on the record, using his real name, and offering additional identifying details to an international publication — that he would *shoot his own sister in the face* because she's a Democrat. These folks constantly talk about how Donald Trump is the only person who can keep "us" safe, but that guy clearly already feels safer than I have ever felt in my entire life.

Adam Davidson, in a Twitter thread, discusses what the nasty guy is aiming for. Here are some excerpts:

Dear Media, here is the clear truth: Donald Trump is explicitly seeking to turn America into a white Ethnostate. He is following an openly racist plan, crafted by open racists. If you report this story any other way you are not reporting the facts or being objective.
...
Eliminating birthright citizenship is a central plank in a well-articulated, coherent movement to make America whiter. … It is part of a (crazy, wrong, but internally coherent) theory of the case:

- By nature, people can only form society with their closer kin.
...
- There is an existential race to save America. By 2046, it will become majority minority and then (in this fevered nonsensical view) there will be a civil war because unlike people can't form stable societies.
...
- The solution (in their minds) is twofold: 1. Slow down minority growth through expulsion, denial of citizenship, closing borders to non-whites. 2. Awakening/uniting white identity by scaring them about brown people.
...
Every reporter covering Trump should know this argument, its vocabulary and key points. You will no longer have any questions about what Trump is up to. You will no longer be able to cover this story as a case of two sides with extremists, or as a tentative debate.
...
He has learned--as so many awful leaders have before--that your corruption will go unchecked if you embrace the ugliest form of nationalism. He found a coherent movement with a thickly drawn ideology and game plan, hired their proponents and applied their language.

The nasty guy using the language of racists? Yes. A week ago he started calling himself a “nationalist.” McEwan explains that a nationalist is not a globalist:

The term "globalist" is used by white supremacists to describe the global cabal of Jewish people who conspire to control the world economy. It's a whitewashed modern term used to express ancient anti-Semitism.

It is also a reference to the Nationalist Socialist Party. Better known as the Nazis.



In a pair of Twitter threads Andrew Stroehlein also has a couple things to say to the media.

I have no time for people who would rather appear “balanced toward both sides” than call out the lies of hate-mongers who incite violence. As if the views of powerful politicians committing & encouraging appalling crimes have any weight compared to the suffering of their victims.

and

The horror of all mass atrocity crimes begins with poisoned politics of hate and demagoguery. The point is: if you're waiting for the worst to happen before you speak out, you're leaving it far too late.