So many brave people become the targets of the lowest of the low

On Monday Kos of Daily Kos reported that it looks like the big Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kherson region has begun. Ukraine has been talking about this since June. That talk was apparently not misdirection. Ukrainian forces are taking towns in villages in days that Russia struggled to take in weeks and months. Monday evening Kos posted an update. Is this really the start of the big counteroffensive or did Ukraine find a few holes in Russia’s line and exploit them? This is very much the fog of war. Even so there seems to be a shift from shelling strategic targets (supply depots and such) to shelling frontline positions. By Tuesday morning Mark Sumner of Kos reported that, yes, this looks like the big counteroffensive. It is forcing Russia to move troops from Donbas. It also means Russian plans for referendums to annex the territory they’ve been holding are less likely. These referendums are to show the citizens of the area want to be a part of Russia instead of Ukraine. And if they happen, they’ll definitely be rigged and phony. Belgorod is a Russian city only 25 miles from Ukraine. It has a military base important to supplying Russian forces in Ukraine. Of course, Ukraine artillery, with an aerial attack or two, has been blowing up things important to that base and doing so through the war. On Monday there was news that Ukraine was going to strike targets in Belgorod. This time the news prompted residents to swarm the train station for any way out. In a Wednesday post Kos wrote that the counteroffensive really is on. But as he and others guessed, the Ukraine army isn’t going straight to Kherson (where the liberation will be destructive). They seem to be heading to disrupt critical supply routes, including all the shells Russia would want to throw at Ukraine. That disruption is leaving a huge Russian contingent trapped with no way to get supplies. Since Ukraine started talking about this big counteroffensive Kos had written that Ukraine’s actions had all the markings of setting that trap. Others had come to the same conclusion and discussed it openly. I mentioned it as well. Kos wrote, “What's amazing is that Russia didn’t see the trap coming.” Allison Donahue of Michigan Advance reported that the proposal to put an amendment to state constitution to guarantee reproductive freedom went before the Board of State Canvassers. Last week the Bureau of Elections recommended the Canvassers certify because they have about 300K more petition signatures than needed. But the Canvassers didn’t certify – the vote was tied and along party lines. Republicans said many of the words on the proposal were spaced too close together so that a section looked like one run-on word. Republicans on the Board bought that reason. Democrats said the law does not allow that as a reason to not certify. So the issue will likely go to the state Supemes. Donahue also reported a second proposal with an amendment to the constitution also produced a deadlock along party lines in the Board of State Canvassers. This one guarantees voting rights to stop the Republican efforts to suppress the vote. Again the Bureau of Elections recommended certification – the campaign had turned in 200K more signatures than needed. I’m not sure of the reasons for the deadlock. Board vice-chair and Democrat Mary Ellen Gurewitz called the reasons “creative.” It will also go to the Supremes. They will have to act fast because the state part of the ballot must be set by September 9. April Siese of Kos reported on the huge floods happening in Pakistan. Over 1100 dead and 100,000 evacuated. The floods are happening because the monsoon season started a month early and the rain has been consistently heavy. Pakistan officials have been furious because their country has emitted a much lower level of greenhouse gases than China and the US, yet they are the ones hit with floods. Damage is estimated to be $10 billion. They demand help from the international community to update their infrastructure to be more resilient. Big polluters being required to pay for the damage and upgrades to smaller countries is likely to be the big topic of the COP27 climate conference to be held soon in Egypt. Sumner reported that flooding in Jackson, Mississippi has taken out the city’s water system. The water pressure has dropped and what water gets through isn’t safe to drink. The low pressure means not enough water to flush toilets or fight fires. Democratic Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba appealed to the state for help (he didn’t need to go far – Jackson is the capital). Republican Gov. Tate Reeves pushed the mayor aside and refused to say the system collapse is due to flooding, then seemed to not do much. So Lumumba appealed to federal officials, who are stepping in. Hopefully the water pressure will be back to normal in days, though the boil orders could be around for weeks. Sumner discussed how Jackson got into this mess. Starting in the 1980s the city experienced a great deal of white flight to the suburbs. Home values plummeted and tax revenues dropped. The city couldn’t afford to repair infrastructure. Attempts to raise property taxes to get enough money prompted more to flee. Attempts to raise income taxes prompted companies to flee. And the Republican majority state legislature isn’t about to make things easier for a black majority city, even if it is the city where they have to come to work. Sumner concluded:

Earlier this year, Reeves celebrated how Mississippi’s abortion legislation had been used as a pretext for overturning Roe v. Wade. Mississippi was, according to Reeves, “creating a culture of life.” As Laura Clawson wrote, Mississippi also has the highest firearm mortality rate, the highest homicide rate, the lowest life expectancy at birth, and the highest infant mortality of all 50 states. Reeves never did say that culture was in favor of life.

I didn’t look at Michigan COVID data while Brother was here last week. So it has been two weeks since I’ve had a look. I get the data here. The news is good – the peaks in new cases per day are trending down. Since a high at the start of August the peaks are 3195, 2940, 2658, 2396, and 2240. Alas, the peak is still above 2000 a day. In that same time the deaths per day has been 22 and below, pretty much where we have been since April. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Republicans are telling their candidates to focus on defeating Democrats. But the nasty guy keeps stomping on those plans, intruding in the news with whatever his latest petty grievance is. So Democrats are able to run on threats to democracy. Kos reported that most midterms are a referendum on the president. That party usually loses seats because it is very difficult for a president to get much done in two years. But this year is different because the former guy won’t stay off the stage (see stomping above). Because of him Republican candidates are saying as little as possible about that former guy and abortion. Now that most primaries are behind us they are scrubbing their websites of mentions of either. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois is one of two Republicans on the January 6 Committee (the other is Liz Cheney). As happened to Cheney he lost his primary in his attempt to return to Congress in January. But he won’t be quietly disappearing. He’s campaigning for others this fall. And if the Republican doesn’t declare he’s for democracy and voting rights Kinzinger will campaign for the Democrat. Leah McElrath tweeted:

I am being targeted by a Nazi with a history of homicide. He is wanted by police. He has targeted me by name with photos from my Twitter because of my support for transgender people. He says I’m a “child rapist.” This is where the rhetoric of @realchrisrufo and the GOP leads. I’m not going to tweet his identity or give him notoriety he seeks. But you need to understand how serious this moment is. It’s not just online. It’s not just political differences. This man is a murderer. He’s targeting me and others, and he’s inciting others to do so as well. ... The rhetoric developed by @realchrisrufo and used by the GOP and right-wing media constitutes stochastic terrorism.

Elad Nehorai tweeted support for McElrath:

Being a leftist activist on Twitter is fun because just about every week, you hear that one of your friends is being targeted by homicidal Nazis and has to go on private, take a break from the platform, go into hiding, and/or have a chat with the FBI. This has been especially true since the “groomer” moral panic. I’ve already written plenty about it, but either way it’s quite something to experience seeing so many brave and special people become the targets of the lowest of the low. Then have people tell us it isn’t happening.

He discovered his laws affect real people

In a Ukraine update Kos of Daily Kos discussed an in-depth story in the Washington Post about the Battle of Kyiv in the first 36 days of the war. A few things Kos mentioned: Ukraine knew what Russia was planning and had plans of their own to keep Russia from mowing them over. Those plans were so tightly held that Western assessments thought there was no plan and that Russia would be in Kyiv in days. Zelenskyy was told by an aide not to expect much international help in the first few days of the invasion. The West would want to see how well Ukraine would defend itself. Maybe they don’t want weapons to get in Russian hands. Kos added that US and NATO just had a frantic retreat from Afghanistan, so didn’t want to engage unless there was a chance of success. It is a puzzle why Russia didn’t shell the Ukrainian government buildings. It’s also a puzzle that Russia still hasn’t done so. We’re glad they haven’t. Kos is also mystified by Russia’s efforts to create a new army corps. These are people who are signing up because of an offer of a hefty bonus. Kos lists some of the problems. They tend to be older men – in their 50s and older. They’re also way out of shape. They are being given a month of training – in the US Army basic training is 22 weeks and further training is several months or years beyond that. They aren’t being used to fill out crews that are incomplete because of deaths, where they would be overseen by experienced leaders. They’re formed into a new corps where no one has experience. While the current front lines are now using equipment from the 1960s some of the good modern equipment has been kept aside for this group. Well, Russia, if that’s what you want to use for cannon fodder, that’s fine with us. Keep going. Kos linked to a thread by Kamil Galeev, who has been explaining a lot of Russian culture behind this war. This thread explains why those older men are joining up – they probably have chronic indebtedness and see no way out. It seems that bonus may be the only money these recruits see. Existing soldiers are complaining about not being paid. Dartagnan of the Kos community reported that South Carolina state Rep. Neal Collins had a change of heart. He voted to enact an abortion ban for the state, then discovered it affects real people in tragic situations. In this case it was a 19 year old woman forced to continue to carry a non-viable pregnancy that might lead to infection, the loss of her uterus, or death. If Republicans hadn’t already killed irony we might use that term to describe Collins relating the woman’s plight and his change of heart as the SC legislature debated passing a more restrictive ban. That harsher ban passed one chamber and will likely pass the other and be signed into law. During the vote Collins ... abstained. Didn’t even vote no. It is good to see a legislator realize what he passes affects real people. Most Christian white males in the legislature don’t notice, or are indifferent to, the people harmed by what they do. Or maybe the harm is intentional. One reason why they don’t see who is affected by their laws is because they and their constituents have been told by the church for a long time that abortion isn’t health care, it’s murder. To say anything other than being pro-life means risking being shunned by church and community. Only bad people have to worry about such gut-wrenching decisions. This view is not going to fade quickly. In a post from last Saturday Mark Sumner of Kos included an image of the front page of that day’s New York Times, which has a headline of “U.S. Feared Trump Files Put Spies at Risk.” In the buildup to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Biden had accurate info about what Russia was planning. That’s an example of a well placed informant. And it looks like the nasty guy betrayed several informants around the world. Sumner reviewed that the nasty guy has always had disdain for the intelligence services and whistleblowers. He’s also had disdain for protecting classified info. That’s a recipe for catastrophe. Sumner reminded us that about a week before the 2016 election James Comey, head of the FBI, announced an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. That severely cut Clinton’s lead and she lost the Electoral College to the nasty guy. Now he is admitting that Comey’s announcement was fake, but because of it he won. Yesterday I wrote about a couple essays in the NYT saying prosecuting the nasty guy will bring about domestic unrest, to put it mildly. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Nicholas Grossman of the Daily Beast. Here’s a bit of that quote.

Whatever the Department of Justice (DOJ) decides, it will set precedent, provoke public reactions, and shape history. ... If prosecuting Trump would set a dangerous precedent, so would letting his crimes slide. We can’t know what will happen, so we should follow the law and let the chips fall where they may. But even if we say U.S. law enforcement should prioritize political impact, the “domestic tranquility” argument fails on its own terms.

Barbara Morrill of Kos reported that Sen. Lindsay Graham declared there would be riots in the streets if the nasty guy is prosecuted – essentially calling for riots. Yeah, Graham has no concern for the crimes the nasty guy committed or the resulting damage to national security or the injuries and deaths that would come from that violence.

It sets in stone a new world of total impunity

Cool! Two movies in one weekend! Yesterday I wrote that on Friday evening I saw Soul. Today I went to the Detroit Film Theater, yes, inside a real theater, to see Hello, Bookstore. In Lenox, Massachusetts Matthew Tannenbaum owns a shop simply called “The Bookstore” so the way he answers the phone became the title of this documentary. Tannenbaum has owned the place since 1976. An observer said he sits around all day talking about things he loves, interrupted occasionally by people giving him money. He talks to his customers to try to find out what they like to read so that he might suggest the perfect book. He loves them and they love him back. That is a big reason why he survives in the age of Amazon. The movie shows him with normal bookstore tasks (such as unpacking boxes – Christmas every day!), chatting with customers, and reading excerpts of favorite books to the camera. Then the pandemic hit and he couldn’t let customers browse. He took credit card numbers as people talked through the closed door. Then he asked them to back up so he could place their books on the stool outside the door. He was making in a week what he used to make in a day. He needed help – and the community responded. This is a sweet and charming little movie and will be a delight for anyone who loves books. Mark Murray of NBC News tweeted:

Chief Justice Roberts has long talked about importance of public trust in the court. And Justice Sotomayor warned that the court wouldn't survive "stench" of reversing Roe v. Wade.

He included a chart of NBC News polls over time (note the poll dates are not spaced by the time between them). It shows that in May 2022 the view of the Supremes was 36% positive, 35% negative, and 27% neutral. In just three months the neutral has dropped and the negative view has increased. The numbers now are 42% negative, 35% positive, and 22% neutral. Back to posts that accumulated while Brother was here. Rebekah Sager of Daily Kos reported that Liz Cheney is getting quiet support from nasty guy allies and the Koch network. She has also vowed to support Democrats who are running against 2020 election deniers. I’ve mentioned she lost her Wyoming primary and is considering a kamikaze presidential run in 2024 as a way to take down the nasty guy. Mark Sumner of Kos, in a post from last Tuesday, reported the nasty guy has been accusing the FBI, DOJ, National Archives, and Biden of harassing him for keeping the top secret documents he had stashed at his for-profit estate. But he had done nothing in court until last Monday, two weeks after the FBI searched that estate. What the nasty guy and his lawyers submitted to the court is ... a puzzle. Or a mess. It didn’t follow the rules of a court motion. It complains without actually specifying a complaint for which he wants court action. It doesn’t list the laws that show the court has power to act on his complaint. Sumner quoted Marcy Wheeler at emptywheel, who said the document does include such things as a confession to violating the Espionage Act and proof that the FBI search was conducted like other searches. That this court filing is two weeks after the search and it was so bad that other attorneys are “giggling” means this was all for show. It is to quiet the voices that said if he was treated as bad as he says he was why doesn’t he go to court? He uses the courts so quickly in so many other cases. Michael Sallah of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tweeted with a link to the full story:

A 33-year-old Russian-speaking immigrant posing as Anna de Rothschild -- a member of the European banking dynasty -- infiltrated Mar-a-Lago and Trump's entourage. Said one guest: "How did they allow it?"

Which is why the nasty guy storing classified documents at his for-profit estate is so dangerous. And illegal. I’ve seen other news outlets take up the story. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times in an article titled, The Idea That Letting Trump Walk Will Heal America is Ridiculous:

And these 2020 deniers aren’t sitting still, either; as these election results show, they are actively working to undermine democracy for the next time Trump is on the ballot. This fact, alone, makes a mockery of the idea that the ultimate remedy for Trump is to beat him at the ballot box a second time, as if the same supporters who rejected the last election will change course in the face of another defeat. It also makes clear the other weight-bearing problem with the argument against holding Trump accountable, which is that it treats inaction as an apolitical and stability-enhancing move — something that preserves the status quo as opposed to action, which upends it. But that’s not true. Inaction is as much a political choice as action is, and far from preserving the status quo — or securing some level of social peace — it sets in stone a new world of total impunity for any sufficiently popular politician or member of the political elite.

While this NYT article gives the progressive position, not all of them do. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed a column by NYT guest essayist Damon Linker. The essay says there is no happy ending in how America might treat the nasty guy. Dartagnan wrote:

Linker’s conclusion is that the likelihood of permanent harm to the country from pursuing and forcing a reckoning of Trump’s criminal behavior outweighs the potential benefits of such an approach. I strongly disagree, and from the looks of things, many others do as well.

Some of Dartagnan’s rebuttal against Linker: Linker noted that Democrats (or any government entity) of prosecuting the nasty guy would set a precedent for Republicans to prosecute all future Democratic presidents. Dartagnan’s reply: Republicans plant to do that anyway. Also ...

When you submit to blackmail you surrender not only your integrity but your very freedom out of fear, and a government (or country) with its political institutions dominated by fear of the consequences of following the rule of law is not a government worth sustaining. It is simply capitulation to the power of fascist rule, with such rule in this case being imposed by a violent and delusional mob. That is by definition unacceptable to anyone who desires to live in this country as it currently exists, or even as it was intended to exist from the outset. In fact, the threat of such retaliatory tactics ought to be an impetus, not a deterrent, to prosecuting Trump.

Linker wrote that hauling the nasty guy before a judge will be seen as politically motivated (because Republicans will make sure it is seen that way) and part of the deep state. This spectacle would be corrosive, convincing many Republican voters that the rule of law is a sham. Dartagnan replied the way to handle these people is not capitulation to their followers, but vigorously prosecuting them. For all of our judicial system’s faults it is designed to deal with these types of people. And if it is incapable or afraid of doing so then our country is lost. Dartagnan wrote:

Where Linker departs the rails of logic is in his suggestion that because our institutions (including our elections) require a basic level of good faith and compliance, the conscious choice by the GOP to flout them somehow requires Democrats and other opponents of Trump to reconsider their zealousness in enforcing the rule of law. ... Linker seems to believe that by refraining from prosecuting Trump now, Democrats will somehow be able to ameliorate or diminish the violent tendencies and delusional predispositions of his followers in the future. In that, he’s dead wrong. Democrats and liberals aren’t under any illusions about what these people are capable of. Trump and the GOP under his thumb are now all of the same piece: They’re bullies, and they like it. They’ll keep being that way until they are pushed back. Appeasement or forbearance doesn’t work, it only emboldens them more. Put very simply, they have to be faced down and told: “No.”

In a second post Dartagnan discussed an NYT essay by Rich Lowrey. This essay, like the one by Linker, says prosecuting the nasty guy is a bad idea. Lowry’s basic premise is the GOP has reasons to be paranoid. That stems from the “national fiasco” and “hoax” of the Mueller report. It was those things because Mueller declined to prosecute the nasty guy. Dartagnan said the report was hardly a fiasco. It produced 37 indictments and seven guilty pleas or convictions. It showed the nasty guy repeatedly lied to investigators. A thousand former federal prosecutors concluded if other Americans did what he did they would have been indicted on multiple charges of obstruction of justice. But Lowry can make his claim because so few have read the Mueller report. Which Republicans don’t want anyone to read. Lowry repeats the threat that Republicans would prosecute Biden, then concludes:

In the tumult over a Trump indictment, both sides will accuse the other of violating the country’s norms and traditions. But there’s no doubt that a fierce Republican response, deeply distrustful of the authorities and openly defiant, would be profoundly American.

To which Dartagnan replied:

“Profoundly American?” Really? I would call it the exact opposite.

Then Dartagnan gets to the big question: Why did the liberal leaning Times publish these far right essays? He doesn’t have an answer yet.

Debt relief is good

Brother was here from Tuesday evening to Friday morning. We had a good time together. He likes to do home improvement projects. So I let him, though the big one he chose isn’t quite done. I created a lot of tabs in my browser for interesting articles that I found while Brother was working and I wasn’t. I’ve already deleted a few of them. Many of the others will get a brief mention. I listened to one of the bonus episodes of Gaslit Nation on Monday (access to subscribers). Hosts Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa answered subscriber questions. I don’t remember the question, though one of the answers was something like this: Those who could fix democracy aren’t. Then they blame citizens – I’ve written about the call to vote harder. And these calls come as the thing they are telling us to do is being taken away. See the new voter suppression and vote meddling laws being passed. Yes, Democrats are calling us to vote harder and Republicans are passing voter suppression laws, but Democrats had a chance to stop voter suppression and didn’t take it. They could have passed anti-gerrymandering laws. Failure to do so means laws passed now may not have effect until 2032. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote on Wednesday Biden made a big announcement about canceling up to $10,000 of debt per student borrower and up to $20,000 if the student had a Pell Grant. There’s a reason for that Pell Grant distinction. If all student borrowers saw same amount of debt canceled the whole program would primarily affect white people. That’s because people of color have more student debt. Since Pell Grants went mostly to people of color helping them more evens out the program. Clawson reported that a parade of people, including Republican members of Congress, were quick to complain that it’s just wrong to borrow money and not pay it back. And equally quick were those saying most of the complainers, including those same members of Congress, had gotten PPP loans at the start of the pandemic that were forgiven. And the record of whose PPP loans were forgiven is conveniently public. Leah McElrath summed it up rather well:

• Debt relief is good. • Elected Republican representatives who themselves enjoyed debt relief criticizing debt relief for others is bad. • The bad part of PPP loans was manipulative RECIPIENT behavior. • The bad part of student loans was manipulative LENDER behavior.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included several good quotes about student debt forgiveness. First from Charlotte Alter of Time:

GenX/millennials/GenZ are carrying the financial burden for educational costs that the state carried for earlier generations. In Colorado, state funding for education dropped 70% btwn 1980-2011. In SC: 66%. In AZ: 62%. Students picked up the tab. By the way, when Mitch McConnell graduated from the U of Louisville in 1964, tuition cost $330 (about $2,800 in today's dollars.) Today, it's up 300%, even when adjusted for inflation. In 1987, a student could pay her tuition at the U of Kansas working a minimum wage, part time job and still have $ left over. Today, that same job would cover only half her tuition, and leave her more than $38k short. In 1987, more than 1/2 of Michigan State's revenue came from state funding-- by 2012, just 18% did. The U of California saw their funding halved over the same period. Meanwhile, schools kept adding new programs, gyms, dorms to attract students. The kids picked up the tab.

Dworkin quoted Anexandra Petri of the Washington Post who mimicked those who declare relieving student debt is unfair to those who struggled to pay it off.

Every time anyone’s life improves at all, I personally am insulted. Any time anyone devises a labor-saving device, or passes some kind of weak, soft-hearted law that forecloses the opportunity for a new generation of children to lose fingers in dangerous machinery, I gnash my teeth. This is an affront to everyone who struggled so mightily. To avoid affronting them, we must keep everything just as bad as ever. Put those fingers back into the machines, or our suffering will have been in vain.

Dworkin quoted Prof. Paul Musgrave, who included a chart that covers part of what he is saying.

please stop saying that student loan burden is the result of a conspiracy led by a future supreme court justice 50 years ago and not the result of broad-based (and often popular) reductions in state support over generations

From a tweet by Joshua Holland:

It is the height of elitism to think working people don’t hold student debt. Many “blue collar” workers do. 87% of the relief is going to people earning less than $75k.

Finally, Dworkin quoted Jeffrey Lazarus, a political science professor:

If you're worried Biden is buying votes with student loan forgiveness I've got news for you about the mortgage interest deduction, SALT, 401(k) contributions deduction, the earned income tax credit, lifetime learning credits, farm subsidies, IRA contributions, not to mention... If you're worried Biden is buying votes with student loan forgiveness boy do I have some news for you about how politics has worked since the beginning of time everywhere in the world.

Clay Jones tweeted a cartoon tackling that fairness issue, in which a doctor says to a patient:

We discovered a cure for cancer... but giving it to you wouldn’t be fair to everyone who’s died from cancer.

And Joe Heller drew a cartoon of a man getting a small live preserver labeled “Student debt help” while others in much bigger live preservers labeled “PPP Loan Forgiveness”, “Billionaire tax breaks”, and “Corporate subsidies” complain “That’s not fair!” Mark Sumner of Kos reported that on Thursday evening Biden gave a speech and came out swinging against Republicans. Biden said:

The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security. They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace—embrace—political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.

Later Biden gave a bit of his vision of what Democrats will do if they keep the House and get another couple senators:

We’ll codify Roe v. Wade. We’ll ban assault weapons. We’ll protect Social Security and Medicare. We’ll pass universal Pre-K. We’ll restore the child care tax credit. We’ll protect voting rights, pass election reform, and make sure no one ever has the opportunity to steal an election again.

Kos of Kos wrote about the results of last Tuesday’s primary. The big news is Pat Ryan, D-NY, won a race to fill a US House seat through December. It was a race he wasn’t supposed to win. So the general message of this primary and several others since the Supremes overturned Roe is the Red Wave that usually happens during the first midterm of a Democratic president is fizzling. Wrote Kos:

How can you have a referendum on a sitting president, when the old one won’t go away? No one motivates the progressive base like Donald Trump. (All the crime-ing is just a bonus.) But more importantly, we knew the Supreme Court was slated to axe Roe v. Wade. Had Chief Justice John Roberts had his way and merely half-killed it, perhaps things might still be looking up for Republicans. But the High Court’s conservative wing went full reactionary with Dobbs, and the results was a devastating loss of rights.

And that is having a big influence on this election. Stephen Wolf of Kos Elections reported that the North Carolina Supreme Court had a lot to say about a couple recent additions to the state constitution. They ruled 4-3 along party lines that since the legislature was unconstitutionally gerrymandered Republicans may have lacked the power to approve the amendments and put them before voters. The amendments are still in place while the case returns to a lower court. In a Ukraine update, Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote:

Two weeks ago, a Russian paratrooper named Pavel Filatyev published a scathing 141-page memoir of his experiences on VKontakte (Russian Facebook), castigating what he saw as the appalling condition and ineptitude of the Russian military. Filatyev had been involved in Russia’s capture of Kherson. He composed this devastating missive while recuperating from an eye injury sustained during the Ukrainian bombardment near the town of Mykolaiv.

Some of what Filatyev wrote was about destroying towns and not actually liberating anyone. It’s all a lie. Morale is bad. The troops disillusioned with what the government is saying about the invasion. Filatyev was interrogated by Russian Special Ops in Moscow. After 16 hours he was released, and fled the country. Sumner wrote about what Putin has accomplished in six months of trying to invade and subjugate Ukraine. 1. They haven’t gotten very far. 2. They suffered heavy losses. 3. The respect for the Russian army has vanished. 4. NATO has been strengthened and new members applied. Russia’s hold on Europe is significantly less. 5. And their economy is much worse than they proclaim. Their intervention to prop up the ruble is unsustainable. They are selling natural gas to Asia at a steep discount. Foreign companies, that were 40% of GDP, have left, erasing three decades of foreign investment. 6. There is a significant brain drain. They won’t be able to recover from their problems. In another post Sumner said that Putin has increased the number of positions in the Russian army to 2 million. It’s a symbolic gesture because the army is currently well below 1 million. The next day Putin said he would add 137,000 actual soldiers to the army. But from where? Those actually in uniform are refusing to fight – which is why it looks like Russia is gaining centimeters a day. Their current method of shelling a town into rubble, then sending in troops to see if any opposition remains, shows an incredible disregard for the lives of the soldiers. Russia is forcing the men of Donbas to fight against Ukraine, which has prompted many men to go into hiding. And what else can Russia do? A draft? The possible response to that is unclear. Joan McCarter of Kos reported:

Some of the states with the greatest potential for wind and solar energy production are red states, some of which are already exploiting it to the benefit of their citizens. The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the biggest federal investment made yet in green energy, will only increase that production, and with it will come more clean energy jobs and lower costs for ratepayers. But every single Republican in Congress voted against that bill, and Republican governors in those states opposed it as well.

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that California is expected to release a proposal that by 2035 will require all cars sold in the state to be emissions free. Since California is the largest car market in the US (and 11th largest in the world) it will put a lot more pressure on the auto industry to switch to electric. Arezou Rezvani of NPR listed four things that are still in the way of California’s goal: (1) Electric vehicles are still really expensive, still priced beyond what a lot of people can pay. (2) There are rare earth minerals that are required for batteries. A lot of companies are in competition for those minerals and China currently dominates the market. (3) EV infrastructure – charging stations – is still limited. (4) Auto manufacturers are adjusting their workforces, laying off gas engine and transmission engineers while hiring electric motor engineers. During the summer my church does a family movie night. We sit outside with the movie projected on a sheet hung on the side of the building. The movie last night was Soul by Pixar-Disney. I enjoyed it. Joe is a middle school music teacher and gets a dream gig as a jazz pianist. Just after clinching it he falls down a manhole and ends up between earth and heaven. He tries to convince the authorities he wasn’t supposed to die yet and tries to get back to earth. Of course, uplifting life lessons are learned along the way. One thing I appreciated is that it looks like Joe actually hits the right notes on the piano. He doesn’t look like a live actor trying to hit somewhere close (or the piano and camera are positioned so hands aren’t seen at all). I learned through IMDB trivia that when the live musicians were recorded for the soundtrack the pianist played on a MIDI keyboard so the animators knew what actual keys were played.

The rivers have dried up

My Sunday movie was The Hand of God. It is a 2021 Italian film, a coming of age story about Fabietto. It was directed by Paolo Sorrentino and is autobiographical. It is set in 1980s Naples. Much of the Italian came out rapid fire, so one needed to be quick in reading subtitles. Fabietto mostly has a Walkman at his hip and earphones around his neck. He is finishing high school and contemplating college, sharing a room with older brother Marchino. He doesn’t have friends. The big thing in his life is Diego Maradona is coming to play on the Naples soccer team. Simon Abrams of RogerEbert.com reviewed the film and made a connection I didn’t see. I did see Marchino audition for a part as an extra in a Fellini film. Fabietto stayed in the waiting room with other people auditioning. I’ve only seen a few of Fellini films so didn’t catch that all those other people in the waiting room could be characters from those films. This is a sedate film. For the first half of the film we see a lot of eccentric family and friends, including a sister who seems to always be in the bathroom and a baroness who lives upstairs. Then tragedy strikes and he has to grow up rather quickly and figure out what to do with his life. I enjoyed it, though for the first half I wondered where this is all going, especially since the story doesn’t start with Fabietto. I heard about this film because it was nominated for Best International Feature Film at this year’s Oscars. It has collected quite a few other minor nominations and wins. Mark Sumner’s Ukraine Update for Daily Kos has five parts. The first is the status of shipping grain from Ukraine, which is happening. In addition to ongoing shipments the US said it will purchase grain and give it to the UN World Food Program. However, there are still two big problems. The first is continued Russian theft. The second is the shipments that have gone out so far are minuscule compared to what Ukraine shipped last year, before the war. The second part is Russian ambassador Mikhail Uyanov, very much a government official, responded to a tweet from Ukraine’s Zelensky with essentially a call to genocide. One of the things Uyanov is a pat of is the International Atomic Energy Agency – the organization Zelensky is asking to secure the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The third part discusses the report from the Ukraine Support Tracker saying the announcements of support for Ukraine’s military are slowing. Sumner wrote that one reason for that is these countries are still working on delivering equipment previously promised. So don’t worry. At least right now. The fourth part discusses the big explosions in Crimea. Recently an attack on a Crimean airfield took out half of the jets of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. I had previously shared one report that Ukraine said it was a team of saboteurs. Sumner said we really don’t know. That mystery allows for a good meme of a shark attacking a Russian swimmer and below that are gigantic jaws about to chomp on both the shark and the swimmer. The jaws are labeled “Whatever is hitting Crimea these days.” The last part is a video of a display during Kyiv’s Independence day celebrations, much smaller this year. Some are calling a display of tanks Russia finally getting its military parade in the Ukraine capital. But these tanks were captured and most are in bad shape. Matthew Braunginn, a Kos Emerging Fellow, wrote there really isn’t any hypocrisy when the GOP decries defunding local police forces and also calls for defunding the FBI. Braunginn wrote:

What is reality isn’t important; what is essential is the right’s perceptions. The GOP views local and state police as defenders of the white racial order, opponents of multicultural democracy, and the FBI as upholders of a multicultural democracy. And they view such a democracy as un-American and as communist and/or Marxist—words and phrases that have long been dog whistles for diversity. ... If you believe yourself to be rational, logical, and evidence-driven over emotionally driven, then follow the data, learn the history of policing and the failures of police reform strategies, and engage with the ideas of defunding and abolition openly. There are plenty of books on this, starting with The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale, Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell, and Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis. There are also lots of good articles, backed up with good research, covering reform history, the flawed narrative of law enforcement, and police effectiveness.

I may need to add a book or two to my reading shelf. Max Kennerly quoted Shane Goldmacher, political reporter for the New York Times, who wrote:

A new conservative nonprofit helmed by Leonard Leo scored a $1.6 billion donation — an extraordinary sum that could boost the right for years to come. This is the first reporting revealing the existence of the Marble Freedom Trust.

Kennerly added:

Leonard Leo is the single person most responsible for stacking the courts with partisans who overturned Roe v. Wade, gutted the Voting Rights Act, broke the Clean Air Act, and made it impossible to regulate handguns. Imagine what he plans to do with this.

A couple months ago the Hightower Lowdown did a four page issue on how Leo built up the Federalist Society so that it could nominate the far right justices now dominating the court. Hunter of Kos wrote about a new dark money group called Citizens for Sanity. He wrote that it looks like multimillion dollar effort designed to troll conservatives, to peddle new conspiracy theories. And conservatives, who appear to not be very bright, will eat it up. Hunter concluded:

Once again: Republicanism is reliant on hoaxes. It is now how they campaign, and how they govern, and how they try to evade responsibility for even criminal acts. Not just the dark money groups, but individual campaigns are now centered around "The 2020 elections were secretly rigged against Trump," or, "The entire American education system is actually a trick perpetrated on the country by woke anti-racist groomers." Hoax-based gibberish is now the basis of all of Republicanism. And we're left once again wondering: Will it work? How much will it work? What percentage of conservative voters, after turning their own brains to absolute mush by watching pro-fascist conspiracy programs propped up by the Murdoch family for just a bit more wealth, will vote to ignore the abortion debate, Florida's future coastlines, the future inhabitability of large parts of the Republican-held South, the return of polio, and an economy that's no longer collapsing because they are absolutely convinced a secret plot by "woke" people will destroy the country if they don't keep voting for the party that turns everything it governs to crap?

Will Bunch, a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, tweeted a link to a new article:

Paramilitary posturing. Voter suppression. Enlisting state power to go after his enemies. Ron DeSantis has brought full-on fascism to Florida, and now he's taking it national The GOP's DeSantis and Trump are racing into rock bottom for 2024.

This appears to be the first step in running for president 2024. In this tweet Bunch included an excerpt from the article. The PI isn’t behind a paywall, but it does insist I turn off my ad blocker. Bunch also mentions his new book After the Ivory Tower Falls, in which people like DeSantis are trying to destroy higher ed because it fosters critical thinking. And why destroy critical thinking? Because a person might figure out they’re not supposed to be oppressed. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, had three interesting quotes. The first is a tweet by Edward-Isaac Dovere:

NBC news poll finds “threats to democracy” is now voters’ top issue, above “cost of living” and “jobs and the economy.” Abortion, which has been energizing base Democrats, not ranked as a top issue here. Neither is Crime, which Republicans have tried to make a top issue.

Threats to democracy had a score of 21 (percent of people declaring it the top threat?). Cost of living got a score of 16, Climate change at 9, Abortion at 8, and crime at 8. Dworkin quoted Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel:

Florida has a teacher shortage that just won’t quit — thousands of vacancies affecting students throughout the state. So Gov. Ron DeSantis, scrambling for solutions, wants to tap veterans, firefighters and police officers to fill the classrooms. I think it’d be great to help more veterans launch second careers. But here’s what the governor doesn’t seem to realize: Veterans have been in Florida classrooms for years. Yet many got the hell out, saying the same thing other teachers say — that teaching in this state stinks.

Dworkin included tweets by DCPetterson, who showed a bridge over a dry river bed:

This is the Loire, the longest river in France. It's gone now. It evaporated. That hasn't happened in at least 2000 years, and likely not at any time in recorded human history.

and Marc Heberden with another view:

Here's one from today. The Loire. And there have been weirdly violent, out of season storms. With the drought, a lot of farming is suffering, but ironically this is going to be a major year for vineyards, some of which are already having to harvest. Two months early ...

Emma Newburger of CNBC wrote about the drought in China. She has pictures of the Jialing River with the river bed exposed and a narrower Yangtze River. Rainfall in the river basin is down 45% compared to recent years. As many as 66 rivers have dried up. China is experiencing a heat wave with temps topping 100F and in some places topping 110F. Sichuan province ordered factories to shut down for six days to ease power shortages. Lean McElrath tweeted, with a photo and a link to an article in the Miami Herald:

Drought conditions in Europe are revealing ancient “Hungersteine”—or “Hunger Stones”—markers of previous times of drought and famine. One stone from 1616 is engraved with a warning that reads: “Wenn du mich seehst, dann weine” or “If you see me, weep.”

In another tweet, McElrath wrote:

Scientists found trees growing in the Arctic tundra: “The trees…hopped over the mountains into the tundra. Going by climate models, this wasn’t supposed to happen for a hundred years or more. And yet it’s happening now.” Climate change is accelerating.

That included a link to an article in The Guardian, which included this summary:

Global heating has caused ‘shocking’ changes in forests across the Americas, studies find. Trees are advancing into the Arctic tundra and retreating from boreal forests further south, where stunting and die-offs are expected.

RNA sphere tweeted a two minute video of an Asian man who creates piles of rocks that one is sure can’t possibly balance like that. Back to teachers – Laura Clawson of Kos quoted a tweet by the Economic Policy Institute that shows every state underpays their teachers. That was determined by comparing the wages of teachers with the wages of people with a similar amount of education. Rhode Island underpays by 3.4%, Colorado by 35.9%, and Michigan is about in the middle with underpaying by 18.4%. More than 28 states underpay by more than 20%. Aysha Qamar of Kos reported that astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann of the Wailacki Round Valley Indian Tribes will be the first Native American woman to go to space. She and fellow travelers American Josh Cassada, Russian Anna Kikina, and Japanese Koichi Wakata are schedule to lift off in a SpaceX rocket on Sept. 29. They will go to the International Space Station for a six month stay. Qamar also listed Mann’s accomplishments to show she is well qualified. Mann is also slated to be, in a few years, the first woman on the moon. Ari Shapiro of NPR did a five minute interview with Mann. Brother is coming tomorrow evening for a visit. So it may be the weekend before I post again.

It's the height of chutzpah to lecture Jewish people on the sanctity of life

Yesterday I wrote that a girl in Utah who was sued because she won a sporting event and the second and third place contestants accused her of being transgender because she wasn’t feminine enough. Marissa Higgins of Daily Kos wrote that the families of three trans students challenged the ban (separate from the incident above) and a judge paused the ban until the legal challenges are resolved. Alas, things still are not cool in Utah. The law had two parts and the judge paused the first. That brings the second part into play. Higgins wrote:

Trans girls who want to play on girls' teams will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis to determine their eligibility. Who determines this? A commission created by Republican lawmakers and filled with political appointees.

That sounds even more humiliating and traumatizing than simply being told no. Higgins also reported that a three judge panel in the Federal Court of Appeals ruled trans folks are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Kesha Williams had filed a lawsuit because she was housed in a men’s prison. There she was harassed by inmates and guards and her medications to treat her gender dysphoria were denied. Higgins wrote that gender dysphoria can be a disability. Being transgender, in itself, is not. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote about the situation around the legality of abortion in Michigan. I’ll try to wade through the details. There is a 1931 law on the books that bans abortion in Michigan. It hasn’t been enforced since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. Governor Gretchen Whitmer, seeing the leaked draft written by Justice Alito, asked the Michigan Supreme Court to rule that the 1931 law is incompatible with the state constitution that was approved by voters in the 1960s. The governor can bypass the lower courts and make that request because she is the governor. The Supremes have not yet responded. Whitmer and Planned Parenthood together filed suit working the normal way through the courts. A lower court blocked enforcement of the law. On August 1 the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, leaving providers confused. Yesterday, an Oakland County judge reinstated the block and much of McCarter’s post is about all the good things in his decision. That block lasts through the November election. I’m not clear what kind of court that Oakland County judge works in, so I don’t know how it can replace what the Michigan Court of Appeals decided. A big reason for this last decision has to do with another factor in play. A citizens group turned in 750,000 signatures to put abortion protections into the state constitution. The proposal has not yet been finalized. However, if it does appear on the ballot (and 750,000 people will be mighty pissed off if it doesn’t) and voters approve it, the judges don’t have to do anything. And that’s best for democracy. Of course, Republicans are going to appeal that Oakland County judge’s decision. A few more abortion related posts that have been in my browser tabs for a couple weeks or more. In a post from two weeks ago jazzed of the Kos community reported that physician recruiters for jobs in red states are getting a lot noes. Candidates do not want to practice in states where abortion is banned. One recruiter talked to an OB/GYN resident in New Mexico who had attended medical school in New Orleans about returning to Louisiana. She wanted abortion care to be part of her practice, so returning to Louisiana is no longer an option. This post said that since Indiana passed its abortion ban big pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly announced it will expand employment growth outside Indiana. I later heard that statement by Eli Lilly isn’t as great as it sounds. It seems company leadership said *nothing* while the ban was being debated in the Indiana legislature – and this wasn’t one of those sneak legislative attacks, so they had plenty of time to make their view known. They only spoke up after the bill was signed. Also from two weeks ago Charles Jay of the Kos community wrote “A rabbi, a reverend, and a Buddhist lama ...” which sounds like it might be the start of a joke. But – no joke – seven faith leaders, who are Reformed Jewish, Buddhist, Episcopalian, Unitarian, and United Church of Christ, all from South Florida filed a lawsuit against Florida’s ban on abortion. They say it is violates their rights of free speech, religious exercise, and the separation of church and state. The ban was driven by the religious right and there are a lot of other people with deeply held religious beliefs who are burdened by the ban, whose religious teachings on abortion cannot be followed. It is “theocratic tyranny.” Rabbi Barry Silver of Palm Beach said:

It's the height of chutzpah for people to tell the Jewish people what the Bible means and lecture the Jewish people on the sanctity of life.

Michael Harriot, a black man, wrote a thread to discuss the Minneapolis Teachers Union and their plan to lay off teachers. The plan to protect teachers of color from being fired first is, of course, being decried as a racist “fire whites first” policy. Yes, it is a race-based decision. But it is still appropriate and a good thing. Harriot gave several reasons. Where was the outrage when the school system made race-based hiring decisions? The school system is not doing well – 90% of black students are failing math, 80% of students of color read below grade level. People are leaving in record numbers – and that’s with white people in control of a system white people created.

Students of color learn better with teachers of color. They behave better. They are more emotionally stable. They actually perform better on tests. ... That's not an opinion. It's backed by research. ... Black males are less likely to drop out when they have Black teachers. White teachers discipline non-white students more harshly & more often. Yet, for years MPS made black students sacrifice their education for white teachers & students' advantage. ... There are Black kids in the prison system because of MPS' race-based decisions. People are stuck in poverty because of it. People DIE bc of it.

Because of the district’s finances, they have to fire some teachers. Since white teachers earn more firing white teachers makes financial sense. Not laying off white teachers because they are white is also a race-based decision.

A candidate running a true kamikaze campaign

There have been news reports of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos explains a bit more about what is going on. Russian, which controls the plant, is claiming that Ukraine is planning a “false flag provocation” and Russia will be blamed. After Russia attacked the plant in March (full extent of the damage still not known) an area nearby has become a major ammunition depot. Ukraine has shown how good it is at blowing up Russian supply depots with precision over great distance. But they haven’t risked firing missiles at anything near the nuclear plant – Ukraine already hosts Chernobyl and its dead zone. So Russia might be right in thinking storing ammo near the plant is safe. There is a road about 10km south of the plant that is a major route for Russia to get supplies to Kherson. Ukraine might want to take it out. Is Russia’s warning of a false provocation to warn Ukraine to not send missiles anywhere near the plant? Or are they planning something worse? Ukraine’s Zelenskyy is worried enough he has renewed calls for the International Atomic Energy Agency to take control of the plant. Hunter of Kos reported the unusual move of a judge contemplating the release of the affidavit that details the evidence that prompted the search warrant of the nasty guy’s spy-infested club. Judge Bruce Reinhart ordered the Justice Department to present a redacted version of the affidavit next week. Affidavits justifying a search warrant are rarely released before court cases begin. Doing so would jeopardize an investigation. It would also tell the nasty guy what else the government knows and what it doesn’t. The nasty guy legal team had no comment on the release while in the courtroom, but demanded it when speaking to far right news outlets. Several other media outlets call for the release of the affidavit, saying there is public interest. The Department of Justice, the ones who wrote the affidavit, might be satisfied with removing the “nuclear weapons” documents and may not want the circus of an actual indictment. But it’s a circus already. Hunter also wrote about whether the nasty guy will release his club’s security footage of the search and document confiscation. The answer is release is very likely. The reason for the release is simple – it would identify the FBI agents that carried out the search so his supporters would know who to attack. What is left is timing. Release it when he makes his reelection bid? More likely when the government indicts him over the stolen papers. That’s a time for him to stoke violence, to threaten civil war if anyone dares to hold him responsible. Laura Clawson of Kos reported that many Republicans had been trying to bypass the nasty guy and go with someone just as authoritarian but less loutish, as in Ron DeathSantis. But the search of the nasty guy’s estate has boosted his hold on the Republican party. That hold may have dragged a few chosen candidates across the primary finish line, but they’re not doing so well leading to the general. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Sarah Posner of TPM. The excerpt is mostly about the Christian Right plotting to avenge the FBI search. What interests me is towards the end. Posner wrote:

Just the fact that Clinton’s home was never the subject of a search warrant — never mind whether there was any basis to seek or obtain one — was evidence enough that Trump had received unequal treatment.

Liz Cheney, stalwart Republican, but stalwart supporter of Democracy, lost her primary for another term in the House. Dworkin quoted Ron Brownstein of The Atlantic:

Yet many of Trump’s remaining Republican critics believe that a Cheney candidacy in the 2024 GOP presidential primaries could help prevent him from capturing the next nomination—or stop him from winning the general election if he does. “Of course she doesn’t win,” Bill Kristol, the longtime strategist who has become one of Trump’s fiercest conservative critics, told me. But, he added, if Cheney “makes the point over and over again” that Trump represents a unique threat to American democracy and “forces the other candidates to come to grips” with that argument, she “could have a pretty significant effect” on Trump’s chances. In some ways, a Cheney 2024 presidential campaign would be unprecedented: There aren’t any clear examples of a candidate running a true kamikaze campaign.

Dworkin quoted from Nieman Reports on a big reason why the January 6 coup attempt failed – the press didn’t play along. In many successful coups, in addition to eliminating the head of state, they also capture mass media. They make it go dark or use it to say the coup is necessary, legitimate, and for the good of the country. But with the internet and a lot more media outlets (plus all those people with cell phones) shutting down coverage is harder and a chance of a successful coup decreases. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary.

Okay, GOP, you win: we should arrest whoever appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray. —Stephen Colbert on Twitter

StaceyCKs1 tweeted a fun video. Alas, she didn’t name the woman in the video. That woman is a kindergarten teacher and has made several videos talking to politicians the way she does to her students. In this video she talks to the nasty guy. The Utah legislature passed a bill to ban trans girls from participating in sports. The governor vetoed it. The legislature overrode his veto. Marissa Higgins of Kos reported on a case where the law was used. First, Higgin’s description of a part of the bill:

If parents believe a trans girl took the place of a cisgender girl, or beat a cisgender girl in a game or match, as in the case described here, they’re allowed to file a complaint, and adults get to dig into the youth’s personal history and life.

The parents of the girls that came in second and third in a sport used the law to sue the girl who came in first. They claimed she didn’t “look feminine enough.” The plaintiffs, the targeted girl, her school, and the sport have not been identified. Higgins wrote:

Laws like this one harm people who are cisgender—for example, in this case, or any other involving a masculine-presenting cis girl or woman, or a feminine-presenting cis boy or man. Those people, who aren’t trans, could face accusations like this one that result in intrusive investigations and public harassment.

The law is designed to harm trans people and, by extension, the whole queer community. But it also harms people not in the queer community, people who don’t meet societal norms for gender expression. The targeted girl in this story got off fairly easily. Her school records have always identified her as female and intrusive home investigations weren’t needed.

A legal Medicare scam

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported that Biden is starting to campaign on behalf of Democrats for the midterm election in less than three months. Biden is talking about the Inflation Reduction Act, the mini Build Back Better bill he campaigned on. And he’s making one point clear: As he discusses the various parts of the bill he says “Every single Republican—every single one—voted against” it. Biden’s approval rating has been going up since he tested positive for COVID about a month ago. Signing this bill is helping that rise. Alas, it’s still in the low 40s. In another post McCarter reported that Democrats need to emphasize one more aspect of their opponents. Republicans are siding with the super wealthy and special interests – the extreme MAGA agenda. Josh Shapiro, the AG of Pennsylvania and nominee for governor is naming that other aspect. McCarter wrote:

They are dangerous. They pose a real threat to the physical safety of teachers, librarians, health care workers, LGBTQ people, Jews, and Black and brown people, not to mention their newest targets: federal law enforcement personnel.

That new law Biden is campaigning on has a big chunk of money to upgrade the IRS and hire more workers. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted NBCNews which said Sen. Rick Scott is warning people not to take those IRS jobs because when Republicans take control of Congress the jobs will be eliminated. McCarter explained why the IRS needs that money for upgrades. They’re still 10.2 million paper returns behind. Their computers are 2001 models. They can’t scan paper returns, so have to enter numbers by hand. As for personnel, they’ve lost 20% of their staff since 2010 and one-third is eligible for retirement. Then McCarter reported on what else Scott said. He’s demonizing the IRS the same way Republicans have begun to demonize the FBI. That will prompt their base to start attacking IRS agents and offices. They’ve already started attacking the FBI. Which brings another meaning to eliminating the job. In a Ukraine update from a couple days ago Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about another huge explosion deep in Crimea. This one blew up a stockpile of ammunition and equipment near a railway. A nearby electrical substation also went boom. That’s important because the rail line is electric. As before, this is a long way from Ukrainian held territory. It isn’t out of range from long range missiles, but there is no evidence missiles were used. The earlier explosion at a Crimean air base left a lot of speculation as to how it happened. I had written about that few days ago. This time, as the New York Times reported, a Ukrainian official said the explosions were because of “an elite Ukrainian military unit operating behind enemy lines” – it was sabotage. That can’t look good for Russia. It means Russia’s control of Crimea isn’t all that good. Julia Davis of The Daily Beast tweeted a video and a link to a recent article with the words:

Meanwhile on Kremlin-controlled Russian state TV: top propagandist Vladimir Solovyov bemoans the search of Mar-a-Lago and says, “I’m very worried for our agent Trump.” Russian talking heads conclude that their favorite Presidential contender is royally screwed and ponder whether he might even be included in a future prisoner swap.

In an article posted two weeks ago (just after my vacation) Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and author of the Hartmann Report wrote about the Medicare Advantage plans being a scam. It’s a scam making insurance companies rich, a scam that is legal. You can blame Bush II for this situation. Advantage plans (and I’m on one) are not Medicare. They are funded by Medicare but are really private insurance plans with all the scary problems of regular insurance plans. That is hidden because they can brand their product as “Medicare Advantage.” Since they are private insurance plans they can deny care, including life-saving care. Yes, they can deny care that Medicare covers. There are also a lot of copays and deductibles. Another aspect is these insurance companies are paid not by the doctor visit, test, or hospital stay. They’re paid by the “risk score,” by how sick the patient is – and they routinely lie about it. When I was first on my Advantage plan I was called with an offer where a doctor would come to my house and do a complete physical and check for things in the house that might be injurious to me. I said no – they likely would find something. I later found out that’s the point – they would find something. And for every tiny something, either in my physical self or in my home, they could “upcode” me, declare I’m sicker, more of a risk, than I actually am. The insurance company gets more money from Medicare without much more in expenses. A 2014 report from the Center for Public Integrity showed that Advantage plans cost taxpayers billions more than they should. They overcharge without consequences. An example of denial of care is the experience of “Sam.” He had a really high prostate PSA number, a sure sign of cancer that was likely aggressive. But the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center – the best in the country – was not one his Advantage plan included. That plan included none of the cancer centers in NYC where Sam lives and a third of all Advantage plans nationwide don’t include any national cancer centers. And here’s the kicker. If one first signs up with an Advantage plan then tries to go to regular Medicare with a supplemental plan any condition first uncovered while on the Advantage plan can be declared a pre-existing condition and not covered. That may lock a person into an Advantage plan. My experience with my Advantage plan is mixed. So far they haven’t denied any specialist or test, though some of the tests included a copay and some low cost medications aren’t covered. However, they say if a doctor or a facility is not in network I have to pay 30% of whatever the doctor or facility bills (Medicare requires I pay only 20%). They have no idea what might be billed so can’t offer a price comparison. A big part of that is finding out whether a doctor is in network or not. The insurance provides a website to see if a doctor is in network. But I’ve had a case where the website says the doctor is not (because the name doesn’t come up) yet the doctor’s office says she is. Then there is the hassle of of that website giving me the name of every doctor with a particular specialty (which can be a long list) yet have a hard time telling me which of those doctors are members of my health system (where all my records are). I want out of this particular plan. Then I’ll have to choose between a different Advantage plan or a Supplement plan. I searched for “switching Medicare advantage to supplement” and one of the sites that came up is medicare.gov. Best to go straight to the source. This is some of what it has to say about switching. First, one must dump the Advantage plan and go back to straight Medicare. That is always possible.

Once you’ve returned to Original Medicare, you can apply for a Medicare Supplement plan anytime you want – but your acceptance into a plan isn’t always guaranteed. For example, if you have health problems, the insurance company can base its decision on your health history in a process known as medical underwriting. The company can decide not to sell you a plan, or to charge you more because of your health condition.

That underwriting is not necessary if one first enrolls in a supplement plan. When dropping an Advantage plan one will likely need to enroll in Medicare D prescription drug plan. The corporation I retired from (gosh, 15 years ago!) contracted with a company that helps their retirees navigate through the Medicare morass. I had long talks with them before signing up to my current plan and I anticipate I’ll have long hours with them this fall. I long for the day when American health care for everyone is as simple as: “You see a doctor. You’re covered.”

They adopted the fascist solutions to each of their problems

I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data. The peak in the number of new cases per day at the end of July was revised to 3026. The two peaks since then are at 2704 and 2232. They’re going in the right direction, but it is too soon, and the numbers too likely to be revised, to say this is a genuine downward trend. I heard on the news that America still has about 500 deaths from COVID per day. At first I thought Michigan is ahead of the rest of the country. But deaths per day here has been fluctuating at or above 10. So the state is at or above average. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported that “Defund the FBI” is now a thing with Republicans. If law enforcement is a threat to the nasty guy it “must be deterred, blocked, punished, or fired.” Democrats are beginning to prepare for that. The Republican effort probably won’t get far while Biden is in the White House and if Democrats keep the Senate. Even so Republicans could block every judicial or executive nominee (if Rs take the Senate) and legislative effort and tie Biden up with dozens of phony hearings. If they do have budgetary power they could defund the FBI and related departments and even punish individual justice (and federal) employees. Hunter of Kos discussed an article in the Washington Post about the most destructive things the nasty guy has planned for a second term, if he should ever get there. These were taken from various public pronouncements. “Execute drug dealers” was because he fantasized on what Rodrigo Duterte, dictator of the Philippines, had been doing. “Move homeless people to outlying ‘tent cities’” is a standard real estate tycoon fixation that the presence of homeless people reduces property values. That sounds quite a bit like sending the poor to concentration camps. “Deploy federal force against crime, unrest, and protests” – hurt and kill protesters really is a part of fascism.

It was also a central part of his coup plans; the Trump coup team hoped that Mike Pence could be convinced to throw the election into chaos, upon which time Trump would declare emergency powers under the Insurrection Act to snuff out whatever protests of the stolen election developed, and/or use the military to literally seize the voting machines. A fully fascist plan. Trump is still pissed that it didn't work.

“Strip job protections for federal workers” sounds banal but it’s really about replacing all competent federal workers with loyalists. This is the Russian model in which underlings help the boss with his corruption and their minions are hired to help the underlings with their corruption. And... “In a government based on willingness to overlook corruption, corruption becomes the primary task of government.” The result is a Russia who got bogged down trying to invade Ukraine. So what if by the time he’s gone the country is in ruins. He won’t care because he got to be the one who got rich doing it. This is now standard Republicanism. So far it is mostly revenge on whistleblowers. It will expand. “Eliminate the Education Department” really isn’t a nasty guy thing because that would require work and he doesn’t do work. It is a Republican thing to make sure the lower classes can’t get educated. “Restrict voting to one day using paper ballots” – yeah, the Republicans were for vote by mail when they assumed only old people did it. Now that the pandemic showed young people how nice vote by mail is they’re against it.

All of this has gone far beyond one man's uncontrollable narcissism. Trump didn't get the job the first time around because of his supposed promises or claims that he was smarter than every scientist, military general, and world leader on the planet. He got it because he was a mean, blustery asshole willing to spout more hate more openly than anyone else on the debate stage—and Republican voters absolutely love that stuff. They don't want good government; they want government that will punish their enemies while elevating their own paranoias.

Republicans may not care where the homeless live or whether drug dealers are executed. But controlling elections, firing competent federal employees, and crushing protests ...

That's standard-issue Republicanism now. All of the candidates will be promoting that. DeSantis, Hawley, Cruz, Graham, Cotton, McCarthy, Abbott—all of them. It's carved into the movement now, and there's no evidence it can be scraped back out. They happen across the fascist solutions to each of their problems, and adopt the fascist solutions as their answers.

Rebekah Sager of Kos reported on an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that says every major county in Georgia is scrambling to find poll workers. Some are confident they’ll meet targets by the time voting starts. The high vacancy rate is understandable, given the testimony of two election workers caught in the nasty guy’s smear campaign. The job also doesn’t pay well. ABC News and the Brennan Center for Justice say it isn’t just Georgia. It’s a national problem. Vet the Vote is now recruiting veterans and their relatives to be poll workers. Other poll workers would be reassured working alongside veterans, who aren’t easily intimidated.

Adults trying to live up to the example set by a teenager

Yesterday I wrote about the list of excuses Republicans and the nasty guy have been saying to justify having classified documents at his for profit estate. Hunter of Daily Kos explains why those excuses are actually hurting him. One excuse was that the nasty guy was so distraught over the failure of his coup that White House workers did the packing, also known as The Butler Did It. But that implies classified papers were scattered about the White House and mixed with his own possessions so that workers couldn’t tell one from another. So the nasty guy didn’t mishandle classified documents while packing, he mishandled them as a normal part of doing his duties. Simply declassifying documents in his own head and not telling the rest of the government exposes assets – spies – to exposure. Another claim is the nasty guy didn’t take the documents on purpose. But once at his estate he played games with investigators to make sure the boxes stayed hidden. This was intentional. A reason why this is so bad is by running his estate as a for profit club a lot of members it attracts are spies. Hunter also reported the current Republican sentiment. If the nasty guy broke the law that means the law must be repealed. Soon there would be no law, no rule of law, and no America left. Laura Clawson of Kos is amazed that it was the despicable John Bolton who came up with a great follow up question. When someone says the documents should be declassified simply because the nasty guy said so, the response should be:

Do you believe those should be put on the internet and printed in the newspapers for everyone to see?

He then summed up the situation rather well:

When somebody begins to concoct lies like this, it shows a real level of desperation.

Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted a tweet from Ted:

The fact that he was flushing documents down the toilet in a house that literally has 28 fireplaces should prove that he’s not fit for office.

Dworkin quoted a tweet by Mike Madrid, who quoted Julia Davis of The Daily Beast. First is Davis.

Meanwhile in Russia: Putin's mouthpieces on state TV are taunting America about "Top Secret" documents sought during the raid of Trump's estate, which they claim had to do with the newest nuclear weapons developed by the US and gleefully imply that Moscow already got to see them.

Madrid added:

I’m not saying Trump let Russia see our nuclear secrets – Russia is saying Trump let them see our nuclear secrets.

Dworkin also quoted a tweet from Alex Burns of the New York Times discussing the mini Build Back Better bill that Biden just signed and quoting Jesse Jenkins:

This bill does about two-thirds of the work we need to do to hit our climate goals, which for a single piece of legislation is a really big deal.

This tweet includes a chart of greenhouse gas emissions that show the difference between where the current policies would take us and where this new bill will take us. There are a couple other things of interest from this chart. The good news is the peak in emissions was in 2005 and have been declining since. The bad news is the 2030 goal of cutting emissions to 50% of the 2005 level means we’ll still be pumping out over 3 billion metrics tons of CO2 per year. The reduction is a good thing – it will lower the overall heat of the planet and slow down the long term effects. But the consequences of all that CO2 in the air are pretty dire already. While I was gone there was a primary in Kansas. On the ballot was a provision to change the state’s constitution to remove the right to an abortion to allowing the state legislature to set the policy. It was sold as a way of allowing voters, through their elected representatives, to have a voice in the policy. Voters saw right through that ploy. Dworkin, in a pundit roundup from August 5th, quoted several analyses of what happened during that primary. Republicans put that vote on a primary election because there would be a low turnout, in which only dedicated voters would vote. But the turnout was historically high and the measure lost big – by 18 percentage points. Yeah, that was an earthquake that reshaped the political landscape – it showed Democrats could run on this issue this fall. It also highlighted the width of the gulf between how voters think about the right to abortion and what Republican legislators are doing. Yesterday, Christopher Reeves of Kos reported Republicans of Kansas are trying to fund a recount of this issue. To do a recount for an issue that lost that badly someone has to pay the cost and do it within a short amount of time. It looks like they had to scale the recount down to just nine counties. Rebekah Sager of Kos reported Big Lie supporters are taking voting machines to unauthorized locations for unauthorized inspections. One of those incidents happened in Michigan and one of the perpetrators was allegedly Matthew DePerno. That name is important because he is the Republican candidate for Michigan’s attorney general and endorsed by the nasty guy. The current AG, Dana Nessel, requested a special prosecutor so she isn’t seen investigating her election rival. Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Secretary of State, the person in charge of elections, reminds us getting ahold of election equipment is illegal, especially if getting it is done through intimidating election officials. Also, machines that have been outside of the control of election officials cannot be used again and must be replaced. Benson also called for law enforcement to look for broader connections between incidents. This hasn’t happened just in Michigan. It has happened at least in Georgia and Ohio. The Brennan Center has stepped in to advise election officials on how to handle deniers they may confront and to prevent unauthorized access to their machines. Clawson, in a post from a few days after the Kansas primary, reported that Republicans are sore losers and that is a big problem. After documenting a few cases, with the help of a story by Axios, Clawson wrote:

These moves are “exceedingly dangerous, because a democracy depends on losers’ consent,” Rick Hasen, the director of UCLA Law's Safeguarding Democracy Project, told Axios. “If people believe the other side is consistently stealing elections, first of all, you completely delegitimize people in office ... but second, you create the conditions where people might be more willing to engage in fraud themselves as a way of trying to even the score.” Indeed, the Colorado man who pleaded guilty to forgery for casting a ballot in the name of his missing (and presumed dead) wife told the FBI it was “Just because I wanted Trump to win. I just thought, give him another vote. I figured all these other guys are cheating.” Republicans are telling their voters not to accept any election result they don’t like. They’re telling their voters the other guys are cheating, with the implication that cheating is the only way to fight back. They’re training thousands of poll workers in these beliefs. Donald Trump’s late 2020-early 2021 coup failed. But it laid the groundwork for 2022 and 2024.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, shared the story of the little Patmos Library in Jamestown, Michigan, a little place southwest of Grand Rapids. Local voters rejected a renewal of a millage that supports the library’s operating budget. They were annoyed that the library has books by LGBTQ authors or had LGBTQ characters. Jesse Dillman recognized the library as important to the town so set up a GoFundMe page to support it. In two weeks the fund raised $140K of the $245K goal. All these adults trying to live up to the example set by a teenager. That observation is from Jeff Seidel of the Detroit Free Press. The teenager was Tate Myre, one of the four students killed in the Oxford High School shooting last November 30. The adults include Tate’s father Buck. Buck knew that his son was a caring person. After Tate’s death his father began to hear how caring. People would come up to Buck and say this is what Tate did for my child. One of those children was Preston who had experience a lot of trauma. Tate had been a mentor to him. Tate had a huge group of friends. After the shooting the friends wanted to just hang out in Tate’s room. After a while Buck asked them to list Tate’s traits.

The final list reads like a map on how to be a good, decent person: being trustworthy, caring, fun, positive, teachable, humble, confident, selfless, hard worker, respectful, accountable and loyal.

That list of Tate’s Traits became the core principles of the non profit organization 42 Strong, named after Tate’s football number. The goal of the organization is to match high school student mentors with middle school students who need friendship and guidance. More than 100 high schoolers volunteered to be mentors. The students are the ones who look for their peers who need to be in the program. They want to find the kid who doesn’t have a friend to make sure the kid doesn’t become the next shooter. There are already requests to replicate it at other schools. Running that program turned into a second job for Buck. Zach Line, the high school’s football coach, convinced Buck to be an assistant coach for the football team Tate had been a part of. Buck had been a coach, but pulled out when Tate joined the team. He didn’t want to be seen to be playing favorites. Line had a reason beyond football expertise to ask Buck to join the team. That was to be an example for Tate’s teammates of how to grieve. Buck isn’t afraid to cry in front of people. As part of his coaching Buck can be watching for the boys that want to retreat from the pain. This has become Buck’s third job. Line has a new slogan “Show up and shut up.” Be there for the boys. Don’t feed them answers. Listen to their pain. It is good to see something wonderful come from Tate’s death. However, I think about how awesome it would have been if Tate were there to shape it.

A couple of matryoshka dolls and a chained bear with a balalaika

My Sunday movie was Benediction. It’s a British film about poet Sigfried Sassoon and his experiences during and after WWI. He was a real person, as were the other main characters. Sassoon is from an upper class family. He is also gay at a time being gay was viewed as morally repugnant and was illegal. His upper class standing protects him to a point. He can appear in public with boyfriends, though they must act as if they were just friends. This film does a good job of integrating old WWI films into the story, though that means Sassoon doesn’t actually appear in them. He had been in the war for more than a year when he writes a letter denouncing the British government’s refusal to properly declare the goal of the war. He says that meant they were needlessly prolonging it, resulting in too many deaths. Instead of court martialling him the military sends him to a hospital for nervous disorders. There he meets Wilfred Owen. I know of him because several of his poems are in the War Requiem by Benjamin Britten. This piece has several movements based on the text of the Catholic Requiem Mass and more movements based on Owen’s poetry. It’s a piece I highly recommend, though parts can be hard to listen to. I could write more about it, but won’t now. Sassoon has a series of lovers, most come across as conniving and petty, ready to drop one lover when another comes along. But Sassoon tires of this. He’s looking for something, perhaps absolution, though what isn’t exactly spelled out. Is it because he is gay? Because he isn’t fitting in with societal norms? We also see him in his old age, still searching. After a while I realized there is source music, such as a dance band, a Victoria, and music as part of a performance. But there is very little background music to set the mood of a scene. Yeah, a music guy like me would notice such things. Much of the background music there is comes from Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was a premier English composer in the first half of the 20th century. I recommend listening to his 2nd, 3rd, and 5th symphonies plus Fantasy on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and Flos Campi as places to start. A week ago as part of my travelogue I wrote that even though I had gotten my car’s air conditioner fixed before the trip, it gave out on the last day driving home. I would get about a half hour of coolness before it quit. I took it in for repair today, a freebie because the fix failed in so short a time. They couldn’t get the failure to happen while letting it idle and on a long test drive. Yet it failed before I got home, though I had done a few errands along the way. I called the service department and left a message for my advisor. A half hour later she called back and asked me to bring the car back while the AC isn’t working. So I started on my way. In that half hour the AC had reset, so I had to drive around for 40 minutes before it failed again. I was about to head home when it cut out. When I got to the service department the advisor brought out the technician. He said the compressor wasn’t engaged. It would cost almost $300 to diagnose the exact problem and anywhere from a tiny bit more to another $350 to fix it. Considering the age of the car and that I’ve passed 200K miles my primary question is whether the car is worth fixing. The advisor said she could bring out the guy who does trade-in values though I could probably get a better deal on Carvana. I told the advisor I would think about it. Once home I went to the Carvana website and entered all the info on the state of the car. I was a bit annoyed they could find out a great deal from my license plate number, including the car’s VIN. I proceeded and less than a minute after checking the final box they came back with an offer to buy – $300. It isn’t worth fixing. I tried Kelley Blue Book’s estimate of a car’s value. They refused to let me see because I have an ad blocker turned on. I also queried Carvana for used cars they have for sale. The cheapest sedan they have near me is $10.6K. Well, maybe I don’t want an new one just yet. Maybe my current car will last long enough to get an electric sedan. An article from Bridge Michigan, posted on the Equality Michigan website reports that the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that Michigan’s Elliott-Larson Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on sex, must necessarily also ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The ruling was 5-2, which means one justice nominated by Republicans voted for it. Attempts to amend the Elliott-Larson Act have been tried for at least 15 years, perhaps longer. But Republicans, especially in the last ten years, have blocked those attempts. Yes, this is still necessary. A wedding venue in Grand Rapids recently issued a policy refusing their facilities to same-sex couples. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission had said four years ago that “sex” includes sexual orientation and gender identity. They would begin to investigate complaints of discrimination against the LGBTQ community. But that didn’t have the force of law and they were sued. That suit is what prompted today’s ruling. One of the dissenting Republicans argued the majority failed to consider religious liberty protections, which are included in federal civil rights laws but not in the state law. Of course, this suit and many others had claimed they could discriminate because of religious liberty. David Nir of Daily Kos made a list of all the excuses the Republicans and the nasty guy have put forth on why it was appropriate for him to have classified documents at his for profit estate. 1. The nasty guy says everyone but the nasty guy is corrupt. 2. He would have turned over everything if they had asked (they did and he didn’t). 3. He checked them out from the National Archives as if that was a library and kept them beyond the due date. 4. The documents were planted (since the nasty guy watched the search on closed-circuit he’ll be releasing the tapes to show the FBI planting them). 5. The FBI and its head Christopher Wray are all corrupt (Wray was appointed by the nasty guy and is a member of the Federalist Society that nominated five of the current conservative members of the Supremes). 6. Obama was worse (the National Archives issued a statement saying they have all of Obama’s classified materials). 7. Since there were no nuclear secrets everything is fine (there were nuclear secrets). 8. Couldn’t be a big deal because they waited a year and a half to get them (warrant issued Friday, search on Monday). 9. He could declassify stuff in his own head (there is a defined procedure and a president can’t do it by himself). 10. Aliens. 11. Where was the media frenzy over Hillary Clinton’s emails? (you mean the frenzy where her emails were mentioned in the news for 600 consecutive days?) 12. One can find “classified” nuclear information through your smart phone. 13. Only a tiny bit was classified and the other stuff isn’t worth mentioning (there were several boxes marked classified, each holding 2,500 pages). 14. There was a coup attempt going on, it was a chaotic time, not enough time to get the stuff declassified. 15. All the nasty guy has to do is say he won’t run again and all the charges will be dropped. 16. The documents should never have been classified in the first place – we should have let the American people see them which would keep us out of war. 17. He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office were deemed declassified (since the staff has to occasionally work from home). 18. Someone else packed the boxes. 19. He was convinced he would stay another four years so had to pack in a big hurry. And that was just one week of excuses. For a different view Charles Jay of the Kos community wrote:

Russian TV news host Evgeny Popov had a pretty good idea of what the FBI found when they searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. On Tuesday’s broadcast of 60 Minutes, Popov said the agents found a couple of matryoshka dolls, a portrait of Vladimir Putin, a Young Pioneer scarf, two icons, a parachute, and a chained bear with a balalaika.

Jay also included a bit from Vladimir Solovyov, a top Russian TV propagandist who has been sanctioned by the US and EU, on the threats of violence coming from the American far right.

This is fun for everyone but the Americans. They don’t really understand what awaits them next. Let’s just say that if the civil war starts over there, there will be only one big question for Russia — whom to support with weapons. We won’t forgive them for Ukraine, that’s for sure.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted some late night commentary:

The FBI raids his home, and all we can think is, “Hmm, I wonder which of his crimes they’re investigating.” —Stephen Colbert This sets a dangerous precedent. If Donald Trump could be investigated for crimes, who’s next? Other criminals? —Jimmy Kimmel Live guest host Rob McElhenney

The US Geological Survey has an online database of wind turbines. The national view shows a good size collection across central Michigan, a bigger collection across central Illinois that extends into Indiana, and a much bigger patch across Iowa. There are also quite a few in Texas, along the Oregon-Washington border, and extending from West Virginia into Pennsylvania. And other small installations across the country. The big exception is the South (well, there’s a small installation in Tennessee and a cluster in North Carolina). April Siese of Kos, from a story posted while I was on vacation (yeah, still a few more of those), reported that the state treasurer for West Virginia will be targeting companies that pull away from the fossil fuel industry. This follows the lead of the treasurer of Texas. Several other states considering similar action are influenced by reports posted by the Heritage Foundation and the American Petroleum Institute. HF is listed by Greenpeace as a “Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group.” Seise doesn’t say what WV is doing. Tactics in various states range at one end to voicing opposition to an SEC rule about tackling environmental and social governance and on the other end to refusing to do businesses with companies and banks that refuse to do business with Big Oil. Pakalolo of the Kos community wrote that mainstream media – well, some outlets – are beginning to talk about the climate endgame. The BBC mentioned the possibility of human extinction. And PNAS discussed the consequences of climate change being “second only to global nuclear war.”