You’re not cannon fodder

Yeah, it’s Halloween. When I had to avoid sugar I didn’t want to hand out sugar to kids and perhaps have some left over. So on Halloween I tended to make sure I was away for the evening. Alas, there are no movies worth seeing in area theaters this evening. I don’t have to avoid sugar now, though I still do. And I still don’t want to give any to kids. So the light near the front window is not on. A neighbor usually has a bonfire and several people on the block sit around it. I joined them for a couple hours – after the children has passed through. My Sunday movie was Speedy featuring Harold Lloyd. It is a silent film released in 1928. I got interested in it because it showed up at the Detroit Film Theater and I didn’t see it then. I saw it now because it is on YouTube (I saw the free public domain version). Lloyd was a combination of comedian and stunt man. Many of his films, including this one, feature quite involved action and chase sequences. This one features Lloyd as Speedy, a character who bounces from job to job – soda fountain attendant, cab driver – and isn’t worried when he loses a job. He is in love with Jane. Her grandfather owns one of the last horse-drawn streetcars in a neighborhood that loves his kind personal service and loves that he lets a bunch of Civil War vets use the car for their card games in the evening. A chunk of the first third of the 90 minute runtime is taken up by Speedy and Jane going to Coney Island with several sweet and amusing mishaps. The middle third is Speedy as a cab driver. One of his customers is Babe Ruth – playing himself – and Speedy must get him to the ballpark. Ruth is not at all happy with the ride. I thought this had some terrific staging and camera work as the cab veers from this narrow miss to that one. The last chunk of the movie is his effort to thwart the efforts of a streetcar baron trying to exploit a loophole to swipe the grandfather’s horse-drawn line. There’s a lot of help from the vets and a lot of chances for high speed action requiring innovative solutions. And, oh yeah, stunt work. There isn’t a whole lot of change in the war in Ukraine. Even so, there are a couple interesting related ideas. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos, in a report from last Wednesday, reviewed what Russia – then the Soviet Union – did in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Soviets committed war crimes and destroyed infrastructure. Wrote Sumner:

The crumbling cities and barren fields that we think of as characteristic of Afghanistan aren’t the nation the Soviets entered. It’s what they left in their wake.

That is a prelude to saying it seems mighty strange that Russians are offering jobs to Afghans to fight against Ukraine. These soldiers have a reason to be interested in the offer. They are soldiers that fought with the US against the Taliban. They are the elite of the Afghan military and have knowledge of US weapons systems. They were left behind when the US departed Afghanistan a year ago and are now jobless and homeless. They understand the “band of brothers” of the military and are thus easy pickings for Russian recruiters. They would be ideal in Russia’s battle against Western weapons. There is a way the US can prevent that from happening – quickly resettle these soldiers in the West. Russia needs the Afghan soldiers because the Russian soldiers aren’t any good – though they can fire a missile into Ukrainian infrastructure while drunk. Kos of Kos discussed the miserable lives of Russian soldiers, especially the recently mobilized conscripts. You know you’re in trouble when you’re commanding officer, just before you’re sent to the front, begins his speech by saying, “You’re not cannon fodder ...” Even if you don’t get killed, Russia doesn’t want you back. Your family is more interested in your cell phone than you (unless you manage to haul home a washing machine). You might as well get and stay drunk. Your best hope is to be a Ukrainian prisoner of war. At least there you aren’t subjected to gay prostitution. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed the unintended effects of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I and others have already discussed a few of the items (so Dartagnan briefly mentions them). It turned Russia into a pariah state, tanking its economy. It strengthened NATO. It showed how weak Russia’s military actually is. And the one that is the focus of Dartagnan’s article: a much bigger push to switch to renewable energy.

The IEA [International Energy Agency] is the world’s most authoritative forecast of global energy trends, and its annual report points to a significant shift in energy planning by the world’s most developed countries. The shift is spurred by higher fuel prices resulting from Russia’s disruption of global energy markets, most notably in fossil fuel production. As reported by Brad Plumer, writing for The New York Times, Putin, as leader of the leading natural gas exporter in the world, has managed to accomplish what climate scientists and activists have unsuccessfully lobbied for over the past 20 years: Created a peak target in fossil fuel consumption worldwide, and driven a more rapid shift to renewables and other cleaner technologies such as wind, solar and nuclear power.

They knelt to show they're not afraid

I’m home from my travels. I had a few good days with my brother and sister-in-law. I went on to Baltimore and the Maryland Center for History and Culture to do research on an ancestor who remains elusive. I also looked over the MCHC museum exhibits. I had time to see the Inner Harbor at sunset and walk around Baltimore’s Washington Monument at Mt. Vernon Place. Yeah, that’s George at the top of the column.

My drive from Baltimore to Bethesda was, alas, during rush hour, and was slow. Over the next two days I left my car at the hotel in Bethesda and took the Metro into Washington to see a couple museums. The first museum was the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum. Both are in the same building that says it is the third-oldest federal building in the capital. I concentrated on the portraits. The most famous portraits are, of course, the presidents. I didn’t get into that gallery. I did see the rooms of important Americans who lived 1600-1900 and were not presidents. This included politicians, explorers (Daniel Boone, William Clark (of Lewis and ... ) ), well known rich dudes, socialites, theater people, and prominent natives. I saw a few more rooms that showed famous people from the 20th century and a balcony gallery showed 20th century people in theater, movies, and music. That evening I went to a concert of a local bell ensemble that performed one of my pieces. This was the reason for the trip. They gave a competent performance. The ensemble had asked for submissions of music not yet published, something every composer has. I sent three pieces and pleased they chose one of mine from the sixty submitted. Several of the musicians said it was the most fun to play. Alas, getting to the concert was slowed by rush hour traffic (though it was a Saturday!) and confusing signs about which were toll roads, which were not, and how one was supposed to pay. So my supper was fast food. A musician suggested an alternate route back to my hotel to avoid the tolls – and that road had lots of construction work. At one point I took a wrong turn and I didn’t know how to get to my hotel from there. Then I remembered my new car has a map app! As soon as I could I turned off the commanding voice giving directions. Also in Washington I visited the African American Museum – the full name is the National Museum of African American History and Culture. I did not see the history galleries on the lower levels because the line to get in was 35-45 minutes. However, the community and culture exhibits on the 3rd and 4th floors were plenty to see in one day. These floors had exhibits on African Americans in the military, in sports, in visual arts, on stage and screen, and in music. The last was a large display. There was also a gallery of black people making a place for themselves such as a hat maker who served both black and white customers. There was also a display of the Chicago Defender, a black owned newspaper with a circulation of a half million. Train porters snuck copies into the South where it helped fuel and guide the Great Migration. This poem is part of the exhibit of black people in the military. It is by Langston Hughes from “Beaumont to Detroit: 1943” You tell me hitler Is a mighty bad man. I guess he took lessons from the ku klux klan ... Cause everything that hitler And mussolini do, Negroes get the same Treatment from you ... I ask you this question Cause I want to know How long I got to fight BOTH HITLER–and JIM CROW. I had earlier learned that the Nazis devised many of their policies through studying Jim Crow laws. I also learned the original Jim Crow was a minstrel character of that name. He was a happy-go-lucky plantation slave reinforcing the racial stereotypes. The character was developed by white performer Thomas D. “Daddy” Rice. I do have a minor complaint of this fine African American Museum – there is very little about those who were both black and LGBTQ. Those I knew to be gay, such as James Baldwin, were not identified as gay. The little bit of LGBTQ content I saw was a poster for the 1989 documentary Tongues Untied, directed by Marlon Riggs. That made me realize I hadn’t seen any other LGBTQ exhibits. Here’s a nice photo of the Lincoln Memorial from the 2nd floor windows of the museum.

The weather was good for the trip, though a couple evenings were cold. Most trees were in full color, making for a beautiful drive. The whole trip was about 1160 miles. Michigan’s COVID data, updated Tuesday, shows the last several weekly peaks of new cases per day at 2015, 1990, 1876, 1576, and 1577. Cases are heading in the right direction, but the disease is still not gone. Deaths per day are in the same low range they’ve been at since May. I did not collect browser tabs while traveling, mostly because my travel computer is so cranky and slow I read only a few news articles on any day I had time to read. So what I share today (and likely the rest of the week) is from the last couple days. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote about the ongoing protests in Iran. Tuesday marked the 40th day since the death of Mahsa Amini which sparked these protests. In Iran 40 days marks the end of a mourning period. To commemorate it (tens of?) thousands of protesters walked to her grave in the town of Saqez. When security blocked roads they walked through fields. Security at Sharif University tried to keep the male and female students separate. Students fought back and took control of the campus. In solidarity a woman removed her hijab after wearing it for 80 years. Protesters in the town of Amol knelt before riot police to show they’re not afraid. It seems protesters are working to make sure they have a voice when the regime falls. They want to avoid the power vacuum that was exploited last time. In a Ukraine update on Tuesday Sumner reported Russia has lost its leverage over Europe. Putin had been saying if Europe didn’t meet his demands then he would cut off gas and oil and Europe would freeze in the dark. But now gas storage facilities in Germany are 97% full and they have so much of a buffer that gas prices have fallen. Europe is also turning to renewable energy as fast as it can. So Putin’s threats aren’t so threatening anymore. It is good to hear Democrats talking like this. Republicans have been claiming that Biden caused inflation (nope, it’s a corporate greed and worldwide problem) and they will be the fiscally responsible ones. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that on Monday Biden said:

Hear this closely: The Republicans have made it clear that if they win control of the Congress, they will shut down the government, refuse to pay our bills, and it’ll be the first time in our history America will default—unless I yield and cut Social Security and Medicare. There’s nothing, nothing, that will create more chaos, more inflation, and more damage to the American economy than this. ... We, the Democrats, are the ones that are fiscally responsible. Let’s get that straight now, okay? We’re investing in all of America, reducing everyday costs while also lowering the deficit at the same time. Republicans are fiscally reckless, pushing tax cuts for the very wealthy that aren’t paid for, and exploiting the deficit that is making inflation worse.

Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported Charlie Crist, in a debate against Florida Gov. Ron DeathSantis, got off a few pointed comments. Crist accused his opponent of not being in search of solutions, but rather a “wedge issue.” Yeah, there are challenges at the southern border, but that stunt of luring immigrants with lies and flying them to Martha’s Vineyard, while using taxpayer money is just inhumane and not the way to change policy. Crist also asked DeSantis whether, if elected, he’ll serve the full four year term. Since DeSantis acts like he intends to run for president in 2024 he couldn’t give Crist or viewers an answer. Here are some cartoons describing what Republicans are doing: Jan Sorensen of Kos shows a couple discussing a voter guide. There are Democrats facing a guy wanting to get rid of Social Security, a woman who admires Hitler, and a guy who wants to smite the Bidens. So vote – if you can get past the vigilantes “watching” the ballot box. Pedro Molina has a cartoon of an elephant telling a driver he should be outraged by gas prices, but the car is up on blocks because tires labeled “democracy” and “rights” are being carried away. Btowncubsfan tweeted a photo of the Capitol attack with the caption, “Why would I worry about who’s crossing the border when these assholes are already here?” Dave Whamond has a cartoon with an elephant carrying a sign that says. “Ban books, Critical Race Theory, Unisex Bathrooms, Trans kids,” and a few more. A woman says, “Let me guess ... There’s no room for ‘guns’ on that list.” The elephant replies, “What? Are you Crazy?” Phil Hands has a cartoon showing an elephant with a sign that says, “Defund schools, child care, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Health care, Mental Health, Democracy, etc.” A donkey has a sign that says “Defund Police.” The elephant says, “You’re too Radical!” Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Twitter had a few things to say about a campaign stunt by Republican Sen. Todd Young of Indiana. Young is shown at a gas pump with the sign for a price of $3.99 a gallon above his head with a caption blaming Biden for high gas prices. Twitter quickly noticed Young is not standing beside a car. Also, gas prices are down from their peak. Indiana Progressives tweeted, “If you think things are expensive now just imagine what it will be like after the Republicans take away your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits and affordable health care.”

A place where everyone ate

My Sunday movie was The Automat, a documentary about the Horn and Hardart automat restaurants in New York and Philadelphia. Yes, they were created by a Mr. Horn and a Mr. Hardart. The idea came from automat restaurants in Europe where the food was delivered by dumbwaiter. In America that became a wall of little windows. Behind each was an item of food. One put a nickel in the slot, opened the window, and took out the food. There were no visible waiters or servers, though people behind the wall kept the windows stocked. This was a place for a country fascinated by machines. The first one was in Philadelphia in 1902. It soon expanded to New York, though never went beyond those cities. Mel Brooks was one of several people in the movie who talked about the joys of the automat. Also featured were descendants of Mr. Horn, Mr. Hardart, and other top leadership. They all talked about what was special about these restaurants. First, the food was good, top quality. It was inexpensive – one could get a full meal for a few nickels. The coffee was the best around. The eating areas had fine décor – Art Deco style with marble tables, counters, and floors. It was also universally accessible, frequented by immigrants (one didn’t have to speak the language), the rich, and the poor. The whole of society mingled there. The rise of the automat was aided by the rise of women office workers who needed a place to get lunch. Even black people were welcome – one of the speakers was Colin Powell. It was so accessible it survived the Depression. It was inexpensive because much of the food was prepared in a central location in each city and because of that much of the work could be done by machines. They showed a machine that put the top crust on a pie. At its peak it served 800,000 people a day and made millions of chicken pies and millions of apple pies and millions of many other dishes in a year. During WWII troop ships that left New York carried H&H food. The restaurants had such cultural significance they were featured in many movies, the first one in 1925. The company supported its employees. They felt so cared for that attempts at unionization failed. As wonderful as it was it didn’t last. Highways meant city residents could move to the suburbs. That meant a big drop in breakfast, dinner, and weekend sales. There was a shift from cost to a dining experience, which meant a restaurant with waitstaff. A company president died without grooming a successor and the new guy wasn’t as committed. And many customers were turned off by the squatting vagrants. By the mid 1970s most of the restaurants had closed. The last one hung on until 1991. Many were replaced by fast food, Burger King at the top of the list. Does the H&H spirit live on? Howard Schulz, founder of Starbucks, thinks so. My dad had a several week training course in New York in 1963 and told stories of eating at an automat. My whole family visited New York in 1967. I wonder if we ate at an automat. I doubt it, though it would have been a good deal for a family of our size. I was next back in New York in 1974. Again I doubt I ate at an automat. I was again in the city in 1999 with my parents and a nephew. I’m pretty sure we ate at an automat, though by then it wasn’t H&H. I can’t leave a story about Horn and Hardart without mentioning the Concerto for Horn and Hardart by PDQ Bach and Peter Schickele, which appeared in 1965. This was a spoof composition (as was everything Schickele wrote under the PDQ Bach pseudonym) that features a real orchestral horn as one soloist and the other, the hardart, is a collection of noisemakers that happen to match the various pitches. It’s easily found online.

The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man

On Thursday there was one more (perhaps final) presentation by the House January 6 Committee. Brandi Buchman of Daily Kos posted both a liveblog of the proceedings and a recap. The liveblog is in reverse order. Scroll to the bottom and read each entry on the way up. The main point of the day, as written by Buchman and posted 15 minutes in:

Cheney: "The central cause of Jan. 6 was one man: Donald Trump, who many others followed. None of this would have happened without him. He was personally and substantially involved in all of it." Trump's premeditated plan to declare election stolen BEFORE election day, before results; over 2 mos he sought out those who help him invent/spread lies about fraud knowing there was no real evidence to support claims and admitted to looking for phantom evidence.

Everything else Buchman posted is details supporting that point. That included the Secret Service knowing ahead of time that violence was likely and apparently not acting on that information to such things as warn the vice nasty (that isn’t clear). Another detail is the nasty guy knew he had lost the election. That means he wasn’t duped by others. He set it all in motion, they followed. The day’s proceedings concluded with a unanimous vote to subpoena the nasty guy to come before the committed to testify under oath. Many pundits say he won’t show. Since the committee will be dissolved at the end of the year (and the nasty guy hopes a Republican majority in the House will then protect him) all he has to do is run out the clock. Mick Mulvaney, acting Chief of Staff for the nasty guy (and one of the instigators of the January 6 attack) tweeted:

We are an hour into the hearing...what exactly have we seen that is new? Yes, there is new footage, but it's all on points that have been established before.

That prompted Ann Telnaes to tweet a cartoon in response. A man is at a podium with the White House logo behind him. He says, “Sure we’re crooks. So what??” Ian Reifowitz of Kos reported a couple weeks ago that a lot of Republicans are repeating the phrase that the US is “a republic, not a democracy.” A frequent use is as a response to statements like, “Trumpism is a threat to democracy!” The phrase is used to justify their attempts to dismantle American democracy. The phrase isn’t new. The Republican National Convention used it in 1964 when it nominated Barry Goldwater. The history of the phrase is in an essay by Bernard Dobski of the Heritage Foundation (no, I’m not linking to it, though Reifowitz does). Reifowitz wrote:

Dobski believes that being a republic rather than a democracy “offers protections from the instability, rashness, impetuosity, and social and political tyranny of democratic politics.” I mean, sheesh, the popular vote would have given us President Hillary Clinton. What the hell do the people know about picking a president, anyway?

I’ll provide a translation: “Instability” and “rashness” and all the others are code words for oppressed people wanting an end to the oppression and a say in how their lives are run. A republic will keep white men on top of the social hierarchy and make changing it to lessen the oppression of other kinds of people much more difficult. Reifowitz provided many examples of conservative politicians using that phrase recently. He concluded:

There are flaws in our democracy. But the difference between Democrats and these ultra-MAGA Trump Republicans is that the former want to fix those flaws and make our democracy stronger, so that all Americans have a truly equal voice in our politics, while the latter want to exploit these flaws to consolidate power through undemocratic machinations. Too many on the other side don't think we should be a democracy in the first place. And if enough of those extremists win elections this fall, they’ll be in a position to turn their nightmarish dream into our reality.

Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported on another wrinkle in the stunt where Gov. Ron DeathSantis tricked legal immigrants to board a plane in Texas and were flown to Martha’s Vineyard. Sheriff Javier Salazar of Bexar County, Texas has filed forms that can be used to obtain visas for those immigrants. This particular type of visa is reserved for those who were a crime victim or a witness to a crime. Yes, that is saying the stunt was a crime – unlawful restraint and being transported under false pretenses. Lawsuits pending. Susan Church of NBC News said:

The irony of DeSantis’ cruel trick that was played on these individuals is not only are many of them now eligible for a green card through this process, but they’ve been shipped into a jurisdiction where they probably can't even be removed while that application is pending.

While Salazar’s certification happened swiftly, it could be a few years before the green card is approved. I leave on a fall trip on Tuesday. I may or may not post about my Sunday movie. I’m pretty sure I won’t post on Monday evening. Anything for a week after that will be a travelogue post.

All investigation, all the time, also known as vengeance

There is a dating app for conservatives, called The Right Stuff. It’s been around for a few weeks. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Daily Kos community reported it’s not doing well. The reason is simple – not many women are signing up – “possibly because men who idolize serial sexual assaulters and want to force women to give birth to their rapists’ babies have a surprisingly narrow appeal.” Pennyfarthing added that conservative dating apps in general don’t do well. He cited a couple examples. Jon Stewart is famous for his long run on the Daily Show. He’s now started the second season of The Problem With Jon Stewart. This first episode is titled “The War over Gender” and is an interview with Leslie Rutledge, the Attorney General for Arkansas. Marissa Higgins of Kos discussed the interview, saying it is important because Arkansas was the first state to pass a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. In this interview Stewart counters every claim that Rutledge makes and that makes us wish all interviewers of Republicans did the same thing. Stewart has an important question:

Why would the state of Arkansas step in to override parents, physicians, psychiatrists, endocrinologists, who have developed guidelines? Why would you override those guidelines?

Higgins added:

Basically: How can at one moment the Republican Party be all about “parental consent” and “parents' rights” when it comes to what books young people are reading and sex education in public schools, but not when it comes to health care?

On through the interview Stewart calls BS on what Rutledge says or demands she justify a statement – if she claims groups in the medical community take her side he asks for names of organizations. It got to the point where Rutledge said, “I apologize I wasn’t prepared to have a Supreme Court argument here in front of you.” To me that statement is telling. Many conservative voices can lie, knowing they don’t have to justify their lies the way Rutledge had to do for Stewart. Since actual trans people have been saying what Stewart said (though I thank him for saying it) does his saying it help? Stewart may not change conservative minds, and the minds of those determined to beat on trans youth for political gain. But many moderates and Democrats believe the conservative talking points on trans people. And that is where Stewart, a respected commentator, can help. In last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press the editorial staff made their endorsements for candidates for US House, state House, and state Senate (link here but text for subscribers only). The paper leans left (otherwise I wouldn’t read it), though this editorial reminded readers in the past they have endorsed Republican candidates. Not this time. Republicans have been in control of the state legislature since their quite successful gerrymandering after the 2010 census. They’ve had plenty of time to fix big problems in the state. And haven’t. The big problems include: Underfunded schools while test scores decline (though a lot of federal money will help that in this fiscal year). In 2018 Gov. Gretchen Whitmer campaigned on “Fix the Damn Roads” – because Republicans refused to allocate enough money then stymied her efforts. They’re only now getting fixed because of federal money. Revenue sharing from state to cities declined as cities complained about the things they couldn’t do because of a lack of money. Michigan has the highest auto insurance rates in the country and Republican reforms made it worse. Republicans decried the state of elections while refusing to make reforms suggested by city clerks. Many still say the 2020 election was stolen even though a Republican investigation and report found no irregularities. So the Free Press is calling for the legislature to be given to Democrats. The paper gave their endorsement to every Democrat in every close race. And due to citizen led redistricting a lot more races should be close. Since the editorial says this election is so important I’m puzzled why they put it for subscribers only. I think something this important they would want to make available to all readers. And the paper does make other articles available to all. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Republicans are again discussing how they’ll get rid of Social Security and Medicare (through a continuous rise of the eligibility age so current recipients aren’t affected) and grabbing hold of that electric rail just before an election. And now they are talking about tactics. If they regain the House they intend havoc. They will use raising the debt ceiling as a hostage. That is something that needs to happen next year and not raising it would cause the US government default on its debt, which would wreak great harm to the US and world economies. Along the way they lament eliminating Social Security has gotten so politicized. Democrats are speaking out about this. If the time comes I hope they do more than speak. A Pelosi spokesperson said:

As House Republican leaders’ own words constantly reveal, dismantling the pillars of American seniors’ financial security is not a fringe view in the extreme MAGA House GOP, it is a broadly held obsession at the core of their legislative agenda.

McCarter added:

The brilliance of these programs is that everyone contributes. They are built collectively by everyone. Of course that doesn’t stop the resentment of the fact that their contributions might be going to people they deem unworthy, but it is the most fair and just policy program ever enacted in this country. Undermining that is key to undermining the programs, which is essential for eventually killing them. They’re too popular and too important to Americans to go after directly now. So the Republican plan has been to chip away and chip away until there’s little option left beyond privatization—the end of government social insurance and Wall Street getting all our money. As usual.

McCarter also reported that if Republicans take the House they will conduct “rigorous oversight.” That’s a promise for all investigation, all the time. Also known as vengeance. A reasonable question: Vengeance for what? Does it matter? Well, OK – for electing a black president, for not submitting to the nasty guy’s demands to stay in power, for enacting programs that help people they believe don’t deserve it, for a government that actually works for anyone other than themselves. At the top of the list will be Joe and Hunter Biden. They will impeach him whether or not he’s done anything wrong.

And not just Biden—they’ve already filed 14 impeachment resolutions against Biden as well as Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Attorney General Merrick Garland. Five of them have come from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, most recently seen riling up a MAGA crowd with fascistic, dangerous rhetoric: “Biden’s 5 million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you, your jobs, and your kids in school. Coming from all over the world, they’re also replacing your culture.”

As violent (and wrong) as that rhetoric is, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is going to need her and the rest of the MAGA members to become Speaker and keep the job. That means he has essentially already caved to their demands. Greg Sargent tweeted a link to a Washington Post opinion piece about Marjorie Taylor Greene raging about the Biden “regime” and added:

Media coverage of the MAGA embrace of political violence needs to be clearer on this core point: The real goal of this talk is to try to place Trump and his supporters above the law. The message: If the law is applied to them, expect violence in response. The MAGA phrase "Biden regime" is everywhere. It's being applied to a lawful search warrant granted by a judge. 1/6 rioters are "political prisoners." Upshot: Any effort to apply the rule of law to Trump/his supporters will be treated as an act of war. In MAGA propaganda, the phrase "Biden regime" is constantly and explicitly used to undermine the legitimacy of a *democratically* elected government. It's a self reinforcing feedback loop.

Isaac Arnsdorf tweeted a thread discussing how authoritarianism is playing out within the Republican Party. A key feature of Authoritarianism is the social hierarchy and that one group is at the top, enforcing their position through cruelty and oppression of those below them. But even within the group at the top there is a social hierarchy.

In a dominance-based political culture, leaders vie for power by one upping each other’s displays of dominance. You pass a law outlawing abortion? I’ll pass a law putting a $10,000 bounty on women who seek an abortion. This need to escalate displays of dominance is why the downward spiral of authoritarianism accelerates as it takes hold. We are seeing this spiral now in the GOP. This is why various Republican leaders are signaling the end of marriage equality, social security, the affordable care act, voting rights, Medicare. This is why Lindsey Graham prematurely signaled a national abortion ban. He’s frantic to signal his dominance by attacking women.

Graham doesn’t want to be seen by the base as insufficiently cruel.

The GOP has weaponized white supremacy, forced birth, climate change denial, Christian nationalism, anti LGBTQI violence, COVID denial, overturning elections, judicial corruption, and absolutely anything else the 1% wants attacked. We [Democrats] lose? They’re coming for us all.

Let the bro say it

I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data, updated Tuesday. I get the data here. The peaks in new cases per day show a trend in a good direction. For the last few weeks the peaks are 2544, 1954, 1821, and 1623. Deaths per day remain at a low level and a couple weeks ago that included one day dipping into the single digits (I figure the data for last week and this week are still being gathered). Back on October 8th (five days ago) Leah McElrath tweeted a video from Iran that she says looks like it could be a tipping point – In a protest in Tehran the police joined the protesters. Rebekah Sager of Daily Kos reported that people who can get pregnant can’t secure the right to abortion care by themselves. They need male allies. Several organizations are there, creating advertisements featuring men explaining the situation to men. And that seems to have an impact. Wrote Sager:

Political data scientist at Civis Analytics, Josh Yazman, a Democrat-aligned research shop, tells Vox that when compared to traditional pro-choice ads that featured women, ads that featured male characters did better with men. Yazman explains that in one ad featuring a mom, aged 40, versus a “bro” talking about his fear for the women in his life losing the right to an abortion, “The bro’s overall appeal was similar, but a lot stronger with men, Republicans, and younger voters, while the mom did better with more traditional pro-choice audiences.”

I had mentioned the saga of Herschel Walker of Georgia running for the US Senate. He is very anti-abortion yet paid to allow a girlfriend get an abortion. And the Republicans of Georgia are quite willing to overlook that lapse in morals if they are able to get control of the Senate. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Anthea Butler of MSNBC, who added:

You’re not alone if you find this all hard to understand. You may be like those politicos and opinion writers who took white evangelicals at their word when they professed to have strong beliefs about morality, family and abortion. But the historical truth, as I have shown in my book, “White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America,” for evangelicals, is the politics of morality isn’t about their candidates’ morality. It’s about legislating their particular brand of morality for others who are outsiders to the faith.

A few cartoons to share. Andrea Abwob tweeted a cartoon by Mike Luckovich. On the street, walking along and minding their own business, are a gay couple, a woman wearing a headscarf, a man in a turban, a Jewish man, and a mixed race couple. In amongst them is a white man in a red cap with two rifles and a sash of bullets saying “I feel threatened...” Florida Gov. Ron DeathSantis is now famous for flying immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. But after Hurricane Ian caused so much damage to the state a lot of workers are needed for the cleanup. And who is good at such work? Immigrants. There are cartoons here and here showing that irony. I lived in Germany for two years. Though I didn’t become fluent in German I did learn enough to go into a restaurant and understand the menu and speak to the waitstaff in German. Through interactions with my German office colleagues I also learned that word for word translations don’t always get the right meaning across. The example I remember best is the phrase “must not” and its direct translation of “müß nicht.” The English phrase means required to not – one is forbidden from doing it. The German means not required – doing it is optional. I heard my German colleagues using the English phrase in my presence and after a while I realized the meaning they intended was not the one I was hearing. So I was intrigued when Naomi Lewin of NPR presented the story of translating the hit musical Hamilton into German. First problem is the sheer size of the project – there are 23,000 words that go by at top speed. Second is the English idioms, internal rhymes, and rap rhythms. Third is the difficulties of such phrases as “I am not throwing away my shot.” One rap song is built around that phrase and, as Lin-Manuel Miranda (who wrote the musical and was included in this story), said:

Over the course of that one song alone, it means gunshot, opportunity, liquor shot, and several more along the way and past tense of being shot.

And the directly translated German word has some of those meanings, but not all. Kevin Schroeder is a German playwright and specializes in translating musicals. But he didn’t think he could do this one alone. He teamed up with German songwriter and rapper Sera Finale for a great team. Schroeder, also heard in this story, said of the “shot” puzzle:

By making Hamilton the gun, now a version - somehow becomes the gun, and then it suddenly starts to make sense. I only got this one shot. I'm a loaded gun about to blast off, but I only got one shot.

Miranda said:

Every three months, we would get a three-column list on the latest songs they had translated - my lyrics, their German translation and then a literal translation of their German translation so that I could understand the metaphors they were changing, the ways in which the phrases were different from mine, and I could literally see it sort of lined up.

The German version is now playing.

Iranian women are braver than Russian men

My Sunday movie was the last four episodes of season 1 of Heartstopper. Charlie is definitely gay and Nick isn’t sure. More accurately, Nick had to work through what his love for Charlie means. Sometimes it takes a while to figure it out. Then it takes a while to be ready to say this is who I am and this is who I love and I don’t have to follow expectations. It is good to see the parents aren’t homophobic. However, there is homophobia from the other members of Nick’s rugby team, especially from Harry, who likes to bully. Charlie is sure he is the cause of all the damage from Harry and it takes Nick while to convince him the trouble is worth it. When Nick does get to it he says it very well. Overall it is a sweet story. There is another aspect of the story I appreciated – Nick and Charlie do nothing more than hug and kiss. From what’s on the screen I would have guessed the lads were perhaps 16 and 17, the equivalent of high school junior and senior (though they weren’t celebrating Nick’s imminent graduation). But during Charlie’s birthday party he wore a prominent “15.” So (at least in the US) if they had done anything more than kiss criminal charges could have been brought for molesting a minor. This four hours of story is taken from a graphic novel series of the same name by Alice Oseman. So I looked up the books. There are four books in the Heartstopper series, plus one titled Nick and Charlie. So while episode 8 neatly tied up the series I see that seasons 2 and 3 have been approved. I would enjoy spending more time with Charlie and Nick. And I guess I shouldn’t look into the descriptions of the books so I don’t spoil the upcoming seasons when they appear. GeoConfirmed is a volunteer group that verifies things that happen in the world. In this thread they turn their attention to the Kerch Bridge explosion. They examine the video of the fireball and images of the damage. One interesting image is the road bridge has been blown off its support pillar, but the pillar itself is undamaged. Their conclusion is a VBIED, a vehicle based improvised explosive device. In this case that implies an SVBIED, or suicidal –. You may have noticed I’ve started sharing a lot more political cartoons. I discovered that in Daily Kos pundit roundups Denise Oliver Velez has been using the comments to do a cartoon roundup. One of these is a cartoon posted by Julia Ioffe, which is a parody of the famous painting “The Scream” with Putin doing the screaming. Another cartoon notes the explosion happened the day after Putin’s 70th birthday and features a Ukrainian soldier giving the Dear Leader a cake in the face. As has been reported in the general news Putin responded to the Kerch Bridge explosion with mass missile strikes against Ukrainian civilians in cities across the country. As Kos of Kos reported this included apartment buildings, a busy intersection in rush hour, electric power stations, a pedestrian bridge, a school, and a playground. Fortunately, because the sirens had sounded the children were not at the playground. If Russia was retaliating – destroying the same sort of infrastructure as the bridge – they would have struck bridges and rail lines Ukraine uses to move military equipment around. Kos wrote:

There are lots of reasons Russia is losing this war, and amongst them, the unimaginably cruel prioritization of civilian targets over military ones. Russia has a limited number of long-range precision-guided missiles and rockets. Using up the last ones to take out playgrounds, rather than HIMARS or other high-value targets, only hastens the end of the war.

And what did that do to the Ukrainian spirit? Kos included a tweet from Defense of Ukraine showing residents of Kyiv gathered in a metro station as a bomb shelter – and singing. ChrisO tweeted comments by retired retired Major Myka Tyry of the Finnish Defence Forces, an explosive ordnance disposal expert. He discussed the likely size of the explosive material (maybe more than two tons) and that it was perhaps laces with combustible metals, such as magnesium or thermite. There was growing chatter that Belarus was joining the war. Last March and April, at the start of the war, there was similar talk and Belarus never did put troops over the border. Kos discussed how unlikely Belarus would join now, especially since it is obvious Russia is losing. How does Belarus dictator Lukashenko, a Putin ally, manage to not actually commit his troops? First, when Putin is around Lukashenko is good at playing the buffoon and idiot. That idiot is quite good at “accidentally” broadcasting Putin’s plans, thus thwarting them. Second, Lukashenko is very good at dangling the promise of unification with Russia (what the entire Ukrainian war is about), yet always having a reason to not actually do it. In the process he asks Putin for special economic favors and for loans that don’t get repaid. The tail wags the dog. Third, Lukashenko has a clear eye on the state of his army – small (only 20K) and not worth much. This whole thing about Belarus joining the war might be because they are sending some of their old decrepit tanks to Russia. Towards the end of the post Kos quoted a couple tweets. The first from Paul Massaro:

700,000 reported to have left Russia since mobilization. Now imagine if those 700,000 had risen up. This genocidal war would be over.

And from Julia Ioffe:

Iranian women are braver than Russian men.

Kos also included a tweet from Tendar, who noted each Russian missile cost up to 13 million US dollars. Tendar included images of MFA of Ukraine that showed bomb craters which, a day later, were filled in and paved over. That showed Russia’s missile spree accomplished very little. Kos reported that since Ukraine seems able to recover so quickly from these attacks (yeah, the damaged apartment buildings will take a while to rebuild) it must mean that somehow Russia is holding back, pulling its punches, and worse attacks are yet to come. Kos wrote:

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) sources estimate that Russia spent $600-800 million on their attack, which to their own admission only knocked out power for half a day, so they think Russia held back. Yet despite Ukraine’s admitted vulnerability to such attacks, Russia’s problem is that they simply lack the missiles to sustain that level of attack. And as is obvious to Russian nationalists, anything less than a sustained assault is essentially an empty gesture.

Kos quoted a tweet from TV Rain Newsroom that has a video of an openly gay Ukrainian soldier saying that through the war the homophobia has been significantly reduced. It is now low enough that Russian state TV is calling for volunteers to fight against gay parades. Cartoonist Mike Luckovich tweeted one showing Russia’s retaliation to the bombing of the Kerch Bridge was to send a bomb to take out a playground bridge. In another thread ChrisO wrote about how thousands of teachers have been conscripted in the mobilization or who fled to avoid it is devastating Russian schools, bringing many close to collapse. A private school in St. Petersburg has lost 80% of its staff and may close. The teachers union is trying to get teachers exempt from the draft, though probably won’t succeed. Even before the mobilization Russia has a big teacher shortage. Dave Granlund tweeted one of his cartoons that shows men at a Russian military draft office with a military guy reading a doctor’s note: “Please excuse Igor because of bone spurs.” Sean Hannity of Fox News played an audio clip of Biden that he thought would be embarrassing, but isn’t. Rebekah Sager of Kos reported about the news segment and wrote:

The audio clip was from Oct. 15, 2018, when Hunter was struggling with addiction. In the call, Biden says, “It’s Dad. I called to tell you I love you. I love you more than the whole world, pal. You gotta get some help. I don’t know what to do; I know you don’t either. But I’m here. No matter what you need. No matter what you need. I love you.”

Sager included several responses that say how I feel – it showed Biden to be a concerned and loving father. Every addict should be so lucky. Matthew Abraham-Michael tweeted:

It really feels like being a decent human being is such a foreign concept to conservatives that they assume it causes embarrassment.

I don't care about his morals, I want control of the Senate

There are a pair of bridges, one for cars and trucks, the other for trains, across the Kerch Strait, that bit of water between the eastern side of Crimea and Russia. These bridges are the only way to drive from Russia to Crimea without going the long way around through Ukraine (even if it is Russian controlled Ukraine “annexed” by Russia). The bridges are 12 miles long. Today there was an explosion on the road bridge exactly when a fuel train was alongside. Yes, the train caught on fire. One section of one direction of the road bridge fell into the water. Kos of Daily Kos has the first images to the story posted at 12:48 am eastern US time (online time calculators say there is a 7 hour time difference, so Kos posted 7:45 am Ukraine time, though the explosion happened before the sun was up). Kos posted additional photos and videos over the next couple of hours (and didn’t get much sleep). Mark Sumner of Kos had time to do some analysis before posting this morning. The big question is what made the road go boom? Short answer: he doesn’t know. And no officials are saying. Well, Russia is saying a truck bomb, but we know they tend to not tell the truth. Sumner, who was in the military and dealt with things that go boom, explained what he saw in the best video of the explosion. It wasn’t a truck. It seems to have come from below and to the side of the road bridge. It doesn’t appear to be a missile (none appear in the video before the explosion) and how could a missile time it just right to catch the train going by? As Chereese tweeted, it could have been Godzilla. Russia had said the Kerch bridge is “civilian infrastructure” and thus supposedly off limits to war bombings. But Sumner included a video of tanks mounted on a train going across the bridge. Yes, this will hamper Russia’s war effort. This is a major way to get supplies into Crimea and from there into the Russian held territories in southern Ukraine. The bridge can be repaired, but it will take a while. In the meantime Russia will have to use alternate means to supply its troops and the residents of Crimea. And those residents are freaking out. Herschel Walker is a former football great and the Republican candidate for the US Senate for Georgia. He’s running against Rev. Rafael Warnock, who was elected to a partial term two years ago. It seems Walker has been saying stupid thing after stupid thing, including: He denied having children through any woman other than his wife, then admitted there were other children out there. He said he is firmly anti-abortion, then a woman came forward saying he paid for her abortion and has a get well card with his signature. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted a few people with something to say on Walker and Republicans. First is Michael Cohen of MSNBC:

The muted response from some of the country’s most virulent critics of abortion is an instructive reminder that for many conservatives — particular conservative politicians — opposition to abortion has little to do with morality, and everything to do with politics. Indeed, conservative commentator Dana Loesch summed up best the rank hypocrisy of the anti-abortion movement. Calling Walker’s former girlfriend a “skank” she said, "I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”

As with the nasty guy, it doesn’t matter what he did. It matters whether his vote is reliable. Dworkin included a tweet by Doug Jones, who included a link to an article on Politico:

Folks it’s time to acknowledge that “evangelical” is no longer a Christian religous label but a political one focused on political power more than faith. Walker’s opponent is an ordained minister whose life has been a demonstration of faith and service.

Dworkin quoted Ty Rushing of Iowa Starting Line, which I’ll summarize: Routine stories about electric vehicles draw intense and fierce debates. And Dworkin quoted a tweet by Sarah Reese Jones that includes a video of comments by Biden. Jones wrote:

Biden names names of Republicans who voted against infrastructure and then asked for money. The President said, "I was surprised to see so many socialists in the Republican caucus."

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

“A former girlfriend of Georgia senate candidate Herschel Walker claimed in a new interview that Walker paid for her to get an abortion in 2009. And the only way that will hurt him with Republicans is if some of that money went to pay down her student loans.” —Seth Meyers “I literally don’t even understand what that means. My sense of manhood is not connected to whether or not my vehicle is fueled by gasoline or whether it’s fueled by electricity.” —Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Fox News, responding to Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene's remark that electric vehicles “emasculate” drivers.

Sumner reported on the continuing protests by women over the requirement they wear the hijab while in public. The protests have added a new dimension – girls schools. Officials may think there is no leadership to these protests – leading people that, if eliminated, would cause the protests to collapse. Officials may also think a revolution can happen only with assault rifles. Sumner quoted Dr. Rohman Alvadi:

Unlike in previous protests, where people would flee the security forces, what we’re seeing in these protests is that unarmed young people are standing their ground. And that kind of bravery is a real problem for the regime, because it all it does is encourage more and more opposition and more people to come out. In my view, this is the beginning of the end. This is the beginning of the end for the Islamic Republic. ... Something fundamental has changed in Iran and we are never going back.

In a show of sisterhood, famous women around the world are cutting their hair. This international solidarity is important both now and when the regime falls. Cartoon Movement tweeted one by Marzieh Khanizadeh showing the high heels kicked aside and a woman lacing up combat boots. Pat Begley, editorial cartoonist for the Salt Lake Tribune, tweeted one showing a man with an American flag draped as religious stole and holding high a cross saying “We need more God in government!” A woman looks over his shoulder to see an Iranian cleric and another I can’t identify about to beat women at their feet. Begley added above the image: “Mixing politics and religion is toxic.” A cartoon by Matt Wuerker of Politico shows a pastor changing the sign in front of the church. The top of the sign says “Today’s Religious Issues” and it shows “abortion.” Being taken off the sign are “Peace,” “Tolerance,” “Charity,” Poverty,” and “Love.” The pastor is looking over his shoulder at a statue of a benevolent Jesus and the pastor says, “What?!” Yeah, this is saying the conservative Christian pastors in America are quite similar to the conservative Muslim clerics in Iran.

The tacit consent of the voters

Since I discussed memes yesterday in my post about the book A Thousand Brains it is appropriate to link to a tweet by Lean McElrath that includes a definition of meme. A bit of it:

A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.

McElrath added:

You know what “Q” is? It’s a meme. Nothing more. There never was and is not now a secret plan. Q is a meme that was seeded and grew out of control, like psychological kudzu. As kudzu does, it’s destroyed many structures in its path. I don’t think that those who initially propagated the Q meme meant to contribute to the possible end of democracy in this country. But the law of unintended consequences is a bitch and you can’t kill an idea. In the context of Murdoch/Koch/Mercer, etc. ops, it got out of hand. At this point, a significant percentage of the American electorate is in a shared delusional state based on a meme that got out of hand. What’s even more frightening is that—while this time it wasn’t entirely intentional—next time it might be purposeful.

In a Ukraine update Kos of Daily Kos wrote about the Russian mobilization of fresh soldiers intended for fighting in Ukraine and how badly it is going. Regions of the country are evaluated on how much they might protest and the percentage of men taken is higher in non-protest regions. Many of those are taken from small villages where, to limit protest, all the men are taken at once, at least those easily found. The fresh conscripts are complaining about not being paid (which is a feature of the system). There are videos (of unknown veracity) of Russian soldiers surrendering to Ukrainians. Is that actually happening or is it great propaganda? Mark Sumner of Kos noted today is Vladimir Putin’s 70th birthday. Our wish for him is this is will be the last birthday of him in power. An aspect of the way Russia is fighting this war:

Russia is moving into each village by destroying every single home in that village. That’s their strategy. There’s no indication that there are Ukrainian troops in these buildings. There’s no sign of any military vehicles in the streets or yards. They don’t even pretend that there are. Russia is just going block by block and converting every house to rubble. Which sort of explains why they’re making such slow progress. Ukraine is working to defeat the Russian army. Russia is working to erase the Ukrainian nation.

How do Ukrainian soldiers keep their boots clean during the mud season? Wipe them on Russian flags. Joan McCarter of Kos, working from analysis done by the Washington Post, reported that for major races across the country – governor, attorney general, secretary of state, US House and Senate – there are 299 Republican candidates who embrace the Big Lie. That’s more than half of all Republicans in these races. Only North Dakota and Rhode Island don’t have Republican nominees who deny Biden won in 2020. Of those who embrace the Big Lie, 174 are either incumbents or are running in reliably Republican seats – they’re likely to win. Another 51 are in close races. In Michigan there are election deniers in 10 of 16 major races, including governor, AG, and SoS. McCarter wrote:

“Election denialism is a form of corruption,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present and a historian at New York University. “The party has now institutionalized this form of lying, this form of rejection of results. So it’s institutionalized illegal activity. These politicians are essentially conspiring to make party dogma the idea that it’s possible to reject certified results.”

McCarter added if Republicans win either chamber of Congress it will be dominated by the nasty guy. He will most certainly take advantage of it. McCarter also reported that there are more than 700 MAGA candidates running for seats in state legislatures, as identified by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. That includes several dozen just added to the list. There are 21 Republican candidates who were present during the Capitol attack.

Eighteen of the new MAGA candidates they’ve identified are from Michigan, “meaning over 30% or nearly one-third of Michigan’s Republican candidates for state legislature pose an active threat to our democracy and future elections.” The DLCC has named Michigan “ground zero for the GOP’s continued threat against our democracy.” They’ve identified 47 incumbents or candidates who “attended the insurrection, took active steps to overturn the presidential election results, or spread conspiracy theories undermining confidence in our election system.”

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Tim Alberta of The Atlantic:

The great threat is no longer machines malfunctioning or ballots being spoiled. It is the actual theft of an election; it is the brazen abuse of power that requires not only bad actors in high places but the tacit consent of the voters who put them there. This makes for a terrifying scenario in 2024—but first, a crucial test in 2022.

Catching up on some of my saved posts. David Neiwert of Kos reported that members of the Constitutional Sheriff’s movement (sheriffs who have declared they are the ones who get to decide what the constitution says) and other election denialist groups are recruiting poll watchers. These are people who will be in polling places ready to prevent the ballot stuffing they claim cost the nasty guy’s win in the 2020 election. These watchers, including sheriffs and other law enforcement officers, were assisted by some state legislatures that expanded the roles and powers of poll watchers while lowering the requirements to become one. Wrote Neiwert on the intent of this effort:

“The specter of law enforcement at the polls is already enough to discourage people from going to the polls,” observed Devin Burghart of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. “Moreover, the threat of surveillance of polling places and drop boxes proposed by groups like True the Vote is meant to intimidate voters, particularly people of color, and deter them from casting ballots.”

Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote:

Ever since Donald Trump took office in 2016, we’ve been reminded over and over that the preservation of our democracy depends on both political parties observing unwritten, unspoken norms of basic “good faith.” These norms are—often unconsciously—embedded into our system of government. The most important of these norms is the unspoken agreement that a loser of an election will respect the outcome and abide by the results. If that simple act of good faith is not adhered to, our democratic and constitutional system simply will not function the way it is designed to function. Instead, it is put at risk under the weight of its own implicit assumptions. The Republican Party, under the influence of Donald Trump and his criminal mentality and in its zeal to retain power at all costs, has made the conscious decision to abandon those norms of good faith. That is the essence of the “Big Lie” and all that it represents: By conjuring up imagined accounts of voter fraud as a justification for ignoring those established, implicit norms of basic fairness and decency, Republicans have laid the groundwork for disrupting and finally destroying the free and fair elections that are the core of our democratic system.

Dartagnan then discussed a video put out by Johnny Harris, a video journalist and member of the New York Times editorial board, and by columnist Michelle Cottle. The video describes the legal means Republicans are implementing to disrupt the election. The first step is to recruit Republican poll workers, the people who actually run the election. Many will be election denialists. Alas, Democrats are not engaging in a corresponding effort. On election day their purpose is to challenge any voter who doesn’t “look right” – and we know what kind of person that means. These challengers will likely be as intimidating, or thuggish, as they feel they need to be. Each challenge, even if false, creates a paper trail. This trove of manufactured evidence will be used to justify challenges to elections that Republicans lose. They hope this mound of false evidence will allow sympathetic state officials to overturn the results. The way to limit this is more Democrats taking poll worker jobs. Sarah Kendzior tweeted:

Think beyond bipartisan politics. The extreme right wing and the transnational crime networks backing them are not going for control of Congress: they are going for control, period. Congress is just a bonus. This was never purely a US crisis. This is a transnational operation by an axis of autocrats and their backers. In their formulation, the United States is cog in the machine, at best. To many, it is more useful broken down and sold for parts.

McElrath tweeted:

Some people don’t want to acknowledge that there’s a difference between overt fascism and omnipresent systems of oppression and abuses of power. Differences in degree constitute qualitative and quantitative differences in suffering and death. I don’t know how else to put it.

Progressive Secretary tweeted a cartoon by Steve Greenberg showing two talking (singing) heads of Equivalency News. Here’s the first part of their song:

Truth and lies and alibis We play them up at equal size If pundits shout they must be wise Regardless of the facts.

An update on the scandal of the nasty guy and the classified documents taken from his estate. Sumner wrote about a report from WaPo that all those boxes of documents – the nasty guy packed them himself. There goes the excuse that he is innocent because someone else packed them. Also, attorney Alex Cannon (not to be confused with pro-nasty guy judge Aileen Cannon) was given the job of taking a few boxes of documents to the National Archives and telling them that’s all the documents. When actually asked if that’s all, Cannon refused to answer. The nasty guy fired him. In a second post Sumner reported the nasty guy appealed his case to the Supreme Court. This is the case in which Judge Cannon is helping him keep control of (at least some of) the documents while the 11th Circuit Court is striking down her rulings. Sumner wrote that the Supremes are not likely to take the case. In a third post Sumner reported the nasty guy likely still has other documents. And there are a lot of places on his properties where he might have hidden them. The nasty guy claimed he could declassify documents just by thinking about it. Pat Byrnes drew a cartoon of a few more places he might try to use that excuse. New Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has now taken part in two oral argument sessions and is definitely making her voice heard (whether it sways any of the conservative members is, alas, a different matter). Lauren Sue of Kos reported that one of those cases is from Alabama. They drew one Congressional House seat that is black majority when they should have drawn two. Edmund LaCour, the state’s solicitor general, said they drew the districts in a race-neutral manner. How can we draw race-biased districts when our computers don’t display racial makeup? This perfectly constitutional. I add: Because, dude, you know where black people live, even if your mapping program doesn’t display it. And since you know where they live you can gerrymander them so they will elect only one black representative. Wrote Sue, referring to KBJ:

She said “they were in fact trying to ensure that people who had been discriminated against, the freedmen during the Reconstruction Period, were actually brought equal to everyone else in society.” She cited a report submitted by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, which drafted the 14th Amendment: “And that report says that the entire point of the amendment was to secure rights of the freed former slaves,” Jackson said. “The legislator who introduced that amendment said that, quote ‘Unless the Constitution should restrain them, those states will all—I fear—keep up this discrimination and crush to death the hated freedmen.’” Jackson added: “That’s not a race-neutral or race-blind idea in terms of the remedy, and even more than that I don’t think that the historical record establishes that the founders believed that race neutrality or race blindness was required.”

Genes v. knowledge

At the recommendation of my friend and debate partner I read and have finished the book A Thousand Brains, a New Theory of Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins. After a short career in computers (remember the Palm device?) he turned to his first love of trying to understand how the human brain works. This book is written with the average person in mind. The author wrote in a style that is easy to understand. At the end he lists several papers for further reading, though warns papers about neuroscience can be difficult to read. The first section of the book delves into this new theory. Hawkins says the brain has two major parts, the old brain (I think that others have called the lizard brain) and the new brain. The old brain actually controls muscles and is where the basics of life (including sex drive) are carried out. The new brain, the neocortex, the wrinkly part we think of as the brain, is where intelligent thinking happens. If the neocortex was flattened out it would be the size of a napkin and not much thicker. It is made up of about 150,000 cortical columns about the size of a grain of rice. Each are essentially separate and nearly identical bits that do their own intelligence thing. Yeah, some are connected to the nerves from the eyes, others to nerves from the ears, from the skin to feel, from the nose and from the tongue (all routed through the old brain). So those columns do different kinds of intelligence things, but are still structured nearly the same. These columns do their thing through constantly predicting what will happen next, comparing that to what is actually perceived, and doing it all through reference frames. There is constant learning. Then the columns communicate their conclusions to other columns that put together an entire model of the world around us. For any more explanation than that please read the book. Hawkins does a good job of explaining this theory. The second part of the book is about machine intelligence. Hawkins says that’s not the same as AI or artificial intelligence as we understand it now. The current AI systems can learn how to do one thing and once they’ve learned that they can’t learn to do another thing. True machine intelligence means a machine can continuously learn to do an increasing number of things and then think about what it has learned, much like a human can. Hawkins then discusses why he believes machines, though they may become more intelligent than humans, cannot turn on us and enslave or kill us off. The third and last section of the book discusses the future of human intelligence and parts of this were the most interesting to me. The brain doesn’t actually see, hear, feel, taste, or smell. It receives signals from nerves. From those signals it constructs a model of the light that enters our eyes, the vibrations that hit our ears, and so forth. A big puzzle, even with this theory of the brain, is how do some nerve signals get interpreted as red, others as the rustle of leaves, as a smooth surface, as sweetness, as the fragrance of a rose, or as pain? They’re all nerve signals. What we experience is not the world, but our brain’s simulation of the world. And that means the simulation can be sometimes wrong. Since the brain is constantly learning – constantly comparing its model with input it receives – the simulation is usually corrected. And sometimes it isn’t. Hawkins explains how false beliefs persist. The earth as a flat surface was a useful model for a very long time in human history. There was little to contradict it. When there was something to contradict it most people didn’t experience it directly. We had to take someone else’s word for it. And some people refuse to do that. If they don’t experience it themselves they don’t believe it. I’ve shared a few social media memes, small pictures with catchy sayings that make a specific point. The original definition of a meme is similar to a gene, an idea that replicates through a population. Yeah, a social media meme is a subset of the original definition, an idea that replicates through the population through social media. An example of a meme is “all children should be educated.” Another meme, with a few parts, is “Everything in this book is true. Ignore evidence that contradicts it. Help others who believe this book is true. Banish or kill those who don’t believe.” This meme, with its extra sentences, has spread far. Now add a few more sentences. “Women should have as many children as possible. Don’t allow children to encounter contradictions to the book.” And the memes of the book spread as the genes of the people are spread. The way out of this situation, the way to correct our mental model is to seek out information that supports and information that contradicts our model. It is only through the contradictions that our mental model revised. Seeking to disprove our mental model is the scientific method. I add: One way to do that is to read books from a wide variety of types of authors. Another is to associate with a wide variety of types of people. Throughout time the old brain has one evolutionary goal, to pass on genes. And such behaviors as fighting over territory, dominating or eliminating mating rivals, and rape further that goal. Our new brain might find such things as abhorrent, but the intelligence in our new brain can be, and frequently is, overridden or used in service of the old brain. Until the last eighty years or so, when an old brain goes on a rampage a lot of people could be (and were) killed. See the world wars. But humanity lived on. In those last eighty years humanity has developed a couple ways that could make the whole species go extinct. These are nuclear war and climate change. Climate change would be less of a problem if the world population was smaller – fewer cars on the road, less pollution from farm animals, and less less rainforest burned for cropland. So why has the world population gone from three billion in 1960 to nearly eight billion today? Because the old brain is still in charge. Having as many children as possible increases the chance of some surviving to pass along the genes. The children may suffer (perhaps from starvation or viruses) and the parents grieve. But genes don’t care about that. There are ways for the new brain to take control of the old brain. In the case of overpopulation it means giving women control of their own fertility. The old brain can have as much sex as it wants while the new brain can prevent having children. Yeah, that is up against a lot of old brain thinking in a bunch of old men doing all they can to make sure women don’t have control of their fertility – and also preventing these women from getting sufficient pay and affordable child care. And preventing moving those old men out of positions of power. All that old brain thinking and all those false beliefs are a risk to humanity. Hawkins has a chapter on merging brains with computers. One idea is uploading a person, their memories and way of thinking, into a computer to provide infinite life. Another is to install directly into a brain connections to a computer for instant information access and presumably higher intelligence. I’ve read many science fiction stories about both ideas. Hawkins says both have advantages, but both are extremely difficult, both probably won’t produce the intended result, and neither helps with the major risks to humanity. I’ll let you read the details. Hawkins spends a chapter on a topic that has intrigued me. If humanity faces the possibility of extinction how do we preserve our vast knowledge? We’re a species that has learned the secrets from subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, and DNA to planets, solar systems, and galaxies, and everything in between. We want to at least be able to say we were here, we learned, we know. If humanity becomes extinct, a new intelligent species might arise in a few million years. How might we preserve our knowledge for them. How might we do that in a way that survives general erosion and plate tectonics? I don’t have an answer and wish it was considered by a scientist (who probably has) or a science fiction writer (who might tell me about it). Hawkins has a solution – put all the knowledge into a satellite that orbits the sun (see La Grange points). That doesn’t satisfy me because to get it the species would have to develop spaceflight – and one of the things we could share is how to do spaceflight. We would also want to share what causes war and why developing a fossil fuel industry is a bad idea, things likely to happen before the species gets to spaceflight. To prevent total extinction of humanity we could colonize other worlds. Mars is the logical next one. But what would happen (we have a pretty good idea what would happen) if, after a Mars colony is firmly established (and doing so is extremely difficult), the environment on earth becomes dramatically more hostile to life and billions of people want to go to Mars? It could be disastrous for the colony. That prompts Hawkins to propose we should use our ability to edit genes to make the old brain less in control and the new brain more in control so that the goal would be not about passing on genes but about preserving and passing on knowledge.

Strolling into town

On Sunday I watched the first four half hour episodes of Heartstoppers on Netflix. Charlie is a high school student and gay. He is assigned a seat next to Nick who says he’s straight and is head of the rugby team. They’re at an all boys school in England. Charlie has and almost immediate crush on Nick. Nick asks slim Charlie to join the team. Of course, Charlie knows nothing of the game. There was a bit of confusion at the beginning. Charlie, Tao, and another guy are best friends at this all boys school. The teachers know Charlie – he’s been there a while. Ellie is also part of the group, but now she is the new person at a nearby all girls school, which she says is a better fit. Tao laments the breakup of their foursome and forgets he no longer needs to buy Ellie’s apple juice at lunch. Is she transgender? It is implied, but not clearly state. The art teacher is gay and Charlie uses the art room as a refuge when bullying gets a bit much. The art teacher serves as a confidant. It is good to see the way Nick comes to terms with his love for Charlie (that isn’t a spoiler – we know where this is headed, it’s the reason why we watch). Nick is hesitant, confused, afraid of not fitting in, and not wanting to give the team a reason to bully him. And sometimes life is like that. I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data (I get it here), updated yesterday. The peaks in new cases per day for the last few weeks are 2484, 2486, 1796, 1890. The last one is for two days ago and, yes, a bit of a rise. The data is too recent to make a guess what is coming next. The deaths per day is at the same low level it has been at since mid March. The saga of the nasty guy and the papers he stole to Mar-a-Lago continues. I want to note the next step in the story without bothering to recap what has gone before. In a report from last Thursday Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote that Judge Cannon gave the nasty guy more of the delay he wanted. In a Ukraine update from Sunday evening Kos of Kos reported Ukrainians are advancing in the area east of Lyman. The big news is that they made significant gains, as in 20Km of gains, on the northeast end of the Russian controlled area of the Kherson region west of the Dnipro River. Russian lines are collapsing and they are scrambling to establish new lines further to the rear, presumably a greater concentration of Russian forces would make the lines easier to defend. And Russians continue to bash themselves trying to take Bakhmut. In a Monday evening update Kos reported more Ukrainian advances both east of Lyman and west of the Dnipro River. Kos added some explanation:

The Russian approach to taking a city is to lay waste to it with artillery, then send cannon fodder ahead in “reconnaissance by fire.” If defenses remain, sure you lose some cheap infantry, but artillery has a better idea of where those defenses remain and it opens up again. Rinse, lather, and repeat until no resistance remains. It’s somewhat effective for a country that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the value of life, and it allowed for advances in the Donbas during that long, painful summer as we waited for Ukraine’s new Western-armed units were spun up and trained. If you wonder how Russia could indiscriminately target civilians, heck, they don’t even care about their own people. Ukraine does it differently. They avoid direct urban warfare, cutting off a town’s supply lines until just one road out is left. This forces Russia to abandon hardened defensive positions lest they remain trapped, a la Mariupol. Thing is, armor is not the best escape vehicle—it breaks down and is slow, using up a great deal of diesel that may already be in short supply. So it’s easier to abandon the heavy stuff, steal some civilian vehicles, and hightail it out of dodge at top speed. Ukrainian artillery can target those roads, and many won’t make it out, but many do. End result, towns like Lyman are liberated with very little damage to their infrastructure. Not only does this encircle-and-starve-out approach save Ukrainian lives, but it moves the front much faster than Russia’s wasteful rinse-lather-repeat approach. And here’s the bonus—Ukraine doesn’t even need to stick around for a town to surrender. It can leave a blocking force behind to pin down the Russian garrison as the spearhead races ahead. In the Kharkiv blitzkrieg, there were towns well in the rear of the advance that Ukraine didn’t mop up for days. There was no need, as the spearhead romped in the backfield.

Kos quoted a tweet by Jack Detsch:

NEW: U.S. has not seen a large-scale movement of Russian forces despite battlefield losses to Ukraine in the east and south of the country: senior U.S. military official.

Kos translates: “Russia is out of forces to move.” But aren’t there hundreds of thousands of men being mobilized? Kos quoted a tweet by Victor Kovalenko who included a video of new recruits spending nights on an open field with only the food and drink they brought. “No command, no uniform, no barracks, no tents, no sleeping bags.” Then Kos mentioned the fighting between the oldtimers and the newcomers over the equipment the new guys had. There is also a problem of the newcomers being forced into prostitution for the profit of their commanders. Finally Kos mentioned one reason why Ukraine is moving so rapidly in the Kherson region is communication problems. In a Tuesday morning update Sumner started with a photo of the cemetery of Bucha, the town known for the atrocities revealed when Russia pulled out from near Kyiv. Sumner wrote the image is “For anyone who thinks Ukraine should negotiate with Russia.” As for recent developments:

In parts of both Kherson and northern Kharkiv, Ukrainian forces don’t seem to be so much fighting their way past Russian defenses, as they are … strolling into town. And if there’s any shortage the Ukrainian army may be facing at the moment, it could be a shortage of Ukrainian flags.

Sumner included a video of soldiers walking along a road who are “astoundingly relaxed.” One factor is playing a major role in how Ukraine is moving so quickly in liberating territory: radios.

There have been astonished reports from the beginning of the invasion that, rather than encrypted high-band military radios, Russia was using consumer-grade equipment—essentially walkie-talkies of the sort you might find at a nearby sporting goods store. Additionally, Russian forces have often been communicating en clair, speaking openly of positions and objectives, rather than using any sort of code. In Kherson, Ukraine seems to have taken advantage of this fact by issuing false orders and reports over these radio bands. Then they reportedly used jammers — readily available for these kinds of radios, but much more difficult for real military communications — to cut Russian forces off from one another. In all the various towns and villages in northern Kherson, Russian forces found themselves receiving a burst of orders, then they were speaking into static. Then a wall of Ukrainian armor came their way. Isolated and confused, they began to pull back. Overall, Ukraine used Russia’s poor command and control structure, and it’s amazingly bad communications, to turn their northern defensive line into groups of frightened, confused, individuals scrambling to find a safe place.

These Russian units didn’t want to be the ones that didn’t pull back and end up surrounded. It looks like Ukraine liberated 2200 sq Km on Monday. As part of a Tuesday evening update Sumner wrote:

Where is the actual front line at the moment? I don’t know. I can only tell you this: The map at the top of this page, like every other map I’ve made today, is already badly outdated. In three days, Ukraine has liberated a third of the territory on the west side of the Dnipro. By the time we get confirmation of the new positions, that could easily be more than a half. For three days, Ukraine has been pushing across a wide front. For three days, Russia has been retreating. Now they both seem set to collide across the river from Nova Kakhovka. What happens here is going to be significant.

Sumner discussed another reason why Russian defenses in Kherson are collapsing: Russia isn’t able to supply their soldiers. “Cold and hungry troops suffering from a shortage of ammunition and fuel don’t lend themselves to an effective defense.” Near Kherson Ukraine advanced tens of kilometers in four days. Along the eastern front Russia’s four day advance is measured in meters. Wallup Daily News, part of CentralMaine.com has an appropriate cartoon. SemDem of the Kos community wrote about ways various groups are getting abortion care to women in red states. Women on Waves are creating clinics on boats so abortions can be done offshore in international waters. A clinic will be opened in Carbondale, in southern Illinois, not far from Missouri and Kentucky. A group is providing bulletproof mobile abortion clinics that can be parked just across the border. There are “underground railroad” networks providing transportation, shelter, and funding. Prescriptions of abortion drugs can be delivered through mail or by aerial drones. Republicans are responding by restricting a woman’s right to travel. Paul Berge’s cartoons appear in the LGBTQ newspaper Between the Lines. Here’s a good one about drag queens.

Quite the inspiration for Ukraine to keep fighting

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos gave a review of the speech where Putin declared he annexed four regions of Ukraine. Putin declared the residents of those regions were “our people” which he would defend. Then he ranted about the evils and horrors of the West, for doing, among many other things, “spreading Russophobia.” He said he had to “lead the anti-colonialism movement” as he tries to conquer his neighbor. He doesn’t just want to conquer Ukraine, but crush the entire West. Putin said this as Ukrainian troops were surrounding Russian soldiers at Lyman. In response to the talk Zelenskyy applied for NATO membership, saying we’re acting like a member, let’s make it official. Mick Ryan, a war strategist and a retired Major General in the Australian Army, discussed Putin’s speech. Yeah, it was great for the domestic audience, but bad for Russia. His reasons: (1) Putin’s declaration is beyond the capability of his military to execute, a problem since the invasion started. (2) It is quite the inspiration for Ukraine to keep fighting. (3) He has given the West greater reason to support Ukraine. (4) He is continuing his campaign to normalize the use of nukes. (5) His energy warfare is giving Europeans reasons to become energy independent. (6) This is proof that Putin will not negotiate an end to the war, which mean Ukraine and the West must defeat him. This puts him in a corner and makes him more desperate and dangerous. (7) He is pushing Ukraine into NATO, which he said the war was to prevent.

So Putin’s speech marks a more dangerous phase of the war, because he has shown himself to be more desperate. But the annexations, and mobilisations, are unlikely to change ultimate outcome of this war. Because, there is little else that Putin can do to Ukraine he has not already done. City destruction, rape, torture, murder, annexation and nuclear threats have not cowed the Ukrainians. They continue to show how a free people can defeat authoritarians. Take note Xi!

Frontex, the European Border and Cost Guard Agency, tweeted:

66,000 Russian citizens have entered the EU over the past week, a 30% increase in comparison to the preceding week

That leads to the question I saw along the way: If Russia invaded Ukraine, why are there so many Russian refugees? The Edmonton Journal tweeted a cartoon of Putin and his invasion effort circling the drain. In an update from this morning Sumner said that Lyman has been liberated by Ukraine. He has stories of some of the Russians escaping to Russian territory to the east while dodging mines and broken and abandoned equipment. A few Russians surrendered. And a lot died. Sumner included a tweet from Defense of Ukraine:

We thank the “Ministry of Defense” of Russia for successful cooperation in organizing the "Izyum 2.0" exercise. Almost all Russian troops deployed to Lyman were successfully redeployed either into body bags or into Ukraine captivity. We have one question for you: Would you like a repeat?

Sumner also provided an update for the protests in Iran sparked by a woman taken into custody for improperly wearing a hijab and dying from the beating. Iran has cut a lot of communication to the outside world. Even so, images that do get out show that after two weeks women remain brave and defiant. Sumner included several of those images. A remarkable image was tweeted by Karim Sadjadpour with this caption:

The daughter of Minoo Majidi--a mother of two who was killed by the Iranian regime while protesting for #MahsaAmini--stands at her mother's gravesite. She is defiantly unveiled, and in her left hand she holds the hair she cut from her head.

That cut hair features in this cartoon tweeted by Dr. Shiva Balaghi. In a second tweet Balaghi noted this one wasn’t created in Iran, but in Italy and about Iran. I’ve mentioned this before and April Siese of Kos has an update. A new study published in Nature shows how damaging Bitcoin mining is to the environment. Bitcoin mining doesn’t mean there are machines digging in the dirt. Instead, it refers to huge numbers of computers doing complicated computations that somehow make Bitcoin transactions secure. But the number of required computers is so huge and they require so much energy that mining is on par with beef production and gasoline burned for damage to the environment. It is right up there with the most polluting industries of the world. Bitcoin’s closest rival, Ethereum, has revised it’s security algorithm to where it’s climate damage is negligible. Bitcoin could do the same, though hasn’t. Tjeerd Royaards draws cartoons for a Dutch daily and various international media. Here’s one of a skeletal figure labeled “Climate Change” tossing handfuls of hurricanes at Florida and the Caribbean. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary:

We hope everybody in Florida stays safe. Please, if you can, get out of the storm’s path. Worst-case scenario: Tell Ron DeSantis you’re Venezuelan. Maybe he gives you a free plane ride to Martha’s Vineyard. —Stephen Colbert The Brooklyn Public library has a great program called Books Unbanned that provides online access to banned books to anyone between the ages of 13 and 21, including young people in other states where they're banning kids from reading these great books because their parents are stupid—they're banning anything that isn’t a Cheesecake Factory menu in some of these states. But this is why I love Brooklyn: even the librarians here are giving the middle finger to these people. —Jimmy Kimmel

Joan McCarter of Kos wrote that we’re familiar with the conflict of interest of Clarence Thomas, Justice of the Supreme Court, and his wife Ginni, friend of insurrectionists. Ginni was recently before the January 6 Committee, though I haven’t yet seen what happened then. McCarter added that while we are familiar with Clarence and Ginni, they’re not the only Sureme couple with conflicts of interest. There is Jesse Barrett, husband of Amy Coney Barrett. He has a law firm that has corporate clients in every industry, including more than 15 in the Fortune 100. This is a conflict because Amy was recommended by the Federalist Society and one of their criteria is whether a potential justice will rule in favor of corporations (which conservative justices have been doing quite consistently for quite a while). But Amy doesn’t have to disclose Jesse’s clients nor does she have to recuse herself when those clients come before the Supremes. There is also Jane Roberts, wife of John. At one point she got a job because she is the wife of the chief justice – her boss said her network is his network. Amy doesn’t see this as a problem – spouses have to work! That she doesn’t see the problem is part of the problem. The Supremes need enforceable ethics guidelines, the one court in America that doesn’t have them. The court also needs to be expanded.