Richest man acts like Congress works for him

My latest consumer annoyance: Perhaps a couple decades ago, when computer printers became inexpensive their makers realized they could turn the ink into a profit center by shifting some of the electronics into the ink cartridge, which is why we’re supposed to recycle them rather than throw them out. Though my computer is new I kept the old printer, at least for now, which means its about a decade old. And now a particular problem is magnified. Another way printer companies can boost profits is to require all three color inks be bought together. That might make sense if one routinely used all three colors in equal amounts. But I doubt that is true and certainly isn’t in my case. I use ink slowly, so slowly that I frequently have to run the process to clean the ink nozzles before printing. Today I had to do that twice. I’m quite sure I’m losing more ink in the cleaning than actually gets on a page. Today’s cleaning emptied the magenta cartridge (already known to be low) and I went out to buy more. Recently I replaced the yellow cartridge and now with today’s purchase I have two yellow cartridges I haven’t used yet. I wish I was allowed to buy the colors separately. Another annoyance: This printer, when low or out of black ink, will allow me to simulate black using the color inks. But when a color ink runs out it won’t let me print at all, even if the document is entirely black. The federal government runs out of money at midnight tonight, so there has been lots of drama getting a funding bill passed. And much of that drama comes from Republicans. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that a bipartisan spending bill was in negotiations for several weeks. It wasn’t just a Republican bill because Johnson knew his Freedom Caucus would reject it and he needed Democratic support. Then Elon Musk inserted himself into the process (it’s about time I have a nickname for him, similar to Moscow Mitch, the nasty guy, or the Pandemic Prince – suggestions?). Over several hours Musk tweeted to Johnson (of course, in a way that is public) about how bad Musk thinks that bill is. No surprise that Musk didn’t describe it accurately (some say he lied about it). Musk even declared any member of Congress who voted for it deserves to be voted out in two years. Does he not know that senators have six year terms? After a while the nasty guy joined the conversation, taking Musk’s side. But Musk drove the conversation and Johnson gave the appearance of subservience.

Previous reports have indicated that sources close to Trump are already upset at the level of influence Musk wields, with some describing him as a “co-president.” If Musk is now dictating the House agenda on his own, is he now the shadow speaker as well?

Willis wrote again to say this is a spending revolt led by billionaires. Musk’s partner in the Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy, also condemned the bill. Some Republicans are willing to give them what they want – though their working class base may suffer the consequences. In a third post Willis reported Johnson dropped that bill and crafted a replacement. The nasty guy reportedly thought the bipartisan bill was fine, until Musk objected to it. A moment here. Isn’t Biden still president? Don’t these spending bills need Biden’s signature? Democrats started talking about President Musk, both to mock him and to make the nasty guy feel a bit more insecure, with hopes he’ll boot Musk. Willis posted more of Democrats’ condemnation of the situation. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that the bill was replaced with one more to the nasty guy wishes. He wanted raising the debt limit to be added. Is he assuming his desired policies will make the national debt go up? But Rep. Chip Roy wants to force spending cuts now. He refused to go along with raising the debt limit. Of course, that put him the nasty guy’s crosshairs. That debt limit will need to be raised early next year. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported this bill went up for a vote and was soundly defeated. Democrats voted against it, refusing to accommodate the sudden demands (and because the spending priorities they had negotiated, like support for farmers, had been stripped out). Several Republicans also voted against it. Alex Samuels of Kos reported that a few House members are floating the idea that Musk be named Speaker when the position is up for a vote in January. The Constitution does not specify the Speaker be a member of the House. Republicans have a slim margin and several have already said they won’t vote for Johnson. With this idea floating around several have said they won’t vote for Musk. The news today is that the debt limit was taken out of the bill and the remainder voted on this evening. It passed. Shutdown averted. I’m puzzled why, with Musk’s and the nasty guy’s preferences defeated, Johnson didn’t go back to the bipartisan bill. Perhaps he took Musk’s meddling as a chance to stiff the Democrats? In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Charlie Sykes:

Elon Musk has committed 2 cardinal sins in Trump world. He upstaged him; and is now responsible for an embarrassing defeat. (and Trump must absolutely hate the whole President Musk thing.)

Down in the comments is a cartoon by Graeme Keyes showing Musk, JD Vance (I think), and the nasty guy wearing red “MAGI” hats and holding containers labeled “Gold,” “Frankly Dense,” and “Mire.” A big part of this story is that Musk, who is a private citizen with no legal role in government, inserted himself into Congressional affairs. And House leadership paid attention. Granted, Musk is the richest man in the world, which appears to give him the belief that Congress works for him. Also, granted, the nasty guy has appointed him to lead a department – outside and unofficial – to advise on deep spending cuts. But the guy who is making that appointment is not yet president. A few days ago I wrote the House had passed a $895 billion defense spending bill. In addition to funding the military (likely with more money than the military needs and can reasonably use) it has several other good and important things. It also has a provision that bans transgender minors using the military’s health insurance for gender-affirming care. Alix Breeden of Kos reported that the bill has passed the Senate and is heading to Biden’s desk. All those other good things, plus the need to get the bill passed before Congress goes home for Christmas, means the Senate passed it while leaving the transgender care ban in place. Biden probably doesn’t have time to veto the bill and demand Congress take out that provision. And soon Republicans will be in control and won’t want to or need to take it out. A spokesperson for Republican sen. Joni Ernst said the ban was about “trimming the fat.” Given that transgender children are likely about 1% of military offspring, the cost of this care is minuscule in a budget of almost $0.9 trillion. I’m sure there is other things, like military supplier largess, that is a greater chunk of fat than this is. This ban in the military budget is part of a large series of bills targeting trans people. Breeden mentions a few of them.

ACLU spokesperson Gillian Branstetter told Daily Kos that the lawmakers banning abortion are the “exact same politicians” who are targeting the trans community.

Gee, what a surprise.

Rating news on its politics instead of its facts

I finished the book The Great Passion by James Runcie. The story is set in Saxony of 1726. The narrator is thirteen year old Stefan Silbermann. His mother has died and his father sends him to Leipzig to the St. Thomas Church and School where he can study music with the Cantor – Johann Sebastian Bach. I saw Stefan’s last name and wondered... My thought that he was a part of the Silbermann pipe organ building family of that time in Saxony was quickly confirmed. Bach knew and tested organs in the area and would have played Silbermann organs and consulted with the builder. Stefan is the nephew of the master builder, though is actually fictional. Bach, of course, is historical as are many events in the story, though details would not have been recorded. One main purpose of the school was to teach the boys singing so they could sing in the church services. The voices of most of the boys hadn’t changed yet so they could sing the soprano and alto parts. This was necessary because women were banned from singing in the church at the time. Several of the boys knew their usefulness to the school would end when their voice changed. When Stefan gets to the school he is bullied, as many boys new to a situation are. Part of the bullying is because Bach recognizes how well Stefan sings and asks him to sing solos, to the annoyance of the boy who had been getting most of the solos. So Bach invites Stefan to leave the dormitory and move into his family quarters provided by the church. There Stefan gets to know Bach’s seven living children and experiences puppy love with the oldest, seventeen year old Catharina. As part of living in the household Stefan serves as a copyist as Bach must prepare a new cantata nearly every week. Stefan takes organ lessons from Bach and singing lessons from Bach’s second wife Anna Magdalena. Most of the book is scenes of domestic, school, and church life. Not a lot happens. There is a lot of talk of theology and much of it is of the sort that life is hard and miserable but heaven will be glorious. Death is common and you will die too. So don’t be idle. Yeah, gloomy theology. Bach is a strong task master, wanting to be busy and wanting his children to always be productive. The commonness of death is shown in Bach’s own family. The book describes some of it and I consulted a Bach genealogy for more. By the time of the story Bach and first wife Maria Barbara had seven children and only four were still alive. Maria Barbara had also died. Anna Magdalena eventually gave birth to thirteen children, giving Bach a total of twenty – the last when she was 41 and he was 57. Eleven of those twenty died before he did in 1750 at age 65. The last 20% of the book is what gives it its name. At the start of Lent of 1727 Bach has the idea of a big Passion cantata to be given on Good Friday, the day that marks the crucifixion of Jesus. He doesn’t want to just tell the story. He wants the text to comment on the story, to draw the listener in and make them feel they could have been a part of it. The result is The Passion of Christ According to the Evangelist Matthew. So there is a rush to get such a huge piece written. Then get it rehearsed. That includes teaching the soloists (including Stefan), convincing them they are capable of meeting the demands of the music, and telling one that a recent death is all the more appropriate for them to sing this piece about death. If one is really into Bach this is an enjoyable story. Mark Sumner, Daily Kos staff emeritus, discussed the decision of Los Angeles Times billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Schiong to give stories a “bias meter,” a way “to alert readers about the ideological tilt of the paper’s content.” The rankings could be from “far left” to “far right.” What could go wrong? Sumner says plenty. The rankings would be done by AI. There isn’t an existing AI that could provide such ratings. So the first problem is that Soon-Schiong is adapting the medical AI he’s already created. Current AIs can be bad at their tasks and offer no explanation on how they arrive at their outputs. Sumner reviews two problems that appeared in medical AIs. First, one AI determined which skin lesions were cancerous by determining that physicians held rulers next to the cancerous ones. Second, an AI determined which x-rays showed tuberculosis from how out of focus they were. Tuberculosis is thankfully rare these days, so the only x-rays that showed it were older, more out of focus ones. So, how would such an AI rate a story on climate change? Far-right sources don’t use the term and pretend it doesn’t exist. A factual, well-researched story on climate change will be labeled “far-left.” Public Enlightenment wrote about how unhelpful a bias meter would be by showing how some outlets are ranked by various services. Associated Press – “far left,” Fox News – “center right,” Reason Magazine, supported by the Koch Brothers – “center.” Public Enlightenment adds, “Ratings do not reflect accuracy or credibility; they reflect perspective only.” And that gets to the core of the problem. Wrote Sumner.

Only pure ignorance will make it through as unaligned. For large sections of the Times' audience, any stamp that indicates a story is left or right will be tantamount to saying "This is inaccurate, so don't bother to read it." What Patrick Soon-Shiong is creating is a system that tells his readers that the content of the paper he owns can't be relied on for accuracy. It's hard to imagine any way to more quickly delegitimize and decimate journalism. Which may, of course, be the intent. ... Any ranking service that examines articles on a political rather than factual basis is inherently harmful to independent, unbiased journalism. And every one of these bias charts seems to start with a huge bias.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote:

“There is talk about the Postal Service being taken private, you do know that—not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Trump said at a press conference on Monday. “It’s an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time. We’re looking at that.”

My thought in reading that paragraph is who are those “a lot of people”? They certainly aren’t the vast majority of Americans. But we know the nasty guy doesn’t listen to us common folks that make up the vast majority of Americans. He listens to billionaires who either want to get richer off the USPS or don’t want it as competition. Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union said privatization would “end universal service.” People in hard to reach locations would lose service. Many people, especially us in the ’burbs, don’t know that many of the big package delivery companies use the USPS for those hard to reach locations, the places the USPS must go by law, but for-profit companies would see as too expensive.

“Universal service is especially important to rural America. Privatization also would lead to price-gouging by private companies,” Dimondstein added.

Put another way, the nasty guy and his cronies would not see any change in service. Their political base would. A reminder: Louis DeStroy is still in charge of the USPS. Biden didn’t accomplish his removal. Alex Samuels of Kos wrote that American voters can be quite messy in their opinion on big issues. This assertion is based on a Civiqs poll for Kos done December 7-10. It shows views don’t align with the goals of either party. Some of the messiness: 94% of Republicans believe the nasty guy will act on his promise to deport millions of immigrants. But only 50% of Republicans believe he’ll end the Affordable Care Act. Voter preference? A belief that the federal government has a responsibility in health care coverage? In 2024 Missouri voters approved abortion rights, raise the minimum wage, and paid sick leave while voting in Republicans, who oppose these policies. The messiness could be perpetual dissatisfaction with both parties. Or liking Democratic policies and not their candidates this year. Or trying to compress incoherent views into a binary choice. Two weeks ago Samuels reported that based on the election results many pundits are making the claim America has shifted to the right. But based on actual policies America is still quite liberal. One example is that 71% of Americans want the government to lower drug costs and prevent price gouging. Also two weeks ago Samuels reported:

In fact, according to a survey from YouGov, which was fielded in late November, the majority of Americans surveyed said that they view allegations of sexual assault (62%), domestic violence (61%), and a history of substance abuse (51%) as disqualifying to serve in a presidential Cabinet position. American adults also suggested that they didn’t want Cabinet picks who had links to extremist groups (70%), allegations of links to hostile foreign governments (66%), and past criminal convictions (61%). These numbers might not dissuade Trump, however, who is actively rolling out new names for those who he wants to fill out his administration. Several of Trump’s picks are embroiled in controversy. And it’s possible that Trump is hoping that Americans will turn a blind eye to these lower-level Cabinet members.

Samuels then reviewed all the cabinet nominations a majority of Americans view as disqualifying. Again, two weeks ago (yeah, I didn’t do much writing early this month) Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote that the SPLC is closely monitoring the cabinet nominations and why the choice matters.

A strong federal government is essential to ensuring that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution are both protected and applied equally to all Americans and to providing vital resources and services to the most vulnerable populations. In arenas such as housing, education, criminal justice, health care, and more, civil rights laws protect against discrimination and ensure equal opportunity. However, we are concerned that the incoming administration will seek to shift power to individual states and abandon the federal government’s responsibilities to protect everyone’s rights.

Lisa Needham of Kos reported that last week “Texas sued New York physician Margaret Daley Carpenter for providing abortion pills via telehealth to a Texas resident.” This is an attempt to crack New York’s shield law that protects abortion providers from prosecutions in other states. So, yeah, ditch the idea that anti-choice advocates simply wanted to return abortion to the states.

Red states are going to astonishing lengths to try to stop their own citizens from obtaining abortions elsewhere and to demand that blue states honor red states’ laws. ... Generally, states do not get to dictate what happens in other states, nor do they get to try to reach into another state and impose their own laws.

There was one shameful exception, the Fugitive Slave Act. That empowered anyone to capture the enslaved, even in states that banned slavery, and return them to their owners. The anti-abortion efforts are similar in that Texas set up a bounty hunter system. Texas could get an injunction against Carpenter, but the New York shield law means New York can’t order Carpenter to comply. The next step is for Texas to sue New York to force compliance with Texas law. That will immediately go to the Supreme Court. With a supermajority that hates abortion, New York would likely lose. And that would overturn shield laws in 18 other states and Washington, DC. And states could impose their abortion bans on states where it is legal.

Anti-choice state politicians have no intention of leaving pro-choice states alone when it comes to abortion. They’re not going to stop until they make it impossible to get abortions in blue states. This is not how federalism is supposed to work, but it’s what we’re headed toward now.

Campaigned for blue collars, governing for blue bloods

My Sunday movie was The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. It’s a short one, only 40 minutes. This won the Oscar for best short live action film in 2024. They story is by Roald Dahl and the movie opens with an actor playing Dahl introducing the tale. It is about a man from India who says he is able to see without using his eyes. Rich man Henry Sugar learns about the trick because he wants to give himself an advantage when he gambles. But it doesn’t go as expected. This film is very much eccentric. First is Dahl’s story. Second is Wes Anderson’s filming. I’ve seen a couple of Anderson’s films and know his style is eccentric. I haven’t watched everything he’s done because to me his manner can distract from the story. One eccentricity is that one character in a scene is always narrating, even going as far as turning to the camera after another person speaks and adding, “He said.” Another is that most of the scenes are presented on a stage and we see the backdrops come and go and stagehands lean in to place or remove objects. I wanted a short movie because I’ve now completed all of my holiday concerts and was a bit too tired for a long film. Though eccentric this one was enjoyable. Alex Samuels of Daily Kos discussed the failure of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to become the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee. She’s 35. The guy who got the job is 74. The main point is that Democrats have a lot of young (and more progressive) members who would be great leaders, but the current leadership, mostly in their 70s and 80s, isn’t passing the torch to the younger generation. And it is the current leadership that was in charge of messaging in the last election. I’ve been thinking a lot that while Republicans very much support the social hierarchy (with themselves and their billionaire donors on top), that does not mean Democrats don’t support the hierarchy. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the home of Frances Perkins has been designated by Biden to be a national monument. Perkins was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, serving under Franklin D. Roosevelt. She was also the longest-serving labor secretary. Her work was instrumental in establishing Social Security, the Fair Labor Standards Act and the National Labor Relations Act, establishing the right to organize and bargain collectively. She helped formulate many parts of the New Deal and helped create economic safeguards to prevent another great depression. Alas, I contrast that with a post by Oliver Willis of Kos reporting that the nasty guy and Musk of the outside-of-government Department of Government Efficiency are talking to potential bank regulators what they think about abolishing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The FDIC was created by a law signed by FDR during the Great Depression to protect consumers in the case of a bank collapse. Of which there were many, and many that were serious. The question is whether the Treasury Department could handle the task instead. The article does not discuss what the effect of absorbing the FDIC into Treasury would do. But if the nasty guy and Musk are behind the proposal it can’t be good for regular citizens. Especially since Musk has also said he opposes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created under Obama. The CFPB advocates for consumers against banks, credit card companies, and the like. The CPFB has given $21 billion in relief to consumers since its creation. That is while Musk’s charitable foundations haven’t been donating the required 5% of assets and are behind by about $421 million. Musk’s worth is about $429 billion.

Musk is just the most high profile and wealthiest of the billionaires with no qualifications to steer government policy that Trump has put into positions of influence. Despite professing to be an advocate of “blue collar” values, Trump is giving blue bloods an enormous power boost.

Alix Breeden of Kos reported last week that House Republicans passed a massive $895 billion defense bill. It has some good stuff in it, like hefty pay increases for the military. However, it includes a provision banning medical care for transgender youth. Thankfully, those opposed to that provision includes Republicans. But that wasn’t enough to stop the bill. The bill now goes to the Senate. Chabeli Carrazana, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, reported that many same-sex couples are rushing to finalize the adoption of their children before the nasty guy is sworn in. These are cases where one is a biological parent and the other isn’t. Many couples haven’t done this because the legal fees can be a couple thousand or more and under Biden it didn’t seem necessary. But under the nasty guy and a Supreme Court wanting to get another look at marriage equality, same-sex couples are looking for all the protection they can get. Supreme Court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson fulfilled a longtime dream of acting on Broadway. Last Saturday she had a moment in the musical “& Juliet.” This article has a short video of getting her ready for the role. Other sources, such as her appearance on the NPR show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, talk about how she was a student of theater as well as of law.

Billionaires who don’t feel sufficiently admired

Morgan Stephens of Daily Kos reported there is an effort to get Biden to certify the Equal Rights Amendment to require gender equality. This article says this amendment to the Constitution has been ratified by enough states. All that needs to be done is for Biden to tell the National Archives: yep, all the requirements have been met, so make this amendment officially a part of the Constitution. Even after reading I am puzzled why the Archive can’t do that on its own. The last state to ratify was Virginia in 2020. The nasty guy told the Archives not to make it official because the confirmation process took too long. Since I hadn’t heard anything about the ERA since the 1980s and hadn’t heard about Virginia’s ratification only four years ago I thought I had better check this story out. So I went to Wikipedia (aware that its accuracy is suspect). And I found the situation isn’t simple. The amendment was first proposed in 1921. It finally passed Congress in 1972 with a seven year time limit (which was in an accompanying law, not in the amendment text). To be part of the Constitution 38 states (¾ of them) must ratify an amendment. By the time of the deadline in 1979 only 35 states had ratified it. Them some of them revoked their ratification. The deadline was extended to 1982. Four more ratified, then one of those revoked. Some states said their ratification is good only until the deadline. If not enough states have ratified by then our approval has expired. Since then there have been more extensions and extension attempts. There have been lawsuits against the extensions. There have been lawsuits over whether a state can revoke its ratification. All that means I understand why Biden is hesitant to tell the Archives the amendment should be made official. I had written that the nasty guy wanted to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray. The nasty guy had hired Wray (after firing his predecessor) and Wray has another three years in his ten year term. That term was set up by Congress to make sure FBI directors could remain above politics. Oliver Willis reported that Wray has said he will resign on inauguration day. He says he is doing it so the FBI can focus on fighting crime instead of on his fate. So the nasty guy is free to nominate Kash Patel to the job. Willis reminds us why Patel will be so bad. One reason, which I had mentioned before:

Patel also authored three children’s books starring a thinly veiled version of himself and Trump (as a king) fighting against Democratic plotters seeking to usurp an imaginary kingdom.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Jonathan Chait of The Atlantic:

Now Trump, preparing for his second term as president, has decided to replace the FBI director again. The figure he picked to replace Comey—the lifelong Republican Christopher Wray—proved unable to meet Trump’s expectations for the position, which are (1) to permit Trump and his allies to violate the law with impunity, and (2) to investigate anybody who interferes with (1). Wray, wrestling with the problem of Trump’s desire to separate him from a job he apparently liked, chose to step down on his own. This raises the likelihood that the media will treat the replacement of Wray as normal administrative turnover rather than as a scandal. […] The problem that keeps arising is that there is no way to remain in Trump’s favor while following the law. In a celebratory statement posted to Truth Social, Trump claims, “Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI illegally raided my home, without cause.” Had the FBI raid actually been illegal, he could have proved that in court. He didn’t, because by taking massive troves of classified documents when he left office, keeping them in a wildly unsecured location, refusing multiple requests to return them, lying repeatedly about it, and engaging in a clumsy cover-up, Trump had given the bureau no other choice. For Wray to allow this brazen defiance of the law would have been to simply admit that the law doesn’t apply to Trump, in or out of office. But that is precisely the credo Trump demands that the bureau follow. It is why he has selected Kash Patel, a sycophant so childishly worshipful that he spelled out his loyalty to Trump in a literal children’s book portraying Trump as a virtuous king and himself as Trump’s loyal wizard. Perhaps Patel (or whomever Senate Republicans ultimately confirm for the position) will, once in office, somehow develop an adult, professionalized understanding of the rule of law. More likely, Trump’s FBI director will discover that actually locking up Trump’s enemies is hard. This was the anticlimactic outcome of the Durham investigation, Trump’s first-term campaign to imprison his foes, which resulted, after months of conservative-media salivating, in two embarrassing acquittals in court.

In another roundup Kev quoted Paul Krugman, in what he announces is his last column for the New York Times. A bit:

What strikes me, looking back, is how optimistic many people, both here and in much of the Western world, were back then and the extent to which that optimism has been replaced by anger and resentment. And I’m not just talking about members of the working class who feel betrayed by elites; some of the angriest, most resentful people in America right now — people who seem very likely to have a lot of influence with the incoming Trump administration — are billionaires who don’t feel sufficiently admired.

Kev also quoted Res Huppke of USA Today:

Axios reported last week that, including Trump himself, the administration-to-be is already staffed with 14 billionaires. ... I’m sure these down-to-earth billionaires care deeply about the forgotten men and women who put Trump in office. Surely they are in no way “elite,” aside from perhaps owning an island, or maybe occasionally hunting poor people for sport on said island.

Down in the comments – after the cartoons – The Geogre wrote about an article by Adam Cox and Ryan Goodman of Just Security on “The Public Framing of Mass Deportation” as in how they’ll structure their lies to keep mass deportation palatable to the public. They will say they are targeting the deportations the public supports – getting rid of those who have broken the law – but they’ll actually target groups whose deportation is easiest to accomplish. Deporting criminal noncitizens will keep public support but there aren’t nearly enough such criminals to meet the numbers the nasty guy is talking about. Saying that’s what they’re doing is a trick to satisfy those who have no idea of the state of immigrants and their lack of crimes. Polling has shown the public doesn’t support dragnets that tear families apart or hit long-term residents with deep ties. So they’re already lying by redefining their terms. They will falsely tag entire classes of immigrants as criminals. See the effort in falsely claiming immigrants ate pets in Springfield, Ohio. There will be lots of stories of immigrant crime. An example (which is not true) would be a headline blaring, “Mexican nationals rape women.” The story would be spread by media and eventually appear on an executive order. They will falsely equate criminal law and immigration law, declaring that a violation of immigration law is a crime when it is only a civil offense. That makes all undocumented immigrants, which they’ll refer to as an “illegal immigrant” (a legally meaningless term) to be a criminal and a high priority for deportation. The Geogre reminds us “the goal is quiescence, not legality.” The goal is to keep public protests at a minimum while keeping “immigration” a hot topic for the 2026 midterm elections. Then comes redefining legal immigration – those here with official permission – as illegal. Along with that they’ll keep up the drumbeat that immigration is an “invasion.” The Geogre’s quotes and comments ended here. So I went to the original article. Some of the other thing it discusses: A major obstacle is to mass deportation political. Americans support stiffer border patrol, but they don’t support mass deportation and do support paths to legal status and citizenship. Another major obstacle is logistical. How to identify, locate, and arrest large numbers of noncitizens? In modern times the US has deported only a quarter million in any one year, and that rate wasn’t sustainable. It was also more than a decade ago. The nasty guy’s goal is an order of magnitude larger. I add one way to avoid the work of determining who is and isn’t a citizen is to not care if citizens are caught up in any dragnet. Undocumented immigrants that have been here for more than a decade are not easily identified. This include most of the 11 million who are undocumented. That lack of easy identification is why the nasty guy will target the easy to identify first. Another way to tag immigrants as criminals is whether they use programs they shouldn’t. An example is getting a drivers license. Immigrants from several countries have been given Temporary Protected Status. These are countries with high internal violence where going back could be deadly. Haiti is one of these countries. The nasty guy could revoke those programs and easily send those people back. This could be one million such people, perhaps as many as three million.

At bottom, these tactics boil down to a potentially profound betrayal of the American public. These approaches fail to reflect the public’s expressed preferences for immigration policy, and mislead rather than try to reason with or persuade Americans toward a more aggressive deportation policy. Some of the rhetorical tactics are familiar, and, indeed, have been practiced by both Democratic and Republican administrations. But not in the context of trying to legitimize the displacement of potentially millions of people. The remaining question is whether such tactics can succeed in the coming period, that is, whether deceptive framing of actual underlying deportation policies can win out.

A couple days ago Leila Fadel of NPR spoke to Kristin Kobe Du Mez, who is a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University, a Christian school. She is the author of the book Jesus And John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted A Faith And Fractured A Nation. In this discussion she explores the belief that the US is (or is supposed to be) a Christian nation and explores how her faith has been politicized. Here’s some of what Du Mez said:

What's different about Christian nationalism is this sense of privilege that the country itself must reflect particular Christian values. They present histories - largely mythical histories of the founding era that suggests that the Constitution was, even some will go as far as to say, inspired by God and that the Constitution reflects biblical values.

Responding to the nasty guy promising a task force on anti-Christian bias.

Now, to understand how that can make sense when the majority of Americans do hold Christian beliefs, it's important to note that when they talk about threats to religious liberty, many conservative Christians have a fairly expansive notion of what that entails. They want the religious liberty not just to practice their own beliefs, but also they think that to be faithful as Christians means to reshape society and even to impose those beliefs on fellow Americans. And when they are not able to do that, that seems like a restriction on their religious liberties. It'll be very interesting to see what that task force actually entails because within the Christian nationalist framework, often some of the key targets of Christian nationalists are fellow Christians themselves - fellow Christians who did not adhere to the Christian nationalist agenda.

I long ago figured out when religious people talk about religious freedom they mean freedom to discriminate, to force others to be like them. Du Mez was asked why the nasty guy appeals to the far right of Christianity:

His real appeal lies in the fact that he has promised to give Christians power. ... And, yes, he's not what many might expect, but he's their strong man. And in fact, he may be all the more effective at restoring Christian America because he's not constrained by traditional Christian virtue.

Du Mez added these people argue that the separation of church and state is a myth.

Women write about gay love, men not burdened with patriarchy

I finished the book Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly. The author uses they/them pronouns and has a wife, so a member of the LGBTQ community. Much of the story takes place on the Pacific Crest Trail, a western equivalent of the Appalachian Trail in the east. The PCT is 2652 miles, stretching from the Mexican to the Canadian borders through the Sierra and Cascade mountains. The story is about Alexei and Ben. Both are approaching their 30th birthdays, so delightfully not teenagers. Alexei is from near Portland, OR and on the trail because his parents disowned him because he told them he is gay. They are members of a conservative church. He’s had a few one-night stands and is tired of that. He hopes his time on the trail will help him figure out how to create Alexei 2.0. Ben is from Nashville feels he wasted his 20s in not knowing what he wants in life. He also had a few not good relationships. He got his act together enough to complete nursing school and hopes time on the PCT will settle his restlessness before getting a job. Their “meet cute” is on Alexei’s first day on the trail. He joined the trail a hundred miles from Mexico to skip the worst of the desert. He hears a rattlesnake ahead and puts out his arm to block and protect the people coming up behind him. Of course, at the front of that group is Ben. A couple days later Alexei and Ben meet again. Ben decides to leave the group he’s been hiking with and join Alexei. One reason is to keep Alexei from hiking alone through the dangerous desert. Another reason is he’s attracted to Alexei. From there friendship and love develop. But Alexei is still dealing with his demons. Also, both are wary of the other leaving, unsure of their own commitment, burned by previous relationships, and doubtful they will want to live where the other is from. I downloaded a map of the PCT to follow along, though only 250 miles, the time they fall in love (the first 2/3 of the book), is covered in much detail. I was amused by and saw the great practicality of the PCT map that shows the train, bus, and car routes that cross or are near the trail. The last third of the book shows Alexei dealing with those demons in a healthy way. I enjoyed this gay love story. Krotor of the Daily Kos community discussed Boys’ Love, a multimedia genre that focuses on male relationships. This is the first I’ve heard of that term. Krotor intends to have this as the start of a regular discussion on Kos because the topic is wide. The use of “boys” in the description does not refer to male children. It is used in the same manner as “boys’ night out.” The central characters are late teens to young 30s. And, yes, this is young men falling in love with young men. The genre started in Japan with manga graphic novels. And...

The original Japanese creators — and consumers — of Boys’ Love works were typically heterosexual females. The explanation I have seen most frequently is that straight women enjoy fantasies about men being loving and vulnerable with each other in relationships that are not burdened with the misogyny, patriarchy, constrictive gender roles, and similar negatives that women often experience in their own relationships with straight guys.

In 2014 the genre became international, or at least Southeast Asian. A company in Thailand released Love Sick: The Series that explored male relationships over 51 episodes. In contrast to the sexiness of some of the early manga, Boys’ Love video series usually stick to kissing, and that is usually only a second or two before the scene ends. That kiss tends to come in the last or second-to-last episode. Only a few swear words might keep a show from being rated G. A standard pattern to these shows is two young men are thrown together (perhaps the reason is contrived). Their relationship grows, they must overcome challenges, and they eventually see they’re in love. The focus is on the romance, not sexual desire. The assumption is if the emotional connection is strong enough physical passion will be there. There is no discussion of passion outside of that connection. There seems to be no concept of one-night stands. These are not like Hollywood rom-coms. The characters usually are not driven by lust and don’t shed their clothes to convey passion. Conventional European and American shows derive their tension through the cultural gender wars. But in these shows there are no shortcuts through opposing genders. Instead, the story is about the individuals. They slowly develop an emotional bond and physical attraction grows from that. Homophobia barely exists, if at all. If one of the lads is beaten up, it is because they’re from the opposing sport team and not because they’re gay. Straight friends are supportive of them pursuing a same-sex relationship. And there is no concern that a guy dating a woman flips to dating a man. In Hollywood the woman must be beautiful, but the man doesn’t need to be (how did he end up with her!). But in the Boys’ Love universe both of them are beautiful (and many work as models). These shows are quite popular. Fans call for sequels to keep the relationship going. Fans are disappointed when the actors have love lives away different from their show’s love life, especially if they love a woman. That isn’t entirely the fan’s fault. Sometimes the producers have the actors appear in public together with enough interaction that fans can conclude they’re in love. Krotor discussed US made movies with gay characters. Before the 1980s gay characters were portrayed as perverse and disgusting and worthy of a violent death. In the 1980s AIDS colored the films, but gay men still faced illness, suffering, and death. By the 1990s the gay characters weren’t the butt of jokes and didn’t always die, but they had no serious emotional connections. Unless it was the anguish from coming out. With that sort of portrayal no wonder the religious right was afraid of their children turning gay.

Heck, yeah, I love BL. It finally shows me who we should always have been seen as: strong and valued and loved and loving and happy and deserving of love and happiness. We needed this decades ago and it would have had a tremendous positive impact on gay boys, giving hope and guidance and encouragement as they developed into young gay men. We have it now and I am grateful for it and generations of gay boys to come will be better for it.

This discussion ends with ways to find Boys’ Love stories. I’ll try to see a few of them. And I’ll keep watching for more articles on the topic. Krotor linked to a list on IMDB of 100 Boys’ Love series. The list I saw had only 85 entries. A few of them are rated for mature audiences. I see I’ve seen a couple of them already, two that aren’t from Southeast Asia. They are Heartstopper and Young Royals. A few more are American. I went to another list on My Drama List. The link is for a search that brought up 1939 entries (the first page listed only 20). This list includes trailers. So I watched a couple. The first trailer I watched went so fast I couldn’t keep up with the English subtitles. In the second the subtitles were in Korean. I had written that the satirical news site The Onion had put in a winning bid to purchase Infowars, the site Alex Jones uses to spread conspiracy theories. The Onion announced plans to repurpose the site for good messages rather than destructive ones. Tovia Smith of NPR reported a federal bankruptcy judge blocked the sale. The judge said there was a lack of transparency in the bidding process and that there was a failure to maximize value for the people Jones owes money to. Those people are the parents and family members of the children killed at Sandy Hook. They had sued Jones because he called the shooting that killed 26 children and teachers a hoax. He now owes them a billion dollars. The Infowars show, its equipment, studio, and brand are only a part of the whole package. The families said they liked what The Onion planned to do with the Infowars site and brand and were willing to forego some of what they are owed so that the purchase could proceed. But the judge rejected their argument. So Jones still has the capability of spewing his bile, at least for now, and he did his usual spewing in praise of the judge. I had lunch with my friend and debate partner today. Some of our discussion turned to the momentous events in Syria. He said there are more factions in Syria, some of them Islamist, than we hear about in mainstream media. He was disappointed that the US military targeted several military sites around Syria after Assad left. And he said he would not at all be surprised if Syria fell into civil war as these various factions fight for power and the ability to impose their ideas on the country. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted a few articles that explain the situation in Syria a bit more. That includes a thread by Raylan Givens that explains the term “Syrian Rebels” actually refers to several groups. Other articles discuss how much the HTS leader can be trusted when he claims religious minorities and women shouldn’t fear his group coming to power. Another pundit roundup by Dworkin has more quotes about Syria. I include it for a tweet by Charles Lister:

With #Assad gone & his brutal regime dissolved, #Syria refugees are already surging back home. There was only ever one solution to the “refugee crisis” & all those who said reinforcing #Assad would resolve it were at best delusional, at worst, complicit in #Assad’s agenda.

The tweet includes a minute long video of a huge traffic backup from all those refugees surging home. Irena Buzarewicz posted a cartoon by John Atkinson that has small images of how two dozen famous artists would depict a Christmas tree. The artists include Picasso, Seurat, Monet, Haring, Pollock, Warhol, Van Gogh, and Dali.

If his dudes are normal the rest of us are abnormal

My Sunday movie was this afternoon at the Detroit Film Theater. I watched Flow by Latvian director Gints Zilbaldis. It’s an animated movie and the viewpoint character is a black cat. There are no humans (though evidence humans were recently around) and the cat (and other animals) are not anthropomorphic. So no need for translation or subtitles. This world has quickly rising water and the cat is soon caught on a rapidly shrinking island. The cat is saved by a passing personal sized sailboat. Onboard is a capybara. Soon joining them is a golden Lab dog, a lemur (who likes glittery human things), and an injured secretary bird. They learn to get along and the cat even jumps into the water to catch fish to offer to the others. The journey continues until the water recedes. This is a beautiful movie. The scenery is almost photographic in quality. That’s even true for the camera dipping into and out of the water. The various animals act like that type of animal would, especially the cat and the dog. It’s also an interesting story. I highly recommend it. Even so, there were some disconcerting elements. While the background looks quite photorealistic the animals are much less so. I have strong doubts the animals could figure out what the boat’s rudder is for, yet they do. When the water recedes it happens way too quickly. And when the bird dies (ascends to heaven?) the scene is quite beautiful but out of realistic character of the rest of the movie. I still highly recommend it. Over the last eleven days the Syrian resistance to the tyranny of President Bashar al-Assad seems to have come from a dozen years of hiding to capture one major city after another, reaching capital Damascus this morning. Assad has fled and may have died in a plane crash. A few of the quotes in a pundit roundup by Chitown Kev for Daily Kos discuss the fall of the regime. These quotes and a roundup from Friday by Greg Dworkin explain why the downfall was so swift. Assad had been looting his country which put about 90% in poverty and the economy in shambles. Assad’s backers, the ones who made sure he stayed in power, were occupied with their own problems – Russia in Ukraine and Iran in Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen. The resistance had many years to train. They made good use of their chance to strike. Dworkin also quoted Carlos Lozada of the New York Times who discussed comments by Pete Hegseth, nominated to head the Department of Defense. Hegseth said he wants for the military “normal dudes” who are “Strong. Tough. From Nowhereville, America, just like me.” Lozada added:

When you define one group as normal dudes doing normal stuff, the rest are reduced to various forms of abnormality. In Hegseth’s world, some people are just weird, at odds with his beloved normal dudes.

Greg Sargent of The New Republic wrote that the nasty guy wants to roll back the incentives for manufacturing green energy technologies. But Republicans are enjoying the money that came to their districts and want it to continue. Jesse Ferguson of The Hill suggests Democrats skip talking about “resistance” and instead should talk about how the nasty guy and Republican policies to benefit the rich are a “betrayal” of the working class voters who gave them the victory. Down in the comments exlrrp posted a meme of a woman holding a sign saying, “I’ve seen smarter cabinets @ Ikea.” And further down exlrrp posted a cartoon (uncredited) of a woman talking to her husband:

Do you think it might help to learn the difference between “being silenced” and just, like, a bunch of people not wanting to hear you talk any more?

Giving a pardon to avoid a corrupt, incompetent freakshow

Dana Nessel, attorney general for Michigan, wrote an opinion piece in last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press. Her main point is that the nasty guy staffing his cabinet with people accused of sexual assault will mean two things. Assault survivors will be less likely to report the crime because they feel it won’t bring justice and reliving the trauma will be useless. And assault perpetrators will feel they have permission to attack again. Those who have been accused are Pete Hegseth, nominated for Defense, Robert Kennedy Jr, nominated for Health and Human Services, Matt Gaetz, nominated for Justice (yeah, he withdrew, but he was still nominated), and Linda McMahon, nominated for Education. McMahon isn’t accused of committing assault, but is accused of enabling abuse of children by employees of her organization. That got me thinking that in the mind of the nasty guy a sexual assault accusation is a bonus. As I’ve discussed several times the nasty guy is highly invested in the social hierarchy. He wants to be top dog and have no rivals. He wants there to be a huge difference between himself and the teeming masses and will oppress them to make that difference greater. The only people he will tolerate in his presence are those who profess their adoration. He has been convicted of sexual assault. In his mind being accused of sexual assault is a bright sign to say that person is also one highly invested in the hierarchy (otherwise they would not have committed assault). That makes them a strong candidate for his regime. It’s going to be a dreary future. Following similar logic... Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported:

Donald Trump ran for president by selling the notion that he would be a fighter for working-class, blue-collar values. But he has selected a slew of obscenely wealthy people to help him run the government when he takes control in January—and their net worths are nowhere near the average American family’s.

The median family net worth in America is $192,700 and a lot own much less than that. Several of these nominees are billionaires. They are clueless about the issues most Americans face. This will be government by the billionaires, of the billionaires, and for the billionaires. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reports that Biden has pardoned his son Hunter for his conviction in a case of lying on a gun permit application and his guilty plea for tax charges. A lot of talking heads are saying but Biden said he wouldn’t pardon his son. Yeah, he did. Circumstances changed. A second AP article on Kos explains the pardon in more detail. It also mentions Biden’s reasoning:

In his statement Sunday, Biden said that his son had been “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.” Biden has been concerned—as Hunter Biden was—about his political adversaries. ... “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son—and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter—who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me—and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Put another way Biden saw who the nasty guy was nominating to various Department of Justice jobs He knew the attacks on Hunter would continue. Better for Hunter and the rest of the family to stop it all now. In particular Biden saw, as Oliver Willis of Kos reported, that the nasty guy nominated Kash Patel to head the FBI. For Patel to take that spot the nasty guy would have to fire the current director Christopher Wray, whom the nasty guy installed in 2017 and whose ten year term is supposed to protect the agency for political meddling. The nasty guy has complained that Wray has followed the law too closely, authorizing investigations into the nasty guy and his minions. There are two big reasons why Patel got the nomination. The first reason is the statements Patel has been making.

Patel authored a memo arguing that it was disloyal for then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper to oppose a request by Trump to deploy military troops against American citizens protesting police violence against Black people. After Trump lost to President Joe Biden in 2020, Patel pushed lies about the election being stolen and argued that reporters debunking Trump’s election lies should be targeted by the government.

Yeah, he wants to go after reporters debunking Trump’s election lies. And he’s big on loyalty. The second reason is that Patel wrote a trilogy of children’s books that are nasty guy fan fiction. The first is The Plot Against the King with the plotter being Hillary Clinton. The second was the battle against Sleepy Joe and the third was against “Comma-la-la-la.” These books are definitely propaganda. Patel would definitely find reasons to continue prosecution and persecution of Hunter. As for actually running the FBI, who said anything about qualifications? There was lots of commentary that Biden pardoning his son gave permission for the nasty guy to pardon the insurrectionists. But he is going to do that anyway. In the comments of a pundit roundup exlrrp posted couple memes about Hunter and Patel. The first is by Keith Boykin:

President Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, and I would have done the same thing under the circumstances. If Trump can be elected as a convicted felon, I’d be damned if I let my own son go to prison for the sake of a principle that only one side believes in.

The other meme:

Biden did not pardon Hunter until he saw the corrupt, incompetent, conspiracy driven, freakshow that Trump was nominating for the DOJ. The media might want to mention that.

Lisa Needham of Kos discussed what would happen if Republicans succeeded in dismantling the Department of Education. To answer that Needham lists what the DoE does. Republicans don’t like the DoE believing the federal government shouldn’t tell states what to teach. Surprise, it doesn’t. The DoE hands out Title I funding for lower-income families, which pays for teacher salaries. Some of that goes to urban districts in blue states. More of it goes to rural districts in red states, with Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, and Arizona most dependent on Title I funding. So will Title I funding be eliminated or go to a department that doesn’t know what to do with it? Also in the DoE is the agency that delivers federal funding for students with special needs. That about 15% of all K-12 students, or 7.5 million students. Federal money is supposed to pay 40% of the cost for special education, but has always fallen short. And many states don’t cover as much as they should. What will happen to this? The DoE also oversees student civil rights. That includes the rights of LGBTQ students and students of color but much more goes for the rights of students with disabilities. These are not things other departments could easily pick up. Project 2025 calls for turning all that DoE money into block grants without strings. Then the states could do what they wanted with it – including shifting all of it to private schools. Republicans have a lot of angst over the DoE’s 4% of the federal budget. Which implies this isn’t about the money.

What gutting federal education funding and oversight will do, however, is widen the gaps between well-off and low-income families, between well-funded and struggling public schools, and between blue states and red states. Trump voters may have believed they were casting a vote to hurt woke liberals, but they likely hurt themselves and their children much more.

There’s that social hierarchy again with the desire to oppress those lower down. Gutting the DoE also means the oppressed are more open to the claim that in the natural order of the world they’re supposed to be oppressed. Prairiecrat of the Kos community discussed an article in Baptist News in which a gay ex-pastor of a Baptist church surveyed people who had left the Baptist denomination. Most of the reasons were related to a distaste for conservative politics and the accompanying attitudes. Another big reason was the nasty guy. Those who left saw the vast contradiction between what the nasty guy and conservative Christians said and did compared to what Jesus said and did. They saw Jesus showed love and these people showed racism, sexism, and greed.

Indeed, according to the 2023 PRRI Census of American Religion, in 2006, white Evangelical Protestants outnumbered white Mainline Protestants among the population by 23% to 17.8% — a gap of more than 5 points. As of last year the gap is down to 13.4% to 12.2% — just over 1 point. It’s true that non-white Evangelicals are making up for some of the decline in white Evangelicals, but Evangelical populations are still declining nonetheless. Expect that with 4 more years of Trumpism, this trend will accelerate.

Peter Twinklage posted a thread that he thinks explains why some Democrats outperformed Harris and won their seats. They championed progressive policies while using conservative cultural coding.

Ryan campaigned with AOC in the Hudson Valley but made a point to highlight his military service in every campaign ad. Gluesenkamp Perez co-sponsored a bill to protect medication abortion while constantly talking about her history as a flannel-clad car mechanic. Gallego never apologized for his tenure in the House Progressive Caucus but aggressively pursued male voters with soccer and boxing match watch parties. All of them spoke proudly in defense of queer Americans while also never condemning constituents who lacked the language to voice their concerns about certain issues in a politically correct fashion. Having grown up on a farm with a Fox News family, I think this is the way.

Concert season begins tomorrow. I’ll be posting much less over the next two weeks. I’ve already deleted a few browser tabs of things I know I won’t get to or will be out of date by the time I can write about them.

We are our own Calvary

My Sunday movie was The Boy and the Heron by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. It was released in the US almost a year ago and won an Oscar for Best Animated Feature, making Miyazaki the oldest person to receive an Oscar. It finally came to streaming at a good price. The boy of the story is Mahito. I would guess he’s in his early teens. The time is World War II. The movie opens with a hospital on fire. Mahito becomes frantic because his mother is there. A while later he and his father go to their estate in the countryside where Father owns a factory making war material. They are met at the station by a woman who looks a lot like Mahito’s mother and is pregnant. She says Mahito is to call her Mom. They settle into the estate where there are several elderly women who take care of things. They live in a very Japanese style house. Mahito is put into the Western style house nearby. A heron takes a big interest in the boy and its actions lead him to a nearby tower with lots of mysteries. Then the step-mother wanders away. Mahito tries to find her. And things get weird. The first bit of weirdness is the heron has teeth. Mahito goes from one fantasy world to another, each with symbols of life and of death and with beings who will help and who will harm. But he doesn’t want to return to his own world without his step-mother. By the end I wasn’t sure of everything that had happened and why. I felt the payoff wasn’t a match for all the difficulty Mahito went through. That feeling reminded me of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away from two decades ago. I didn’t get that one. In both cases I suspect cultural references that a Japanese person would get and I don’t is the reason. As with many Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli films this one was beautiful. For an animated film there were also many scenes that were quite complicated – such as a big flock of pelicans. However, I noticed the characters were usually more simply drawn than the intricate backgrounds of their environment. Even though it got weird and I didn’t get a lot of cultural references and I don’t care much for fantasy because its rules can be so arbitrary – even with all that I enjoyed it. I regularly read Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine and have just finished the November/December 2024 issue. I normally don’t write about it when I finish an issue because it can be twenty stories and articles and I’d have a hard time writing about all of them. One of them in this issue is worth mentioning. It is an Alternate View column written by Richard Lovett titled How the Science of Moral Understanding can Reduce the Polarization in Politics. That’s quite a claim for a three page article. I don’t see this article at the magazine’s online site (though there is an interesting second Alternate View article on mitochondrial DNA and aging and how there might be a way to slow aging down). First, Lovett discusses a study by Kurt Gray, director of the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His point is that people of both political parties vastly overestimate the degree the other side actually holds them in contempt. We’re less hostile and more willing to work together than we’re portrayed to be. Lovett turned to Jonathan Haidt of the New York University Stern School of Business, who says liberals and conservatives share basic values, though prioritize them differently. Haidt sees five core values: (1) protecting the vulnerable, (2) fairness, (3) the need to bond into groups for the common good, (4) respect for authority, and (5) “purity” – avoiding things that contaminate the body (examples are a vegan’s dietary code or a fundamentalists sexual code). Liberals emphasize fairness and protecting the vulnerable. Conservatives also emphasize respect for authority, also seen as preserving the social order (and I see as preserving themselves at the top of the social hierarchy). Gray thinks there are more than five basic values (they’re not named). He also says Haidt’s first value of preventing harm is the most important. How we weigh the different values comes with tradeoffs. And this is where disputes come. How do we handle competing harms? In the gun debate do we minimize harm to ourselves and loved ones or the harm to the whole community? In the abortion debate do we minimize harm to the mother or the potential baby? In both cases we can’t minimize both harms. Recognizing that is the first step to reducing polarization. From there Lovett gets into a discussion of “active listening.” There are likely sources elsewhere that explain it in more detail. Michael Harriot wrote a thread about the greatest black on black crime in US history. On May 23, 1861 three slaves were donated to the Virginia Confederate Militia. As soon as they could they ran to Union Gen, George Butler. These slaves were legal property. Butler saw their crime as stealing themselves. But now they were under Butler’s protection he saw them as a tool of war, in the same way as a rifle. He was allowed to confiscate them. The Confederates threatened to sue for the return of their property. Butler replied since the owners intended their use to be against the United States he didn’t have to return them. Want them back? Take an oath of allegiance to the United States. When slaves heard about it they stole themselves to Union forts, where they were placed in refugee camps. Lincoln wanted nothing to do with this situation. But there were so many fleeing slave Congress passed the Confiscation Act, backing up Butler. About 100,000 people unslaved themselves, arriving at more than 100 camps. These became known as Contraband Camps – the refugees were no longer property but not citizens.

These "Contraband Camps" were the origin story of many Black towns, HBCUs and neighborhoods. They produced 200 K-12 schools, 12 HBCUs, & 1000s of Black veterans. Harriet Tubman freed more people while living in SC's contraband camp than as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. Black neighborhoods in KC, Nashville & St. Louis were contraband camps. Mary Peake, a free Black woman, held reading classes [illegal at the time] under a tree at the original VA camp until classes got too big. But no one calls it the "Grand Contraband Camp" anymore. They call it Hampton University.

Contraband camps were the focus of the push for the 14th and 15th Amendments defining citizenship, due process, and the right to vote. They invented the American education system we know today. Harriot, who is black, looked at the current political situation and asked, what if we again stole ourselves? What if we build a camp? What if black people declared independence from white thought and permission? So Harriot is announcing the building of a new online Contraband Camp, to open when Biden’s term ends. And with that it sounds like he is leaving Twitter. Malcolm Nance, writing on Substack, has recommendations to resist the coming tyranny. He came up with these through studying the French Resistance in WWII. Nazi Germany invaded Luxembourg, Netherlands, Belgium, and France on May 10, 1940. The three little countries were taken over within days, France capitulated after a month. Well, the French government capitulated. A large number of citizens resisted, organized, and fought back. We in America now face tyrannical rule. Even though only 31% of the electorate voted for the nasty guy, we must assume he will use all available powers, including the military, for evil. But we don’t have to and cannot wait until this evil begins. We can start resisting now. Choose a Resistance Posture. Secret or public? Either way it should be bland until you need to be openly defiant. The regime wants us swamped with disinformation and conspiracy theories. News media may participate. So help to collect and disseminate high quality news. Don’t be fooled by the lies. Pay your taxes. Don’t give the regime a reason to attack you. Law enforcement may see the tyrant will protect them. They may see abusing citizens as lawful. Be as careful interacting with officers as a black man needs to be. Do not argue or debate with a MAGA person. Just don’t. The nasty guy has perfected the simple slogans and his followers consider liberals to be “wordy.” So when you must interact with MAGA people ditch the logic and simple language. Example: “Trump is a tyrant.” Get off corporate social media and scrub your history. They own everything you posted there. Bluesky is not corporate owned. There are apps to transfer to it. Talk to your friends in person, not through social media, text, DM, or video chat. There is no corporate record and is actually beneficial to a relationship. Do not engaged in violent protests. If you own a gun keep it locked away and use it only in a direct threat (and know your local laws). The regime wants a violent response because that gives them extra permission to outviolence you. Be prepared for the economic hardship the nasty guy has been promising. Stock up if you can. Keep track of your family. If your resistance profile is defiant, put the number of a good lawyer on your phone. “Politically, no one is coming to your rescue in a dictatorship. You are your own Calvary.” Nance said in the opening that the French Resistance started as individuals that soon organized. He didn’t say anything in his suggestions for us. However, I see that as where our power will come from. Then it becomes “We are our own Calvary.” Back to that bit about getting off social media. I wonder if that includes this blog. It is hosted by Blogger, which is owned by Google. They’re not great with social responsibility. Perhaps I should stop writing and even delete all 5373 posts? One reason why I’m reluctant to destroy all that work (I do have copies on my computer) is in the last week there have been over 2000 views of this blog with 28% from Singapore and 16% from Hong Kong, both with restrictive or authoritarian governments. There are even a few readers in Russia. I hope my writings help them.

White people’s beliefs have value

Before the election the nasty guy frequently said he knew nothing about Project 2025. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported he has “nominated at least seven people who either directly contributed to the document or who promoted it” with more people on the short list for other positions. Howard Lutnick, the nasty guy’s co-chair of his transition, had said Project 2025 is too “radioactive” for any of its people to be nominated for the cabinet. Lutnick is now the nominee for the Department of Commerce. The nominees from Project 2025: + Russ Vought wrote the chapter on how the president can amass more power by purging federal employees who are insufficiently loyal. His also a Christian nationalist. He is nominated for the director of the Office of Management and Budget. + Brendan Carr, currently an FCC commissioner, wrote the chapter on the FCC. He is nominated to be the FCC chair. + Tom Homan is listed as a contributor to Project 2025. He was a part of the inhumane family separation policy in the nasty guy’s first term. He’s nominated to be the border czar. I don’t think that’s currently a job title. + John Ratcliffe was director of national intelligence in the first term. He is a Project 2025 contributor. He’s nominated to head the CIA. The nasty guy praised him for “telling the truth” about Hunter Biden’s laptop. + Pete Hoekstra is currently the chair of the Republican Party in Michigan. He took over after the previous chair, a MAGA person who made a mess of things. So he’s seen as the calm establishment guy. Yet, he is listed as a Project 2025 contributor. He’s nominated to be ambassador to Canada. + Karoline Leavitt was a campaign spokesperson and is nominated for White House press secretary. She appeared in a Project 2025 training video to discuss how a loyalist should navigate working for the federal government. + James Braid worked as deputy chief of staff for JD Vance’s Senate office. He starred in Project 2025 videos on how to get its agenda through Congress. He’ll be the liaison to Congress to get the agenda passed. Not counted in the nominees and new hires is Vance, who is only one step away from Project 2025. The head of the project wrote a book and Vance wrote the foreword. So what’s this about the nasty guy knowing nothing about Project 2025? A week ago an Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the nasty guy named several nominees for financial, health, and national security positions. I’m interested in only one of them, the guy nominated for Treasury Secretary. He’s Scott Bessent. He’s of interest because he’s gay, with a husband and children. The AP article also says he is closely aligned with Wall Street. Because of that he’s seen as a “safe” pick. He is also an advocate for deficit reduction and he has said that means slashing government programs while in favor of extending tax cuts for the rich. This guy has made a big change. He had donated to Al Gore’s presidential run and worked for George Soros, a big supporter of Democrats. At some point he switched to supporting and advising the nasty guy. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a quote I found worth mentioning. It is by Mark Hertling of The Bulwark:

The inculcation of personal values, or the understanding of organizational values and values-based decision making, are not as prevalent as they may need to be. I’ve taught values-based leadership and decision-making to healthcare professionals and MBA students. When I begin teaching each class, I ask, “What are your personal values, and do they align with your organization’s stated values?” Every time, I’m met with mostly blank stares. The same seems to be true in government. A few years ago, I was discussing some issue or another with a member of Congress. I asked him why he held a particular position on the issue, and he responded, “Because I support American values.” When I asked which specific value that policy was connected to, he couldn’t name one.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme:

Nasty guy: Elon you can’t sit there! Elon: It’s my presidency. I bought it!

Much further down is a Twonks cartoon with the caption “Freak out your new neighbors” and shows packing boxes labeled with such things as bowling balls, bagpipes, tap shoes, fireworks, crossbows, and crocodile food. Back in the middle of October Michael Harriot wrote a thread about “Race as an Economic Construct.” We’ve heard that race is a social construct and he wrote most social constructs are economic constructs. Most non-white school districts are underfunded. Some say it’s partly due to schools being funded by property taxes and a home in a black neighborhood is worth $48K less than the same home in a white neighborhood. So those schools there get less money. The big question: Why haven’t we fixed this? We as a society have agreed that black children are less valuable. It’s the only explanation. Through our history if there’s a problem we wanted to solve we did it. We’re not even trying to fix this one. Now think in terms of effort and return on effort. One would work a bit extra for a big boost in pay. But what if that increase went to your child and not you? What if it went to a child you didn’t know? Would you still work extra if the increase went to a black child? Harriot turned to belief economics. White people’s beliefs have value. The nasty guy made white people believe immigration was a big problem, when unauthorized immigration is down. Same with the economy, same with crime. White people think crime is getting worse when it is dropping. But white fixes to crime harm black people. Politicians and media focus on white people’s beliefs and not black people’s reality.

The far right media apparatus won’t let them know

While Sister and Niece were here for Thanksgiving yesterday I asked Niece where she gets her news. I asked because I’ve seen and written about articles saying where one gets their news correlated highly with how one voted. Niece says she ignores news as much as she can. When she feels she must know about an event she turns to the BBC for the British take on what Americans are doing. Or she checks out a Korean or other east Asian news source (she likes east Asian culture). If that still isn’t enough she turns to a service I think she called Ground that categorizes articles on how far to the left or right they are and puts that designation at the top of the article. I think it is wise for her to get her news in the way she does. Last Sunday I wrote about an article by John Stoehr, writing for his Editorial Board in which he disputed the idea that people who voted for the nasty guy would blame him for the damage he does to the economy. I summarized one of Stoehr’s points in part by saying, “the far right media apparatus won’t let them know...” On Wednesday Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reported that nasty junior talked to podcast host Michael Knowles, saying that the nasty guy was planning to install some conservative podcasters into the White House press briefing room. Though I shouldn’t have to, I’ll say it anyway, these are guys like Knowles and Joe Rogan who are strong supporters of the nasty guy. To make room for them nasty junior said that press passes for some traditional media would have to be revoked, “That's going to blow up some heads.” Breeden discussed an obvious problem with that – podcasters are not journalists and don’t have to (and won’t) adhere to any journalistic standards. While journalists in traditional media have varying standards, depending on the corporation behind them, at least they have some standards. Another big issue is we won’t know who is funding the podcasters. There was a case in September where far right influencers were found to unknowingly be funded by Russia. Those podcasters with direct access to the White House may not have any journalistic standards and may be funded by America’s enemies. The far right media apparatus won’t let us know what is really going on. Yesterday, Mark Sumner, Kos Emeritus, discussed the “joke” from Elon Musk that now that Comcast is spinning off MSNBC into a separate company Musk talked about buying it. Comcast is shedding several networks along with MSNBC. Comments on Musk’s X joked about Rachel Maddow being replaced by Joe Rogan. To think about what that would do to MSNBC one need only look at what Musk did to Twitter in turning it into X, a haven for far right trolls.

Musk is signaling that he has the limitless resources and unchecked power to purchase and shutter any outlet he believes represents a threat to Donald Trump or the incoming array of kleptocrats. He can not only silence perceived critics, he can do it on a whim. What Musk is suggesting is known as "media capture," and it's a common practice among authoritarian governments everywhere.

This is at a time when the right has media outlets at every level and is always available. There is no progressive media. The recent election showed how uninformed and misinformed many Americans already are. Yeah, conservatives like to decry PBS and NPR and other outlets as too liberal. But they still hold to the idea of “balanced” coverage that can leave lies unchallenged. These “centrist” news outlets skew right to avoid being seen as favoring the left. Notice how critical they were of Biden and Harris while sanewashing the nasty guy.

It has been clear, from 2016 to date, that there is no statement Trump could make that would cause the media to genuinely hold him to account. There has never—not even on the days when a jury held that he had sexually assaulted a woman in a dressing room, or when another jury found him guilty on 31 felony counts—been a time when news outlets barraged Trump in the way they did Hillary Clinton in 2016 or Kamala Harris in 2024.

And this is before being purchased by Musk. Authoritarian regimes do not tolerate independent reporting. In 2019 international agencies identified four steps that regimes use to capture the media. Capture the media regulator. In America that is the Federal Communication Commission, which regulates radio, TV, and the internet. The nasty guy selected Brendan Carr, who wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC. He could revoke broadcast licenses that don’t parrot the administration. He could force Bluesky, the liberal haven from X, to reduce its content moderation. He could handle the lack of rural broadband with huge contracts with Musk’s Starlink. He could ignore the problems of Musk and other billionaires buying TV and radio stations. Control the public service broadcaster. For years Republicans have been reducing government funding for NPR and PBS. They could switch to controlling them – including programs for children. Use of state financing as a control tool. The drop in advertising has meant financial difficulties for newspapers as well as radio and TV stations that don’t have a deep-pocket owner. A lot of money could flow their way – if they’re willing to say the right things. Ownership control. Jeff Bezos may have spent $250 million on the Washington Post, but he spent twice that on one yacht, and he has several. Outlets owned by billionaires are ineffective in delivering news. They could easily switch to propaganda. Sumner listed a few possible headlines over the next few years. They haven’t happened – yet. Here’s a selection:

+ Fox News and Newsmax exclusively allowed on military bases + White House press conferences remove journalists under investigation for "treason" + Congress insists that Sesame Street include more Christian content

Sumner concluded:

America needs an opposition media. It needs one quickly. Unfortunately, there are no signs of that opposition emerging. Musk may be threatening to buy MSNBC, but in the meantime, the remainder of the media is signaling that they don't need to be captured — because they are willing to capitulate. This doesn’t mean the left should surrender. It just means that no one should expect the outlets that were unwilling to confront Trump when he was out of power, to stand up to him now that he has the backing of both Congress and the courts (and the money of Musk). We have to be our own heroes. Again.

The far right media apparatus won’t let them know. Crashing the economy with tariffs? Deporting millions whether or not they have citizenship? The fate of Ukraine and Gaza? The far right media apparatus won’t let them know. Hoomai29 of the Kos community wrote that Democrats should dump the Neoliberal economics that Reagan championed. The post begins with two wealth distribution charts. In France of 1760-90 the wealthiest ten percent of the population owned 60% of all wealth. In the US in 2016 that number is above 75%. The source is European Review of Economic History and the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances. The post then reviewed what Joseph Stiglitz says what 40 years of neoliberalism has given us: unprecedented inequality, stagnation of those with middle income and lost ground from those at the bottom, and declining life expectancy (including “deaths of despair”). Biden and Harris distanced themselves from neoliberalism but they didn’t rebuke it. General economy boosting measures that do not put more money in the pockets of the poor is killing the American Dream and killed Democrats’ chances at an American rebirth. Morgan Stephens of Kos reported several stories of various people who, after the election, are posting that they decided they will not visit MAGA relatives for the holidays. They are “defiantly speaking out about feeling betrayed by family and friends.” One mother said she will stay with her daughter, worried about birth control, and a trans son, who is a political target. A trans man in Colorado won’t go to Texas for the holidays and is considering whether to completely cut the relationship. One said you voted for a racist, a person who is taking away women’s and gay rights, so you’re not my friend. Fox News host Jesse Watters said he was disinvited by his Democratic mother. Another said they won’t unwrap gifts from people who voted for a party that talked about mass deportation. One said her relatives may come, though she’ll use “my special recipe of sarcasm, dark humor, and a heaping scoop of female rage.”

Those who voted for Trump have argued that “politics” shouldn’t come between friendships or family. But those who are choosing to cut ties aren’t buying it.

In 2016 people didn’t know if the nasty guy meant what he said. This time they do and some people are upset that family voted for him anyway. What the nasty guy and Republicans are saying feel like personal attacks. Vulnerable people aren’t able to stay in contact with family that voted to harm them. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted a tweet by Steven Dennis:

Looks like Democrats will end up ~7500 votes short of winning the House majority across three districts. That's the difference between having the power of the purse, subpoenas etc — or not — in a nation of 330+ million.

Dworkin added:

It’s not just a 220-215 House with a narrower margin than this year by one seat. Without Matt Gaetz (resignation), Elise Stefanik (headed to the UN) and likely National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, it’s essentially a 217-215 House until spring. Sounds manageable, eh? What could go wrong?

Dworkin also quoted Dave Wasserman:

Pretty amazing that the House (likely 220R-215D) would have flipped to Dems this year while the White House/Senate flipped to the GOP, had it not been for Rs winning a majority on the NC Supreme Court in 2022, allowing GOP legislators to redraw three Dem seats into oblivion.

In the comments Mike Luckovich has a cartoon of a Thanksgiving feast. At one end of the table they’re all wearing red and at the other they’re all wearing blue. The gap between is big enough that the father needs a megaphone to ask for the potatoes. A cartoon by Mickey Hodges shows a woman on the phone saying, “I’m making my Thanksgiving guest list. How did you vote?”

Who do I need to be worried about and angry at?

My Thanksgiving Day was quiet. Sister and Niece came for the afternoon and our meal did not require a lot of cooking. We sat and talked. And that was enough. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos discussed the many ways immigrants, frequently undocumented, supplied our Thanksgiving table. That includes, but is not limited to, the apples in our pie, the cheese in our mac and cheese, the green beans in our casserole, the mashed potatoes, and even the turkey. These workers are essential to our holiday meal (and every meal). They are under threat of deportation by the nasty guy and his minions. But because they are undocumented they are exploited, even as they are essential. I heard about half of an episode of the NPR show Hidden Brain at the end of September. I looked for it online, but something strange with the website kept me from finding it until recently. The episode is Sitting with Uncertainty. It is a conversation between host Shankar Vetantam and Dannagal Goldthwaite Young of the University of Delaware and the author of Wrong, How Media, Politics and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation. The first part of the episode shows that Young does not deal well with uncertainty. An example is when she and her husband Mike went to Hawaii and her luggage never got on the plane in Newark. Mike said, we’ll buy some clothes here. But Young was mentally stuck worrying about the missing luggage. Later Mike developed a brain tumor. He had surgery and it came back. That prompted Young to try to figure out why – which led her down conspiracy theory rabbit holes. She was angry and needed to know who to direct her anger towards. She could not understand this was a random event. As a university researcher Young was studying how people deal with uncertainty. As part of that she studied how people coped with ambiguity. She said:

People who have a high tolerance for ambiguity tend to be really comfortable with situations that are uncertain and unpredictable. They're really okay with change. They don't need a lot of routine in their world. They can be spontaneous and it doesn't stress them out. And people who are high in need for closure are quite the opposite. They really prefer routine and order and structure and predictability in their lives, in their interactions, and in their sort of physical environments.

Researchers are able to measure tolerance for ambiguity through a series of statements. If a person agrees with one set of statements they have a high tolerance for ambiguity. If they agree with another they have a high need for closure. Conspiracy theories take hold because a person who needs closure wants a quick explanation for a crisis event caused by a complex situation. Related to tolerance for ambiguity is a need for cognition. This is an enjoyment of thinking for the sake of thinking. Such people are less persuaded by emotional appeals. They want information and evidence they can analyze. A person who likes to think is one who has time to think, which means they aren’t constantly scanning their environment for threats. This affects our perceptions of art. Do you enjoy abstract art or realistic art? Do you want stories with a tidy ending or one where you can interpret the ending? Do you like improvisatory jazz or predictable pop music? Back to those constantly scanning their environment. Young said:

For people who are high-threat monitors, they are all about survival in the face of threat, and it's on their mind all the time. What serves these people best is making decisions quickly and efficiently based on heuristics, emotions, intuition, and shortcuts. That is what causes them to have this lower need for cognition. It's not that they can't, it's that it doesn't make sense for them based on their sort of psychophysiological predispositions. Similarly, these are folks who, because they're monitoring for threat, of course they're going to want to be in situations that are highly certain, ordered, predictable. They're not going to be very high in tolerance for ambiguity because that exposes them to threat.

When a threat is imminent one doesn’t want to take a lot of time to think through options. One needs decisive action. In other situations thinking through a situation is better. Both types of people have advantages in some situations and disadvantages in others. Different types of problems have different types of solutions Young did research into acceptance of transgender people. A need for closure is associated with negative opinions of transgender people. A person who needs a yes-no answer has a hard time with in-between things, such as transgender people. Young provides a long explanation on why people with a high need for cognition enjoy satire and irony and those with a low tolerance for ambiguity do not. In contrast, many shows, mostly conservative, emphasize outrage. It identifies threats, explains them clearly and in an emotional way, and it tends towards slippery slope language. When these shows are not conservative the level of outrage is much lower. Young said:

These traits of tolerance for ambiguity and need for cognition, they do cluster on the social and cultural left. And their opposites do cluster on the social and cultural right. And so to the extent that the people who are making these shows are of those ideological groups, and to the extent that they're trying to activate and appeal to audiences who are also of those ideological groups, then naturally, we're going to see these traits sort of manifest in the kinds of content that they create. You have Fox News very much in the spirit of Limbaugh, with their opinion hosts, really appealing to people who are driven by a need for closure, threat monitoring, and who are really just seeking to know, who do I need to be worried about and angry at, and what do I need to do?

We don’t recognize those on the other side think differently than we do. We just call them extreme. Part of why that happens is our media uses our political identities as shortcuts to activate our outrage. A society with a high need for cognition might be a society high in art and innovation, but could be attacked and conquered quickly. A society with a low need for cognition might be super safe, but not have much art or innovation. We need both. We who think one way should not demonize the other. Today’s pundit roundup for Kos has a couple good cartoons in the comments. Of course, there are several cartoons about Thanksgiving. After that, one by Dennis Gorlis is a commentary on the nasty guy’s cabinet picks. Two elephants are talking:

First: What do we do about the nominees who can’t pass background checks? Second: Can’t fail the test you don’t take! First: I like the way you think.

A cartoon by Nick Anderson shows the nasty guy walking a dog. The dog is labeled “DOGE (Department of Groveling to Elon)”