No recordings, no paperwork, no oversight

Eli Hager, in an article for ProPublica posted on Daily Kos, reported the full story of what happened when the Department of Government Efficiency (remember DOGE?) came to the Social Security Administration. Much of that story comes from Leland Dudek, who was the SSA administrator for about four months last winter and spring. The story opens with Dudek posting a scroll 4 feet by 20 feet on the wall. In tiny print and diagrams it describes what SSA does. But that’s not yet entirely reflected in the agency’s computer systems. The SSA is 90 years old. It’s software dates back to the 1980s and has more than 60 million lines of code. Many things are still done on paper. It has been talking of upgrades for two decades without it happening. So when DOGE called for efficiency and the elimination of waste and promised IT whiz kids to make it happen Dudek thought great, bring it on. Except the other part DOGE called for was the elimination of fraud. And that was much louder than all other goals. Every little discrepancy these green kids found was taken as fraud and blown into a scandal – see the stories of 120 year old people turned into dead people still collecting SS.

They could have worked to modernize Social Security’s legacy software, the current and former staffers say. They could have tried to streamline the stupefying volume of documentation that many Social Security beneficiaries have to provide. They could have built search tools to help staff navigate the agency’s 60,000 pages of policies. (New hires often need at least three years to master the nuances of even one type of case.) They could have done something about wait times for disability claims and appeals, which often take over a year. They did none of these things.

Every time Dudek tried to work around his bosses, which were people at the White House, he would get a call reminding him what he was really supposed to be doing, which was not to make the SSA better. He realized the problem wasn’t the DOGE kids, it was the senior leaders. One example was the SSA Office of Transformation, which had been starting the work of modernizing the SSA systems. He was told the office was wasteful and to cut it. So he started acting the part that the White House wanted, while trying to push what would actually help the SSA. About all that did was make him unemployable after he was forced out. And the turmoil frightened many of the people who depend on their SS checks. It also made their experience working SSA agents on the phone and in person worse. The only good thing is that SS benefits are still being paid. So far. Maria Godoy of NPR discussed the release of Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy. It has 100 recommendations for improving children’s health. Some of the points are good, things like promoting exercise and fitness and teaching good nutrition. But there are also not good things, such as studying the root causes of autism (which aren’t the things he wants to prove) and producing a new vaccine framework (when there is nothing wrong with the old one). There are also loopholes, such as calling on the reduction of unsafe food additives while letting food companies determine the safety and while specifying no penalties for using additives known to be harmful. And there are contradictions, such as calling for fresh local produce in schools after the administration canceled the program that did just that. Leila Fadel of NPR continued the conversation with Barry Popkin, professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina. Popkin said yes, children’s health is bad. An example is the type of diabetes usually only seen in older adults is now seen in children and teens. But this list does nothing to fix that bad health. “It’s all promises but no teeth.” It’s all about “research, exploration, consideration, but nothing about any regulation or law to mandate change.” Nothing will happen, or at least nothing after Kennedy leaves office.

And you can see that, really, that the food and agriculture sectors that really profit highly from the ultra-processed food they're selling to our children and killing them at the same time, really have gotten to the government so that they had nothing in this document that will lead to any meaningful regulation, law or guideline that will improve America's health.

One thing that would help the health of children is money ffor school food programs that pay for eliminating ultra-processed foods and regulation to require it. But that won’t happen. Alix Breeden of Kos adds a bit more:

According to Marion Nestle, New York University professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health, the report doesn’t have much substance. “The report seems to twist itself into knots to make it clear that it will not be infringing upon food companies,” Nestle said in an email to NBC News. “MAHA has so much bipartisan support. This was the time to regulate food marketing to kids — not ‘explore.’” She went on to say that the report is “short of specifics and weak on regulatory actions,” echoing a similar sentiment from professionals when the preliminary report leaked.

At the bottom of the article is a quote from Kennedy:

We had lots of guns when we were kids. Kids brought guns to school and were encouraged to do so. And nobody was walking into schools and shooting people. There are many things that could explain this. One is the dependence on psychiatric drugs.

I’m pretty sure my student handbook for high school said that a student caught with a gun at school would be expelled. I never saw a gun at school (or anywhere else, though I didn’t go into the town gun shop because my family didn’t hunt). I never heard of a bring your gun to school day. So I rate his first two sentences as false. That bit about nobody shooting people in schools is true. We didn’t practice lockdowns and didn’t need to. But at the time the rate of gun ownership was quite low. At the ending of this quote is Kennedy trying to link psychiatric drugs given to students with school gun deaths? The kids aren’t doing the killing. Fadel spoke to reporter Adrian Florido about the recent Supreme Court order that lifted the temporary order that banned ICE from doing aggressive immigration sweeps in Los Angeles. The order was brief, unsigned, and included no reasoning, meaning it was from the shadow docket. The order means ICE can resume targeting people based solely on skin color, accent, and occupation; what the ACLU called blatant racial profiling. Florido said:

In a concurrence, Justice Brett Kavanaugh cited an estimate that 10% of LA's population is undocumented and said race can be relevant when agents are determining whether they suspect someone is in the country illegally. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent. And she wrote, quote, “we should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low-wage job.”

A reminder that Sotomayor is Latina. There is an underlying court case. The lower court said these sweeps cannot happen while the case proceeds. The Supremes said the sweeps can. And the order will probably affect what ICE does in Chicago and other cities. Fadel and Steve Inskeep then spoke to Sarah Isgur, editor of SCOTUSblog, who recently interviewed Justice Amy Coney Barrett about the shadow docket. A Supreme Court case takes time to read through the briefings, hold oral arguments, and write the opinions. That takes several months to a year or two. The purpose of the emergency (shadow) docket is what should the law be between now and when the case is officially decided. Even so this can have permanent effects that can not reversed even if the eventual decision goes the other way. An example is a person deported now. Other examples are everything the nasty guy does through executive order, such as whether he can fire the head of the Federal Trade Commission. A problem is the orders are not explained and they usually (almost always?) favor the nasty guy. These orders leave lower courts caught between previous Supreme precedents and what these order say. This post includes a bit of that Barrett interview. She admits the emergency docket does not allow the justices to think about the issue, there is less information, and no time for reasoned opinions. Isgur says these nine people don’t really know how to handle the emergency docket and with the start of their term next month they’re going to be hit with a lot of cases coming from all those executive orders, cases like can the president invoke tariffs or fire a Federal Reserve governor. Another issue is what should be the status quo. The emergency docket is supposed to protect the status quo while the case is being decided. Is the status quo what was in effect before the president took office? Or, as the nasty guy’s team claims (and has Biden’s team claimed before them), since he is voted in by the people and is there only four years should his orders be status quo? Lisa Needham of Kos added her take on the Supreme Court orders.

The now familiar 6-3 lineup at the United States Supreme Court just threw out decades of settled law so that President Donald Trump’s roving bands of masked federal agents in Los Angeles can engage in a little light racial profiling, as a treat, and can continue scooping up people based on nothing more than looking Latino, speaking Spanish, and working at a low-wage job like a car wash. You know the drill. A lower-court judge wrote a detailed, thoughtful, lengthy opinion about how this practice was 100% racial profiling and ordered the government to stop doing it. The Trump administration ran to the Supreme Court to say that the world would crumble if they couldn’t racially profile brown people in Los Angeles right away, and the Supreme Court obliged by staying the lower court’s order. That stay prevents the lower court’s order from going into effect, so federal agents can continue this straight-up racist, unconstitutional behavior. ... Does arresting or detaining people for no reason at all violate the Fourth Amendment’s requirement that probable cause is required to search or seize someone? It sure does! If a police officer wants to stop someone on the street and search them, they have to have a level of reasonable suspicion about that particular person, such as believing they are armed and about to commit a crime. Law enforcement officers have to be able to justify stopping specific people based on specific concerns rather than being able to stop whole groups of people based on shared characteristics. ... Justice Sonia Sotomayor pulled no punches, even refusing to engage in the faux-civility of the tradition of saying “I respectfully dissent.” Nope, here it is just “I dissent.” While that may seem like a nerdy, legalistic, tiny thing to focus on, in the context of how the justices communicate with one another through their opinions, it’s Sotomayor saying the actions and reasoning—or lack thereof—of her colleagues are not worthy of respect.

Needham also reported some of the ICE ways of doing business have changed for the worse. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says ICE agents are facing assaults (what the rest of us would consider freedom of speech). Filming of ICE agents isn’t allowed. No Supreme Court ruling has said one way or the other, though numerous state courts have rules that is a protected right. ICE agents used to be required to document the specific person they want to arrest, giving lots of details, and getting supervisor approval. Now they just arrest who they please. DHS is blocking members of Congress from doing their ICE facility oversight duties without prior approval, while the law says approval can’t be required. And DHS has shut down the oversight office, freezing 500 civil rights cases.

No recordings, no paperwork, no oversight. DHS is systematically eliminating every way we have to keep tabs on law enforcement to ensure that Trump’s immigration crackdown, no matter how illegal or violent, can’t be stopped.

In Tuesday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Politico:

The justices, who apparently divided 6-3 along ideological lines, put on hold a federal district judge’s order that reined in what critics called “roving” raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That judge had found the tactics were likely unconstitutional because agents were detaining people without probable cause at car washes, bus stops and Home Depot parking lots based on stereotypes. The high court’s majority offered no explanation for its decision to grant the Trump administration’s emergency appeal to block the district judge’s order. However, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote separately in support of the decision, saying it was reasonable to briefly question people who meet multiple “common sense” criteria for possible illegal presence — including employment in day labor or construction, and limited English proficiency.

That little bit about “common sense” is partly why Sotomayor lost respect for the decision. In the comments Matt Davies posted a cartoon titled “Supreme Court guide to use of race in admission:” Over the entrance to a university is “Not OK.” Over the doors of an ICE detention van is “OK.” David Wolfe tweeted, “Children are born perfect without the need for toxic injections. Once vaccinated, the brain and body are harmed forever.” Dr. Neil Stone, infectious diseases doctor, responded, “Before vaccines, 1 in 5 kids never made it to their first birthday.” I add: What’s the evidence that the brain and body of an infant are harmed? Every vaccine must document they aren’t harmful to the vast number of people who take them. Acyn tweeted a quote from the vice nasty, “The bad news is...one of the pollsters once told me, anger usually wins midterm elections and because we done so much of what we said we are going to do, people are angry.” Gavin Newsom responded: “JD Vance admits he policies are wildly unpopular on national television.” In the comments of Wednesday’s roundup is a meme by Dan Pfeiffer,

There are only two possibilities – John Roberts is so afraid of a constitutional crisis that he will give Trump everything he wants, or Roberts is 100% in on the MAGA project to destroy our democracy.

Or both? Way down in the comments is a cartoon by the Naked Pastor. Under a banner saying these are the “Lost sayings of Jesus” Jesus is talking to a group of women. “Beware when men write something and claim it is inspired by God, for then you can’t dispute it.”

A law trapped in amber

Last September Anna Liz Nichols of Michigan Advance wrote about “gay panic” as a defense used by those who committed violence against an LGBTQ person. It was in the news then because the Michigan House began hearings on banning its use. Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, who is bisexual, is leading the effort. Pohutsky said this defense is based on LGBTQ people being considered inherently less human. Research out of St. Edward’s University found that 104 cases across 35 states attempted to use a “gay panic” defense between 1970 to 2020. Yeah, that’s only about two cases a year (which is still too many). Michigan had four cases and ranked sixth among the states. Examples of gay panic are an 18 year old getting bludgeoned to death when her attacker realized she had male anatomy. A 15 year old boy wore a dress and heels to class and the next day was shot in front of other students. That the “panic” happened the next day is one of the absurd parts of its use. Back in 2013 the American Bar Association asked federal, state, and local governments to ban the use of the “gay panic” defense. Even so the majority of states still allow its use. That article was posted before the House voted to approve the ban. Yesterday, Jon King of Michigan Advance reported that it did pass the House, though King didn’t say how long ago. It passed with a vote of 56-53 along party lines. King wrote about it because it has now passed the Senate, 24-14, and included four Republicans joining all the Democrats. The bill now must return to the House for one more vote, then on to Gov. Whitmer for her expected signature. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that Moody’s Analytics analyzed the economic plans of both Biden and the nasty guy. It tempered its forecasts with “and can implement his plans.” Then it went on to say under Biden inflation would drop below 2% and the economy would continue steady growth. Under the nasty guy and because of his plans for mass deportation there would be a sharp increase in inflation and interest rates, followed by depressed growth and a recession next year. That would happen because mass deportation would choke a labor market that’s already tight. Disrupting immigrant lives would be especially hard on agriculture, leading to food shortages and high food prices. One reason for this analysis is Florida is already trying it. Republicans limited immigrant workers on farms that are now unable to get the help they need. Sumner concluded:

This is just one more area where it seems like the choice should be blindingly obvious. And that’s before even considering the other effects, like the damage done by tearing apart immigrant families and destroying environmental progress.

Sumner also reported on current campaign fundraising in May. Biden did quite well, pulling in $60 million. The nasty guy pulled in $141 million, $53 million on just one day after his conviction. The nasty guy’s haul didn’t come entirely from the little people enamored with him. One check of $50 million came from Tim Mellon, whose wealth is in banking and was begun three generations back. Mellon also donated another $25 million to the nasty guy and $25 million to RFK Jr. That means he may be the first person in history to donate $100 million in one election cycle. There was also a $10 million check from Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein. Their money comes from beer and also began three generations back. That means neither one of these families has experience with why people are poor, so their comments about the poor are rather stupid. Yet, their donations to the nasty guy are a pretty big bribe for him to trash the already shaky social safety net. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos has yet another post on all the Ten Commandments the nasty guy has violated, even though he say how much he loves them. In the comments of a pundit roundup by Greg Dworkin for Kos are a few good cartoons and memes. Phil Hands has Ten Commandments by the nasty guy for Christians who support him. A few of them:

1. Thou shalt have no other politicians before me. 4. Remember my Supreme Court nominees and keep them holy. 7. Thou shalt not admit adultery.

Rambler797 posted a tweet by Thomas Horrocks with a quote by Kurt Vonnegut that essentially asks why the commandments of Moses and not the Beatitudes of Jesus? These are the verses that include “Blessed are the merciful,” and “Blessed are the peacemakers.” exlrrp posted a meme showing when it gets really hot in New York City, as it is now, the Statue of Liberty drops the robe and stands there in her bikini. And way down in the comments is a tweet by Jane of the North showing a woman holding a protest sign that says, “‘He who hath not a uterus should shut the fucketh up.’ ~Fallopians 13:13” For my non Christian readers, the Bible doesn’t have that book but it does have a book with the name “Philippians.” Now back to one of the pundits. Dworkin quoted CNN writing about the Supreme Court upholding the ban on domestic abusers having guns.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative who has been raising concerns about the Supreme Court’s approach on history in recent cases, penned a brief concurrence criticizing how some lower courts were looking for near-identical historical gun laws when examining modern regulations. “Imposing a test that demands overly specific analogues has serious problems,” Barrett wrote. “It forces 21st-century regulations to follow late-18th-century policy choices, giving us ‘a law trapped in amber.’”

Dworkin added:

Amy Coney Barrett is clearly the sharpest of the court’s conservatives. I would not be surprised to see her as Chief Justice some day. That’s an observation, not an endorsement.

Enough of that guy. Let’s talk about his opponent. Sumner wrote that one of Biden’s greatest achievements is one no one knows about. I’ll try to summarize. Back in 2020 as the economy was heading into recession and the highest unemployment rate in 90 years the nasty guy went to Saudi Arabia and demanded they cut production to keep oil prices up. When Biden took office prices rose sharply as renewed demand outpaced supply. In 2022, as Russia began to be sanctioned, Biden went to Saudi Arabia to ask them to keep the oil flowing. They refused. The US is both the world’s largest oil producer and has the largest reserves. And Biden was able to manipulate the reserves. He released oil to counteract the price surge from Russia’s war, then bought back reserves and made a profit for the US treasury. And for US oil companies. Who look to be supporting the nasty guy. Back at the start of the month Dartagnan of the Kos community reported that Biden’s 200th and 201st nominees for the federal judiciary had been confirmed. That’s a lot of nominees (though there are still seats to fill). It also means Biden has nominated and gotten confirmed more black women to Courts of Appeal than all prior presidents combined. While the nasty guy’s appointments were 65% white men, Biden’s appointments have been just 13% white men. This article doesn’t say the number of LGBTQ people appointed, also much larger than before. Biden said, “Judges matter.” They can uphold basic rights or roll them back. Over the last four years (and longer than that) we can see judges are not totally objective and unbiased. The difference between judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans have been stark. Alito, Thomas, and district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed by Republicans, routinely make the news. The headlines are about denying rights and often are abrupt departure from law or precedent. But judges should not be making news. They should be upholding laws and the Constitution. And the ones appointed by Democrats don’t seek or attain notoriety. Dartagnan then reviewed how much judges and justices have strayed from that job into having the only goal of upholding Republican goals and domination.

So it’s important that Americans appreciate what Biden has done. He has nominated judges not simply to correspond to the racial demographics in this country, and not simply to give more deference and representation to women, though he’s done both of these things. More importantly, he is appointing jurists whose vocation is to simply apply the law fairly, not in the service of some radical dogma they feel they must adhere to. Put simply, Biden is appointing judges who are doing their jobs. And that’s a very, very good thing.

Why is the president different when the Impeachment Clause doesn't say so?

The nasty guy’s claim to total immunity was before the Supreme Court this week. Nina Totenberg of NPR has a basic description of how the oral arguments went. Justices appear skeptical of blanket immunity. That’s good. So the question is what kinds of acts get immunity and what kinds don’t. Gorsuch said. “We're writing a rule for the ages.” I’ll come back to that. Other questions and statements were about: What if a guy leaving office is prosecuted by his successor? It might keep him from making big decisions. I think I remember the nasty guy making that claim. They then turned to whether the break is between a public act and a private act. But that would allow a president to officially commit and act, like ordering the military to assassinate an opponent, the rest of us would call treason or murder. This NPR article included both what was heard on air and some background information. In the background info there is concerns that the Supremes will return the case to the lower court to sort out what is an official act (though we’ve already pointed out an “official” act can be a crime) and what isn’t. That would delay the underlying case of the nasty guy instigating the Jan 6 attack being a crime. The delay could put the case beyond the November election, after which, if elected, he could dismiss the case or pardon himself. The nasty guy’s lawyer claims that investigating election fraud in the 2020 election was an official act and thus he is immune. There is nothing in the Constitution about immunity and no court has recognized it. There is nothing in the Constitution to support the nasty guy’s claim that a former president cannot be prosecuted unless he’s been impeached and convicted. Keep in mind prior to the nasty guy this question was moot. NPR's A Martinez spoke with former federal prosecutor and Politico senior writer Ankush Khardori. This discussion included wrangling over which acts were private and which were not. Spreading knowingly false claims of election fraud is probably private. The liberal justices showed how absurd that distinction could be. Roberts said he wants to send the case back to the lower court so they can determine exactly which acts are being discussed. Which sounds like a wish to run out the clock. Totenberg looked at the background of the conservative justices for some insight.

Five of the six conservatives spent much of their lives as denizens of the Beltway. As young men, the five served in the White House and Justice Department, working for Republican presidents, often seeing their administrations as targets of unfair harassment by Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. You can hear echoes of those experiences in some of Thursday's questions about the conspiracy to defraud charge against Trump.

Kavanaugh worked for Bush II when the court upheld the now-defunct independent counsel law. Gorsuch’s mother was Reagan’s head of the EPA, put in that role to make sure nothing got done. She was cited for contempt of Congress. Alito was in senior Justice Department positions under Reagan. He said he was afraid that a president making a mistake would lead to prosecution. The government lawyer said mistakes don’t result in criminal prosecution. Roberts, as an aide to the Attorney General under Reagan was point man on political controversies. Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas had difficult Senate confirmation hearings (two of those included charges of sexual harassment or assault). Barrett is new to Washington, having spent her prior career in academia, at Notre Dame Law School. She challenged the claim the others were making.

"There are many other people who are subject to impeachment, including the nine sitting on this bench," Barrett said, adding that nobody has ever suggested that Supreme Court justices couldn't be criminally prosecuted. "So why is the president different when the Impeachment Clause doesn't say so?" she asked.

Jamess of the Daily Kos community discussed an interview between Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of the Justice Committee and Lawrence O’Donnell. Up at the top of this post I included a quote from Gorsuch: “We're writing a rule for the ages.” Jamess wrote this was the start of Whitehouse’s critique:

Gorsuch and his constructionist cohorts have forgotten what their role is — which is precisely to decide the question before them: Does former president Trump have Full Immunity or not? They are not supposed to legislate “new rules” from the bench — that’s the job of Congress. They are not supposed to “amend the Constitution” to correct the Founders’ omissions — that’s the role of the States and the Amendment Ratification process. The Supreme Court is supposed to decide on sticky-wicket cases before them; to rule for or against the rights being claimed and asserted. Their role is NOT to take every case as an opportunity to rewrite the Laws in their own conservative image.

The question should be simple. Democracy relies on this ruling. We cant afford more frivolous delays and endless deliberations.

The Founders did their best to escape an unaccountable monarchy. Now only to see the modern-day Trump-installed court, do their damndest to enable that next “self-proclaimed dictator, on day one.”

cheforacle of the Kos community proposed a hypothetical. This court has at least three justices that are corrupt. Kavanaugh has been accused of rape by multiple women. During his hearing he was contemptuous of the Democratic senators. Alito lied during his hearing about his opinion of Roe v. Wade and has received gifts from parties before the court. And Thomas has sugar daddy Harlan Crow and his wife was an insurrection instigator, yet he refuses to recuse. Add to that Roberts refusing to allow any outside tribunal look at ethics issues. So consider this scenario that Sotomayor, Jackson, or Kagan should have posed:

Biden concludes by saying this Court has become a threat to our democracy and without action “we’re gonna lose our country. If he demanded the mob go and “fight like hell” to save this country and during the subsequent fight at the Supreme Court building, the protestors, bearing pro-Biden signs and T-shirts kill 5 police officers (although one protestor wielding an An American flag was killed by a security member who was under attack from the masses). Would he be immunized from prosecution for sending that mob to the Court to stop a judicial hearing from taking place?

Commenter MutareParadigm wrote:

Well, if Presidents have total immunity for official acts, then President Biden could, theoretically, jail Trump as an official act on grounds of national security. You can bet your last dollar that Trump is already considering having any future opponents jailed this way if he becomes President again.

In a pundit roundup for Kos, Greg Dworkin quoted Jonathan Last of The Bulwark:

A few years ago my buddy Stuart Stevens wrote a book called It Was All a Lie. His thesis was that the dogma conservatives had professed for 60 years—the love of small government and free trade; the desire for robust foreign policy; the belief that character and accountability mattered—turned out not to be values but rationalizations. In Stuart’s view, conservatives had a bunch of groups they disfavored and then worked backwards to concoct an ideological framework to support these prejudices. No, not all conservatives. And maybe not on every single issue. But enough so that the generalization was generally fair. ... Yesterday the Supreme Court hinted that maybe conservative legal theory was always a lie, too.

Way down in the comments is a cartoon by Ivan Ehlers and posted by The New Yorker. It shows Thomas talking to Roberts: “We’re not giving him a free pass to do whatever he wants – we’re buying him time so he can get elected and then do whatever he wants.” Much further down in the comments is a cartoon posted by exlrrp and created by Stahler. It shows parents at a parent/teacher conference a bit open-mouthed. The teacher, holding an assault rifle, says, “Your daughter seems distracted in class.”

Quite the inspiration for Ukraine to keep fighting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To take everything away from the people they hate

I watched a couple short animation videos this afternoon. By short I mean 2 and 4 minutes. They were suggested by an article in Between the Lines, Michigan’s LGBTQ newspaper, as alternatives to Disney, who doesn’t seem to be good at LGBTQ characters and wasn’t so swift in their condemnation of Floridan’s new Don’t Say Gay law. The two minute video is Star-Fallen by Alex Tagali. Two men meet under the stars and fall in love. We then see bits of their life together. The four minute video is In a Heartbeat by Esteban Bravo and Beth David. A schoolboy sees the object of his crush and his heart bursts out of his chest to pull the two together. Since the person he has a crush on is another boy he is terrified by what his heart is doing. This article on The Guardian about the video, its makers, and how it went instantly viral includes the actual video. Kos of Daily Kos wrote that the Russian troops may have a solution to the war crimes in Bucha. That is to send their own soldiers who were witnesses to the front lines in Donbas in hopes they would be killed there. As for the rest of the troops in the Kyiv attack, they need time to recover (my guess is to recover – a bit – from PTSD). They are combat ineffective. But they probably will be sent straight into the Donbas fight where the ineffectiveness will have an effect on how well Russia does. It is April and with it comes the famous Ukrainian mud. Temps in Izyum (just east of Donbas) are ranging from the low 40s (F) overnight to mid 70s (F) during the day. With spring rains coming. Yes, mud will affect both sides, slowing down the battles. Kamil Galeev tweeted a thread about the second of three possible scenarios of Russia’s future. I wrote about the first one a while back. That’s the possibility that Russia becomes so isolated it becomes like North Korea. In this scenario Imperial Russia gets a reboot. While discussing that Galeev rambles a lot. In this scenario, like what Russia did in Donbas, those in charge act without any constraints. There is no law. The government is fully militarized. There is almost no private sector. One works for the government or one sheds blood for the military. Russia pretty much runs on oil exports and is running out of the cheap stuff. It also wants to stay highly militarized. That means it must reduce living standards and personal freedom. The destruction of the private sector because of sanctions can lead to Putin increasing his power. He has cash. Normal people won’t. While the West is distracted by Ukraine for the next 15-20 years the link between Russia and China could grow. A lot of Russians believe that since so many boys have already died we have to honor them by continuing to victory. They will refuse to believe their sons died for a criminal war. They won’t believe they were defeated by a former colony. So Putin, to stay in power, must keep attacking. In a war Russia has a lot more casualties than its opponent. Russian is tolerant of high numbers of dead. More accurately, older Russians are willing to sacrifice the youngsters. Those youngsters have a different opinion. There may be some liberal opposition to Putin, able to capitalize on Putin’s fall from public approval. But that “liberal” person may be just as imperialist as Putin. An imperial reboot. A new leadership with a cleansed reputation, but the same structure underneath that does not go through any reform. And that structure now puts a great deal of power in the hands on one person. Kentanji Brown Jackson has been confirmed by the Senate (53-47) to take a seat at the Supreme Court this summer when Stephen Breyer retires. Laura Clawson of Kos discussed a little bit at Jackson’s confirmation hearing when Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R) tried a gotcha question: “Can you define the word ‘woman’?” Jackson nearly sidestepped the question by saying, “No, I can’t. I’m not a biologist.” HuffPost then asked some Republicans that same gotcha question, starting with Blackburn. The senator said a woman is “Two X chromosomes.” Except it isn’t that simple – there are conditions in which a person with XY chromosomes is born with female equipment. A few other senators tried the double X answer. Others said “an adult female human.” Sen. Thom Tillis said his wife is a woman – which leaves us wondering which of her attributes make her a woman – does being a woman mean she gave birth to his children? Sen. Josh Hawley said it is someone with a uterus, but stumbled when asked what she is if she’s lost her reproductive organs to cancer. Clawson wrote:

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was adept enough to sidestep a Republican trap. But her response wasn’t just a dodge. It acknowledged the importance of science and expertise in accurately answering what might on the surface sound like a simple, straightforward question. That’s an admirable trait in a judge, or a Supreme Court justice.

Joan McCarter of Kos reported on a speech by Justice Amy Coney Barrett in which she said she and her conservative colleagues are not aiming to impose a “policy result.” Before judging what the conservatives on the court do Americans should read the opinions. Two days later the Supremes took a big action through the shadow docket. Which means there are no opinions to read. This particular shadowy action gutted a state’s ability to protect its own waters and it puts the Clean Water Act in jeopardy. Justice Kagan wrote the dissent, saying the shadow docket is for emergencies and there is no emergency here. This is such a misuse of power that Chief Justice John Roberts joined Kagan’s dissent. With that, wrote McCarter, the court’s legitimacy is lost. McCarter also discussed a report by Judd Legum that demonstrates how deep the Koch organization is in Russia. They are one of few Western countries still doing business there and the report calls for the US to deliver a partial “victory” to Russia. McCarter reported that about the time the Koch network stated its opposition to sanctions on Russia Congressional Republicans began to obstruct them. That’s probably not a coincidence. You too can be on the grand jury that proves Dr. Anthony Fauci should be prosecuted for genocide! It only costs $25! For $100 you can watch the prosecutors on Zoom and get an “American’s Grand Jury” hat. For $250 you also get the t-shirt! And for just $10K you can get the VIP treatment in Nashville where this trial will be held! Yeah, it is a way way to fleece the gullible. And it certainly is that. However, as David Neiwert of Kos reported, it is also a scary development in the anti-vaxx crowd. There is an American’s Grand Jury website and it does propose to put Fauci through a mock trial (not that he’ll be there) to show real grand juries there is enough evidence to really prosecute Fauci “and his bandits” (nope, there isn’t). The slated prosecutors in this mock trial are some of the top originators of anti-vaxx disinformation. Neiwert wrote:

But this operation is not about science. It’s about politics—the eliminationist politics of the far right. We know this because Fauci is only the first target. The organization’s website reveals that after they’re done putting Fauci “on trial” (scheduled for April 11-15), there will be upcoming trials: One for Hunter Biden this summer, and a third for Hillary Clinton in the fall. We’ve known for a while now that for the anti-vaxxer/anti-mandate/anti-mask crowd, the issue really isn’t about the pandemic or the disease—it’s about their hatred of liberal democratic governance and their intention of tearing it down at every turn and through every opening, even those they create themselves. It’s a far-right movement whose purpose is not to enhance “liberty,” as they claim, but rather to take everything away from the people they hate.

Neiwert concluded with a quote from Kavita Patel of MSNBC:

The playbook is clear: stoke fear, prey on vulnerable Americans, launch social media to promote lies and attack credible officials and repeat. In the process, these charlatans stand to profit or gain power as the subjects of their con suffer the consequences. The similarities between the campaign to discredit the 2020 election and the proliferation of ivermectin are clear—both resulted in needless death and the normalization of fear and misinformation.

That playbook is disturbingly effective. Max Boot introduced an opinion piece in the Washington Post with a tweet:

In today’s Republican Party, the primary economic role of the state is not to get out of the way. It is, instead, to reward friends and crush political enemies.

Leah McElrath tweeted about her older half-sister coming to see their mother, who is near death. McElrath and her daughter are LGBTQ. A nephew is trans. A bit of what she tweeted:

I knew I’d lost my sister due to Fox News, conspiracy theories, and born again Christianity—but I didn’t know how bad it was. ... I went to hug her, and she put her hands in front of her and growled, “Don’t touch me.” That was new. We’d never not at least hugged. ... My sister spent the entire visit talking about how everyone in the house was Satanic—but especially me—and how SHE is a Christian. ... She’ll likely never see our mother alive again. ... I wrote this because my sister is smart/educated. Yet, she cannot get enough of grievance and conspiracy fodder—and now literally thinks I’m Satan. Social structures will fail.

More of the same, but with a better outcome. Peter Doocy is the Fox News correspondent at the White House, known for his attempts to ask a gotcha question to get soundbite on his network’s programs. Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary is quite good at subverting his attempts. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported on Monday’s attempt. Doocy was referring to Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law when he asked, “At what age does the White House think that students should be taught about sexual orientation and gender?” Psaki described the bill as politicians in Florida propagating misinformed, hateful policies and that Biden was looking at whether the bill infringes on federal civil rights laws. Doocy tried again. Einenkel wrote:

At this point, Psaki is fed up with this dance of ignorance, and she cuts right to the chase: “Do you have examples of schools in Florida that are teaching kindergartners about sex education?” she asks. In response, Doocy sort of mumbles, “I’m just asking for the President’s opin—“ Psaki was having none of that. “Because I think that's a relevant question. Because I think this is a politically charged, harsh law that is putting parents and LGBTQ+ kids in a difficult, heartbreaking circumstance. I actually think that's a relevant question,” she fired back.

On to the next – someone else’s – question.

Any pattern to them other than as roadblocks

My performance group played our fourth and last Christmas concert this afternoon. It went well! We played at a big assisted living residence, so we were required to show our vaccine status when we arrived. For the size of the complex the attendance seemed small. Our equipment is now packed away until rehearsals resume the first week of January. Sen. Joe Manchin has been in the news – which seems to be his constant goal. On Friday Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported that a few Democratic senators, notably not ones on the left, have started discussing the filibuster. They haven’t agreed to end it, though they are talking about ways to make it harder. One idea is to force the filibustering party to actually continually hold the Senate floor. Another is to change needing 60 votes to end a filibuster to needing 41 votes to keep it going. Manchin is somewhat in favor of the reforms (his vote is critical, as it is for all things Democrats want to do). He seems to be convinced that the Senate is broken. He saw that in the voting rights bill and in trying to establish the commission to investigate the Capitol attack. So maybe we will get the voting rights bill passed. Also on Friday Laura Clawson of Kos reported Manchin put up more objections to the Build Back Better bill. Biden continued to be patient in negotiating with Manchin. Fellow Democrats said again how urgent the many programs in the bill are. And today, Hunter of Kos reported Manchin went on Fox News (!) to say, “I've tried everything humanly possible. I can't get there. This is a no.” Which effectively kills the BBB bill. The White House released a statement saying Manchin is a liar without actually using that word. Manchin had repeatedly expressed his commitment to Biden over the last few months and on Tuesday had been actively negotiating with the prez. The WH statement said in part:

If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator's colleagues in the House and Senate.

Hunter added:

The White House, in other words, believes that Joe Manchin lied to both Biden and his colleagues about his intentions. That's not an outrageous supposition: Manchin has continually raised new objections to the framework, one after another, only to balk at something else each time his new demands are met. Manchin, who has heavy financial interests in West Virginia coal mining, the plan to directly attack climate change by modernizing American infrastructure to move away from oil, gas, and coal, has raised objections to everything from lowering the cost of insulin to the Child Tax Credit, but critics have suspected Manchin of acting in bad faith—or even corruptly—so as to defeat a climate change plan that likely threatens the Manchin family's own coal sales. The continual dishonesty with which Manchin has attacked the BBB framework, citing concerns as diverse as inflation and deficits while misrepresenting the bill's effect on both, supports this this theory. But Manchin has also repeatedly flipped back and forth on his stances seemingly spuriously, leading others to wonder whether many of those flips come from a need for showboating that has frequently lapped Manchin's understanding of the facts. ... Manchin's true intentions can probably best be gleaned from his actions. His unending series of new objections to the climate change-tackling package were introduced serially, each new dealbreaker coming immediately after negotiations succeeded in overcoming his objections. This delayed the bill interminably—but at no point did Manchin and negotiators seem any closer to finding the last of his objections, or any pattern to them other than as roadblocks that threatened to poison the legislation for others. ... It seems reasonable to suspect that Manchin's goals have always been the same: Delay the anti-climate-change bill as long as possible, using whatever arguments are required, only "killing" the bill outright after stringing his colleagues along until the last possible moment.

News Corpse of the Kos community summarized more of the WH rebuttal. This includes several points refuting comments Manchin has been saying over the last few months. This post also includes a video of Manchin’s appearance on Fox News and notes that Manchin’s words leave a little bit of wiggle room. So maybe some aspects of the BBB bill can be combined to form another bill. We switch from a Democrat behaving badly to a Republican doing something good (though don’t ever forget she is a Republican and supports all but one of the party’s goals). Eleveld reported that Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming is quite unlikely to be reelected in 2022. The reason is she is the vice chair investigating the Capitol attack and the nasty guy. So she has only a year remaining in office and she looks to make the most of it to bring about some justice. So Cheney is busy laying out the case the nasty guy and his minions committed the crime of obstructing Congress. She has also been pretty good at manipulating the press. She contrasted the on-air coverage of the attack by Fox News while behind the scenes their hosts were trying to get the nasty guy to intervene in the attack. But she isn’t out to score political points, instead justice remains her goal. She is in a race against time to gather enough evidence to force the Justice Department to act. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post:

The good news is that more detailed data shows not many Americans favor political violence as some previous surveys suggested. When the pollsters screened out “inattentive respondents” and provided definitions of various undemocratic behavior, they found “support is 9% for threats, 8% for harassment, 6% for non-violent felonies, 4% for violent felonies, 4% for violence if the other party wins the 2024 election, 4% for violence on January 6, and 5% for violence to restore Trump to the presidency.” The bad news is that still represents millions of people.

Clawson discussed the contrast between states and schools that have passed policies to ban Critical Race Theory (the catchall term for discuss anything about race) and actual incidents of racism. An NBC News report showed the number of schools with racial hate crimes went from 543 in 2016 to 1276 in 2018. Racism in schools is all over the place. Clawson then listed several schools, not all in the South, where students protested the racism. Many note the schools’ administrations support white students differently that students of color. Clawson noted:

All it takes is a small advance in anti-racism for an explosive backlash of white fury that swamps the progress.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported that conspiracy theories such as saying the government is trafficking young girls are not only wrong, but harmful. The theories prompt people to take actions into their own hands causing harm to innocent people. Those believing the theories overload police departments with false reports delaying action on actual crimes. A claim that a specific child has been abducted even though the child is safely at home threatens the child when no one believes she is really safe. Rates of sexual violence against children has actually fallen by more than half since the 1990s, yet to those who believe the theories it doesn’t feel that way.

It’s easy to understand why plotting against a government that you sincerely believe is engaged in this kind of behavior would seem not just acceptable, but admirable. That’s why claims of child sex trafficking are the perfect gateway drug, luring people in to QAnon and other conspiracies. People get hooked by their hearts. Snagged on their sympathies.

Even Pizzagate is making a comeback through young people posting on social media. They just want to help. Amy Coney Barrett of the Supreme Court has been justifying banning abortion by saying carrying a baby to term and giving it up for adoption is no big deal, just a temporary burden. Ashton Lattimore of Kos Prism replied that Barrett is wrong. She listed all the ways pregnancy can permanently change a person’s body and endanger their life. In addition, there are significant costs to pregnancy that are a burden to a person in poverty. So, even though the Court is likely to ignore the question, it is good that Justice Sonya Sotomayor asked, “When does the life of a woman and putting her at risk enter the calculus?” Michael Harriot tweeted a thread about copaganda – the propaganda of shows on television that portray cops in a favorable light. Most people don’t have contact with the police and when they do it is a traffic stop. So our perceptions are based on what we see in the media – on TV news and TV programs. Harriot listed studies that show TV programs make us more fearful of crime and more confident in police. This copaganda began in 1949 when a washed up radio actor wanted to get rid of the image of the bumbling Keystone Cops by portraying the rank and file officers. The LAPD signed on with the condition the officers were portrayed as heroes. They wanted to dispel the image of police as racist and violent. Dragnet premiered on TV in 1951 – just before 8 LAPD officers were indicted for corruption and brutality. The show became the template for every cop show since then. And that shapes how we see police. That perception leads to distortions. People believe crime is rising when it is actually falling. People also believe every crime is solved, that police are the only ones that can solve them, and that a policeman’s job is dangerous (though it really isn’t as dangerous as being a garbageman). People see that two thirds of the victims on crime shows are white but the thugs are always black. Cops shoot more black people more than anyone shoots at cops. And more white people shoot cops than black people do. Cop shows almost always have a “technical consultant” – a law enforcement officer advising the show. In 1974 the US government advised police departments to aggressively push this copaganda.

Why does this matter? Because it's hard to understand why police stop more Black drivers, search more Black drivers & patrol black neighborhoods more even though it is an UNEQUIVOCAL FACT that white people use more drugs and are more likely to have contraband... Unless you know about copaganda. You can't understand why that lady locked her door, grabbed her purse and called the cops to report a "suspicious looking" person in her neighborhood unless you watch copaganda and know that "suspicious" is a code word for "Black" And it's hard to explain how so many people can see videos, statistics, and evidence of police brutality and corruption but still resist reforming the police & the criminal justice system. Unless, of course, you know about the 60-year-old marketing campaign called copaganda.

"Partisan" no longer suffices to describe it

My Sunday movie was The Wedding Banquet, a 1993 movie by director Ang Lee. Yeah, I’m revisiting an old one I hadn’t seen before. It is billed as a comedy/drama, though I thought more drama than comedy. Wai Tung and Simon are gay lovers. Wai Tung’s Taiwanese mother has been putting the pressure on him to get married and give his father the grandson he’s been waiting for. So Wai Tung agrees to marry Wei-Wei, which would help her get her green card. His parents announce they are coming. An old army friend of the father announces he’ll host the wedding banquet. Of course, things get complicated. It was amusing and touching. Alas, the story required some good old cultural homophobia. A while after watching this one I began to think maybe I had seen it before. Much of the movie didn’t look familiar, though there was a late scene between Wai Tung’s father and Simon, that did. Or at least the broad outlines did. I wonder if scenes like that have appeared in a lot of gay movies (yeah, there’s no answer to that since I didn’t say what happened in that scene). The scenes of the actual wedding banquet are similar to the movie The Farewell which also featured a fake Chinese wedding, though there was no gay relationship on the side. On Monday afternoon I was on my way to a specialty grocery when the radio in the car cut out. When I had a moment I glanced at the display and it said, “Low Battery.” I knew it wasn’t the car battery because that was only two years old. I didn’t think the radio had its own battery. Another mile and the airbag warning light came on. The mile after that the antilock brake system warning light came on. No problem. That’s needed in winter when driving on ice. Soon the brake warning light came on. I knew that brakes weren’t a problem because they had just been replaced. As I pulled into a grocery parking spot the engine cut out. Yup, when my shopping was done the car wouldn’t start. No attempt to turn over the motor. There was enough juice that the CD player (yeah, I still have one of those) decided it needed to cycle through all six CDs. I refuse to carry a cell phone, even if it would be handy at a time such as this. I went back into the store and was able to use their phone to call road service. I was first told the wait would be 90 minutes but a guy was there in 20. He cleaned up the attachment posts on the battery and connected his test equipment. As I suspected, the battery was fine, though out of power. The alternator wasn’t. He charged up the battery and advised I go straight home. I said the service center I used would be even closer. So I went. I go there ten minutes before they closed. Their oil change service said I would have to go to full service. I got in there five minutes before they closed. Thankfully, a woman allowed me to use their phone to call to get the number of a friend who picked me up. She even stayed a few minutes late. However, I had to go back outside and fill out the service request envelope, put my key in it, and push it in the slot. The service center called Tuesday morning. The price of a new alternator is about five times what the road service guy suggested it might be and labor doubled the price. That amount came seriously close to the value of my 15 year old car and brought up the question of whether it is worth fixing. I spent the rest of Tuesday checking the value of this car, and prices of available cars. I would like my next car to be an electric, but I don’t know how soon small electric sedans will be available. It might be a couple more years. So a used car to last those years might be good. I also checked another repair shop. That guy didn’t want to estimate a price without seeing the vehicle because he got tired of customers saying, “But over the phone you said the price was ...” But I had to know if the hassle of getting the car to him was worth it. So he estimated a price, which was quite close to what the first shop wanted. Then I got to be thinking it is hard to go out to see cars when one doesn’t have a car to get there. Besides, just a couple days is not enough time to research my options – I need a car on Friday. So this morning I called the first place and said go ahead and fix it. I should get it back tomorrow. But I probably won’t get a new one quickly, considering how much money I just put into this one. My goodness, a lot of browser tabs have accumulated since I last wrote! I’ll need several days to get through them. Hunter of Daily Kos wrote a good rant in response to Supreme Court Justice Amy Comey Barrett urging her peers to not let personal biases influence their rulings. She doesn’t want the their rulings to be partisan. Hunter went into detail in saying too late for that. He listed partisan rulings, including several kinds of voting restrictions Republicans are busy passing, then concluded:

New laws include means by which the Republican Party can install partisan acolytes to challenge the vote tallies of counties that vote against them. Does the public believe the Supreme Court will stop them, or help them? The question here is not whether the Supreme Court is now being perceived as too "partisan" by the public. At this point, large sections of the public believe the court has passed beyond partisan and is now altering, unmaking, and justifying new laws to such an extent that "partisan" no longer suffices to describe it. It appears to be an effort to undermine laws themselves rather than tolerate a decline of conservative power; are such broad actions legitimate, from the court? And what happens if the public broadly decides they are not?

Georgia Logothetis, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted a couple articles of interest. First from Emma Pierson, Jaline Geradin, and Nathaniel Lash of the New York Times:

During the latest coronavirus wave, in July and August, at least 16,000 deaths could have been prevented if all states had vaccination rates as high as the state with the highest vaccination rate. The number of lives that could have been saved will grow unless vaccination rates in lagging states improve.

Second, John Cassidy at The New Yorker wrote about Biden’s vaccine mandates and the rule that slowing the virus is the way to fix the economy. Cassidy discussed a study that showed that people don’t choose to go to a store based on whether there is a lockdown, but on their fear of the current rate of virus spread. Hawaii Delilah tweeted a link to an article in the Washington Post and noted that Republicans in the California recall election were using the Big Lie, saying if they lose it is because of fraud by Democrats (Gavin Newsom won his recall by 67%). Delilah added:

This playbook has gone international because Bolsonaro in Brazil is using it.

Greg Sargent wrote an opinion piece for WaPo, then tweeted about it:

This is ominous. I've compiled numerous examples of high-profile GOP candidates who are vowing to contest future losses as illegitimate. In GOP politics, this is becoming a badge of honor, and that's a serious threat to democratic stability. ... The willingness to abide by election losses, on the understanding that you can live to fight another day, is a hallmark of democratic stability. But it’s becoming a hallmark of GOP primary politics to publicly renounce that ethic, defiantly and proudly.

SemDem of the Kos community wrote the Republican war on election workers is working. He documents several of the attacks and what that means for professional election administrators.

They are already paid dismal salaries and are expected to be experts on logistics, cybersecurity, communications, customer service, and voting law. Now, in addition to having to face harsh criminal penalties for administering their duties, they and their families have to live in fear. And that’s not the worst of it. Is it any wonder they are leaving?

Hunter also wrote about a California bill, likely to become law, that requires companies to distinguish whether their products are theoretically recyclable or actually recyclable, meaning there is someone out there recycling it. If only the former this bill would require them to remove the recyclable symbol from their product. Recycling centers currently handle the difference between theoretical and actual. They have to dispose things that can’t actually be recycled. This bill shifts the burden to the manufacturer, who should know their product. Customers would then not send the theoretical stuff to the recycle center. They would also demand packaging and products that can actually be recycled. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary:

All I'm saying is, if you're in charge of one region of my body, what sense does that make? Just the uterus? At least take the whole bottom half—I want a federally-funded pedicure! Can you do that? Of course you can't, you dumbf---s. So don’t take charge of the biggest decision I'll ever make in my whole life when you can't even get me a goddam pedicure! —Amber Ruffin on Late Night

A blue tsunami of giving

A few tidbits of news of yesterday’s Senate hearing of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. This is from yesterday because I haven’t read today’s news yet. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported that Sen. Cory Booker asked Barrett “Do you believe that every president should make a commitment unequivocally and resolutely to the peaceful transfer of power?” The only answer should be a resounding yes. After a non answer Booker tried again. She talked about disappointed voters having to accept new leaders. My translation: The president doesn’t need to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, but the people do. Laura Clawson of Kos reported Senator Patrick Leahy asked her whether a president could pardon himself. Barrett muffed that one too. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that many GOP senators have been praising Barrett on being the mother of seven children. Einenkel wonders is that all they have to go on? Then Senator Amy Klobuchar had a turn. She knew Barrett was going to dodge and weave, so she didn’t ask questions. Instead she listed Barrett’s positions from earlier writings and interviews on such things as the Affordable Care Act, the “barbaric legacy” of Roe v. Wade, gun safety, and marriage equality. Einenkel wrote:

This nomination is going through, barring some kind of medical emergencies across the board. The Republican Party is clear in its determination to create a fascistic, paternalistic, white supremacist oligarchy even if the majority of Americans do not want it.

Sigh, it’s wrong to cheer on the virus, though a pandemic is probably the only thing that can stop her confirmation vote. Though several GOP senators seem to be working hard to make that happen. Lyz Lenz tweeted:

Every man praising Amy Coney Barrett's motherhood supports a president who ripped children away from their mothers at the border.

Joan McCarter of Kos discussed the refusal of Moscow Mitch to allow a vote on another virus relief package. A GOP strategist now confirms what many have speculated. The reason is to make it more difficult for President Biden to govern – the economy will be worse off and in desperate need of assistance while the GOP can shift to their well used argument that the deficit and debt are too high and the government can’t afford it. The argument they didn’t use when they gave rich people a tax cut. Here’s a cartoon appropriate for the season. Kos of Kos wrote that back in 2006 he saw ActBlue make a difference in a campaign. ActBlue is a hub to allow small donors to give to Democratic campaigns. It was a Democratic answer to the GOP parade of billionaire donors. This year it is a convenient way for small donors to express their disgust with the nasty guy and fury at Moscow Mitch for rushing Barrett's confirmation while they grieve Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It has become a blue tsunami of giving. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson gave $50 million to a PAC aligned with the Senate GOP. The top nine Democrats in the Senate received $50 million from ActBlue in August. I used ActBlue to give to several candidates, such as Democrats likely to unseat GOP senators, though a few others. That was a lot easier than trying to find the candidate’s postal address and sending a check. I found that ActBlue forwarded the donation and included my email address. One campaign replied quickly saying it was critical I send a donation, naming the amount I had just sent. Yeah, they were asking for another donation. Most of these campaigns ask for a donation every day, some a couple times a day, and one set a record for five in a day. I tried to unsubscribe from one of them but they kept sending emails anyway. So they all get routed to my junk email folder, which I now clear out at least once a day. One time I saw an endorsement saying there were 47 candidates running for various state legislatures. I narrowed my choice to three because I didn’t want 47 campaigns sending daily emails. Yes, ActBlue is great! I’m glad to see there is a way for the little people to easily donate. But it also has a down side. My spam filter will be glad when the election is over. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos quoted Ed Yong of The Atlantic about the consequences of the nasty guy bragging about how he’s beaten the coronavirus, which (he claims) shows how strong he is.

Equating disease with warfare, and recovery with strength, means that death and disability are linked to failure and weakness. That “does such a disservice to all of the families who have lost loved ones, or who are facing long-term consequences,” says Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University. Like so much else about the pandemic, the strength-centered rhetoric confuses more than it clarifies, and reveals more about America’s values than the disease currently plaguing it.

Look for power in the shadows

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos started a post this way:

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett isn’t going to answer any of the big questions truthfully, and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI] knew that. So instead of inviting Barrett to be dishonest, Whitehouse explained the forces that put her in that Senate hearing room with the specific agenda—killing the Affordable Care Act, ending marriage equality, overturning Roe v. Wade—she is on the record as having (but is currently pretending not to have). Whitehouse described the Senate hearing room as being like a puppet theater, with “forces outside of this room who are pulling strings and pushing sticks and causing the puppet theater to react … When you find hypocrisy in the daylight, look for power in the shadows."

Conservatives have spent $250 million to get control of the courts. They want something in return for that amount of money. They didn’t get what they wanted on same-sex marriage. But there were 80 other cases decided by “the Roberts Five” – cases that got no votes from justices appointed by Democratic presidents – where there was an identifiable Republican donor interest. In all those cases the donor interest won. An example is limiting the power of a civil jury. “It’s a crime to tamper with a jury. It’s standard practice to tamper with Congress.” Clawson included videos of Whitehouse’s testimony. The three together are about a half hour. I watched the videos and took notes and added comments. I recommend you watch them too. Every so often the camera turns to Barrett. Her expression show she does not like what Whitehouse is doing. He talks of evidence of the puppeteers: People came forward to support the nominee before there was a nominee. It it hard to explain the hypocrisy and the rush until we look in the shadows. In 2010 the National Federation of Independent Business led a major lawsuit opposing the ACA. Before then their largest donation was $21,000. After the case was announced, 10 donors gave $10 million. In the three major cases – ACA, abortion rights, and same-sex marriage, Whitehouse identifies the nasty guy, the GOP platform, and various senators who have said they want them all to be reversed, that they can’t do it through a democratically elected Congress, and that they intend to vote only for justices who will overturn them. Democrats are making a big deal of this because the GOP and the nasty guy have already made a big deal of it. He laid out the big scheme: Big amounts of anonymous money behind three lanes of activity. The Federalist Society has taken over the selection of candidates. We know this because the nasty guy has said so, many times. The Federalist Society also vetted and chose Barrett. While Whitehouse is talking her stony face shows she knows who selected her and why and she’s there for it. Judicial Crisis Network (JCN) does the PR campaign for nominees. For each of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh one donor gave $17 million. Various legal groups bring test cases, sometimes asking to lose in lower courts to more quickly get their cases before the Supremes. They fund an orchestrated “flotilla” of amicus (friend of court) briefs pretending to come from different “interested parties” all saying close the same thing. And that thing is telling the justices what to do. In one case, about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Donor’s Trust (which exists to scrub donor names), one of these groups that write and coordinate briefs, spent $23 million. There may be three lanes of activity, but they all work closely together and they’re all funded by the same people. GOP senators filed anti-ACA briefs, signed by Carrie Severino, the head of the JCN. It also funds the GOP Attorneys General Association – they are the plaintiffs in the ACA case to be heard by the Supremes in November. And they selected the nominee. Some group of people, with a huge amount of money, wants the ACA gone. Their minions – the GOP in Congress – couldn’t get it done. So they’ve turned to the Supremes, after buying the nomination process. A big question is why do they want the ACA gone (not explored here). Whitehouse turned to those 80 cases, each decided 5-4 with no Dem appointee in the majority. In each case there is an identifiable GOP donor interest. In each case that interest won. These cases are not about big public issues. They’re about power. There are four categories of cases. One: expand unlimited dark money in politics – the winners are a very small group, the ones with unlimited money and a motive to spend it in politics. Two: whittle away at the civil jury, even though it is in the Constitution. It’s annoying to corporate powers. A civil jury has to ignore the power of the person in front of them and actually apply the law. It’s illegal to tamper with a jury. Easier to make it powerless. Three: weaken regulatory agencies. Who else other than polluters – such as the oil industry – want to hide who they are? Polluters want weak regulatory agencies. Four: weaken minority voting, such as saying the pre-clearance part of the Voting Rights Act was no longer needed, on no evidence and after wide support of both parties in Congress. Can’t do it through Congress? Do it through the courts. Another example is gerrymandering, which the Supremes have permitted. Case after case, an 80-0 sweep, in cases about political power, about big special interests, about people who want to fund campaigns, about people who want to get their way without actually showing up. A victory pattern like that is not a fluke. Dark money has a lot to do with it. Dark special interests who want to get their way and weren’t able to through Congress. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted an article by Donald Ayer and Alan Raul that appeared in USA Today about the GOP using a deeply unfair practice to confirm Barrett:

Indeed, if Senate Republicans force Judge Barrett through in the waning weeks before a presidential election — after denying President Obama any opportunity for Senate consideration of his nomination of Judge Merrick Garland nearly a year before the 2016 election — the American people will unavoidably see the Supreme Court as just another forum for power politics and political players.

Which is what it is. From the new episode of Gaslit Nation (which I’ll have to read this weekend) Sarah Kendzior tweeted a quote referring to the judicial philosophy espoused by Antonin Scalia and taken up by Barrett:

They call themselves originalists, they cloak themselves in faux constitutional veneration, but they don't have respect for the constitution. They twist the documents of the Founders into justification for autocracy.

One of the replies:

Originalism is the desperately narcissistic fantasy that it is possible to discern the precise intentions of people you have never met – and the even more desperately narcissistic fantasy that such discernment should be used to dictate the affairs of people you will never meet. – John Nichols

After all that one needs a bit of fun. Two videos are here and here. Turn on the sound.

Felt genuinely victimized by the prospect of equality

In honor of Indigenous People’s Day (yesterday) Melissa Higgins of Daily Kos gathered together several lists of music, movies, and books by and about indigenous people. A cartoon appropriate during Supreme Court confirmation hearings. In hearings today Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was asked about same-sex marriage. As part of her evasive answer Barrett said:

I have never discriminated on the basis of sexual preference and would never discriminate on the basis of sexual preference.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos explained why that’s a bad, and revealing, answer.

From a social standpoint, only someone stuck in the mindset of last-century anti-LGBTQ dogma would embrace use of the term “preference.” Gay individuals don't wake up one day and decide they prefer dating people of the same sex like they prefer chocolate chip cookies to oatmeal raisin. Did Barrett wake up one morning and decide dating men was a choice for her? No. But the notion that anyone chooses to be gay or date people of the same sex is not only antiquated, it's the also the baseline that anti-LGBTQ activists have used for decades to advance and defend laws expressly discriminating against gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans. … If you believe sexual orientation is a preference, why grant same-sex marital rights to people who could choose otherwise?

In addition, while Barrett’s children attended Trinity School, a private school in South Bend, IN, she was on the board of the school and actively enforced the school’s policy to not accept children from unmarried or same-sex couples. Though she didn’t directly answer the question, she did tell us her views. And lied while doing so. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed an article by Eric Levitz of the New York Magazine. The central question, as Dartagnan put it, is why would Moscow Mitch and his GOP colleagues

believe they can effectively abandon millions of Americans to homelessness, hunger, and unemployment, even consigning American businesses to bankruptcy, by stonewalling further efforts by Democrats to provide COVID-19 relief funding.

Part of the answer is that a majority of the GOP senators are not up for reelection this year and they would vote against a “blue state bailout.” If Mitch brought it to the floor they would question his leadership. A more important part of the answer is even if Mitch loses his majority now the chances are very good he’ll get it back soon – as in two years. Part of this is 30% of the population votes for 70% of the senators – all those low population red states. And another part is the GOP has said in the past that when they’re not in power they will prevent the Democrats from being able to govern. That’s a reason why Amy Coney Barrett is being rushed to the Supreme Court. The GOP will litigate every progressive law passed under Biden’s leadership. Nothing will get done. The GOP will campaign on the inability of the Dems to do anything and voters will put them back in power. Georgia Logothetis, in her pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times discussing Democratic calls for reform of the Supreme Court. Here’s part of it, which my friend and debate partner would appreciate:

Say this for Republicans: They are very good at umbrage. It might even be sincere; from Reconstruction to the New Deal to the civil rights revolution, conservatives have long felt genuinely victimized by the prospect of equality. That doesn’t mean, however, that bad-faith right-wing arguments about the courts merit a respectful hearing.

Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa of Gaslit Nation had Timothy Snyder on their show (one that I haven’t looked at yet). So when Kendzior’s twitter feed had an interesting tweet from Snyder I read it, then looked at his feed. Here are five worth quoting. One, including a video of part of the nasty guy’s balcony speech.

Mr. Trump's posture of the strong man who survived because of his strength only works if the rest of us are weaker and die.

Two, referring to the nasty guy’s tax returns.

Let us not destroy our democracy so that a lying, cheating failure can avoid the consequences of lying, cheating, and failing. It looks like the presidency is Mr. Trump‘s one hope of avoiding poverty, prison, or both. This is why, from his perspective, he must win.

Three, related to two.

The Trump campaign is tainted by legal and financial desperation. Mr. Trump is not only desperate because he's down in the polls. He's desperate because he's in a typical authoritarian situation – fearing jail or the poorhouse if he loses.

Four, quoting Zack Beauchamp of Vox:

In short, there is a consensus among comparative politics scholars that the Republican Party is one of the most anti-democratic political parties in the developed world.

Five, a quote from his own book On Tyranny.

It’s important not to talk about this as just an election. It’s an election surrounded by the authoritarian language of a coup d’etat. The opposition has to win the election and it has to win the aftermath of the election.

I read that article on Vox by Zack Beauchamp. In 2019 nearly 2,000 experts in comparative democracy were asked to rate political parties of democracies on two metrics, their commitment to democratic principles and commitment to the rights of ethnic minorities. The higher the number the more anti-democratic and intolerant the party is. The USA GOP is in the upper left of the chart, high in both measures. Its neighbors in the chart are Turkey’s AKP, a leading jailer of journalists, and Poland’s PiS, which has threatened dissenting judges with criminal punishment. The USA Dems are towards the lower left, near the median on democratic principles and well below the median (which is the good side) on minority rights. Wrote Beauchamp:

There is no authoritarian plot behind the GOP’s recent maneuvers, and no secret plan to end elections or declare martial law. What there is, instead, is systematic disinterest in behaving according to the democratic rules of the game. The GOP views the Democrats as so illegitimate and dangerous that they are willing to employ virtually any tactic that they can think of in order to entrench their own advantage. This is perhaps the party’s core animating ideology, at every level: we must win because the Democrats cannot be given power.

I shouldn’t leave off the hope, little bit about how to get the GOP out of this situation. Beauchamp wrote:

Any effort to fix American politics needs to be clear-eyed on this point: The Republican Party is so beyond what’s normal in a healthy democracy that some kind of radical pro-democracy reform is required — be it ending the filibuster, court-packing, DC and Puerto Rico statehood, a new Voting Rights Act, or all of above — to try and turn things around. “The Republicans pose too much of an authoritarian threat,” Harvard’s Levitsky tells me, “to simply go on with business as usual.”