Earthquakes don’t kill people, badly built buildings do

My friend and debate partner responded to yesterday’s post as part of our ongoing debate about whether music can change the world. In that debate I had included a quote from Maya Angelou:

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

I had also talked again about the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra made up of Israelis and Arabs. My friend wrote:

I made a point of praising music's capability to convey emotion as one of its strengths, and I do value that. But notice that Angelou only claims that "people will never forget how you made them feel". There is no claim that said emotion(s) lead those feeling people to change their behavior. If music is to change the world to the degree we are discussing, it must change behavior in large numbers of people. I don't credit music with that, although I do seek music out and care about it. To return briefly to the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, I do not doubt that it has a great effect on those who participate in it and I'm happy it exists. But I doubt that it changes even its participants -- instead, I think appreciation for this politically charged music-making is a prerequisite for becoming a participant. These are people who are being the change they wish to create -- essential in creating change. But changing the world was our subject. Everything I know about Israel / Palestine says that the world around these musicians is not listening very much and, sadly, not changing. Instead, the Us vs Them cultures on both sides grow steadily more bitter. The Middle East is riven with "honor" cultures where people never forget and are committed to revenge. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is not to blame for that, but it is also not an effective agent of change.

All excellent points. I confirm that my friend is an avid music lover, though of tastes different from mine, so we don’t attend events together. I’ll go back to one of the responses in my post from last Saturday that started this debate. Can music change the world? Hasn’t yet. And I’ll set this debate aside. Hunter of Daily Kos discussed a report by Asawin Suebsaeng and Patrick Reis of Rolling Stone saying the nasty guy has been talking in campaign meetings about expanding the federal death penalty to apply to less serious crimes and then turning the executions into flashy televised shows featuring the firing squad, hanging, and maybe even the guillotine. The nasty guy had wanted to do this during his firs term but was dissuaded by staff. No doubt they knew most Americans would be horrified. Most. But those in his base who shrug at an attempted coup would love to see such spectacles. On the one hand this is a reminder that the nasty guy is a stupid, malignant boor. On the other, he appears to be completely serious about it. Hunter concluded:

Trump's admiration for murderous authoritarian regimes remains quite real. His base's enthusiasm for maximum cruelty, whether it is aimed at refugees or schoolchildren, protestors or criminals, has only grown. A very large chunk of Donald Trump's base consists of Americans who like the idea of watching other Americans be executed on television. These are people who frothed for the capture of lawmakers during an attempted coup; there is no depth to which they will not willingly sink, so long as they have a leader willing to point the way. Trump is a sociopathic and seditionist would-be dictator, but the Republican base loves him for it. This malignant, poisonous presence could very well decide to turn "flashier state murders" into a major campaign theme so that he can bellow that all the other Republican contenders are too "soft."

Mark Sumner of Kos, in discussing the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria, noted that the city of Erzin had no major damage and no deaths. Osmaniye and Iskenderun on either side of Erzin were heavily damaged and many died. The mayor of Erzin explained:

Earthquakes don’t kill people, badly built buildings do. Not a single building collapsed in Erzin, Hatay, perhaps because the Mayor never signed off on unsafe or “kaçak” buildings. Residents were angry at him, he says. But he was saving their lives.

Erzin has a history of mayors that insisted on adhering to the earthquake resistant building codes. In other cities most of the buildings that collapsed were because of corruption. The builders did not build them according to earthquake codes. And that corruption goes all the way to Turkish President Erdogan. Sumner quoted NPR, which said Erdogan bragged about his zoning amnesty. He allowed contracts to ignore building codes that would make houses and offices more resistant to earthquakes. Then he gave amnesty to the unscrupulous builders. Sumner added:

As anger over both the response and the unsafe building increases, it’s very much worth noting that the area most affected by this quake is also the area that gave the heaviest support to Erdogan in the last election. Erdogan won that election with 52.6% of the national vote, but he carried those same areas around Osmaniye and Iskenderun and Erzin with over 70% of the local vote. Anger toward his government isn’t just growing, it’s growing in the area of Turkey he needs most to win reelection. That election is coming soon. A “snap” presidential election is scheduled for June 23. That election was already considered to be competitive. Now it will be taking place against the background of fallen cities and videos of Erdogan bragging about how he allowed contractors to skimp on safety.

Also, American Republicans want to get rid of government oversight. In a Ukraine update from last weekend Sumner reported the hottest area of fighting right now isn’t Bakhmut, the city that Russia has been trying to take for months (it is still in Ukrainian hands). The hottest area is Vuhledar. Unlike Bakhmut, Vuhledar actually has some strategic value – taking it would protect fragile Russian supply lines. The assault on Vuhledar and Bakhmut and other areas is not going in Russia’s favor. Sumner wrote:

Four days ago, it was big news when Ukraine reported 1,030 Russian soldiers killed in a day, with most of those losses taking place near Vuhledar or Bakhmut. That marked Tuesday as the biggest day for Russian losses since the invasion began. Then Russia lost over 900 more on Wednesday, and 900 more on Thursday as another catastrophic advance at Vuhledar was followed by that failure at Kreminna. The Friday number was something of a decline, with “only” 750 Russian troops eliminated — a rate that, if it continued, would still see more than 270,000 losses in a year. But then the astoundingly foolish assault on Avdiivka combined with more bad decisions at all of the above, and the end result is that on Saturday the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that Russia had lost an absolutely staggering 1,140 men in one day. There are estimates that Russia now has 320,000 troops in Ukraine. If they keep falling at the rate they were lost this week, all of them will be dead before the end of the year. It’s worth noting that those Russian losses haven’t come in the form we’ve become familiar with after watching months of activity near Bakhmut — small companies of men sent across fields or along streets between ruined buildings with little to no armor support. All week long the losses have come in the form of entire armored units blasted to smithereens along roadways. In part this has come because Russia has done what Ukraine refused to do: attempt to assault fortified positions in conditions that meant armor was restricted to traveling along a few narrow roadways. In part it’s because Russia seems to be replicating with its armored forces the tactics that it had “mastered” with infantry — if at first everyone gets killed, just send more. The result of this is that each of these days has come not just with astounding losses of men, but almost equally staggering losses of equipment. Since Tuesday, Ukrainian forces have destroyed 36 Russian tanks. Twenty five tanks were lost in two days. These are unsustainable levels of loss.

That prompted Sumner to chart out how quickly Russia is losing tanks compared to how quickly they can build new ones. At his computed rate they may have only 37% in working order at the end of the year. Sumner reminded us Ukraine cannot build its own tanks – an important manufacturing site was in Crimea and captured in 2014. So all of Ukraine’s tanks come from the West – and from Russia through battleground captures. Charles Johnson tweeted a page from “The KGB’s Magical War for ‘Peace’” by John Barron. It was written some time in the Soviet era. Johnson highlighted a paragraph that is a quote from Maj. Stanislav Aleksandrovich Levchenko, who fled the KGB and came to America. The quote is about how the KGB distorted reality (something Putin, a former KGB person, still does). Here’s part of it:

Almost everybody wants peace and fears war. Therefore, by every conceivable means, the KGB plans and coordinates campaigns to persuade the public that whatever America does endangers peace and that whatever the Soviet Union proposes furthers peace. To be for America is to be for war; to be for the Soviets is to be for peace. That’s the art of Active Measures, a sort of made-in-Moscow black magic. It is tragic to see how well it works.

Charles Jay of the Kos community told the story of Vladimir Romanenko, age 24. He had been working for the Russian propaganda site Komsomolskaya Pravda (KP). He had become disillusioned with the war and its propaganda. So as the one year anniversary of the start of the war approaches, he posted a series of ten articles on KP. For example, one was titled “The Russian Federation committed crimes in Bucha, Izyum, and Hostomel.” Of course, the articles were removed within ten minutes. Romanenko is physically safe. When the mobilization was announced in September he left Russia, even though media workers wouldn’t be called up. He won’t say in which country he is living. He had been working remotely and is now, of course, out of a job. There was another mass shooting in Michigan, this one on the Michigan State University campus. It happened on Monday. In a report on Tuesday Aysha Qamar of Kos discussed what had been learned by then. Qamar reported that Jackie Matthews is a senior at MSU. She had been a student at Sandy Hook Elementary when fellow students were gunned down. She said “The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible.” There is also a student described as having “witnessed the shooting” who is wearing an Oxford Strong shirt. The shooting at Oxford was only 15 months ago. Qamar included a quote by Dan Hodges:

In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the US gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.

That’s an important insight, but maybe it isn’t over. Since Tuesday Michigan Radio has reported on vigils on campus and rallies at the state Capitol, just a few miles from campus. There Democrats, now in control of the legislature and governor’s office, vow they will have bills to curb a bit of the violence. Rick Pluta reported:

House Democratic leaders said bills are still being finalized. But they said the legislation will almost certainly include universal background checks, red-flag rules that would allow guns to be taken from people who are deemed a threat to themselves or others, and a requirement that guns be locked up when not in use. Governor Gretchen Whitmer says she is ready to sign the bills.

Those laws will help, but won’t be enough. David Horsley of the Seattle Times tweeted a cartoon of a family lying on the ground as bullets zip overhead. The mother says, “I don’t know what to call this, but it isn’t freedom!” To that Amy Mader replied:

Exactly! Those bullets have the freedom to pierce human flesh but I can't go to the movies, concerts, bars, school, college, church, grocery shopping, etc. Guns in Walmart, guns in target, guns in Starbucks. Can't piss off a driver, might have a gun.

Neda Ulaby of NPR reported that an art gallery in Washington DC is displaying the work of Stephanie Mercedes. The art is bells cast from bullet casings and parts of old guns that she has melted down. She makes bells with the metal because they carry spiritual significance across cultures and they are tolled for mourning. She is gay and Latina and the project was inspired by the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. Many of these bells are not beautiful and some look like the weapons they used to be. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the White House has released a fact sheet on the federal budget and Republican hypocrisy. McCarter included this WH tweet that sums it up:

President Biden’s budget will cut the deficit by around $2 trillion over 10 years. Congressional Republicans are backing plans that will add more than $3 trillion to the debt over 10 years.

In a speech on Tuesday Biden said he told McCarthy they should meet to compare budgets, compare what gets spent where, what gets cuts, and who does and doesn’t get taxed. But McCarthy won’t raise taxes and just wants to cut. McCarter laid out why the budget will increase by $3 trillion under Republican plans.

It’s all true, and Biden proceeded to lay it all out in his speech, and the White House backed it up in that fact sheet: The $114 billion they would add to the debt in their bill to protect wealthy tax cheats (the first bill they passed this year); the $159 billion they’d add to the debt by repealing reforms that lower prescription drug costs from Medicare; trying to repeal corporate tax increases to the tune of $269 billion in debt increases; and their insistence that the Trump tax cuts continue, “a $2.7 trillion debt increase that would give the top 0.1% (with incomes over $4 million per year) a $175,000 annual tax cut, over 2.5 times a typical family’s annual income.”

McCarter titled the piece using the phrase “GOP deficit peacocks” which seems to be quite accurate. CameronProf of the Kos community echoed a story from Outsports that reported Jakub Jankto has come out as gay. He is the first active men’s player in international football (what we call soccer) to come out. His Czech team is fully supportive, as is UEFA, European football’s governing body.

Politics of revenge are exactly what the base craves

Yesterday evening the House was getting ready to vote on the Build Back Better Bill – the human infrastructure bill. Then Republican leader Kevin McCarthy used his prerogative as head of his party to talk as long as he wanted. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that turned out to be eight hours. When I heard that McCarthy spoke I thought there might be some phrase I could rebut in this here blog. But no go. Sumner explained:

The result was a speech where “rambling” would doesn’t begin to cover the incoherent and disconnected claims, stitched together by occasional arm waving and table-pounding designed to show that McCarthy is just as angry, vindictive, and nonsensical as Trump. As Rep. Jaime Raskin reported mid-way through this event, McCarthy managed to speak for over four hours without producing “a single memorable phrase, original insight, or even a joke.” And then he did it for four more hours. Which makes it even more … is there a word that means something is remarkable for being absolutely unremarkable?

So, no text to dissect. Instead, we can enjoy the tweets from Democratic members as they sat through it all, gathered together by Dfh1 of the Kos community. From Adam Schiff:

If you took the worst orator in the world Gave him the worst speech in the world And made him read it for the longest time in the world That would be a lot like listening to Kevin McCarthy tonight. Except, probably better.

Andrew Solender of Axios wrote about one quotable line and the reaction it got:

"Nobody elected Joe Biden to be FDR," McCarthy says in his floor speech. "I did!" one Democrat pipes up. "Me too!" says another.

That first Democrat has been identified as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Sumner quoted Eddie Vale who noted that instead of Democrats passing the bill in the evening McCarthy’s performance meant it was passed the next morning “at a much better time for press coverage.” Frank Pedraza commented on the post by Dfh1:

Trump has ripped McCarthy’s spine and keeps it in his closet at Morgue-a-Lago. Kevin takes comfort in knowing that the former [guy] has his back.

Alas, McCarthy can demonstrate he’s a big bag of wind, yet remain a threat to the country and democracy. Laura Clawson of Kos discussed the censure of Rep. Paul Gosar, mentioned yesterday, and McCarthy’s response:

The fact that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy not only opposed the censure of one of his members for blasting out a depiction, however fictional, of himself murdering a coworker and attacking the president of the United States, but threatened retribution against Democrats if and when Republicans take the majority in the House, shows the extent of the problem. McCarthy wasn’t just voting against the censure of his member—he was saying that the censure was so illegitimate as to justify him in planning, well ahead of time, to exact retribution against Democrats. “You censured our guy and removed him from committees for the murder-fantasy video, so we’re going to do the same to your members for … whatever.”

Kerry Eleveld of Kos added more:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made it exceedingly clear on Tuesday that he not only won't hold his caucus accountable for making violent threats against other members of Congress, but he will actively seek revenge against anyone who insists on the accountability he refuses to provide. ... But these GOP threats of retribution are all par for the course now. The party is effectively filled with a bunch of lawless gang members who foment violence, flout the law, and trample the Constitution, and when anyone threatens to rein them in, the GOP's knee-jerk responses are promises of revenge. ... The game is all about training their voters to believe they have been slighted and disrespected, that Democrats have committed an unforgivable abuse of power, and that Republicans will make them pay for it. That is the GOP platform, and Republicans keep running that play over and over again because their low-information voters aren't capable of seeing past it. In fact, the GOP's politics of revenge are exactly what the base craves—it's among their main reasons for living, breathing, and voting. ... But this is the kind of punitive and twisted leadership Republicans are promising as they eye a potential takeover of Congress next year. They are putting forward no policy solutions for the American people or aspirational bills they hope to enact. Instead what they’re offering is plain and simple: It is the politics of revenge. And that is very clearly exactly what GOP base voters want.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer who discussed a scenario that might play out in the late winter of 2023:

There’s a climate of disbelief in the nation’s capitol as the GOP-dominated House of Representatives wraps up debate over the impeachment of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., 46th president of the United States. It was little more than five months since the Republicans gained 43 House seats in the 2022 midterms, many in newly gerrymandered seats, and since the incoming chair of House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, started studying a menu of equally off-the-wall options — Hunter Biden’s laptop, the Afghanistan withdrawal, or something unprecedented about the president’s mental acuity — for Biden impeachment hearings. In the end, Jordan and his colleagues — including the radical QAnon conspiracy theorists who’d replaced GOP moderates Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — decided that the pretext didn’t even matter that much.

Dworkin also quoted Greg Sargent of the Washington Post:

In much of our discourse, Trump-backed GOP primary challenges to sitting Republicans tend to be cast mainly as retaliation for personal disloyalty to the former president. There’s something to that, but the full truth appears to be darker. What this really suggests is that large swaths of Republican voters appear to want to elect people to office who would have been willing to overturn the election on Trump’s behalf, and will be willing to overturn a loss in the future.

Leah McElrath tweeted a quote from an article in The Atlantic about the risk of bipartisanship undermining democracy:

“Biden’s…emphasis on his ability to cooperate with Republicans has stirred concerns…he is obscuring the threat mounting against democratic institutions…More Republicans appear to be radicalizing by the week and Biden is making the GOP seem normal.”

Rebekah Sager of Kos reported that just a few hours before Julius Jones was to be executed in Oklahoma, Governor Stitt commuted his sentence from death to life in prison without parole. That should have been clemency because there is evidence that Jones did not commit the murder for which he was convicted. I’ll let you wade into the details. One reason for mentioning this is to quote a tweet by Leah McEnrath. She quoted a tweet from Marc Lamont Hill:

And please believe that Governor Stitt knew he was going to commute the sentence yesterday. Still, he had Julius Jones undergo all the rituals and rites of execution. This is part of the cruelty and perversion of an immoral state with unmerited power to decide who lives and dies.

Then McElrath added:

Agree. Pushing the announcement until mere hours before execution was scheduled is purposeful cruelty. I’m grateful the decision was made, but the cruelty inherent in the timing and the inclusion of a denial of Jones’ rights to be considered for parole or pardon are undeniable.

Stella Levantesi and Giulio Corsi, writing for DeSmog discussed four major scare tactics climate deniers are using to stop climate action. These tactics were found through an analysis of 300,000 tweets posted since after the Paris climate summit in January 2016. Efforts used to be aimed at undermining the science. Now they’re aimed at attacking solutions, creating fear, and the usual misinformation to polarize people. 1. Doomsday scenarios, in which global economic systems are wrecked by climate change policies. Of course this obscures the global economic systems that are already being wrecked by climate change. These scenarios include the possibility of energy blackouts and shortages. 2. Claims that climate policies aren’t really about fixing the climate but about being a Trojan Horse that would turn America and the world into communist or socialist regimes. 3. Efforts to reduce the methane released by cows are interpreted to mean they will “take away America’s burgers” and force us all to be vegan, then reclaim all that unused pasture land and use it for low-income housing. 4. The full-on conspiracy theories, such as governments manipulating the weather. Learn about this strategy so you can neutralize it. Michael Harriot posted a long thread about Alabama having the deadliest prisons in America. They’re overcrowded, some of them five times capacity. There is a lot of violence between inmates (mostly black) and a lot more violence from the guards (mostly white). They’re terrible at protecting inmates from COVID. And they want to use $400 million of COVID relief money to build prisons – instead of releasing non-violent offenders or training guards, or spending the money on education or health care.

Will the Biden Administration give our money to a racist, corrupt, violent organization to LITERALLY continue slavery? Have you ever MET America?

Maggie Koerth, writing for The Fuller Project, told the story of Roberta Steele to explain why there is a shortage of people to drive school buses. The short version is the title: “Would You Manage 70 Children And a 15-Ton Vehicle for $18 An Hour?” Shortages existed before the pandemic, though are more severe now. The pay at $18 an hour seems decent (fast food workers are fighting for $15), but it is only four hours a day, nine months a year. And because of shortages drivers are covering more routes and not getting bathroom breaks. And some routes aren’t being covered, stressing parents in long lines of cars at schools. Marissa Higgins of Kos reported that Ronna Romney McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee announced an effort to recruit LGBTQ voters. The effort would be in partnership with Log Cabin Republicans, who are LGBTQ conservatives who try to be a part of a party that keeps kicking them. But McDaniel got a great deal of pushback and had to clarify the effort wasn’t about giving LGBTQ people a safe space in the party. Certainly not. She just wants their votes. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included a cool video on how the COVID vaccines work. This video was made by the Vaccine Makers Project. And in last Friday’s post Bill quoted some late night commentary:

Aaron Rodgers says he's an independent thinker who doesn’t want to be told what to do with his body. You ever notice how all the 'independent thinkers' are doing the exact same thing? “I'm an independent thinker—what are my thoughts, Joe Rogan?” —Trevor Noah

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Julia “Hurricane” Hawkins set a couple records at a track and field event. First, she set the world for the 100-meter dash for her age group. Second, she defined that age group as 105+. Her time was just under one minute, three seconds. Not as good as the forty second record she set at age 100.

He poses a danger and they’ve done nothing

Alex Bolton tweeted Moscow Mitch’s warning to Democrats to not change the filibuster rules. Yeah, these are the same rules that he skillfully wielded when the Dems controlled the Senate to prevent lots of things from happening. Wrote Bolton:

McConnell warns Democrats “ought to take a pause and think about whether they really think it’s a good idea for the country to put the one institution that guarantees that America stayed in the middle of the road into the same place as the House.”

Kos of Daily Kos responded that the Senate is not currently in the middle of the road and hasn’t been since Mitch (and John Boehner) have been leading it. Kos also explains that the wording Mitch used only makes sense if he believed Democrats will take the Senate and presidency in November.



Hunter of Kos discusses a report that several national security advisors conclude the nasty guy is a danger to the country. Hunter wrote:

The news that seemingly all of Trump's most celebrated national security officials believed him to be "delusional" and a "danger to the national security of the United States" based on his behavior, and cite his "unfitness" for the presidency "on grounds of temperament and incompetence," is shocking. Not because they believe so: Each of these conclusions can be reached from Trump's own bizarre public behaviors. But because each one of these top officials believes Trump to pose a danger to the nation and has done absolutely nothing about it.

In another post Hunter discussed that the Supreme Court swept aside restrictions on the method of execution in federal cases. William Barr, head of the Department formerly known as Justice, announced that after a 17-year pause executions would resume. Wrote Hunter:

Barr's eagerness to resume state-sponsored killings is unsurprising, given his conservatism, his well-known religious fervor, and his seeming obsession with the same tenets of authoritarian rule that have governed all other dealings. It is likely he wants to be able to execute people before the November elections, to give "tough on crime" conservatives a little pick-me-up helping to justify reelecting a "delusional" idiot manchild.

Then Hunter discussed the proper use of the death penalty. It should only be used as a deterrent. It isn’t a deterrent to violent crime. But perhaps the death penalty would be a deterrent to to fabulously wealthy corporate executives whose illegally dumped toxins kill off a thousand people.

Or we could be a society with an obsession with “just” violence, including the police, the military, gun hoarders, and militias.

Movie posters and plots use pistols and rifles and explosions as visual shorthand for alpha male. Law-and-order suburbanites and delusional presidents demand violence against those that would deface bronze statues, because we cannot become a country that would tolerate that.

Picnic at the border

I leave on Thursday for extended travel. I may not be able to post again before I go.

I am going to Germany with a side trip to England. My brother currently lives in Munich and he has gotten as interested in genealogy as I am. So he, his daughter, and I will travel for two weeks with the goal of visiting several of the small villages my mother’s ancestors are from. And that little jaunt into England will include a cluster of villages where one branch of my dad’s ancestors are from. Of course, there will be lots of other things to see in Germany and England. And I shouldn't forget France – our first stop out of Munich will be Strasbourg because the first village to visit is across the Rhine River from there.

For the duration of the trip this blog (as I’ve done before) will become a travelogue, perhaps even with pictures.



Some bits of news (something I hope to ignore for a few weeks). First the bad:

Last Thursday I wrote about how the nasty guy and his minion Attorney General William Barr needed a distraction, so announced the resumption of criminal executions at the federal level, something that hadn’t been done since 2003.

Twitter user Jaded Vet thinks there is a much more chilling reason for resuming the death penalty:

Anyone else think that Barr's reinstatement of the #DeathPenalty is a precursor to Trump accusing his political opponents, criminal investigators, critical journalists, human rights activists, etc. of treason?

A response from user Malcolm Nance’s Woodchipper of Justice:

That was my *first thought*. They'll start with people everyone hates – murderous rapists and pedophiles – then gradually move along the path to drug dealers, et al. and eventually end up at political opponents.

Now the good:

Last week, in the same post I referenced above, I wrote that after Special Counsel Robert Mueller talked about Russia continuing to meddle in American politics Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a hand in preventing yet another attempt to have the Senate vote on bills to protect our elections.

That prompted conservative pundit Joe Scarborough to coin a new nickname: Moscow Mitch. That’s a lot easier to type than “democracy gravedigger,” which I’ve used a few times now. This new nickname has been gaining a lot of usage, even trending on Twitter. Even better, the word “treason” is used along with it. As in: MoscowMitchMcTreason. A few tweets exploiting that are here.



California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that says for a candidate to appear in a state primary election they must disclose at least five years of tax returns. The reason for the bill is to force the nasty guy to release his taxes.

Commenters debate what might happen. Some think this will achieve nothing because the nasty guy doesn’t need California to win, and certainly won’t get it. So what if he doesn’t appear on the ballot at all? Though the GOP state legislators might not agree with that. Others note that in California the primary rules say the two who get the most votes, even if they’re from the same party, go on to the general, so the nasty guy may not get on the ballot anyway.

Even so, I appreciate the California legislature’s efforts and wish other states would do the same.



And the wonderful!

Resistance comes in many forms. Mauricio Martinez tweeted a short video of an art exhibit designed by Ronald Rael. The art is three bright pink seesaws that go through the border fence. This allows a child on one side of the border to play with a child on the other side.

A comment to the Martinez tweet took me to another bit of border resistance. Artist JR created a piece of art showing two eyes, one on either side of the border. On the last day it was on display JR turned it into a giant picnic table so guests in Mexico and the US could share a meal together. People shared food between the slats of the fence and a band accompanied the meal with half the players on each side.

Samantha Schmidt wrote about the picnic for the Washington Post. Her article included a couple more photos that show another nearby bit of work also by JR, one that I had written about before (though I haven’t found that previous post). This art is of a huge photo of a little boy who, from the American side, appears to be peering over the border fence. We see the picnic table was placed in front of the huge photo.

Terrified to speak the obvious

So former Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller testified before Congress yesterday. And a lot of political voices are talking about his performance.

Many of those voices concluded: it was underwhelming. There were no bold pronouncements that galvanized the watching public into concluding the nasty guy really does need to be impeached.

Sigh.

Though Mueller was “shaky” and “hesitant,” Daily Kos writer Mark Sumner says these hearings provided enough information to begin impeachment proceedings (as did the actual report, which came out months ago). Re. Hakeem Jeffries pointed out that the nasty guy’s actions met every requirement for a charge of obstruction of justice. Rep. Ted Lieu got Mueller to say the nasty guy would have been indicted if there weren’t the Office of Legal Council instructions (which are not law) that a sitting president can’t be indicted.

But there were many more things Mueller refused to talk about. That leaves us wondering what else he knows.

Sarah Kendzior, in an article for the Globe and Mail, published in Canada (tellingly, not in America) talks about that hesitancy Mueller displayed.

Throughout the hearings, Mr. Mueller acted as if outside forces constrained his ability to answer questions. But he is no longer an employee of the Department of Justice, and they can no longer tell him what to say. The decision to narrow the scope of the questions and even his method of response (he refused to read his own report out loud) was Robert Mueller’s.
…
He acted like a man terrified to speak the obvious.

The question remains: why? An informed public is a powerful public, and a powerful public is crucial when a country is transitioning into autocracy. Any attempt of officials to hide the truth – whether through deliberate lies, institutional obfuscation, or pure gutlessness – hurts the body politic. Mr. Mueller had the opportunity to deliver insight and validate his own work. Instead, he was timid in the face of both Republican smears and Democratic inquiries. He kept noting that he knew the answers to questions that are of great public interest, but that he had no intention of revealing them.

The public has the right to know whether its own government constitutes a threat to national security and if the president is complicit in a crime. Testifying to Congress was Mr. Mueller’s patriotic obligation, and he should not have required a subpoena to show up. His question-dodging mirrored the reticence of his probe: he did not want to indict anyone even when their offences were blatant, and he did not want to explain why. It is disconcerting that one of the few things Mr. Mueller would confirm is that Americans are not safe.

Alas, Kendzior does not know the answer to her question.

One thing Mueller confirmed was that Russia meddled in the 2016 election, is meddling now in American politics, and will continue to meddle through the 2020 election. Senate Majority Leader and democracy gravedigger Mitch McConnell has prevented votes on at least a couple dozen bills to fix the problems. In response to Mueller’s testimony Democrats tried to force a couple election protection bills onto the Senate floor for a vote. But Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi blocked that move. She later tweeted that the bills were “partisan.”

Even though Mueller wimped out, the nasty guy and his minions saw the need for a distraction. So this morning Attorney General William Barr announced the resumption of executions of federal prisoners on death row.

There have been no federal executions since 2003, for a variety of reasons. These include not wanting to mistakenly execute an innocent person and being skeptical that existing execution protocols are humane.

The executions probably can’t happen before December and will definitely face court challenges.

Hunter of Daily Kos wrote about this announcement and ends with this:

If we were to be extraordinarily cynical about it, we would note that regimes around the world have long staged new rounds of prisoner executions to distract the public during times of rising opposition to government leaders. Sometimes the prisoners are indeed very bad people. It makes for good press, something new to discuss and have emotions over in the cafes while the government brags about the obvious good it is doing. If we were to be extraordinarily cynical about it.

More democratic

The Supremes gave us a wonderful gift last Friday, but their term wasn't quite over. They released three more opinions yesterday. The one of greatest interest to me is the one about gerrymandering. Fifteen years ago the citizens of Arizona got fed up with their legislature not doing what they wanted and passed a state constitution amendment putting the redistricting task in the hands of an independent commission that the legislature could not overrule. The legislature became miffed at the power taken away from them and sued. Their claim was that the US Constitution said everything associated with elections of Representatives was to be decided by the legislature of the state.

In a 5-4 decision Ruth Bader Ginsberg said the word can be defined as, "The power that makes the laws." And that could easily be – and is more democratic when it is – the people. Roberts was not amused by simple definition swaps. We needed the 17th Amendment to specifically say Senators should be elected by the people and not the legislature.

Ginsberg noted that even Founding Father James Madison worried about gerrymandering. The court should have done something about it before now but hasn't been able to find a "workable standard" to support a constitutional limitation.

The ruling does not mean independent commissions must draw district boundaries. It does mean that if the people vote to create an independent commission the Constitution does not prevent it. That's good to hear because Michigan is highly gerrymandered and we'd like that opportunity here.

The second Supreme ruling yesterday involved the first of three drugs used in death penalty cases. This time the conservatives prevailed. The issue is whether mishandling that drug causes cruel and unusual punishment, which the 8th Amendment forbids. The Alito decision noted the Court has never ruled any particular method of execution is cruel and unusual and this one isn't either. They gave two reasons. First, the inmates who brought the case couldn't show the state had a better drug than the one in dispute. Second, the inmates couldn't show misuse was likely, they only showed it can happen.

The main dissent was written by Sotomayor. First, she says, mishandling is more likely than the conservatives suggest and that could result in searing pain. Second, the burden of proof should not be on the inmates.

But it is the Breyer dissent that is attracting attention. He read his dissent from the bench and suggested that the death penalty is unconstitutional. That brought a heap of scorn from Scalia who said the Constitution "explicitly contemplates" the death penalty (whatever that means).

The third case was about the Environmental Protection Agency's new rules for regulating pollutants from power plants. Again, the conservatives prevailed. They ruled the EPA must factor in some kind (any kind) of cost-benefit analysis when it applies regulations to a particular facility. For example, if preventions for hazardous emissions would cost $10 billion to install but the benefit is only $6 billion, then the EPA should not enforce what it wants. That's the central question. The Court did say the benefit could include whatever the EPA thinks is appropriate such as harder to measure things like health care savings in the surrounding neighborhood.

With that the Supremes are done until October.

Life without parole is tough enough

Newsweek reports on Marc Hyden who has been making presentations at conservative events about how banning the death penalty should be a conservative cause. Yeah, this is a big change for a party with a reputation for being tough on crime (and doing all the wrong things to show that toughness). So the conservative case is:

* Not everyone on death row is guilty. It takes time to find the evidence to exonerate the innocent.

* Death penalty cases are hugely expensive due to the prolonged appeals process.

* "If you can’t really trust government to fill a pothole, how can you trust government do the right thing on a life and death decision?"

* Life without parole is plenty tough. Tough on crime doesn't require execution.

The article has to turn to Obama about another side of the death penalty: there's a huge racial bias on who is given a death sentence. But another aspect isn't mentioned at all: the death penalty is cruel.



Since I'm reading Newsweek (at least for another month) on my netbook computer I'm not as prompt at writing about stories of interest. They tend to accumulate in the browser tabs. Here's one from a couple months ago.

Over the last 20 years the big internet providers have been collecting extra fees (or at least charging higher rates) so they would have enough cash on hand to extend high-speed internet to every corner of the country by 2020. That goal became part of the FCC's National Broadband Plan in 2010.

But instead of using that stash of cash to lay fiber optic cable in small towns these companies are using it to lobby legislatures to get them out of the obligation. They've decided that if a metropolis doesn't have a sufficient population density it simply isn't worthwhile for them to lay the optic cable. And if you live in such a town, too bad, you're stuck with dial-up. This applies to places like Montana, right? Nope, southern New Jersey is stuck too.

In most other developed countries the internet provider is a public utility. And most of them have speeds for everybody much faster than the fastest in America. Internet access is on my list of things that should not be privatized.

Money is not speech

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is back in the news. One reason is the publication of his new book Six Amendments, How and Why We Should Change the Constitution. The other reason is he was before Congress in a hearing on "dark money," secret campaign donations. Short summary of his testimony: "Money is not speech." And slightly longer: there is a difference in permissibility of speech "because of a very strong state interest in trying to establish equality of opportunity for competing candidates to get elected."

Stevens is the third longest serving Justice, retiring in 2010. He is now 94. His dissent in Bush v. Gore, which decided the 2000 election, is important. He also dissented in the Citizens United case that unleashed campaign spending.

The NPR stories this week (links above) only briefly mentioned the six amendments Stevens thinks are appropriate, not saying much about what those amendments are. So I turned to another source: Amazon and its book reviews. The ones by William Springer and Loyd Eskildson fill in the details. Springer tries to review the book and not say how he feels about each amendment. I won't limit myself that way. Here is a description of the six amendments. Not all of them seem important.

* The Supremacy Clause says the federal gov't says judges can compel states to enforce federal laws. Stevens would expand that to include other public officials.

* A limit to gerrymandering. Political districts must be compact and contiguous. Springer's review seems to imply that the Supremes could take on the issue now, though they have only done so in gerrymandering involving race. I think this one is very important, though one part is missing: district maps must be drawn up by independent and impartial boards.

* Congress and the states may impose reasonable limits to campaign spending. Yes, it means Congress and legislatures define what "reasonable" means, but that would be reviewed by the Supremes. I think another method is better, to have public funding of campaigns. This is another one of high importance.

* Clarifies that a state, its agencies, and its officers are subject to acts of Congress and the Constitution.

* The death penalty should be banned. I agree and think this one might have the easiest chance of getting passed.

* The right to bear arms is restricted to when serving in the Militia. This is the one that will grab the attention. It is another of high importance and one I agree with.

I'm pleased to see my two top issues -- gerrymandering and campaign finance -- are in the list. Once these are in place, other issues, such as gun control and death penalty, would be easier to do.

Springer concludes by saying the book is a disappointment. The arguments Stevens uses aren't sufficiently convincing that the solutions Stevens proposes are the best. It is a missed opportunity. Eskildson is disappointed Stevens doesn't cover the difficulty in getting the Constitution amended. There is essentially zero chance these amendments would get through 2/3 of both the Senate and House and 3/4 of the states. Perhaps the first thing to change is to make amending the Constitution easier.

I have a hard time agreeing with the last point. The Michigan Constitution is too easy to amend and all kinds of (forgive me for saying it) crap, such as the same-sex marriage ban, has been crammed into it.

A year of progressive victories

Peter Dreier is a Distinguished Professor of Politics at Occidental College. Last year he wrote an article for Huffington Post listing the 25 best progressive victories for the year. This year's list makes it an annual event. He has extensive documentation for each of his choices, so his article is long. And all those words mean I'd have to read them all to get a good summary. So I'll just give some highlights (and leave out some points).

1. Some notable progressives were elected this year, with Bill de Blasio of NYC at the top of the list.

2. Labor is starting a comeback with its protests for living wages.

3. There is momentum towards increasing the minimum wage locally and nationally.

4. The Occupy Wall Street movement has effectively changed the discussion of income inequality with its terms 99% and 1%.

6. In spite of the Supremes gutting a key part of the Voting Rights Act, local and state efforts have prevented some bad laws from being enacted and even got a few good ones passed.

7. LGBT rights have indeed made big progress with nearly doubling the number of states with marriage equality (Utah still up in the air) and the election of some gay mayors.

9. Maryland abolished the death penalty, the 18th state to do so, and other states are using it a lot less.

10. While laws to lessen gun violence are stuck at the national level, progress is being made at the state and local level.

11. Though Michigan just passed a law banning abortion insurance from healthcare policies, several other states have blocked restrictions to abortion or improved access to it.

12. There have been a few victories against Wall Street. That includes the Volker Rule to curb speculative trading by banks.

13. Environmental issues grow, including emphasis on sustainability, blockage of the Keystone Pipeline, and making fracking a national issue.

14. A continuing series of rallies for immigration reform.

15. Growing opposition to corporate-backed education reform, including teachers refusing to administer standardized tests.

16. For years the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) would draft corporate-friendly policies and get them passed by various states. Now many of its corporate contributors have been exposed and then embarrassed enough to drop out.

17. Links to shadowy campaign money are being exposed. Public financing of campaigns is growing.

18. There is mounting protest of excessive student debt along with experiments in funding higher education to keep it affordable.

22. The Affordable Care Act, despite glitches and efforts to repeal it, is poised to expand healthcare coverage and be the stepping stone to healthcare cost reductions.

24. In spite of corporate-run media, several progressives have become popular figures. At the top of the list are Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rev. William Barber who leads NC's Moral Monday movement.

Graveyard for homosexuality

Though the nasty anti-gay bill in Uganda has not yet gotten the president's assent it has made gays there quite fearful. There is sure to be a witch-hunt.

In response gay organizations in Venezuela are urging their Foreign Ministry to grant asylum to gays fleeing Uganda.

Another place with draconian anti-gay laws is Ethiopia. The recent crackdown there is inspired by -- who else? -- American evangelicals. Which leads to the contradiction of Ethiopians saying they don't want the Western influence of promoting homosexuality while they cheer the Western influence of passing a death penalty for homosexuality. The rallying cry is "Africa will become a graveyard for homosexuality!" This article in Newsweek also describes what life is like for one circle of gay friends.

Here is a map that shows where homosexuality is illegal with the penalty for those convicted. Half of these countries are in Africa with another broad swath in the Middle East and South Asia.

Insufficient pain

Brad Drake, GOP lawmaker in Florida, thinks executions don't cause enough pain. He has introduced a state bill to bring back the firing squad and the electric chair. One sick puppy.



Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager, is catching on that GOP Congress members don't intend to play nice. The liberals in the country wonder what took him so long and what are they going to do about it.

To be fair, a lot of Dems have been until recently avoiding using the term "sabotage" describing the GOP and the economy. But a lot more than Dems are now saying it.



Herman Cain is enjoying front-runner status in the prez. race (at the moment). Terrence Heath says it is because Cain talks to the white bigots in control of the party using words they like to hear.

Can has said that Blacks don't vote Republican because they are too dumb to know what's good for them. This is a viewpoint of many exclusive groups (even some churches I know -- and don’t forget the Dems) who say, "Our message is fine. They're too dumb to understand it and know that they need it." rather than, "How do we need to change our message -- and our efforts -- to attract these outside groups?" Of course, the GOP is not going to change its goals in order to accommodate the needs of poor blacks.

Cain got in a heap of trouble by calling out Rick Perry's racism. Which means Can must now pretend that racism is not a problem in the GOP.

Heath is sure Cain won't get the nomination for prez. But, if he plays by the GOP rules, they might award him the VP spot.

Ending rehearsed murder

Newsweek has three articles about the death penalty as reaction to the execution of Troy Davis. They were written by a man who had the job of executioner, who is haunted by the idea he has probably murdered an innocent man; a Georgia state Department of Corrections commissioner, who calls the practice "rehearsed murder;" and lawyer/novelist Scott Turow who believes we are taking steps towards repeal of the death penalty. Parts of those stories can get intense.