Bipartisanship must be relegated to the dustbin—forever

Yesterday I wrote about the nasty guy signing an executive order and three memoranda. The mainstream media called it four executive orders. But Daily Kos made the distinction, so I followed their example. Jessica Sutherland of Kos reinforced that point in a post late yesterday. The distinction: Memoranda aren’t orders. Which means they’re suggestions. And don’t do much.

Sutherland points out other little details of this slew of documents.

Those $400 supplemental unemployment benefits to replace the $600 Congress authorized and let expire don’t plug into the federal unemployment system at all. They look like a new program that could take months to set up. The money would come from federal disaster relief – which is supposed to have its own hugely important priorities in a year that might see a record number of hurricanes. The amount of money would last five weeks.

The order on evictions is really only a request to HUD to “consider” whether evictions should stop.

Those payroll taxes are deferred – they still eventually have to be paid.

My summary: The nasty guy won the news cycle for Doing Something, while doing very little and giving the GOP in the Senate an excuse to claim another relief bill is no longer needed. This was a campaign event.



Jenna Ellis, a senior legal advisor to the nasty guy and his campaign, gleefully tweeted:

This is actually the biggest news of the day:

President Trump said if he is re-elected, he will look into terminating the payroll tax permanently!

Neera Tandon responded:

3 months before the election they are announcing their plan to end Social Security after the election. Just so we are all clear.

Hunter of Kos wrote that what the nasty guy did was fascist, illegal, and incompetent. He also explains the whole mess.



Leah McElrath tweeted:

Trump installs a top donor to head up Postal Service. That donor immediately fires management below him. Postal Service then nearly triples rate for states to mail ballots to voters.

Trump is trying to steal the election.

I mean...c’mon. The fact that Trump is trying to steal the election couldn’t be any clearer.

McElrath then includes a tweet from Anita Kumar, a White House correspondent for Politico:

Last week, aides and advisers began pondering possible executive actions Trump could take to curb mail-in voting — everything from directing the postal service to not deliver certain ballots to stopping local officials from counting them

This is a good time to quote a thread by Sigrid Ellis

The fact that it is illegal.
The fact that there is no legal authority for this action.
The fact that there are checks and balances to prevent it.
The fact that there is no precedent.

None of that matters to the authoritarian making a grab for power.

He is ALREADY forcing federal troops into cities against the will of governors and mayors.
He is ALREADY approving the shutdown of the USPS so it can be sold.
He is ALREADY laundering money through his office into his pocket.
He is ALREADY colluding with hostile foreign powers.

The unthinkable has already happened.

Do not rely on norms, precedent, usual operations, or any other soft mode of social control.

The only thing that will stop him is a Secret Service escort out of the building after he loses the election while the Joint Chiefs stand by.

This month’s Hightower Lowdown is about Big Meat and its abuses. We’re down to three big meat companies and all three put profits over people. Serious accidents happen routinely and just as routinely are covered up. That was made more clear when these companies got the nasty guy to declare them an essential business. They did it by saying if the didn’t get that declaration the nation would run short of meat. Jim Hightower said that was a lie.

The last section of the main article uses different words to talk about supremacy:

It’s obvious that plain old greed is part of today’s corporate ethic, but we need to confront an even more repugnant enabler of avarice: Disdain for workers. Bosses harbor a deep-seated attitude that its almost 200,000 frontline meatpackers ... are lesser humans, unworthy of having their wellbeing interfere with the high calling of industrial money making. Hence, the executive-suite’s abject failure to respond to what clearly was, and still is, a fast-spreading health crisis, is exacerbated by intense, behind-the-scenes lobbying demands that the federal government force employees back into petri-dish plants. How ironic, that to justify federal intervention corporate execs deemed slaughterhouse workers “essential,” even while valuing their lives so little that they would sacrifice them to profit.

The companies blamed the virus outbreaks on the workers. The GOP took up the cry suggesting the workers were untidy and that they just weren’t “regular folks.”

What we face here is not just standard corporate minginess, but an evil mentality that reduces workers to inferior, disposable beings: It not only dehumanizes the workplace, but workers themselves. It’s bad enough that some elites have always held such beliefs, but far worse that in the case of the meat industry, this lethal dehumanization is now accepted as the guiding ethic of both corporate and governmental policy. We must call out and reject this raw immorality, because dehumanization is the key to exploitation–it opens the gates to let racism, sexism, classism, and all other isms of inequality walk in.

Yes, dehumanization is the core of what is going on and the core to all the other isms. And that is a lot more than simple “disdain.” This is supremacy at its height. The corporate execs are saying compare my life to that of my workers to see how wonderful I am. Just don’t pay any attention that I make their lives miserable so that my life will look so much better.



Dartagnan of the Kos community discusses an essay by Joseph O’Neill written for the New York Review of Books. O’Neill is a professor at Bard College. The subject is a proposal for how Democrats should govern if they win it all in November.

Start with this: Noam Chomsky described the GOP as “the most dangerous organization in human history.” O’Neill added, “Republicans cannot be trusted with meaningful power precisely because they form one of the world-historical dangers that must be overcome.”

It isn’t just what the nasty guy is doing to wreck everything. It’s also that the GOP refuses to exert any control over him. And spent at least 30 years getting ready for him.

So the Democrats, once in power, should by highly partisan. Dartagnan explains:

To be clear, by “partisan,” O’Neill is not simply recommending being “anti” any individual Republican officeholders but rather wholly embracing a clear, straightforward Democratic agenda, with an enemy clearly and broadly defined as the Republican Party. The idea of “bipartisanship” must be relegated to the dustbin—forever. This is a Democratic world O’Neill foresees, one in which there is no longer any room for Republican ideology, policy, or philosophy of any sort.

To that end, as O’Neill states, “if Democrats want to win elections repeatedly, they must enact policies that are both effective and popular with Democrats.” This, he believes, is the only way the energy of the Democratic grassroots organizations that form the Party’s base of support will stay engaged, and continue to vigorously vote and re-vote the Democrats back into power.
…
Yet O’Neill also recognizes that for this to occur, so-called “moderate” Democrats must acknowledge that the energy of the Party is now centered among its most progressive members, and specifically that “moderates must accept that their conservative assumptions have been overtaken by events.”

I’m well aware that the GOP has been refusing bipartisanship since 1994 and Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. That was to foster selfishness. Now refusing bipartisanship would promote the community.

To make O’Neill’s proposal happen Democrats need to foster both trust and dignity. O’Neill suggests tactics and measures. Here are some of them:

* Implement progressive policies without watering them down. Include taxes on the wealthy, Green New Deal, and improved health care. And don’t apologize.

* End the filibuster [which I learned was created so that Southern politicians to maintain Jim Crow].

* Continually brand the GOP as a disaster Americans can’t afford to ever let happen again. They can’t be trusted with power.

Being the party that isn’t the nasty guy might get Democrats elected in 2020. But that won’t do any good in 2022.



Anoa Changa of Kos Prism reports on a few initiatives to get youth to serve as poll workers for the November election. It’s a job critical to democracy. Up to this year a majority poll workers were 60 and older. That was because they had the time and the sense of civic responsibility. But this year with a virus raging many of the older workers resigned. So youth are being recruited for the jobs. Perhaps it will give them a sense of civic responsibility.



A campaign group in Arkansas has submitted signatures to get a proposal for an independent citizens redistricting commission on the ballot. Of course, the GOP in the state is doing all it can to declare the signatures invalid. From the description the proposal is similar to what Michigan citizens passed two years ago.

As for the effort in Michigan the selection process is in motion and the members of the commission should be selected by the end of the month.



Some schools have already reopened. It is going about as well as one would expect – not well. One superintendent of a Georgia school district was quoted in a New York Times tweet as saying:

Wearing a mask is a personal choice, and there is no practical way to enforce a mandate to wear them.

Which prompted lots of responses, such as this one from McElrath:

Mothers who’ve had their daughters sent home because their skirts were “too short” or their shoulder straps weren’t “wide enough” would like to have a word.

D. Carlisle responded to McElrath:

Yuuup! This is nuts. They can dictate every detail of a dress code including hairstyle and color, but they can't mandate a mask? They can mandate UNIFORMS but they can't mandate masks? Come. On.

And burkinator added:

Ah well you see the actual problem is they can't practically enforce a policy they don't care about.

North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, not far from Atlanta is one that opened early with insufficient virus protections. Student Hanna Watters videoed the packed hallways with few students wearing masks. She was suspended for her efforts. She has no regrets and quoted John Lewis, saying it was “good and necessary trouble.” Suspension freed her up for three days of appearing on CNN and other media outlets.

Laid down the burdens of division

Goodness! We’re at the end of July!

David Neiwert of Daily Kos discussed the increasing on the street activity of “patriot” (far-right) militias. They have been showing up to counter valid protests, claiming the left is doing what they are about to do. Neiwert looked a reports from a couple Washington Post investigations. Wrote Neiwert:

Possibly the most disturbing aspect of the report, however, was its description of law enforcement’s hands-off approach, treating threats and intimidation as “free speech.”
…
Police seem slow to recognize any kind of violent threat from the extremist right, including domestic terrorism, despite the reality that far-right terrorism occurs at an exponentially greater rate with even greater lethality. This suggests, in fact, that America’s law-enforcement culture may be so deeply conservative that the authoritarian impulses it shares with the extremist right may lead it to ignore the threat not just to law enforcement, but to democracy itself, that the “Patriot”/militia movement represents.

Gabe Ortiz of Kos discussed the federal thugs who have been in Portland, OR for a while now. A whistleblower said these thugs are from Border Patrol Tactical Unit, or BORTAC and added they are among “the most violent and racist in all law enforcement.” They, like the man who sent them to Portland, “view themselves as above the law—and act like it.”

Jenn Budd of The Guardian wrote that the Border Patrol…

has spent decades waiting quietly in the wings, stocking up on weapons and nearly tripling in size since 2001. Waiting for that moment when a president would see them for the heroes they believe themselves to be. Waiting for that moment when a president would fully activate these extraordinary powers to do his/her bidding. That moment is here.

Marisa Franco, Director of the advocacy group Mijente, added:

The difference here is, this time they implemented their tactics openly and under the protection of an authoritarian president. If this is what they do to mostly white U.S. citizens in front of the media, imagine what they are doing to people in their custody, to people who are seeking refuge in isolated parts of the border.

After that we need something nicer to contemplate.

Civil rights icon John Lewis arranged to have some final thoughts published by the New York Times on the day of his funeral. Laura Clawson of Kos had a few excerpts. Lewis wrote:

While my time here has now come to an end I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

President Obama spoke at Lewis’s funeral. In addition to giving a fitting tribute to such an important man, Obama also called on us to vote and called on Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.



Kerry Eleveld of Kos wrote about what she saw dividing GOP senators – whether they’re up for reelection this year or not. That division is showing up as Moscow Mitch tried and failed miserably in putting together another virus aid package.

Those up for reelection are still making nice with Trump, but for others, the wicked brew of future ambition combined with muscle memory has them reacquainting themselves with the age-old arguments they always make when they don't control the White House.

An example of those age-old arguments: We can’t spend any money on relief because the deficit and debt are too high! Yeah, we’ve heard that one many times before. And again I note this was not a concern with the 2017 tax giveaway to the rich.

Eleveld added:

On the bright side, the GOP's sheer incapacity to rally around core principles that would normally be driven by the White House is a sure sign that Trump is losing his grip on the party. But naturally it isn't making them better lawmakers, it's only making them more self-interested.

A report this week said the economic growth for the second quarter (April-June) was an annualized rate of almost -33%. No, the economy did not contract by a third in three months. What the number is saying is that’s how much the economy would contract if the size of drop we saw in those three months continued over a full year. The amount of contraction that happened in those three months was about 10%, which is still hellacious.

Brent Staples of the New York Times tweeted a photo of the front page of that paper. The headline says, “Virus Wipes Out 5 Years of Economic Growth.” Below that is a chart of the change in quarterly growth with a long red line on the right side. A couple inches of one column didn’t have text to make room.
odaiwai replied:

It should read: "Inept response to virus wipes out 5 years of economic growth"

A society that’s at peace with itself

There have been several funeral events for John Lewis over the last few days. There were events in his birth town of Troy, Alabama. There are events in Washington for the next day or so. Then a funeral and burial in Atlanta later this week.

Sunday was a moving event – a horse drawn carriage took Lewis’ coffin over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. The path had been strewn with rose petals, representing the blood lost by protesters during Bloody Sunday in 1965. Yes, this is the bridge where Lewis was beaten and his skull cracked and where several other protesters died.

This time Alabama State Troopers saluted.

Marissa Higgens of Daily Kos gathered together some of the videos and photos of the crossing.

There have been several symbolic marches over that bridge since that Bloody Sunday. Many times they’re a part of a celebration when new civil rights legislation is passed. Lewis was usually at the front of the crowd.




Yesterday, after writing the above, I realized it was a good time to watch the documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble. I saw it through sponsorship of the Detroit Film Theater, which ends Thursday.

As the movie played I wrote a few notes. So these are the notes wrangled into full sentences and paragraphs.

Several times we see Lewis watching a video clip of some event of which he had taken part and commenting on it. In one case he said he had not seen the clip before.

Early in the movie Lewis, this civil rights leader, says there are forces trying to take us back to a dark place. We are still in a civil rights struggle. The struggle is again around the right to vote.

We see the infamous event at the Edmund Pettus Bridge where Lewis had his skull cracked. Then there were videos of several other events, including planning meetings for SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Lewis was president of the group for three years. During one of these meetings they practiced how to remain nonviolent during lunch counter sit-ins during the 1950s. Those doing the training told the others whenever you can look your opponent in the eyes, especially if they are physically harassing you. “Keep loving those telling us no and beating us. Meet the capacity to inflict suffering with the capacity to endure suffering.”

At the end of three years as the head of SNCC the person elected president of the group spoke a lot about Black Power and the militancy of Malcolm X. That went against Lewis’s nonviolent beliefs, learned under MLK, so he walked away.

So much of what Lewis did was to highlight the inaction of the federal government. He got tired of established politicians saying “wait.”

The movie discussed the rampant voter suppression in the 2018 election in the race for Georgia governor, which Staci Abrams, a black woman, lost.

There are several scenes of Lewis campaigning for others, including Abrams.

His great-great-grandfather registered to vote just after the Civil War. No one in that ancestral line could vote since then until Lewis helped bring about the Voting Rights Act.

We saw the jubilation when the 2018 election returns came in and the Democrats took the House. The first bill passed was about voting rights. It still sits in Moscow Mitch’s files.

The Voting Rights Act was up for renewal in 2006. It passed with broad bipartisan support. Bush II signed it. Then it was gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013. In the aftermath of that every day in the Congress is a fight.

He was elected to Congress in 1986. He’s civil rights icon, and also a legislator. And the conscience of Congress. The movie listed major bills Lewis was instrumental in getting passed or defeating. One bill he got passed was for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

After that march from Selma to Montgomery that was stopped at the bridge and after Lewis was released from the hospital there was a second march from Selma to Montgomery. This one did the full 50 miles. This time police watched from the side of the road.

After the official part of the film there was a bonus of a Zoom call between Oprah Winfrey and Lewis. This was about 15 minutes (this plus the movie was under 2 hours). One question Winfrey asked was how Lewis managed to keep his principles of nonviolence when he was being harassed and beaten. Lewis replied that we accepted a way of peace and love. As they spit at you remember your training and your love and that you are doing this for others. He was so convinced of the cause he was willing to give up his life.

Other things he said during this discussion: Be prepared to march and to vote. Voting is the most powerful nonviolent tool. Lewis said his goal is to see a society that’s at peace with itself. While he was in SNCC and marching the group became the beloved community.

The moms are here

There are a couple developments in the situation in Portland where federal police are acting mafia goons. First, various lawsuits are being filed. One by the Oregon Attorney General, another by the ACLU, and likely more.

Second, the fed actions are being protested by the Wall of Moms. Women, most wearing yellow, have linked arms around the federal building in Portland to protect the crowds of protesters behind them. They chant “Feds stay clear, the moms are here.” They were teargassed Saturday night and were back even stronger Sunday night. They’ll be back tonight.

Gassing moms is not a good public relations look. Dangerous, radical, left wing terrorists? Heh.

This is a great way to resist the nasty guy.



The nasty guy has issued an executive order about American monuments and statues. Leah McElrath tweeted that the order says that protests that involve statues or federal property now fall under the definition of terrorism.

The order also has wording that sounds retroactive.

In other words, I would not be surprised if they used this to try to round up people based on past acts.
...
Basically, this order reads to me like Barr’s best effort to give Trump what he really wants:

A prohibition against protesting.

But only applicable to those who are not his supporters.

It’s a very dangerous document—even though I doubt it will ultimately hold up in court.

The problem is that it takes a while to get through the courts. Until it does the nasty guy can do considerable damage.



Greg Dworkin’s pundit roundup on Daily Kos quoted Jim Galloway of AJC:

John Lewis served 33 years in Congress, often serving as its conscience. There is a way to keep him there, even in death.

Remove the figure of Alexander Stephens, the first and only vice president of the Confederacy, from National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.

Replace him with Lewis.

Dworkin added:

And restore the Voting Rights Act. That’s more important that statuary or renaming a bridge, excellent ideas though they are.

David Shimer, author of the book Rigged, tweeted a thread about the book saying “Russian hackers had the ability to alter vote data & vote tallies of U.S. citizens on Election Day 2016.” Shimer then describes secret crisis teams run by Obama’s White House and Department of Homeland Security on election day that year offering assistance to states if they needed it. They saw no evidence of tampering of actual votes that year. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Did the Russian hack fail? No. Russian hacked emails had dominated news for months and Russian propaganda reached tens of millions of Americans on social media.

And in this year, the Russians will do all they can to keep the nasty guy in office.



The nasty guy said to Chris Wallace that he’s done more than any POTUS in history. While not conceding the point about more than any other president, Will Stancil tweeted:

You know what? I actually think Trump HAS done quite a lot in his 3.5 years. He's politicized the judiciary, shredded our international standing, co-opted the executive agencies, totally stopped immigration, eliminated apolitical federal law enforcement.

He's managed to destroy far, far more than most people in politics predicted in 2016. Lots of you said that Trump would flail and the rest of the government would go on as usual. He's flailed - with 100k dead to prove it - but the rest of the government was thoroughly Trumpified.

With painfully little resistance, Trump has turned the US federal government into a machine for persecuting his enemies, enriching himself, and carrying out his irrational, reactionary whims - everything from "let the deadly disease destroy America" to "purchase Greenland."

Trump also completely pacified Congress in 4 years:
-in 2017, when Trump fired Comey, the GOP Senate held a dramatic hearing watched nationwide
-in 2020, when Trump illegally fired IGs and had DOJ undermine prosecutions of his own accomplices, the Democratic House barely reacted.

Yup, that’s a lot. And none of it benefits the American people.



Bree Newsome Bass tweeted:

Based on what I’ve seen so far— even going back as far as the 2000 election—if Trump refuses to leave office, I’m not convinced that Biden or the Democrats will mount much of an opposition. I really think folks are underestimating the precariousness of this situation.

Like, we need actual anti-fascist resistance leaders right now. I’m not seeing that represented in what Biden or the Democrats are doing. I’m just saying be prepared to be abandoned by them in November & the aftermath because not preparing for that scenario is dangerously unwise.

A.R. Moxon tweeted in response to the federal police in Portland:

2016
Leftist Larry: Trump's a fascist. If he wins, expect secret police
Reasonable Rick: Don't be so hysterical. Our system's strong

2020
Larry: There literally are secret police now
Rick: Oh I assume there's a reasonable explanation

2024

Rick: Larry? I never knew any Larry

Being an aware American means every day interacting with people who are familiar with the famous poem about nobody being left when at last they come for you, but who clearly seem to think that it means, as the last unabducted person, the poet won the game.

First they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out—Because you don't win hearts by calling people racist

Then they came for Black Lives, and I did not speak out—Because speaking out is "cancel culture."

I don’t speak much anymore. They call it "freedom to agree."

There have been in the past countries with secret police who abduct undesirable elements. In most cases, there came a tipping point, where a great mass of people became aware of the disappearances and made themselves unconcerned.

Stigs tweeted a missing step in Moxon’s timeline:

2022: Yes sir I'd like to call in a loyalty report on one Larry, Leftist.

David Moisan added:

I've hated Neimoller's essay: Not because it isn't true on the face of it, but because there is a corollary: The Nazis didn't come for most people. Such people were "neutral", "polite" and "moderate", and tell you "You're overreacting, why do you need to get so angry?"

Benji Backer tweeted an idea that seems to undergird a great deal of modern news reporting:

The truth always resides somewhere in between where both sides say it does.

Mike Young objected:

This is seldom true, and is known as the Golden Mean Fallacy. In reality, the positions of either side in a political debate has no bearing on what’s true. Some examples include masks vs no masks, early childhood education, or slavery in 1865.

Good trouble, necessary trouble

John Lewis, a hero, has died at age 80. He was the youngest and last remaining speaker of the 1963 March on Washington. He had his skull fractured at the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965. He was known for saying that people need to stir up trouble, “good trouble, necessary trouble.” He elected to Congress in 1987, where he became known as the conscience of Congress. He was instrumental in some important civil rights issues of the last few decades. Alas, wrote Mark Sumner of Daily Kos:

Too often in the last decades, Lewis was forced to spend his energies not on moving the nation forward, but in the struggle to keep it from sliding back. He fought back attempts to derail and defund the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in Congress, only to see courts and the Trump White House undercut his efforts.

Laura Clawson of Kos included a few tweeted comments from people expressing their condolences.

Stephen Webber tweeted a photo of Lewis and added:

I hear there are some pedestals in need of a statue.

A few others replied saying there is a certain bridge that needs a new name.

Something to do while you can’t go anywhere – watch the new documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble. I’ve seen it mentioned, though I haven’t watched it yet.



About once a week I’ve been pulling COVID-19 case and death data off the Michigan.gov website. I wrote a little program to pull in the data and graph it. Michigan’s data goes back to March 1. In mid March the number of cases surged upwards, reaching over 1500 cases a day a couple times at the beginning of April. About two weeks later the number of deaths per day peaked at 160 a day. Both then declined. About the last week of June the number of cases per day jumped from 225 to 450-625 and has remained up there since. Even though it has been almost four weeks since the number of cases rose the number of deaths is still on a downward trend. Either the jump is yet to come or treatment has improved so fewer people are dying.



Yesterday I finished reading book 7 in the Harry Potter series of J.K Rowling. This book is 759 pages. I Googled to find the whole series is over 4,000 pages.

By page 200 of this novel Voldemort (the bad guy) and his followers have taken over the Ministry of Magic. And Harry and his friends are on the run. They have to be suspicious of everyone because they don’t know who has switched allegiances and they must be careful of impostors. As I read this part I was thinking about how the situation was like life under an authoritarian tyrant. Like we seem to be developing here in America.

I now have read the entire set and very much enjoyed the world that Rowling created.



The opera for last night and today was The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart. This story is a sequel to The Barber of Seville by Rossini. Both operas are based on stories from the same author. Mozart chose the second story and later Rossini chose the first.

In the earlier story Count Almaviva woos Rosina with the help of Figaro against the disapproval of her guardian. In this one Figaro is a servant in the household of the Count and Countess. He would like to be married to Susanna, who is a maid in the same house. However, the Count also has eyes for Susanna, as do one or two other people. And another woman is trying to force Figaro to marry her. There is also Cherubino, a teenage boy (sung by a soprano in a trouser role) who will fall in love with whomever he can get his hands on. Comedy ensues with a twist in the story in nearly every scene. The Count’s philandering ways are exposed and there is a happy ending.

In this Metropolitan Opera production the set was on the big turntable with the appropriate room of the house – great hall, garden, the Countess’s bedroom, and Figaro’s bedroom (the opera starts with him measuring the room to see if a marriage bed will fit). During the overture the turntable showed the various rooms showing a pantomime of the upcoming action – Figaro pacing off his room or Susanna in the great room showing fellow maids her bridal veil. Pretty cool.

Another cool thing about this opera is that the various characters frequently blend into ensembles, each telling their part of the story while contributing to the music as a whole.

Democrats with spine

Yesterday I mentioned that Democrats were occupying the US House floor to demand a vote on gun reforms. I had just a snippet of the news yesterday. I have a much fuller report now.

The leader of the effort is Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. In the 1960s he was one of those beaten at the start of the march to Montgomery. He's been a stalwart defender of civil rights his whole life.

The sit-in started about 11:30 am. yesterday. The Speaker controls the CSPAN cameras, so those were turned off. The House was supposed to be called into session long enough to go on its July 4 break. The Dems sitting in the well of the floor chanted, "no bill, no break."

Senator Chris Murphy, the one who led the filibuster in the Senate and who got the Senate to take a vote (which failed), joined the crowd in the House floor. As did many other senators, even Harry Reid.

In addition to turning off the TV cameras the Seargeant at Arms has refused to allow the public into the galleries and has ordered House members to stop sharing photos and video from the House floor. That demand was ignored. Dems held a press conference outside the House chamber. This isn't controlled by the Speaker so C-SPAN covered it.

C-SPAN didn't like Speaker Ryan's refusal to allow them to film the sit-in. Rep. Scott Peters (CA) streamed video onto Periscope. C-SPAN tapped into that Periscope feed to show action in the House chamber.

Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC) tweeted:

Calling this a sit-in is a disgrace to Woolworth's. That sit-in was for rights. Dems are "sitting-in" to strip them away.

Joe Meldelson responded:

John Lewis would probably be happy to educate you on sit-ins. Perhaps you could ask him?

Here's a bit of background on Lewis:

Rep. Walker appears to be unaware that former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairman John Lewis, Freedom Rider, man who spoke alongside Martin Luther King Jr. on the day King gave his I Have a Dream speech, man whose skull was fractured by police beatings on Bloody Sunday, may know a little something about what the civil rights sit-ins were about.

A meeting between Lewis and Walker might provide a bit of quality television.

Speaker Ryan tried to break the sit-in by bringing up another bill for a vote. That meant the cameras were on showing a chaotic chamber. Ryan can't be heard over the chanting by Dems and those in the Gallery. Even so, the vote proceeded.

Whoever chose this bill as the one to attempt to break the sit-in must be completely tone-deaf. This vote was to repeal a fiduciary rule, one that says investment advisers must give advice in the best interest of their clients, not on whatever product gives the adviser the best kick-back. Meaning it's a bill to allow Wall Street to swindle seniors. The nature of the bill meant a 2/3 approval was necessary. Didn't happen.

A huge crowd gathered outside the House chamber chanting, "Do your job!"

The Dem sit-in continued overnight. As for Republicans... they decided it would be a real good idea to start their July 4 break on June 23 and fled.

On to the analysis. Why go through all this effort knowing Ryan won't allow a vote and if he did the vote would fail? Isn't this contributing to Congressional dysfunction or violating the sanctity of parliamentary process?

Why the effort? Because political theater, especially with the public on your side, is very powerful. It shows the obstruction, as of now, is solely on the GOP side. If the Dems retake the Senate (possible) and House (a much longer shot) then they can get stuff done – such as these gun bills. For this bit of theater the Dems are keeping the message quite focused. The GOP refused to allow a vote on this.

Accusing Dems of adding to the Dysfunction? After years of what the GOP has been doing?

More analysis: Ryan is screwed. Can you imagine the storm if he ordered Lewis to be physically removed? The GOP has no good out. And the story overshadowed Trump's latest attempt at a speech – in which fact-checkers found 30 gigantic lies in a 40 minute speech.

And more: Ryan said the sit-in is nothing but a "publicity stunt" about "trying to get attention." Well, yes it is, which isn't a bad thing. And the attention they're trying to get is yours. They want you to see the vast majority (90%) of voters want meaningful action on guns.

The sit-in has ended. For now. It will likely resume after the July4 recess.

I have a blog tag, used to categorize posts, that says "Democrat Wimps." I'm not using it today.

The impossible question: Why?

Terrence Heath, who is black, recounts when he was in college his father sat him down for The Talk. Nope, not the birds and the bees. This was a full blown course in Black Man 101 -- how to conduct yourself during encounters with police when you've done nothing wrong and are still accused. That is if you want to emerge alive and unscathed. The lessons included how to be deferential and agreeable while being treated like a criminal.

But with the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin, Heath remembers what his father had to do during Jim Crow.

The old rules required Blacks to be agreeable and non-challenging when dealing with white people, even if the white person in question was wrong. No Black person could never even insinuate that a white person was wrong, lying, or had dishonorable intentions. Under no circumstances was a Black person ever to even appear to assume equality with whites.

If a white person carrying a gun will feel threatened by a black man and may shoot with very little provocation, then Jim Crow etiquette is back. Black fathers must teach their sons to act around any white person the way they used to teach their sons to act around police.

Being a Black man of almost any age in American means being constantly aware of the fear your mere presence inspires some whites, the anger that follows closely on heels of that, and the deference required of you as a result. Should it cause you to be profiled, harassed, demeaned, beaten or worse, you may just have to take it. If, that is, you want to live.

We already teach our sons to follow a similar etiquette above with police officers. We tell them to be agreeable and non-challenging, even if the police are wrong.

Must we now explain to our sons that their very presence is enough to make some people believe they are dangerous solely because they are young black men? Must we now explain to them that some white people will look for any reason to act on those feelings and beliefs?

Must we revert to teaching our sons to conform to some modern form of “Jim Crow etiquette”? Must we now revert to teaching our sons to be deferential to every bigot who may be armed, and may have just enough law on their side to start shooting based on nothing more than how they feel and what they believe?

Last fall, our oldest son got his first hoodie. It quickly became his favorite article of clothing. The moment he put it on, and pulled the hood over his face, I saw Trayvon Martin’s face. I thought of my son in Trayvon Martin’s place.

Sometime during The Talk there is a question from the student that is impossible to answer: Why?



Joshua DuBois of Newsweek writes about the national mood after the Zimmerman acquittal. On the black side it is mothers asking in fear "Can they really just kill our kids?" And on the white side is another fear:

It’s a view that has sympathy for the Martin family, but at the end of the day also has sympathy for George Zimmerman: You know, sue me, but a tall, hooded black man that I’ve never seen before in my neighborhood is maybe a little frightening. And I don’t know what happened next between Zimmerman and Trayvon. But if, God forbid, I, or my husband, or my wife, is ever in that situation, I might like the right to ... Most would shudder to finish the sentence.

So how do we lessen the fear? DuBois has profiles of a couple people trying to do just that. The first is Russell Moore. He is the new head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. This is the denomination that fought hard to maintain slavery and Jim Crow and filled the ranks of the Klan. So, yeah, having a white guy in the leadership of that organization talking about how to heal the fear between the races is a really big deal. "Moore has made it a personal goal to understand the manifestations of racism in the American soul and root it out."

Moore says we are having two different conversations about race. Blacks tend to discuss it in broad terms. But they should be discussing being afraid their son will be the next Trayvon.

Whites tend to discuss the specifics -- how that particular black man frightens me. But they don't see the historical context. Whites don't see that blacks place Trayvon Martin alongside Medgar Evars. There needs to be a conversation and it needs to be at the local level and done with preparation.

Congressman John Lewis, who was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, felt ill when the verdict was announced. He adds:

You know, here is the key: to be made whole, we have to forgive George Zimmerman. We have to forgive those who believe that what he did was right. … Once we forgive, we can encourage the majority population to walk in our shoes—the shoes of a black mother, a black father, a black son, a black daughter. But first, we have to forgive.

Maya Angelou responds with hope:

Look at the people who are protesting! Look at the people who are standing up for their rights. These aren’t just black people or white people—these are right people. These crowds, some of them are 50, 60 percent white.

John Oliver is Jon Stewart's summer replacement at the Daily Show. He does a great six minute rant about the Zimmerman acquittal and the craziness of Florida law. A choice tidbit:

According to current Florida law you can get a gun, follow an unarmed minor, call the police, have them explicitly tell you to stop following [the minor] and choose to ignore that, keep following the minor, get into a confrontation with them, and if at any point during that process you get scared you can shoot the minor to death, and the state of Florida will say, "Well, look: you did what you could."