The big divide isn’t left v right, it’s top v bottom

There is a thing called the Streisand effect. Photographer Kenneth Adelman photographed the coastline of California from a helicopter and posted them online. One of the photos was of Barbra Streisand’s home. She sued to have it taken down. Before she filed the suit the photo had been viewed six times and two of those were her own lawyers. After the suit, which was highly publicized, the photo was viewed more than 400,000 times and can still be found online. This follows a Chinese saying that translates to, “Trying to cover things up only makes them more evident.” The same effect happened when, last week at the Olympics, the Committee demanded a Ukrainian skeleton athlete remove photos of Ukrainian soldiers from his helmet. He refused. They blocked him from competing. The story got a lot more exposure than if they had let the guy wear the helmet without comment. And another example. Emily Singer of Daily Kos wrote about CBS telling Stephen Colbert he could not interview Democratic Texas state Rep. James Talarico who is running for US Senate. The claim is that the interview would violate the Federal Communications Commission’s “Equal-time” rule, though the rule has an exception for talks shows and comedy shows. Colbert discussed the situation on the show (even though CBS didn’t want him to). Then after the regular show ended, he recorded an interview with Talarico and posted it to the show’s YouTube channel. Where it quickly got more than 2.6 million views. Google searches for Talarico from across the US jumped up 20 times and from just Texas they jumped about 7 times. Singer included both Colbert’s rant on why he couldn’t interview Talarico during the regular show (about 8 minutes) and the actual interview (about 15 minutes). FCC chair Brendan Carr pressured CBS because Republicans want their Senate candidate to face Talarico’s primary rival Jasmine Crockett. This interview happened after early voting had already started. Which means Republicans just boosted interest in the guy they want to lose in the primary. In that second video I see that Talarico is definitely a candidate I could vote for. I can’t say whether I would prefer him to Crockett, who is in the US House and quite fierce in calling out the nonsense from the nasty guy and Republicans. But I don’t live in Texas. Talarico is a student at a seminary of the Baptist Church, though he doesn’t sound like the Southern Baptist Convention. He and Colbert talked about Christian Nationalism, which he described as wanting to take over the government in the name of Jesus, though Jesus never would have approved of using his name that way. Talarico also referred to Matthew chapter 25 in the Bible, which includes the criteria for separating the sheep from the goats, a way of saying the criteria for who gets to heaven and who doesn’t. The criteria includes such things as feed others, welcome strangers, and visit the sick and those in prison. He also noted the things not in the list – something I’ve also been talking about lately – things that have nothing to do with getting to heaven. Something not in the list is how you vote. Talarico was very much opposed to a bill in the Texas Legislature that would require schools to display the Ten Commandments. He said Jesus commands us to love and shoving your religion down other people’s throats is not love. The separation of Church and State is also important to the Church because one of the things they should do is to speak truth to power, difficult to do if the Church is the power. Also, as Colbert pointed out, if you say that Jesus is aligned with one political party and that party loses, what does that say about Jesus? Talarico closed by saying the culture wars are a smokescreen. The big divide isn’t left v. right, it’s top v. bottom. Kos community member A Bleeding God wrote that when the right began screaming about trans women in sports, trans folk tried to sound the alarm. Trans folk were told they were overreacting. The same thing happened when the right screamed about bathrooms and then banned care for trans minors. Now that the right is moving to block all trans care, even for adults – which is trans genocide – will the rest of the liberals now listen?

We are not overreacting, we never were, what we have been, what we have always been, is the canary in the coal mine. They come for our rights first because we're a tiny minority that most folks don't understand and many, even those on the left, find "icky".

In the comments was a mention of the famous Martin Niemöller poem that has a refrain, “I did not speak out because I was not a ___.” A Bleeding God replied:

Funny thing about that poem, it did the same s--- They didn't come for the communists first. They came for the trans people first. Germany in the 30s went after trans people as their very first target.

Another commenter noted one of the first Nazi attacks was on the Institute for Sexual Science. Its books were burned in the street. One thing that Institute did was trans health care. Nathaniel Rakich, in an article for Votebeat posted on Kos discussed the SAVE America Act, which passed the US House. It now goes before the Senate where a filibuster will likely prevent its passage. The act gives the federal government more oversight in voting with the goal to prevent illegal voting, which is already quite rare. This act would require people to provide proof of US citizenship and a photo ID when they register to vote. Its provisions would go into effect immediately on the nasty guy’s signature. It is essentially a way to stop people from voting. Perhaps 9% of citizens can’t produce their birth certificate and only about half have a passport. Also, remember when TSA rolled out Real ID requirements? They had to keep postponing the date where such an ID would be required to fly because handling the paperwork took so long to work out, both by citizens and the driver’s license offices. Proof of citizenship requirements were tried in Kansas back in 2013. 12% of those who tried to register couldn’t prove their citizenship. The state could identify only 39 noncitizens who voted in the previous 14 years. A court struck down the law in 2018. Secretary of State offices say implementing citizenship verification simply can’t be done by the midterms. They are already doing a lot (such as protecting against election interference) and would get no additional money to make it happen. Verifying documents would take about ten minutes for each person. Doing so for hundreds of thousands people means a lot more staff would be needed.

Ultimately, as long as the filibuster remains in place in the Senate, the SAVE America Act has little chance of becoming law before the midterms. But that may be the point: The bill wasn’t introduced with the goal of making elections run more smoothly; it was introduced to make the point that elections aren’t as secure as they could be. If, as expected, the bill fails and voters don’t have to prove their citizenship or show photo ID in 2026, it could make it easier for Trump and his allies to claim that the results are tainted by fraud. That could be a different type of nightmare scenario.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Blue Georgia discussing the FCC and Colbert.

David Frum: One of the ways that authoritarian regimes get themselves in trouble is they cut themselves off from knowing bad news in time because they demand endless flattery of the leader. The leader does not know that there aren't sausages in the shops. That what Brendan Carr is doing here.

In the comments Bill Bramhall posted a cartoon of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor being hauled away by police. King Charles says, “No one is above the law.” The nasty guy retorts, “Some king you are.”

A spine is a terrible thing to waste

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos wrote about the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show on ABC.

Man, you gotta hand it to ABC. The speed with which it will knuckle under to President Donald Trump is really impressive. It took only a few hours for the powers that be to indefinitely sideline award-winning late-night host Jimmy Kimmel after the Trump administration expressed displeasure with Kimmel’s recent monologue. ... Of course, ABC has always been good about capitulating to Trump quickly. After he won the 2024 election, ABC executives didn’t even bother to wait until he took office before handing him $16 million in the hopes his administration would leave them alone. Suckers. That $16 million, ostensibly paid to settle a meritless defamation lawsuit Trump filed, didn’t buy them anything. You can’t negotiate with terrorists. All ABC did was show how willing it was to accede to Trump’s demands.

In a monologue Kimmel said that MAGA was using Kirk’s death to score political points. Which is true. Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr went all mob boss and threatened ABC. Nexstar Media, which owns a lot of TV stations, said it would not air Kimmel’s show. ABC pulled Kimmel’s show. Needham noted that Nexstar just signed a $6.2 billion deal with a rival that needs approval from the nasty guy administration. This was the same situation for CBS and its parent Paramount wanting to merge with Skydance that prompted the firing of Stephen Colbert. Sinclair, the owner of the most ABC affiliate stations, also expressed disapproval of Kimmel. On hearing the news that ABC succumbed, the nasty guy tweeted that “Jimmy and Seth” are next in his crosshairs. That’s Fallon and Meyers.

Trump will just keep coming after any media company that ever speaks ill of him or his fellow travelers, and no amount of money is going to fix that. Unless ABC wants to turn into Fox or Newsmax, this is their future.

On Friday NPR host Leila Fadel spoke to NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith about the situation. They started with a recording of Carr.

I don't think this is the last shoe to drop. This is a massive shift that's taking place in the media ecosystem, and I think the consequences are going to continue to flow.

The FCC threatening to pull broadcast licenses over what a performer said does not appear to be legal, but when has that stopped the nasty guy? The FCC does have the power to investigate and fine stations and pull licenses when necessary. It also approves mergers, giving Carr significant leverage. Yes, Carr is doing this on behalf of the nasty guy, who has been campaigning against Kimmel and network TV in general for months. And yes, First Amendment advocates are raising alarms. Ilya Somin is a constitutional law expert at the libertarian Cato Institute said, as reported by Keith, “Government power is obviously being weaponized against speech.” And this case is not complicated. That NPR story was followed by host Steve Inskeep talking to Robert Corn-Revere, formerly a lawyer at the FCC and is now at FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free speech organization. Corn-Revere said for the entire existence of the FCC it has been governed by the First Amendment and the Communications Act, both prohibit a federal agency from exercising censorship. The FCC doesn’t license networks, only stations. But both Carr and the nasty guy believe they can pressure networks into making network decisions, and they are doing just that. The FCC was designed to be independent of the presidency to be bipartisan and independent of politics. The nasty guy claims there is no independence, which is a fundamental shift. Corn-Revere is very much bothered by the corporations backing down in the face of pressure – “A spine is a terrible thing to waste.” Bill in Portland, Maine usually starts his Friday Cheers and Jeers posts for Kos with late night commentary. Yesterday, he devoted it to quotes of Kimmel with one a year going back to 2018, except for 2023 when the writers union was on strike. Here are a couple of them:

"Many people are still resisting the covid vaccine in favor of the paste they use to de-worm horses, so much so that horse owners are having trouble finding it. One feed store in Las Vegas had to post this sign: 'Ivermectin will only be sold to horse owners—must show pic of you and your horse.' Can you imagine? You won't go to Walgreen's to get a free vaccine, but you'll spend four hours photoshopping your body onto a Clydesdale.” —2021 "The Brooklyn Public library has a great program called Books Unbanned that provides online access to banned books to anyone between the ages of 13 and 21, including young people in other states where they're banning kids from reading these great books because their parents are stupid—they're banning anything that isn’t a Cheesecake Factory menu in some of these states. But this is why I love Brooklyn: even the librarians here are giving the middle finger to these people." —2022 (while airing his show from his hometown)

Yesterday Gaslit Nation posted an episode titled KPop Demon Hunters Antifa. I didn’t listen to the 27 minutes of audio, but I read through the show description. It begins:

A Gaslit Nation listener once asked me: What’s the canary in the coal mine for American democracy? My answer: when they come for the comedians. Because when authoritarians kill the jokes, they kill the dissent. Look at Russia. In Putin’s early years, Kukly, a wildly popular political satire by smack-talking puppets, mocked him mercilessly. One of his first moves? Force media consolidation. Suddenly, the show vanished. Fast forward 25 years to today, you can’t hold an anti-war sign in Moscow without being arrested.

When Kukly was on more than half the nation’s TV sets were tuned in to it. Nexstar and Sinclair are “Republican-aligned networks with monopoly-level reach.” They may have pressured Disney, owner of ABC, but Disney did it to itself. They gave the “convicted felon a $15 million ‘charitable contribution’ to his ‘presidential library’ to settle a defamation suit.” It surrendered and that paved the way for mainstream media to capitulate. America’s greatest export is culture, humor, and art. An example is KPop Demon Hunters, the most watched show on Netflix. Since fascist hate truth and humor the best way to fight back is for every one of us to point out the truth and have fun doing it. NPR noted Kimmel’s monologue mentioned that he talked about Kirk’s death. NPR didn’t mention what Gaslit Nation did, that Kimmel also talked about the Epstein cover-up. The response to Kirk’s murder is part of that cover-up. In Friday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin started with a quote from Dan Pfeiffer of The Message Box. The key sentence from the quote:

Well, the MAGA Right is on the verge of controlling the vast majority of the American media ecosystem.

Brian Stelter tweeted:

KEY to the story about ABC suspending Kimmel's show: Nexstar and Sinclair, two big owners of ABC-affiliated stations, both need FCC approval for pending deals. With a lot of $$ on the line, both have reason to curry favor with the Trump admin. Both decided to yank Kimmel's show.

In the comments costal resistance posted words from cartoonist Ann Telnaes, who left a comfy newspaper job over a disagreement of the suitability of a cartoon. The words are beside a jester in a noose.

With ridicule, irony, and exaggeration editorial cartoonists provoke, challenge, irritate, and frankly, make powerful people angry. That’s why autocrats especially, do not like editorial cartoons which target them. They don’t like their corrupt actions being exposed and they don’t like being laughed at.

A meme posted by exlrrp and written by Qasim Rashid:

ABC fires Kimmel for mocking Trump CBS fires Colbert for mocking Trump ABC fires Moran for slamming Miller MSNBC fires Dowd for calling out hate speech. Fox protects Brian Kilmeade as he calls for Nazi state murder of homeless. Corporate Media has Failed Us. And as the receipts show, this Trump regime knows exactly what its doing as it enacts fascism.

Jon Cooper posted a cartoon by Dave Whamond showing a Museum of History. Near the rubble of the Pillars of Democracy is a display case showing a “Talk Show Host, Circa 2025.” A father and son discuss the display:

Father: Unfortunately, they all died off around 2025, son! They used to tell jokes every night. Son: What’s a joke? Father: A joke is something said to provoke laughter – they died out around then too.

Home of the Brave tweeted a moment of Colbert’s monologue discussing Kimmel:

Nexstar has a major merger coming up before the Trump administration. A company apparently capitulating to the whims of the president in order to ensure their merger goes through? Has that ever happened before? I'm being told not to answer that question.

Steve Brodner tweeted:

The Real Reason Kimmel Had to Go. This suspension of Jimmy Kimmel came after local station oligarchs Nexstar and Sinclair pressured FCC cchair, Trumpoodle Brendan Carr. Trumpist Nexstar is seeking FCC approval of a $6.2 billion acquisition of rival broadcaster Tegna. It would then control 80% of TV households across 44 states.

I note that other reporting says the pressure was the other way around, Carr pressuring Nexstar and Sinclair. As for that 80% number, how does the network control TV households? Can they get only one station? Does the network control all the stations of all the networks in these areas? Perhaps the attached link, which I didn’t follow, might clear that up. Andy Paterson posted a cartoon showing a man opening the front door to be faced with a large number of guardsmen. He says, “Honey, did you post something negative about the regime?” And a cartoon for fun. This one by Ellis Rosen. It shows passengers in an airplane. They hear, “This is your captain speaking. We may hit some turbulence as I write ‘Marry Me Samantha’ in the sky for a few extra bucks.” In Saturday’s roundup Dworkin quoted the Dallas Morning News discussing Sen. Ted Cruz.

The Texas Republican also emphasized how much he hates what Kimmel said about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — and how much he likes and works closely with Carr. Having high-ranking federal officials threaten a network in such a way, however, is “dangerous as hell” because it presents a slippery slope that could end with conservatives facing government censorship down the road, Cruz said. “If the government gets in the business of saying, ‘We don’t like what you the media have said, we’re going to ban you from the airwaves if you don’t say what we like,’ that will end up bad for conservatives,” Cruz said on his Friday podcast.

For once Cruz is right. Tweets from Ken Dilanian:

Two people familiar with the matter tell @MSNBC that the Trump administration is preparing to fire the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia today over his refusal to bring charges against the New York Attorney General. Career prosecutors do not believe the charges are warranted. The Trump-appointed prosecutor who refused to charge one of Trump’s enemies has now been forced out of office, and the United States is confronting something we have never seen before: A president essentially ordering his DoJ to charge someone with a crime, regardless of whether the people whose job it is to evaluate the case think there is insufficient evidence.

That is or is very close to saying charge them with a crime, make one up if you have to. In the comments is a tweet from Carr showing a man with a wolfish grin. The face is vaguely familiar and looks like someone from a horror or thriller movie (which I don’t watch). Kevin McHale responded: “This was all in Project 2025 btw.” JPHill added: “Had to double check this was real. It is. This is Trump’s FCC chair.” Will Stancil concluded: “Dictatorship has arrived. They think they’re far enough along they can start bragging about it.” Bill Bramhall posted a cartoon of a couple in bed watching TV. The man says, “Who cares if the government cancels TV shows? We still can read an approved book.”

Fear Won. That’s what hurts.

Oliver Willis of Daily Kos listed the seven worst things the nasty guy said he plans to do on his first day. 1. Mass deportations creating economic and social chaos. 2. Target transgender children and their mental health. 3. Reinstate his Muslim travel ban. 4. End birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants, erasing a basic American value. 5. Cut funding to schools that teach real history, such as slavery and Jim Crow. 6. Oppose vaccine mandates, enabling childhood illness. Quite the contrast to saying how precious the unborn are. 7. Repeal emission mandates, increasing pollution and speeding climate change, even though Biden’s goal of making half of US auto sale be electric vehicles enriches the nasty guy’s buddy Elon Musk. Walter Einenkel of Kos posted Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue from Wednesday night. He talked about his disappointment in the election results. He does get a bit emotional as he lists all the people who will be hurt by the election results. That includes all those who voted for the nasty guy, though they don’t know it yet. The segment is 16 minutes. Einenkel also posted the opening monologue of Stephen Colbert on Wednesday’s The Late Show. He eloquently begins with a swear word. The video is nine minutes. He’s asked by people saying isn’t having the nasty guy in office a source of a lot of material for comedians? He replies that’s similar to someone with diarrhea giving the custodian a lot of material to work with. One would rather not. Also...

The first time Donald Trump was elected, he started as a joke and ended as a tragedy. This time, he starts as a tragedy. Who knows what he'll end as. A limerick?

Emily Singer of Kos reported several Democratic governors are trying to protect their states from what the nasty guy might do. Gavin Newsom of California wants his legislature to return for a special session to pass more funding for the California Department of Justice. He’s pretty sure they’ll need the money for lawsuits against the nasty guy’s actions. Important areas are protecting reproductive freedom and protecting LGBTQ people. Other governors getting ready include Massachusetts, Washington, New York, and Illinois. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin had a few interesting quotes. John Burn-Murdock of Financial Times shows a chart with the percent rise or fall in vote share for governing parties in national elections in developed countries. The chart goes back to the late 1940s. The caption says, “Every governing party facing election in a developed country this year lost vote share, the first time this has ever happened.” Perhaps we should be pleased Harris and Democrats lost the least, though we didn’t have any margin to spare. Burn-Murdock added:

The economic and geopolitical conditions of the past year or two have created arguably the most hostile environment in history for incumbent parties and politicians across the developed world.

Sharon Quinsaat in Hawaii told of her experience encountering a native she calls Lily who regards the nasty guy as a demi-god.

She showed me on her phone the stuff she reads and listens to everyday. I have never heard of them before, but we listened to them together. The conspiracy theories in these sites are WILD, to say the least. But she is convinced they are true. I have my research assistants look at these sites and influencer/analyst because they are so new to me. Lily and I are living in two different worlds.

John Sides tweeted:

Like clockwork, commentators interpret elections as ideological mandates. Trump wins, so voters hate progressives and want conservatism. Here's why that's wrong. 1) It doesn't help explain why parties *of all ideologies* lost vote share post-COVID. 2) It exaggerates how much voters vote based on policy. So much polisci shows how difficult that is, and how in fact it's often the reverse: voters choose polices based on whatever their preferred candidate is advocating. 3) The big LOL comes when the new party takes power and goes in the direction that voters allegedly "wanted." And then voters...go in the opposite direction! This is the thermostatic model of public opinion.

There are cartoons and memes in the comments. A couple of memes were posted by exlrrp. The first is from Mike Wise:

It’s not just that Trump won. It’s that Joe Rogan, Dana White and Brett Favre won. Jailed insurrectionists won. The Alitos and the Thomases won. Vladimir Putin won. Racism won. Misogyny won. Sexism won. Global warming won. Xenophobia won. Most of all: Fear Won. That’s what hurts.

And exlrrp quoted a meme by Mehdi Hasan that fits in with reports that when the nasty guy was declared the winner all talk of election fraud stopped.

So to be clear, Dems rigged the election against Trump in 2020 but then just ... forgot to do so again this time around?

Matt posted a cartoon of a man sitting on the steps of his house with a bat in his lap and crying. His wife tells the neighbor, “He’d set his heart on storming the Capitol.” Banx has a cartoon of a wife saying to her husband, “I though we were going to contest the result?” Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, tweeted a cartoon by Whamond showing a monther and daughter in handmaid robes and bonnets. The daughter speaks first:

But why didn’t you vote against them Mom? Why didn’t you try to stop them from taking it all away? Well, back then, prices were quite high, honey...

PittsburghLiberal of the Kos community lists twenty reasons why fascism may not take hold in the US. I note the “may.” This post begins with two truths. First, we are not to “blame” for the outcome. Republicans have been heading in this direction for quite a while. Many of us have worked hard to stop the slide and have had success in many areas. Second, there are many Americans who are not hyper-radicalized and don’t understand the dangers of fascism. We must face this moment by considering there may be tyranny and mass executions. Even so, there compelling reasons why fascism may not succeed here. I won’t list all twenty. We’re much more racially and ethnically diverse so isolating and persecuting minorities will be harder. Many states will lead resistance. Overall resistance is well-organized and well-financed. We have a well established democratic tradition that didn’t have time to develop in Germany or Russia. Germany was defeated by democracies, which helped discredit democracy. Major democracies are our allies. Modern technology makes capturing and sharing abuses of power easier. We know the nasty guy and we know the authoritarian playbook. We can prepare. Jailing or murdering celebrities who oppose him would be politically untenable. The nasty guy is in cognitive decline and his only ambition is himself. He’s not an ideologue. If he can’t go on he has no successor with the same draw and party support. Republicans are prone to infighting. They’re evil, but not smart. A lot of effort will go into denying reality, which will constrain them. There is no credible external threat to be used as a foil. The military leadership is apolitical and the many of the soldiers are people of color. Andrea Chalupa of Gaslit Nation has been hosting a salon over Zoom as a way of forming community and helping people work through their feelings. She sent an email Thursday evening with a link to the recording of Thursday’s salon. I don’t know if it is for members only. It begins with the image from the Sound of Music, the moment when Baron Von Trapp pulls down the Nazi flag and rips it in half. Then Chalupa offers a to-do list. And that list makes the situation of life under fascism a lot more real. Again, I won’t list everything in her list. Offer your talents to the resistance. We’ll need lawyers, security (including cybersecurity), health and mental health healers, archivist, and many more. Your talents might be needed. Commit to staying human. Don’t rip apart fellow resisters. Commit to the community and collective safety. Check in on the vulnerable. Take time for art. When scared turn to love. Ignore harassment. Get away and help others get away. If you can’t, film them. Assume your phone is a listening device and that AI is scanning everything online. Do sensitive things without technology. Commit to nonviolence. They want us to be violent so they have a reason to outviolence us. If we pledge to nonviolence we can tell those calling for violence are a regime plant. Create a bag in case you have to flee – passports, cash, ID, water, masks, solar charger for phone, protein bars. Keep a journal describing life now so over time you can tell how you and society have changed. Buy paper books of American history, including of the nasty guy years, because they will attempt to rewrite history. Local elections still matter. Vote and consider running. Be careful of what you drink and eat, especially meat, as consumer protections are rolled back. Give children and grandchildren a fascist free bubble for as long as possible. Remind teens of their power. All we can do is slow them down. If you work in government stay there to help slow down their work. I’ve been writing this resistance blog for almost 17 years. I’ve done it anonymously because this threat has been visible since I started. But I have no doubt that a determined official can figure out who I am. I probably should go find that post from a decade ago that includes a photo taken at a protest that includes me. Then again, with the internet archive I may already be too late.

A kiss to a lesbian daughter

My Sunday movie was Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio. It has been a long time since I saw the original Disney version (and didn’t see the recent Disney live action) so certain images are in my mind, but a lot of the details have been forgotten. Of course, I remember Jiminy Cricket singing “When You Wish Upon a Star.” In this new version, set in Italy, some of the plot points appear to be the same – including the puppet joining the traveling show and being swallowed by a sea creature. There’s also a cricket to serve as the conscience. Others are quite different – Geppetto loses a son, still a boy, in WWI and when WWII comes around Pinocchio is created through deep grief and drunken rage. And Lithwick, now Candlewick, is the son of the town’s fascist leader. I very much enjoyed this version of the story. The storytelling is excellent, as is the animation. I and a few people from my church bell group attended a bell festival in South Bend, IN Friday evening and all day Saturday. It is time for a few hundred enthusiasts to gather and put on a concert, with much of the time rehearsing together so we are playing together. There were also classes of a variety of bell related topics and to hear a top notch group from the region put on a concert. Sister suggested I look up a particular bit the opening monologue for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for March 2nd. Here it is: Rep. Nate Schatzline of Texas authored a bill that would seek to limit drag by designating any establishment as a “sexually oriented business” if it allows “on-premise consumption of alcoholic beverages” and performances by a person wearing any clothing or makeup not stereotypical to their born sex. Colbert added:

If serving alcohol and having men in gowns makes you a sexually oriented business I’ve got bad news about church.

Also on that episode was an extensive interview in several segments Colbert did with Steven Spielberg. I think part of it had to be used in the next week. That delayed part included John Williams, the composer of most of the scores for Spielberg’s films. One sentence from the session is worth sharing. Spielberg spoke of antisemitism and its growing boldness since about 2014:

Hate became a kind of membership in a club that has gotten more members than I ever though possible in America.

There has been a lot of news about the revelations about how much Fox News has been lying to their viewers. There has been talk from pundits that their viewers would leave countered with talk that they aren’t going anywhere – the lies are the point. Hunter of Daily Kos responded to that second idea:

The audience doesn't want accurate news. They want Sean Hannity to tell them that banks are failing because of wokeness; they want Tucker Carlson to tell them that there was no pandemic, there never was a pandemic, and all their dead relatives actually just were sent to a farm upstate. They want to be told that it's not that their own bigoted and paranoid worldviews are unpopular, there's just an enormous "globalist" conspiracy to hide just how popular their own fantasies are. While it may seem like this unnamed cable executive is unfairly belittling the Fox News audience, there's simply no question that they're right. Fox News viewers love being lied to. ... Fox isn't worried one bit about losing viewers who feel lied to. They're much more concerned about losing viewers who don't feel lied to enough.

In a Ukraine update Mark Sumner of Kos also mentioned Carlson. At the start of the war Carlson’s support for Putin seemed an extreme view. But he kept hammering that position and then two weeks ago he, as Sumner wrote, “has made support for Vladimir Putin a touchstone for would-be Republican nominees in 2024.” Sumner also posted a video of middle school students in occupied Crimea learning how to assemble weapons and being drilled in military maneuvers. It seems to be lifted from Nazi youth videos. This is grooming children to be ready to be a part of a war about an hour’s drive away. And American media is using it as proof that Russia is superior to the US. A brief story from the Associated Press posted on Kos reported:

The International Criminal Court says it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine. The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.” It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation on similar allegations.

That whole Hunter Biden laptop thing appears to have started when Hunter took that laptop in for repairs and didn’t claim it within 90 days. The owner claimed it as abandoned and released the drive to Republican operatives. Laura Clawson of Kos reported Hunter is now suing the repair shop for invasion of privacy. Some of the points in his suit. * There was plenty of opportunity to put things on the laptop’s hard drive for the purpose of framing Hunter. * Delaware law says property is not considered abandoned until one year has passed. * The shop owner has admitted to accessing Hunter’s data before the 90 days were up. * The repair authorization form says the shop will make every effort to secure the data. When a computer is abandoned the data is to be wiped. Clawson concluded:

At this point nothing will get Republicans to back off of their attacks on Hunter Biden, who they see as the way to cause his father the most possible pain. They’ve done all this work turning his name into a synonym for corruption that they cannot prove, so they can’t abandon the effort. But Biden’s aggressive new approach could at least exact some pain in response.

Jon Stewart had economist Larry Summers on his The Problem with Jon Stewart. Walter Einenkel of Kos discussed the interview. Summers had advised every Democratic leader since Dukakis in 1988. But that doesn’t mean Summers is a progressive – he’s been doing a great job of defending corporate interests. Einenkel summarized the interview this way:

Summers has been running around for the past year saying that the federal reserve and President Joe Biden must continue to raise interest rates in order to loosen up the labor market. What that means is that there are too many people working and pulling in living wages, according to Summers, and we must therefore create an economic environment that promotes laying off millions of workers. He and others have disregarded the fact that as much, if not more, of the world’s inflation issues has been generated by corporate greed.

Michigan has done it! Laina Stebbins of Michigan Advance reported:

In a historic and profound moment for LGBTQ+ rights in Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday signed legislation to expand a nearly 50-year-old civil rights law to encompass protections for LGBTQ+ Michiganders. Whitmer put her signature to Senate Bill 4 — which expands the 1976 Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) to protect against discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation — in Lansing alongside LGBTQ+ leaders, officials and lawmakers and one of the two original cosponsors of ELCRA.

At the signing ceremony was 86 year old Rep. Melvin Larson, who was instrumental in getting the original bill passed. The other original cosponsor was Daisy Elliott, who died in 2015 at the age of 98. Larson debunked the Republican talking point that LGBTQ+ protections were not intended to be in the original bill. The photo at the top of the story is of Whitmer giving a kiss to her lesbian daughter Sherry. Anna Gustafson of the Advance reported that an eleven bill package of gun reforms has passed the Michigan Senate. Michigan law says bills can address only one thing, so there are frequently packages of bills. The package mandates universal background checks, safe storage of firearms, and permit a court to temporarily remove guns from someone who may be a danger to themselves or others. Gustafson had details on the votes and arguments from both sides. This vote comes a bit more than a month after the shooting at Michigan State University, only four miles away, and only sixteen months after the shooting at Oxford High School. Many students were present for the vote. Also present was Gabby Giffords, who was injured in a shooting in Arizona in 2011. The bill goes on to the state House. Who controls the government matters! Right now Michigan’s government is in Democratic hands. Paul Hogarth of Kos reported almost two weeks ago that the Michigan House Elections Committee held its first hearing on having Michigan join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The NPVIC is an agreement by states to award their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote rather than the winner of their state’s vote. This ends the situation that has happened twice this century in which the candidate who won the most votes did not become president. It is a way of overturning the Electoral College without actually amending the Constitution. The Compact says it doesn’t go into effect until enough states, those representing 270 electoral votes, have signed it. So far states representing 195 votes have approved the Compact. Michigan and Minnesota will hopefully approve it this year, bringing the total to 220. After these two most of the blue states will be on board and adding more states will be harder. Even so, there is hope the Compact will be in place by 2028. If Hogarth’s explanation isn’t enough David Beard and David Nir of the Downballot podcast on Kos talked to Christopher Pearson of the National Popular Vote, the organization advocating for the Compact. Nir and Beard also talk of other things, so perhaps search this transcript for Pearson. Pearson discussed his major talking points, including refuting objections to the Compact. One objection is there isn’t a national vote count. But there are 50 state counts plus DC certified by secretaries of states and it is all very public and spreadsheets are very good at adding things together. On election night news outlets keep a running tally, as they did in 2020 where Biden was ahead by 7 million votes, but the win came down to 43,000 votes in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia. One might challenge 11,000 votes in Georgia, but not 7 million votes. A benefit is that all states are swing states. We won’t have the situation of Republican candidates for president ignoring California and Democratic candidates ignoring Louisiana. New Hampshire says it will get ignore because it is so small. But big New York is currently ignored because it is so reliably blue. Currently 70% or more of our voters are ignored every presidential election cycle. And that means it is harder to get people to register to vote in those states. They don’t see that it matters. Or college students say they can’t register because they’re from another state. But under the Compact the state doesn’t matter. The people do.

Perceived as decadent and weak has proven strong and brave

I take a couple days off from blogging and browser tabs accumulate. So a lot of the Daily Kos Ukraine updates will get just a brief mention (if I haven’t closed the tab already). In an update from Monday (2/28) Kos of Kos discussed how human interactions are defined by myths. There is a story about a Russian fighting force that won a lot because they had a myth they were invincible. Then they ran into fighters that didn’t know about the myth and the Russians fled. Yes, the parallels between that story and the fight in Ukraine are intentional (though Russia hasn’t fled yet). And now the Ukrainians are building their own myths. Also on Monday Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Russia appears to be replacing competency with brutality. He also reported there’s a new thing – videos on TikTok by Ukrainians that explain how to operate abandoned or captured Russian military vehicles. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, included the news that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said his government will more than double its military investments. Prof Talmadgs responded:

It's beyond ironic that Russia's supposed effort to create a neutral buffer zone against foreign attack through Ukraine is now prompting huge increases in GERMAN defense spending. Talk about causing the thing you've spent 77 years fearing.

In another Monday update Kos included a tweet by Christo Grozev. There was a meeting between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators hoping to work out a cease fire. The Russians showed up in suits. The Ukrainians showed up dressed for battle. Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that Lev Ponomaryov, a prominent Russian human rights activist launched a petition for Russians against war with Ukraine. As of last Friday it has more than than a million signatures. In a Tuesday update Sumner listed the status of the fight. Some of it: A Russian missile took out the Kyiv TV tower, cutting off a vital channel of communication. Russia is already filling the void with lies. Shelves in Kyiv stores are bare. But Russia is no closer to toppling Kyiv. Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, frequently at odds with the Stalin and the Soviet regime, outlived that tyrant. His symphonies 7 through 13 say a lot about the WWII years. The 9th was supposed to be this big victory celebration. It comes across more of a jocular tease. The 13th is titled Babi Yar and the text for the soloists and chorus (I think men only) describe the site near Kyiv, Ukraine where over two days during WWII the Germans massacred 34,000 Jews. One reviewer described it as something everyone should listen to once in their life but probably can’t bear to listen to a second time. I’ve heard it twice and lived to tell about it because the text is Russian and I really don’t know what they’re singing about. And at least the second time I wasn't paying close attention. All of Shostakovich symphonies have something important to say. A few depict the Russian revolution. The 5th, a good place to start in listening to them, was written to return to the good graces of the Soviets and the last movement is either a good Stalinist victory hymn or a dark parody of one. Hard to tell. The second movement of the 10th is reportedly a frightening depiction of Stalin. The WQXR website has a page set up to listen to all 15 symphonies. I highly recommend his music. I took that diversion into Shostakovich because Sumner reported that Putin’s forces have bombed the Jewish cemetery next to Babyn Yar Holocaust Museum in Kyiv. The name refers to Babi Yar, though I don’t know how the two spellings relate. I’ve heard the museum is undamaged. This bombing shows Putin’s claim of wanting a “deNazification” of Kyiv to be a lie. In a Tuesday (yesterday – 3/1) update Sumner included a video of unarmed Ukrainian civilians blocking a Russian convoy – that didn’t result in mass casualties. There have been at least three of these types of incidents. Sumner says that means many Russian troops identify with the Ukrainians and don’t want to engage in the brutality that was seen in Chechnya. Sergey Lavrov was the name I heard when US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken held meetings with a Russian. He’s also the guy Michael Flynn kept informed when the nasty guy was transitioning into the White House. Sumner included a video showing when Lavrov rose to speak at the UN Human Rights Council, many UN representatives, including the US Ambassador, walked out. Also in an update yesterday, Sumner noted how little Russians are hearing about the news. Access to social media has been limited by the state and news outlets appear to have decided there is no news worth reporting. Which means Ukraine is winning the propaganda war, causing gnashing of teeth by American conservatives. That prompted David Frum (quoted by Sumner) to tweet:

Everything they wanted to perceive as decadent and weak has proven strong and brave; everything they wanted to represent as fearsome and powerful has revealed itself as brutal and stupid.

Putin’s block of Twitter, and Twitter’s block of Putin, has another effect. Troll bots have disappeared. Conversations have become intelligent. Wrote Sumner:

Posts that would have generated an almost immediate denigration of President Joe Biden, or praise for Donald Trump, are generating surprisingly reasonable responses.

In this morning’s update Kos talked about his time in the military keeping the supplies coming for his unit. He wrote:

In total, the battery had 64 vehicles. Or 55 vehicles to support the nine vehicles actually shooting anything. In terms of troops, the battery had around 300 soldiers. just 27 of them sat in those nine MLRS launchers. ... VoteVets’ Jon Soltz actually was a logistics officer during the Iraq invasion, and said the U.S. struggled to support one axis of attack, from the south. Russia right now has four major axes, and those are splintered into 15 different fronts. Suddenly, 180,000 troops doesn’t seem so daunting. And remember—not all of them actually fire stuff. The bulk of them are stuck in those bizarre supply columns, seemingly waiting for ambushes to put them out of their misery.

Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community reported on Hillary Clinton visiting Rachel Maddow and discussing that Putin seems different now. From a transcript of Clinton speaking:

I think the reports coming out suggest both his temperament, his paranoia, seems to have increased dramatically. His vindictiveness, his dictatorial approach to the people around him, including his own military leadership, seems to have gone further and deeper than anybody had ever seen before.

This is not going to end well. Brandon Friedman, a former soldier in Iraq, talked about what happens to Russian soldiers if they manage to overthrow the Ukraine government and be an occupying force. It will be a living nightmare. In Iraq most of the locals either welcomed and helped the Americans or ignored them. But in Ukraine everyone will hate the Russian occupiers. The soldiers will get no help or warning of a looming attack. They will become paralyzed with fear. Most importantly, they won’t be able to effectively govern. I had an email exchange with Nephew, who pays close attention to what is going on in Ukraine (even more than I do). I’ll summarize a couple things he said. Nephew is quite impressed with President Zelensky of Ukraine. He has instructed his country to slow down the enemy and damage their equipment, but take life only when absolutely necessary. Zelensky has spoken in Russian to Russian troops, saying he does not see them as the enemy, but as pawns of the real enemy, sent to die. Nephew is impressed with the integrity of a man who, while in a war, will not preach hate of the enemy soldiers. I had said the yellow in the Ukrainian flag represents wheat. Nephew says it represents sunflowers. So as a reminder of this time plant some sunflower seeds. Perhaps later this year the seeds will fall and grow again next year – that is good because healing in Ukraine will take a long time. Marissa Higgins of Kos reminds us that it is OK to log off when you need to. She suggests ways to do that: Switch to viewing cute animals or people baking bread. Get away from the computer screen and take a walk or call a friend. Keep your mind busy with something else, like doing any type of puzzle. Schedule your news consumption, such as not starting until after breakfast. Doomscrolling may make you fell helpless, so help in ways you can, such as donate or volunteer with a local charity – even if it has nothing to do with Ukraine it is still valuable. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included a clip of Stephen Colbert on The Late Show. Following a clip of a young Ukrainian man and his grandmother going off to fight Colbert does a short riff on how the grandmother might be useful in battle.

Unintended consequences

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Daily Kos, quoted Russel Berman of The Atlantic:

From a sheer numbers perspective, none of the experts I spoke with doubted that the Postal Service could handle a vote-by-mail election, even if every one of the nation’s more than 150 million registered voters stuck their ballot in a mailbox. As one noted to me, a presidential election might be a big deal, but in postal terms, it’s no Christmas. The Postal Service processes nearly 500 million pieces of mail every day, and it annually handles more than 3 billion pieces in the week before Christmas alone. “I don’t worry about their capacity,” Amber McReynolds, the former director of elections in Denver, who now runs the National Vote at Home Institute, a mail-balloting advocacy group, told me.

And then Postmaster General Louis DeJoy started mucking around.

Joan McCarter of Kos reported that a memo went out from DeJoy to USPS employees in which he admitted there were “unintended consequences” to the procedural changes he made. The rest of her post goes into detail about his lies.

In another post McCarter reported that the USPS sent letters to 46 states and Washington, DC warning it cannot guarantee that mailed ballots would arrive by election day. The letters were planned before DeJoy took over, though sent out at the end of July.

Planned before DeJoy started wrecking the system? Hmm. That means the nasty guy was already planning this. Nice of him to give a warning so states could adjust deadlines.

I hear Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has asked the legislature to change the law so ballots have to be postmarked by election day and arrive two days later, rather than arrive by election day. But the Michigan legislature is solidly in GOP hands, so …

This situation prompted a flurry of tweets, such as these. From Sarah Kendzior responding to Rep. Eric Swalwell:

Then why are House Dems on vacation? Why aren't you issuing timely subpoenas?

Why aren't you even trying? We don't have faith or time. We have mass death and a stolen election.

You should publicly name the officials in the House preventing you from taking urgent action.

Jason Gilbert:

TRUMP: Mail is illegal now

DEMOCRATS: Fam, smash that RT if you agree someone should do something about this

RT = retweet

Gilbert then quoted David Plouffe, a former Obama guy:

1) Prime time hearings, now.
2) Subpoenas to Trump WH and camp officials. This is a RICO case
3) Visit local post offices with cameras - show people what is happening.
4) Events with those getting Rx late
) Involve governors
5) No rest, no vacation. Go to war for our country.

Judd Legum:

I understand that Mitch McConnell may be conspiring with Trump to undermine the Postal Service.

But why is the House doing this?

Why aren't they holding hearings on the multiple crises afflicting this country?

Yeah, August is for campaigning, but they can’t campaign in person anyway.

Adam Jentleson:

When you suggest Dems could do more you tend to get a lot of “what more do you expect?” replies. But when you control the House your options are endless. Investigations & hearings would focus attention, bring facts to light & mark the issue as a BFD for the public. That matters.

Mark Sumner of Kos included a tweet of protests outside of DeJoy’s condo. Sumner then went on to report with details:

DeJoy can be indicted for deliberate interference in a federal election.

DeJoy can be impeached.

DeJoy can be removed. He answers to a board of governors and they could fire him. Sumner gives their email addresses. So we can express our displeasure.

There are lots of petitions we can also sign. Sumner has details.

In another post Sumner shows the media attention the USPS is now getting. Some of the tweets are from Pelosi and other House members. These are the people from whom the tweets above were demanding action, so take their tweets with a grain of salt.

Then again, it looks like the pressure worked. DeJoy’s testimony before the House has been moved from September 17 to August 24. That gives hearing members a week to get ready, though the hearing may be only a day – the GOP online convention starts that night. There’s also the possibility the House will then say, see we did something!



Dworkin, in his pundit roundup, also quoted a thread by Dave Roberts. Why is the GOP not acting on another virus relief package? There’s no ideological or economic rationale. The silly “moral hazard” arguments don’t apply because it’s the virus, not people’s actions, that did it. The arguments for sending people back to bars and schools are not coherent. Refusing the package isn’t good politics either – people hate that they’re not acting.

The conclusion I've come to is that no one's in charge. They're not doing anything, per se. The party has lost all superego & runs entirely on id now - no strategy, no plan, no intentionality. All that's left is a bunch of tired tropes & instincts that haven't changed in decades.

The conclusion I’ve come to is this is all about supremacy. The way they enforce that they’re at the top of the social hierarchy is to make sure everyone else suffers, that their lives are miserable. Ideology, economics, and politics don’t explain their behavior. Supremacy does.



Kos of Kos discussed an article by Olivian Nuzzi in New York Magazine about the incompetence of the nasty guy campaign. It’s so bad one wonders how he got elected in 2016 – though we know then he was an outsider shaking things up and now we see what all that shaking accomplished. One quote of Nuzzi caught my attention:

What Trump does is take people who are mediocre talent at best, who know they could never have the position they have if it were not for Trump, and it creates this instant loyalty to Trump.

And the top of that heap is the pandemic prince.

All that reinforces for me that he won’t win the election. He’s going to steal it.



From a poll that was (amazingly) on Fox News:
What message would you like to send to government?

2019 and a few years before:
Leave me alone 55%, Lend me a hand 34%.
Now:
Leave me alone 36%, Lend me a hand 57%.



From Bill in Portland, Maine’s Friday roundup of late night commentary:

Clip of Kamala Harris at Delaware event: [Trump] inherited the longest economic expansion in history from Barack Obama and Joe Biden. And then, like everything else he inherited, he ran it straight into the ground.
Stephen Colbert: Ran it into the ground? This is Donald Trump we're talking about here, Senator. At best, he golf-carted it into the ground.
—The Late Show

A bit early for this kind of talk?

It is well known that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg loves opera. She used to attend regularly with colleague Antonin Scalia. And next month she will be in an opera!. For one night she’ll play royalty in “The Daughter of the Regiment” by Donizetti at Washington National Opera. In her role she will speak though not sing.



I’m not surprised, but isn’t this a bit early? The GOP will be extending all their investigations of Hillary Clinton into her presidency. Yeah, all those supposed “scandals” that have come up dry. Trying to wring more drops from these stones isn’t the “early” part. This is: There is already talk of impeachment. If the GOP maintains a constant state of investigation with talk of impeachment the corporate media will cover it, no matter how empty the claims. That will lead people to think maybe there is a fire under all that smoke.



Pardon me while I allow myself a moment of schadenfreud. It looks like a run for the presidency may finish off Donald Trump financially, even though he has used the campaign to put dollars in his pocket. (1) A big part of his income was the Trump brand, which he licensed. But that brand is now associated with horrendous bigotry. (2) He has repeatedly shown he’s in it only for himself, refusing to pay contractors and employees. Who will want to be his partner or lend him money? (3) His social status is gone. High society people now see him as a joke – and a creepy sexual predator. Inviting him to a party would kill the event. (4) He faces legal battles over Trump University and Trump Foundation. Jilted contractors may have more courage to challenge a wounded Trump.

His finances would be doing just fine (as would his assault on women) if he hadn’t run for prez. and exposed his life to scrutiny.



Very few states have laws about having guns in polling places. So Prince William County, Virginia is considering a one-day ban on weapons at polling places on private property. Poll workers in Colorado are being trained in how to respond to a mass shooting. All this while Trump suggests his followers “watch” (read: intimidate) voters in minority precincts.



We’ve been hearing how much Trump hates NAFTA and Clinton thinks the TPP didn’t come out right, so is worth opposing. If the TPP doesn’t pass, what might a progressive vision on trade deals look like? Mike Konczal of The Nation has some ideas.

* Trade deals should not interfere with a country’s ability to regulate international corporations.

* Strengthen the global labor movement to avoid a race to the bottom on how workers are treated.

* Prevent currency manipulation.

* US trade deficits will remain and not a big deal. That debt allows foreigners to invest in America. We can guide that investment into green infrastructure.



And a bit of fun. Stephen Colbert as Randy the Office Manager sits down with Prez. Obama to discuss how he might present himself when interviewing for the next job. I think Obama was a really good sport with a great sense of humor.

North Carolina and Idaho!

What happened in the marriage equality world today:

A federal judge struck down the North Carolina same-sex marriage ban. Licenses are being issued and weddings performed.

The governor of Idaho took his shot at explaining why the 9th Circuit ruling didn't apply to his state. Or at least he should be granted an en banc hearing. Justice Kennedy wasn't impressed and lifted the stay he had granted. Couples gathered in clerk's offices, but it doesn't look like the state AG gave the go-ahead before closing time. Since Monday is a holiday, the next day they open is Tuesday.

Same-sex marriage was happening in one county in Kansas. The state AG has asked the state Supremes for a stay.

Stephen Colbert does a 7 minute reaction to the ruling by the Supremes.

Rachel Maddow, on last Tuesday's show, does a thorough report on the ruling. A great moment – the gay couple at the heart of the Virginia case were first in line to get their license. The clerk who signed their license was the guy they sued, triggering the case.

David Crary (I think) wrote an article for a Fox affiliate, though I'm not sure where. He says there are now three views of same-sex marriage in the GOP. One faction has endorsed same-sex marriage. Some, such as Rob Portman of Ohio, have gay kids. The second faction is the bunch who are strongly anti-gay. This includes Ted Cruz of Texas. The third group doesn't want to talk about it. That includes Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, running for reelection.

The kiss seen across America

One of the nice things that happened over the weekend was that Michael Sam, a gay man, was drafted by the St. Louis Rams football team. There's a lot more to the story than what I had reported before. The draft process is drawing to a close and Sam hadn't been chosen yet. So when he finally is selected his response is naturally exuberant. And that included an energetic kiss, a "smackfest," with his boyfriend. Oooh, yeah, he's gay. It's one thing for Same to declare he is gay at a press conference. It's another for him to demonstrate it. ESPN most definitely broadcast that smooch -- several times. And it was repeated on various social media.

Yes, there were people revolted by that kiss. At least one responded by saying, please, my children were watching! But many commentators say this kiss will do a lot for our movement. In the same manner as a gay couple moving next door, most people seeing a beefy football payer kissing like that will have their views of us adjusted for the better.

Stephen Colbert watches the kiss and throws a yellow flag on the play. The video is about 4 minutes.

For the best response we turn to ESPN Producer Seth Markman (the guy who put the kiss on the air), his wife and son:

When Markman's wife explained to their 7-year-old son that dad was busy working on something that was controversial, Sam’s kiss on TV, the boy replied: “Is it because they’re not married?”

So the sports world wobbled over the weekend -- into a better place.

Early in Illinois!

My car is in the repair shop. It might sit there a week before they have time to get to it. In the meantime I'm still getting used to the rental.



Illinois passed a law a few months ago saying same-sex marriages would be legal beginning June 1. I guess various bureaucrats need that much time to get ready. But a same-sex couple in Chicago sued the clerk of Cook County, saying recent court cases in other states showed that denying marriage equality is unconstitutional. A couple weeks ago a district judge ruled that Cook County could issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That has prompted the Attorney General to say that constitutional protections "must exist without regard to county lines." So marriage equality has come to Illinois three months early.



Kentucky has been ordered to recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages. The state will appeal. But they'll have to do it without the Attorney General. AG Jack Conway has said he refuses to defend KY's ban on recognizing same-sex marriages. He is joining a growing list of other state AGs who have made the same type of announcement.



A new nationwide poll shows 59% of Americans support marriage equality, setting a new polling high. Our current level of acceptance is likely due to the series of rulings in favor of marriage equality.



Polls similar to this new one are why many of our strongest GOP opponents say they agree with the veto of the Arizona law. Their strongly homophobic base is very much at odds with the rest of the country.



As the 10th Circuit Court prepares to hear marriage equality cases for Utah and Oklahoma, more than 20 prominent GOP lawmakers from Western states have filed a friend-of-the-court briefs saying they are in favor of equality. The most well known is Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming.



Though the sweeping license to discriminate bill in Arizona was vetoed by the governor, a replacement bill is brewing. This one affirms that pastors and church officials can not be sued for refusing to perform same-sex ceremonies. Yeah, fine, that's granted by the constitution. But the bill goes another step extending that right of refusal to judges and justices of the peace who perform civil marriages and clerks who issue marriage licenses.



I had mentioned a potential license-to-discriminate in Mississippi. I had said it was so weakened, after the mess in Arizona, that nobody was much interested in it. Alas, recent reports say there are still ugly parts that remain. What those ugly things are and how eager the legislators are in getting it passed haven't been reported.



GOP Rep. Steven King of Iowa is annoyed that the Arizona license to discriminate law was vetoed. Gays aren't a protected class, he says, and to be a protected class, their gayness must be ”independently verified." Stephen Colbert has a great takedown of the whole thing. At the end Colbert proposes gay couples send photos of their proof of gayness so King might do his independent verification. The video is under five minutes.

Looking equality in the eye

Nevada took a big step towards marriage equality this week. It has started the process to repeal the gay marriage ban in its constitution and replace it with marriage equality, the first state to do so. This is a big deal in a heavily Mormon state. It has passed the Senate (12-9) and heads to the House. Both chambers must approve it again after the 2014 election before going before voters in 2016.

Mormon marriage equality supporter Sen. Justin Jones (D-Southwest Las Vegas) cited his gay brother-in-law, who he sees in church every Sunday. “I would rather lose an election than look my brother-in-law in the eye every Sunday and tell him he doesn’t have the same rights as I do,” he said.

And to round out the marriage equality news, Delaware has also started the process, though it doesn't have to undo a constitutional ban. The bill was introduced less than two weeks ago and has already moved through committee and been approved by the full House. On to the Senate.



Bishop Gene Robinson has written a book God Believes in Love; Straight Talk About Gay Marriage. That was enough for him to be a guest of Stephen Colbert. The two ponder the question if a denomination doesn't exclude someone how can it be cool? Enjoy the 6 minutes of fun.

Culture wars over?

Yeah, another busy week with class and preparation for it. Some tidbits that accumulated during that time.

Rich Miller of the Chicago Sun-Times says that the GOP in Illinois want the marriage equality battle to be over quickly. And the only way to do that is to allow the Dems to pass it. They know a delay will hurt them. So, fine. Get it out of the way. On to the next battle.


Alas, that argument didn't work so well in Wyoming. The bill for marriage equality died in committee. The domestic partner bill got to the House, where it lost 24-34. A non-discrimination bill got to the Senate floor, where it lost 13-15. Supporters are actually encouraged by the closeness of the vote.



Zofie Mandelski, a teen (kids are so impatient now) in Colorado, has filed a ballot proposal to amend the Colorado constitution to permit marriage equality. Gay marriage was banned through an amendment in 2006. The results this time are likely to be different.



David Kochel, former Romney advisor, admits, "The culture wars are over. And the Republicans, largely, lost."

I relish the thought, though my friend and debate partner would caution doing the happy dance too soon.



A New York Times editorial says that if Obama is serious about the marriage equality thing he said in the Inaugural he can prove it by submitting a brief in the gay marriage cases before the Supremes this spring.

For the administration to be missing in action in this showdown risks conveying a message to the justices that it lacks confidence in the constitutional claims for ending gay people’s exclusion from marriage or that it believes Americans are not ready for a high court ruling making marriage equality the law of the land — impressions strikingly contradicted by legal precedent, the lessons of history and by the president’s own very powerful words.

Rev. Irene Monroe is a black lesbian and does an occasional column for Pam's House Blend. She says that many in the black community are miffed with Obama's equating gays with their own civil rights battles. Part of it is the continuing homophobia in black churches. Part of it is the sentiment, Hey dude, you're the black president — why have the living conditions for gays improved more in the last four years than those of blacks?



The NPR show On Point did an episode on Gay in America yesterday. The host, Tom Ashbrook, discussed the current situation with two gay men and a lesbian. Callers posed questions and provided insights. The consensus is we've come a long way, but we're not done yet. There's still discrimination out there. I'm glad they did it, though I can't say it is worth 45 minutes of your time.



Even Stephen Colbert agrees we've come a long way. In the first of two videos Colbert takes a look at the Defense of Marriage Act now before the Supremes. The House Republicans have authorized $2M to defend the law (your tax dollars at work) and Colbert pokes big holes in their defense of DOMA. In the second video, Colbert comments on a study that showed straight men are a lot more stressed out than gay men. Enjoy the fun.

Choosing to associate with irresponsibility

Richard Socarides, former advisor to Prez. Clinton discusses this as the Gay-Rights Election. Democrats, you can't stand on the sideline anymore. Obama supported gay rights (even gay marriage) and (1) the GOP didn't use it against him (well, I did see a few billboards) and (2) Obama's position energized progressives and the young. Supporting us used to mean a problem at the ballot box. This year not supporting us was a problem at the ballot box.



This appeared the day before the election. It is a video of strong conservative Paul Weyrich explaining why the GOP likes voter suppression efforts. The reason is simple: The GOP does better when fewer people vote. The video was made 30 years ago. And to the GOP, voter suppression is still a good idea.



Jonathan Martin, writing for Politico, notes that since 1992 Democrats have either won the presidency or lost it by only one state. I suppose it is possible to steal one state and get away with it, but not more than that. Martin goes on to discuss the GOP demographics issue -- they're the party of old straight white guys. And there is a big divide between practical-minded (there aren't many moderates) party leaders and the activists driving the primaries. With Romney's loss the True Believers will claim it was because he wasn't conservative enough. Pragmatists claim that Romney (and the party as a whole) is too conservative -- driven by ideology with no view of what can sold to the whole country. This divide will begin to show during the big budget face-off that has begun and will continue until the 2016 nomination. The battle will likely be its most fierce over immigration.



Six minutes of fun as Stephen Colbert interviews Rachel Maddow about the election. Colbert said Romney could still win it because we haven't yet counted the votes of Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, and Whitesylvania.



And six minutes of Jon Stewart showing how much difficulty conservatives had when Fox News called Ohio (and thus the presidency) for Obama.



Apparently, some GOP folk said they would move to Australia if Obama won. Australia has this response: "Australia has universal health care, compulsory voting, no guns, no death penalty, pro-choice when it comes to contraception, openly gay politicians and judges, evolution is taught in all schools, and our female PM is an unmarried atheist. Be sure to declare your pitchforks at Tullamarine."

A commenter replied that Canada doesn't have the atheist female PM, but does have everything else. And it is a lot closer. But they don't want any annoyed GOP, though progressives are welcome.



Now for a couple instances of piling on. Steve Bhaerman of The Huffington Post lists the reasons why he didn't vote for the GOP.

* There aren't any real Republicans, especially not like the heroes Lincoln, Eisenhower, and even Goldwater.

* The war on women, racial minorities, the environment, even reality.

* They lie with impunity.

* Voter repression and vote stealing.

* GOP nominees to the Supremes would solidify the hold of money on power.

* They're wealth extractors, not job creators.

* They combine the worst of both Christianity and social Darwinism (the poor deserve what they get) into Selfish-Righteousness.

* They don't like democracy.



A guy named David, whose personal blog is named 4 Quarters, 10 Dimes, explains why he can't vote for today's GOP, even though he considers himself moderate and independent of any party.

There are a lot of things government has done for us. Slavery was not ended by the free market. Gov't ended the thuggishness of corporations and boosted opportunities for those not straight, white, male, and wealthy. Railroads (and the opening of the West), highways, the internet and other infrastructure was all sponsored by the gov't.

Liberals and conservatives need each other.

Conservatives serve the useful function of putting a brake on the random undirected enthusiasms of liberals, in the way that liberals serve the useful function of kicking conservatives out of their deep dark caves.

But the GOP is no longer acting like responsible adults. That won't change until they hit a seismic loss. Until then, no GOP candidate gets Dave's vote. Someone might be a swell guy and a great candidate, but simply by choosing to be associated with the irresponsibility of the current GOP he loses all credibility.

Why document the reasons the GOP isn't acting like adults? After all, the list of evidence is long and the reality-based community already knows and agrees. But, like the Declaration of Independence, some accounting must take place. So here is why Dave won't be voting for the GOP until they change their ways.

* The GOP claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility is one of the great con jobs. Their mismanagement over the last 40 years has caused the current economic mess and the deficit has risen higher under the GOP than under Dems. Taxes are great -- as long as someone else pays them.

* No actual support for the military. Instead they give it shiny playthings while skimping on things the military actually needs. Then the military is thrown into poorly planned wars while skimming off money to enrich their own corporations.

* They promote selfishness instead of community. Ancient empires collapsed in violence for many reasons, and "the spectre of grinding poverty alongside gaudy wealth with no buffer in between is high on that list."

* They have an ongoing war against women. At recent Congressional hearings on reproductive health the GOP called five experts, all male, most clergy and one celibate. This is just a symbol of a very long list.

* The GOP is under the control of those who want to turn America into a theocracy even though millions of Christians (plus those of other faiths) abhor the idea. Pushing the idea marks the GOP deficient in both history and theology.

* The GOP is systematically trying to destroy education, even though education is the foundation for an economic future and a functioning democracy. They have attacked science and filled curriculum with ideological drivel, underfunded schools (except the ones their kids attend), and vilified teachers. The more educated a person is the less likely they are to support GOP policies. Peasants don't need critical thinking skills.

* The GOP is assaulting democracy both through voter prevention and electoral fraud. "It is not an accident that in Tennessee a student ID is not sufficient to be allowed to vote but a gun registration is." Nobody can find out who actually won Florida in the 2000 election.

* Our current form of government is a republic -- we elect people to make laws. The GOP doesn't like that. It was a GOP president who made frequent use of "signing statements" declaring his opinion was more important than the laws passed by elected officials.

* Several GOP leaders have called for states to secede from the union when things didn't go their way. That's treason. Yet the party embraces them.

I didn't vote a straight party ticket. I carefully researched candidate affiliation (which isn't always possible for judges) and then carefully filled in the ovals on my ballot for individual candidates who weren't GOP, even though it took me 20 minutes. (At 10:15 the line to get a ballot was only 15 minutes.) I may not be pro-Democratic. But, like Dave here (and my friend and debate partner), I am very much anti-Republican.

Alas, though the silly season is over, the nonsense continues. The news is now full of the latest inane comments from the GOP over the fiscal cliff (though a Marketplace radio listener said a better name is the "fiscal bluff"). Obama said that the public is on his side because they reelected him. Boehner responded, yeah, but voters gave the House to the GOP.

We're not cynical, are we?

Maybe not cynical enough -- Lily Tomlin: "No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."

Surprising nobody and annoying many, Sen. Harry Reid, who played a big role in sending the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy to defeat, is using the issue in his campaign. He's for repeal and being attacked by the GOP for doing so. Send money.

Jon Stewart has the reply. The 8 minute video has all the expletives properly bleeped out.


Speaking of Stewart… Jon Stewart has announced that he will be holding a rally on the Washington Mall on October 30. He has titled it "Rally to Restore Sanity." America should take it down a notch. Stephen Colbert responded by holding a "March to Keep Fear Alive" for the same space and time. Stewart's announcement is 11 minutes, Colbert's is 8.

Humor gets to the core of the debate

The Colbert Report on the Washington Domestic Partner referendum is good for a laugh. You are voting to approve it, aren’t you?

The winds will be blowing each other

Stephen Colbert comments on that Coming Storm ad. He gives you a chance to see the original, then does his own spoof. Enjoy the fun.