Wrong to celebrate someone's death, wrong to distort their life

By the time I think I might get caught up in reading the news, more news happens. So I’m still a bit behind. On Tuesday Oliver Willis of Daily Kos wrote on a topic that for me is quickly getting old:

Conservatives are engaged in a coast-to-coast witch hunt meant to punish people who aren’t marching in lockstep with the right’s attempts to lionize slain bigot Charlie Kirk. In a push led by Republican lawmakers, people are being hounded, fired, and even arrested for not going along with the right’s sanitized narrative of Kirk’s life. Kirk spent his years as a political influencer and organizer attacking the rights of trans people, women, racial minorities, and others. He promoted baseless smears and conspiracy theories and delighted in antagonizing his political rivals. Kirk even belittled the dangers of the gun violence that ultimately took his life. The right is now pushing for all of this to be forgotten in favor of a cleaned-up version of Kirk that emphasizes the loss experienced by his friends and family while omitting the harm he did to public discourse.

Willis then provides many examples. In Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Heather Cox Richardson of the Substack Letters from an American. She talked about Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook who the nasty guy tried to fire because of the claim she had declared two homes to be her principle residence to get better mortgage rates.

It appears the documents that director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte used to accuse her of mortgage fraud were standardized forms that her personal application specifying the house was a second home overrode. It also appears that Cook never applied for a primary residence tax exemption for the Georgia home and that she referred to the home on official documents as a “2nd home.” ... Trump hoped to use the allegations against Cook to advance his control of the Federal Reserve. Now the revelation that those allegations appear to be false highlights the degree to which this administration is attempting to achieve control of the country by pushing a false narrative and getting what its officers want before reality catches up. Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) pioneered this technique in the 1950s when he would grab media attention with outrageous statements and outright lies that destroyed lives, then flit to the next target, leaving fact checkers panting in his wake. By the time they proved he was lying, the news cycle had leaped far ahead, and the corrections got nowhere near the attention the lies had.

In the comments is a cartoon by Graeme MacKay. It shows street signs at the intersection of “1st Amendment” and “2nd Amendment.” At the base of the signs is a memorial to Charlie Kirk. Filling the intersection is an accident where a car labeled “Intolerant rhetoric” has been smashed by a car labeled “Gun freedom.” Off to the side a man asks, “Which car was he in?” A woman replies, “Both.” In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup are several good memes and cartoons. Nick Anderson drew one titled Republican Politicians. It shows a family posing in front of a Christmas tree for the seasonal photo. Dad, Mom, and the kids each have a high powered gun. Mom looks at her watch and says, “We need to wrap this up. I don’t want to be late to my press conference condemning leftists for promoting violence.” Dr. MacLeod cartoons shows two men talking:

Red hat: I can’t believe these disgusting people saying bad things about a man who has been assassinated. No hat: Do you mean like when Charlie Kirk said that Martin Luther King was “awful” and that he was “not a good person”?

A meme posted by Feminist News Now:

The truly, truly strange thing about Kirk is that I have not seen his supporters quote one statement by him that illustrates his supposed nobility of character. Normally, when a civil rights leader is assassinated, their supporters spend days reciting their greatest quotes and preachings. So, it’s notable that the right has devoted the past two days trying to get Olive Garden waitresses fired for being critical, while completely avoiding his body of work.

A meme posted by exlrrp and written by AesPolitics says, “I remember a time when shootings like these didn’t end with the sitting president blaming 48.3% of the country for something they didn’t even do.” Trilemma posted a cartoon based on the well known trio of figures that include the words “Hear no evil...” This time is is three men in red hats that have the words, “See no crimes. Hear no facts. Speak no truth.” In Wednesday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Berny Belvedere of The UnPopulist discussed what the nasty guy has done in response to Charlie Kirk’s murder, then wrote:

But he has already proved, yet again, that he represents a radical departure from past presidents in similar circumstances. Those presidents did not shy away from calling out the perpetrators or the destructive ideologies they stood for—but neither did they cynically seize on such occasions and use them to turbocharge a partisan crackdown on political opponents. It is really important to understand the contrast between Trump’s behavior and those of previous presidents for two reasons: First, to get a clear measure of the extent of our moral descent. And second, to fully understand the authoritarian dangers our republic is facing.

David Russell Moore, on his own website wrote:

There’s a fixation, in online political debate, about voting in federal elections held every two years. Liberals tend to lash out at progressives or independents who suggest they might not vote for Democratic candidates. So much political oxygen gets taken up by the debate over Biden-vs.-Trump. Voting becomes an obsessive focus because Democratic Party leaders fight efforts to create official channels where changes to policy, like U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza, can be openly debated and formally considered. Free technology tools and meaningful deliberation programs that would increase participation within the party, often called “liquid democracy,” are unused. There’s little discussion on MSNBC, Pod Save America, or in New York Times op-eds about practical ways the Democratic Party could increase participation among its members in the here and now. By keeping such reform options in the dark, party leaders succeed in keeping them off the table. Even in the age of social media, the Democratic Party remains a stubbornly closed-off enterprise. At the top, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is a private corporation, as opposed to a membership organization like a labor union, and its leaders have impunity over how they set and enforce party rules. For decades, DNC insiders have gone to war to prevent basic transparency and grassroots reform efforts from gaining steam.

That last paragraph has a dozen links to articles detailing the points Moore is making. Kevin Kruse wrote about what others are calling the whitewashing of Kirk’s legacy.

As the nation reckons with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, there has been a notable trend from mainstream pundits and press outlets. They have tended to downplay or outright ignore the ugly things that he said and instead to stress the polite ways he said them. It's an emphasis on style over substance. This approach has been widespread in the punditocracy, which has almost uniformly moved to hold Kirk up as a rare avatar of civil disagreement in an uncivil era. Ezra Klein's opinion piece in the New York Times, literally titled "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way," is a perfect example of this argument, but only the most prominent. Just this morning, a journalist with The Atlantic Monthly stirred up Bluesky by asserting flatly that Kirk was admirable because he "argued with civility." While I think it's absolutely wrong to celebrate someone's death, I think it's equally wrong to distort their life after they're gone. These pundits' paeans to Charlie Kirk's "civil" approach to politics ignore the many illustrations of his incivility. He had a record of making anti-Semitic comments, racist and sexist comments, attacks on religious minorities and immigrants that extended to spouting and defending the white supremacist "great replacement theory" that presents immigration of non-whites as a sinister conspiracy to destroy America.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme by The Complex Rebel discussing the political organization Kirk founded at age 18.

Turning Point wasn’t grassroots. Bradley Impact fund alone dumped $8,100,000 USD into Kirk’s machine then added a $108,000,000 war chest for 2024. Billionaires fund the class war. Charlie Kirk sold it as a race war. The money keeps them rich. The hate keeps us divided. That’s the playbook.

Also posted by exlrrp are a pair of tweets: First by Charlie Kirk: “Kentanji (sic) Brown Jackson is a diversity hire. She is only there because she’s a black woman.” Alex Cole responded, “Ketanji graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. You dropped out of community college to cosplay as a fascist. ‘Diversity hire’ is what racists say when a Black woman earns something they never could.” A meme from former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh:

When I was a tea party Congressman and right wing radio talker, I made fun of the snowflakes on the left who couldn’t handle speech that offended them. Well lookie here. Now the free speech wussies, the way too easily triggered/offended snowflakes, are all on the MAGA right. Hilarious.

A meme from chescaleigh: “If glorifying violence is so bad, why did y’all make Kyle Rittenhouse a celebrity?” A meme posted by exlrrp shows the rainbow crosswalk near the Pulse nightclub site, where dozens of people were gunned down, had been painted over. “Next time you think art doesn’t matter; just think about how scared, in 2025, the fascists are of sidewalk chalk.” In Thursday’s roundup Kev quoted Jake Lamut of Wired. Here’s a bit of it:

As time went on, there appeared to be only one source of true unity: Agreement between the ultra MAGA and Silicon Valley wings of the party over who the they responsible for Kirk’s murder really is. It’s anyone Republican leaders want it to be. According to one expert, that’s the entire point...

Lily Conway of The Contrarian discussed the messages on Kirk’s shooters unfired cartridges:

For someone unfamiliar with the tactics and communication styles of the online alt-right, these messages may appear as a jumble of nonsense (or even leftist messaging, especially the second and third engravings). However, the alt-right does not communicate through straightforward, earnest speech. Rather, it “weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters, challenge progressive ideologies and institutions, redpill normies, and create a toxic counterpublic.” They communicate through terse, coded, and generally offensive phrases meant to signal group recognition. Nothing is said in earnest–in fact, any expression of earnestness is roundly mocked. Every true meaning is hidden under double or triple layers of irony only accessible to the in-group. As Julia Rose DeCook argues, “trolling itself has become a kind of political aesthetic and identity.” Indeed, it’s not unreasonable to question if these users carry any political ideology beyond mockery, irony, and bitter cynicism.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme from Jojo from Jerz:

So let me see if I have this right, the same Republicans who are saying Charlie Kirk was murdered for exercising his freedom of speech because he said things some didn’t like, are punishing people for exercising their freedom of speech because they said things they didn’t like?!”

A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Dr. Seuss shows the sideshow at a circus. A man is on stage with his jacket labeled “Appeaser.” Between his jacket and trousers are suspenders and no body. The barker says, “And on this platform, the most amazing marvel of the age! He lives; he talks...yet he has no guts!”

Messing with the numbers doesn't shield you from reality

My Sunday movie was Universal Language. It is one of the most eccentric movies I’ve seen. Matthew Rankin was one of the writers. He also directed and plays a major character named Matthew Rankin. I have no idea how much is autobiographical. A tagline says it happens somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Most of the story takes place in Winnipeg, though the major language isn’t English, but Persian. All the signs are in Persian and nearly all the characters – Matthew is one of the few exceptions – look to be of Persian descent and speak Persian or French. How this came to be is not explained. The story takes place during a Winnipeg winter. Matthew leaves his government job in Montreal (or maybe Quebec) and takes the bus to Winnipeg, where he grew up. He is trying to find his mother. Two young girls find paper money frozen in ice and try to get a way to get it out before an adult can do so. Massoud leads walking tours of Winnipeg for tourists. Many major sites on his tour now have highways next to them. Another site features a briefcase on a bench someone left behind fifty years ago. The tourists complain of the cold. There is a turkey shop owner promoting his frozen turkeys and he paid for a prized turkey to be a passenger on Matthew’s bus. A scene takes place in a Kleenex repository. Canada submitted this for “Best International Feature Film” for the 2025 Academy Awards. It wasn’t chosen as a finalist. It did win an award at the Cannes Film Festival and won and was nominated in many other film festivals. I heard about it when it was shown at the Detroit Film Theater perhaps a year ago, but didn’t see it then. This is definitely an unusual movie, something to watch when one is tired of movies seeming all the same. And I enjoyed it. Sharon Lerner, in an article for ProPublica posted on Daily Kos, discussed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr and his effort to find the cause of autism. He said he would have an answer by September. Erin McCanlies, an epidemiologist at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a part of HHS, was stunned by Kennedy’s announcement. She was about to release her fourth paper on exactly that. I think she was able to finish it before she was fired, though many offices around hers were already empty. So why was her job and funding cut when Kennedy said he was looking for an answer that she and the rest of his department were well on the way to finding? Kennedy said the answer was vaccines and environmental toxins. Based on what McCanlies found he was half right. To put this in proper scientific terms, McCanlies and others found autism risk factors. The more factors the higher the chances of a child being on the autism spectrum. That doesn’t mean a particular child will be autistic. Some of the factors are genetic, others are things like parental age and whether the mother had a fever during pregnancy. Still others are whether the mother had been exposed to chemicals such as the solvents varnish, xylene, methylene chloride, and others. More culprits are certain pesticides, certain metals, and air pollution. Folic acid, one of the B vitamins, can decrease the chances of autism. One can see reasons why Kennedy doesn’t like the results McCanlies and others are publishing. His favorite culprit of vaccines has been proven not to be a cause of autism. The Environmental Protection Agency, under Administrator Lee Zeldin is blocking air pollution rules and reversing bans on several chemicals that have been shown to be a risk. Kennedy likes to say we don’t know the causes of autism and because the condition can be so devastating we need to find those causes quickly. I’ve heard media say over the last several years that the higher rates of autism are because of more frequent testing, implying there isn’t a cause. But we do know the causes. Alas, the corporations that back the nasty guy would rather protect their profits through the use of harmful chemicals and releasing pollutants into the air. So the nasty guy hires people willing to put corporate profits over the health of mothers and children. Mary Childs of NPR discussed the consequences of a government not publishing honest and trustworthy financial statistics. The story was aired because the nasty guy recently fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn’t like the reported jobs numbers. Childs talked to George Papaconstantinou, who became the finance minister of Greece in 2009, just after the financial mess that caused the Great Recession. At the start of his term a person went to him and said the financial situation is quite bad, much worse than what is officially said. His team needed more than a year to figure out the real numbers. According to European Union rules, member countries were to keep their deficits under 3%. The real deficit number, once determined, was 15%. That created a huge loss of trust. To recover Greece had to borrow a lot of money at much higher interest rates and cut its spending to austerity levels. “Messing with the numbers doesn't shield you from reality.” Recovery took nearly ten years. I usually use dashes or asterisks to soften expletives. I grew up at a time and in a family where such words were not used. There have been times where I thought including such words were critical to the tone or forcefulness of a quote, but years have passed since I’ve let one through. But I can’t hide the expletives in this next quote because they’re the point. So if such words offend you just skip the first quote. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quotes Glenn Kessler, formerly of the Washington Post and now writing his own Substack.

Twenty years ago this month, the late Princeton philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt published his seminal work On Bullshit, which argued that bullshit was worse than lying. His point was that a liar knows the truth and deliberately tries to hide or distort it, while a bullshitter doesn’t care about the truth at all — they care only about the impression they make. When Donald Trump emerged on the political stage in 2015, Frankfurt wrote in Time magazine that Trump was the epitome of the bullshit artist he had identified a decade earlier. [...] But, following Frankfurt’s theory, focusing only on Trump’s lies obscures a deeper danger to American society. As a bullshitter, Trump doesn’t care whether what he says reflects reality. He says whatever serves his momentary purpose, often contradicting himself without hesitation or shame. This indifference to truth makes Trump’s bullshit more insidious than lies.

Kev followed that quote with one from Frankfurt. I’ll let you read it. Kev also quoted Jason Linkins of The New Republic:

But Trump is getting plumped by some in the media as well: The Atlantic’s Michael Powell idly handwaves the fact that D.C. brought the violent crime rate to a 30-year low in 2024 to admonish Democrats for “downplaying crime.” (In this case, “downplaying crime” means “marshaling statistics demonstrating that the crime rate is trending in the right direction.”) Charles Fain Lehman, also in The Atlantic, goes to similar lengths to dismiss the actual facts to assert that “the reality is more complicated” and that some “deliberate intervention”—atop the one that brought the crime rate to a 30-year-low, presumably—is warranted. These authors and others are making a profound error from the jump in assuming that Trump sincerely desires to lower the crime rate in D.C. Trump is actually a “blank, sucking nullity” who wants to see himself on television and has decided that his second term in office will be about self-enrichment and revenge. He is inventing a crisis of crime as a pretext for further consolidating his power; this is authoritarianism 101. Personally, I think downplaying crime in the nation’s capital is not nearly as irresponsible as downplaying Trump’s authoritarianism. But if we must pretend that Trump’s efforts are sincere, then I’d challenge the proponents of his militarized deployments to approach their work with more rigor, and less vibes. Trump has proposed a thesis: Crime in D.C. will go down if masked paramilitaries flood the city and amble about the streets. The task, then, is to see if his theory stands up to the test—to take this seriously.

They know their plan is not legal and not moral

I watched the funeral for President Jimmy Carter this morning. In all a fitting tribute to the great man. I was amused and a bit annoyed that the church officials, in their prayers, referred to him as “James” and not “Jimmy.” Carter was the one who insisted he take the oath of office beginning with “I, Jimmy Carter.” I was also annoyed that the CBS commentators took the moments of music to talk, to share their useless observations. I wanted to hear the music. Thankfully, at each musical moment they talked less and let us listen more. Seven people gave eulogies. Carter’s predecessor Gerald Ford had written one that his son Steve Ford read. Carter’s VP Walter Mondale had also written one that his son read (I didn’t catch the name). Both eulogies talked about how they became solid friends with Carter. Stuart Eizenstat, a staffer in the Carter White House said we should evaluate a presidency by how his policies and programs have lasted through time. By that measure Carter’s presidency did quite well. Rev. Andrew Young (he has his own long list of accomplishments) did a good job. I was disappointed in Biden’s eulogy – it seemed to be a lot of recycled cliches. Grandsons Joshua and Jason Carter talked about their grandfather. Jason gave the best eulogy of the bunch. Jason said his grandfather was the same in public as he was in private, demonstrating his integrity and authenticity. The hearse arrived about 20 minutes before the service and the casket was kept in it until the service started. An honor guard also stood in the cold with a wind strong enough the soldier with the presidential flag struggled to hold on to it. Yes, a fitting tribute. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, announced the company will no longer use independent fact checkers. He claims he is a big defender of free speech, as is the incoming Oval Office occupant. Yeah, that’s a similar reason Musk gave to fire the moderators in what was then Twitter. And his claim about the nasty guy being a defender of free speech is laughable. Another reason for the change: Fact checkers are too politically biased. Does this confirm reality has a liberal bias? Zuckerberg said Meta would use the same idea used on X, that individuals can post corrections and then they are voted on.

But in practice, very few users see these notes, which are easily manipulated, and they are published after misinformation has been widely circulated. Meta’s announcement that it is pursuing the same model to deal with misinformation as Musk likely means that the company’s platforms will be awash with lies, bigotry, and other content that misinforms the public. ... Ditching fact checking is the most Trump-like behavior that Meta could embrace and is another sign that tech and media leaders are lining up behind the incoming administration and against an informed public.

Not surprisingly, this came after Zuck visited Mar-a-Lago and donated to the inaugural committee. I wrote after the election that the nasty guy’s base won’t turn on him, no matter how bad their lives get, because they won’t know he was the cause of their oppression. This is another reason why they won’t know. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted a few articles describing Zuck’s change. Kev also quoted Jordi Pérez Colomé of El País in English talking to disinformation researcher Renee DiResta about the difference between “misinformation” and “propaganda.” I’ll summarize: In the case of misinformation when more accurate information is presented a person would change their mind. So most of what we’ve been calling misinformation is really propaganda. Jan Sorensen posted a cartoon on Kos about corporations cozying up to the nasty guy with the key line: “It’s almost as if capitalism doesn’t have a problem with a dark authoritarian future.” I had written that Rep. Nancy Mace had proposed a transgender bathroom ban that would affect only new Rep. Sarah McBride. The new House convened. They elected Mike Johnson as speaker again (after a couple members switched votes to him). And they adopted the rules that are to be followed for this Congress. Alix Breeden of Kos reported that Mace’s ban is not in the rules. Was Mace snubbed? Did other Republicans back away from the bathroom ban? Or are they all relying on statement Johnson said a couple months ago that there is a ban? When Johnson announced the ban it was not accompanied by any House approval. Amanda Becker of The 19th, in an article posted on Kos, wrote about how Project 2025 could get implemented. The nasty guy has already nominated to important positions several key people who were authors of the project. Likely many of them will be confirmed. One of the authors is Russell Vought, nominated to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Vought’s vision for the OMB, according to Bel Olinsky of the Center for American Progress, is “to basically change the plumbing so they can do whatever they want without any meaningful checks and balances” during Trump’s second term. Vought has said his goals are to destroy diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (unknown whether that’s in government or across the country, likely both) and to advance Christian Nationalism. Vought sees his purpose is to ensure all policy initiatives are in sync with his goals and to stop plans veering off course. He has two ways to guide wayward policies. First, by eliminating dissent within agencies. Second by withholding money appropriated by Congress for programs he and the nasty guy don’t support. That first goal is to be accomplished by reclassifying federal employees, turning 50,000 jobs from being career jobs to being political jobs. Then firing those who aren’t loyal to the nasty guy. As for the second, yes, the Constitution says Congress controls the purse. The executive branch is to spend money in the manner Congress directs. More below. Vought’s alignment with Christian Nationalism means implementing Project 2025’s call for restricting abortion and removing policies that support LGBTQ families. He would also work to turn the FBI into a political entity to settle scores and help with deportations. Project 2025 says all its goals are to be done by executive action. No Congressional oversight needed. Here’s the “more below.” Back at the end of November Molly Redden of ProPublica, in an article posted on Kos, explained what the nasty guy and Vought plan to do. The idea is called impoundment. The name refers to a president deciding to “impound” or not spend money he deems wasteful. The nasty guy would use it to cut the vast array of government services Musk and Ramaswamy want to make disappear. Most of the examples of impoundment are cases where Congress left details up to the President. When Jefferson was president Congress said the number of gun boats to be purchased should not exceed 15 and the price should not exceed $50,000. Jefferson decided zero fit within what Congress authorized.

President Richard Nixon took impoundment to a new extreme, wielding the concept to gut billions of dollars from programs he simply opposed, such as highway improvements, water treatment, drug rehabilitation and disaster relief for farmers. He faced overwhelming pushback both from Congress and in the courts. More than a half dozen federal judges and the Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the appropriations bills at issue did not give Nixon the flexibility to cut individual programs. Vought and his allies argue the limits Congress placed in 1974 are unconstitutional, saying a clause in the Constitution obligating the president to “faithfully execute” the law also implies his power to forbid its enforcement.

To me that sounds like Alice in Wonderland style reasoning. “Faithfully execute” is supposed to mean carry out and enforce every detail of the law. It doesn’t mean prevent a law from being fulfilled. The Supremes confirmed my understanding back in 1838. But this will likely be the first case the nasty guy takes to the Supremes and this court is quite different from the court in 1974 or 1838.

Vought was also a top architect of the controversial Project 2025. In private remarks to a gathering of MAGA luminaries uncovered by ProPublica, Vought boasted that he was assembling a “shadow” Office of Legal Counsel so that Trump is armed on day one with the legal rationalizations to realize his agenda. “I don’t want President Trump having to lose a moment of time having fights in the Oval Office about whether something is legal or doable or moral,” Vought said.

Note that last bit. The nasty guy and Vought know what they want to do is not legal. They know what they want to do is not moral. They intend to do it anyway.

It’s the faux image that most people voted for

Today NPR was full of segments on why the election came out the way it did. The first I heard was from retiring Senator Joe Manchin. I quickly turned him off. I do not want to hear him pontificating on what he thought was important after he stymied several democracy protecting bills. I did listen to a few others, though I can’t say any had anything profound to say. So I’m pleased to hear what Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, said. His words were reported to Daily Kos by Walter Einenkel. And Enenkel’s summary is quite short:

Stewart reminded the audience that as bad and dire as things feel at this moment, what we hear from the pundit class about what the future holds is usually wrong.

And directly from Stewart:

We have to continue to fight and continue to work, day in and day out, to create the better society for our children, for this world, for this country, that we know is possible.

Hunter of the Kos community did have something profound to say, and he says it well. It follows what I understand. Hunter called his article The Billionaire’s Coup. He is going for the simple explanations. Here are his main ideas. Americans are much more cruel than we want to admit. The nasty guy closed with racism and ethnic cleansing and he was cheered. We don’t want to admit it so we paper over the cruelty with terms like “economic anxiety” that was popular a few elections ago. A result repeated over several elections:

Americans want broadly liberal policies—and they want them to be delivered by pompously religious white men. The simplest explanation for that is the one Trump voters themselves bellow. Voters want broad rights when they think those rights will go to people like them—and absolutely do not want those same protections if they think someone who does not look like them will be in charge of dispensing them.

See the reaction to Obamacare. Democracy depends on factual information, yet many media sources hide it. Add to that the disinformation on social media. The “free press” has been completely captured by corporate entities. There are billionaires with particular interests. Both promote intentional disinformation while hiding the truth.

That's not democracy. You can't have democracy, if that's the playbook to be used; democracy hinges entirely on the ability of a citizenry to guide the direction of their country by examining the true state of the country and casting votes accordingly. If there is no true state to be determined ... all of it is moot. The vote measures nothing. There are no "issues," only dueling slates of propaganda. And that is not where we are heading. That is where we are.

See Fox News. Hunter contends that Republicans have seen no consequences for the Capitol attack four years ago because the billionaire media owners need the extremists.

Democracy cannot exist if facts do not exist, and political journalists, the parties, and the people who have purchased everything from our communications networks to their own Supreme Court justices are insistent, already, that facts do not exist. That is where we are. Getting back will require defeating all of that—and a government soon to be headed by men who have very loudly declared their intent to never, ever give it back.

An Associated Press article posted on Kos discussed the chatter that is encouraging Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, 76, and Samuel Alito, 74, to retire and do it soon. That way the nasty guy can replace them and extend conservative dominance on the court for a few more decades. Retirement needs to happen soon because a president tends to lose Congressional support in a midterm election and Democrats probably won’t approve the nasty guy’s choices. Should we be glad that Thomas said he will never retire, that he wants to die with his robes on? That’s what Ruth Bader Ginsberg did and we got Amy Coney Barrett. Thomas could assure his legacy by making sure the nasty guy is the one to replace him. Never retiring means he might be replaced with a more progressive justice and his legacy would end with him. The article listed a couple big decisions the court could tackle – what to do with abortion drug mifepristone, whether states have to do emergency abortions to protect a woman’s life or health, whether the DACA program protecting children immigrants legal. And whatever policies the nasty guy attempts, such as bringing back travel bans. Oliver Willis of Kos lists some of the firsts the nasty guy will achieve when he gets back to the Oval Office. The first to be sworn in after being impeached and the first with federal indictments. He’s the first after being convicted of felonies (34 of them) by a jury of peers (sentencing is in a few weeks). He’s been found liable of sexual abuse. He’s been charged with racketeering for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia (prosecutor Fani Willis was just reelected). This has been known for months and years. Republicans nominated him and people voted for him in spite, or because of, these blots. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos are many cartoons related to the election. I’ll describe some of them. Ann Telnaes shows Lady Liberty leaving the country. Dennis Goris shows Lady Liberty lynched. A take on the Lion King: “What’s out there, Dad?” “Ignorance son. Ignorance on a scale I’ve never seen before. A meme: “If you don’t understand why your gay friend is scared right now, then you don’t have a gay friend. You know a gay person.” A cartoon by Daniel Boris showing a doctor telling Uncle Sam, “I’m sorry, Sam. Your cancer has returned.” A cartoon by David Hayward showing Jesus admonishing the church, “Never bless a government!” Uncle Sam in the bathroom looking in the mirror and the mirror saying, “You had ten years to understand the consequences of this choice. You can never wash your hands of it.” A meme of Lady Liberty with her hands over her face with the words:

Seniors voted to gut Social Security. Men voted for their wives and daughters to die from miscarriages. Immigrants voted for deportation raids. Poor people voted for tax cuts for billionaires. Women voted to have fewer rights than men. Police voted for a convicted felon.

John Fugelsang quoted a tweet by Van Lathan, though the actual author isn’t given.

A black Podcaster summed it up, It’s a masterclass in white privilege. He can’t say enough racist things to be a racist. He can’t commit enough crimes to be a criminal. He can’t fail enough times to be a failure. He can’t say enough stupid things to be stupid. The idea of him overshadows any reality ... It’s the promise of the protection of whiteness he represents.

That was followed by a comment from rugbymom.

As Heather Cox Richardson points out, I think quite accurately, most people who voted for Trump don't know any of those facts, because their information sources have instead been filled with (mostly false) screeching about undocumented murderers, sky-rocketing gasoline prices, out-of-control inflation, the economy in shambles, and Biden and Harris personally organizing and paying for millions of undocumented immigrants to fly or be bussed into the country to take everyone's jobs. ... A lot of Latinos, both citizens and undocumented, totally believe that the deportation isn’t aimed at them, only at those (largely mythical) violent insane criminals, murderers and rapists pillaging apartment complexes and eating dogs and cats, never at hard-working settled families like their own. ... So I think it’s a mistake to say the American voters knew who Trump was and chose that. More accurately, Trump, with the help of the right-wing media, podcasters, Russian bots, Musk, Zuckerberg, etc. etc. managed to once again manufacture a completely false inside-out backwards image of himself, and successfully sold the image. It’s the faux image that most people voted for. And by the time they realize they got scammed, it will be far too late.

Let's get some truth without all the grandstanding

The cold continues. I turned over leading tonight’s rehearsal to someone else. A friend proposed an elixir of honey, apple cider vinegar, and garlic to heal a sore throat. Right now the sore throat part is better, but the coughing is worse. My Sunday movie was Mutt. Feña has started his journey from female to male – top surgery has been done and hormones begun. He’s a mutt because he’s between male and female. Then over 24 hours three people from before his transition are back in his life – his ex-boyfriend from when he was female, his sister needing to escape from an abusive mother, and his father from Chile who hasn’t figured out what being trans means. All of them knew the transition was coming, but the reality is taking some adjustment. I enjoyed it. While in Austin I started the book Every Good Boy Does Fine, A Love Story, in Music Lessons by pianist Jeremy Denk. He’s a classical music soloist good enough I’ve heard of him and heard his recordings on radio. I’ve also read his blog about his view of performing, but last I checked it hadn’t been updated in quite a while. The first part of the title is the mnemonic new music students learn to help them learn the lines on the treble staff – E, G, B, D, F. There are two parts to this book. The first is an autobiography through to the time he graduates with a doctorate in piano performance, with many stops in individual lessons with his teachers from about age 10 to the end of his education. In this lesson I learned this, in that lesson I learned that. A second part of the book is lessons for the reader on melody, harmony, and rhythm. In the melody lessons he discusses why a particular melody in classical music is laid out the way it is and how that affects the music. The point I remember from the harmony lessons is that while melodies are unique to their composition the underlying harmony is universal (at least in Western music). In the rhythm sections he discusses how a shift in emphasis can change a phrase. To me, someone into classical music and composing, this was all fascinating. Through the book Denk says little about his love life. He mentions dating women and kicking men out of his bed at 2 am. Only at the end, when he’s striking out on his own and somewhere around the age of 30, does he mention falling in love, and then seems to name that person (if I read it right) only in the acknowledgments. And that name is male. His website bio and his Wikipedia pages do not mention life partners. Perhaps his life partner is his piano. I’m now working through the appendix, where Denk discusses and recommends recordings of the music he worked on in the various music lessons. I suppose I should have paused my reading to listen to what was being discussed, but I didn’t. So now while listening I wonder what was discussed with the piece. An Associated Press article posted to Daily Kos reported the death of Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court. She was suffering from dementia when she died at 93. Some of the highlights of her time on the Court: She was appointed to the court in 1981. In 1989 she refused to allow states to outlaw most abortions. In 1992 she was part of the majority that upheld the core of Roe. And, the black mark on her record, she joined the majority that ended the disputed 2000 election and put GW Bush in the White House. She retired in 2006 – and was replaced by Samuel Alito. Jeff Singer of Kos Elections wrote of O’Connor’s time in elected office. She was a state senator in Arizona starting in 1969. In 1974 she was elected to the Maricopa County Superior Court. She turned down a chance to run for Arizona governor in 1978. In 1979 she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals, which gave her a position to be available for the Supreme Court two years later. A week ago Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Hunter Biden was subpoenaed by the Republicans of the House Oversight Committee. They were trying to dig up dirt on something shady between Hunter and his dad. Hunter said, sure I’ll come testify – if the hearing is public. The committee chair Jame Comer refused. Rep Jamie Raskin called out Comer and crew saying in part:

What an epic humiliation for our colleagues and what a frank confession that they are simply not interested in the facts and have no confidence in their own case or the ability of their own Members to pursue it. After the miserable failure of their impeachment hearing in September, Chairman Comer has now apparently decided to avoid all Committee hearings where the public can actually see for itself the logical, rhetorical and factual contortions they have tied themselves up in.

Hunter of Kos reported that Fox News agreed the testimony should be behind closed doors. Michelle Tafoya said behind closed doors allows lawmakers “to get to the heart of the matter” and “get some truth” and “without all the grandstanding.” Hmm, when do these Republicans avoid grandstanding? What upsets the Republicans is that Hunter wants to tell his side of the story after years of their smears. What is important to Fox News is not the truth but the way Fox News can substitute what they want their viewers to think. In another post I read, but didn’t save, the last time a Democrat testified to these Republicans behind closed doors they released their “summary” quite quickly, which generated many news stories and, days later, released the transcript. Strange that the transcript had little in common with the summary, but it was then old news and few bothered to read it. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community reported that since Roe was overturned the number of abortions nationwide has gone up. The increase is only 0.2%, but it is still up. Yes, in many states the number of abortion has dropped to zero. The people in these states who can’t afford to travel don’t get the abortion they would have before. Yes, there are people who traveled for their abortions, but that doesn’t influence the overall count. What makes the difference is in the states were abortions were kept legal many of the laws restricting access were overturned. Sumner reported that X, formerly Twitter, might soon die. Recently Elon Musk wrote an endorsement of an antisemitic post. More advertisers pulled out. Musk tossed an F-bomb in their direction – yeah, that will convince them to return – and blamed them for his failures. Then he vowed to not rescue the company he bought for $44 billion (now worth less than $19 billion 13 months later).

Elon Musk apologized for one post. But advertisers didn’t leave the site formerly known as Twitter because of one post. They left because Musk gutted the site’s moderation teams, welcomed those who spread hate and lies, repeatedly demonstrated that he was always ready to believe a racist conspiracy theory, and showed he would make a threat at the drop of a hat. ... Musk already admitted that his site is doomed without advertisers. Then he drove a final stake through the idea of any of those advertisers returning. Then he vowed not to keep X alive with more of his own cash. All that’s left is the construction of a post-mortem mythology in which Musk complains that he tried to save free speech with $44 billion and his valuable time but that the horrible wokeism (or cancel culture, or whatever boogeyman the right wing invents next) just wouldn’t let him. Anyway, get ready for the funeral.

Didn’t Musk buy Twitter with a great deal of borrowed money? Is he going to pay them back or stiff them?

They believe that our words threaten them. Let’s prove them right.

Tovia Smith of NPR reported that the effort to ban books has prompted alternate ways of getting banned books to kids. A Ben & Jerry’s shop in Melbourne, Florida sells banned books. There are pop-up banned book libraries (one next to a movie theater), book giveaways, a bookmobile of banned books, even neighborhood Little Free Libraries stocked with banned books. The more books are banned, the more activists come up with alternatives. George Johnson, who wrote All Boys Aren’t Blue, carries copies to throw into free libraries he sees. High school senior Oliver Stirland of St. George, Utah had his life transformed when a school librarian recommended books as he was fighting thoughts of suicide over his sexuality. Two of those books are now banned. He now raises money to buy books to slip into free libraries. Of course, these books are available on the internet and through the Brooklyn Public Library’s Books Unbanned program, so why go through the effort of banning? Yeah, members of Moms for Liberty, a group behind many of the mans, calls these books pornography and threatens to call down federal obscenity laws on those distributing these books. Activists respond these books are neither obscene or pornographic. But these activist activities will never get books into the hands of all the kids who need them. In addition, a ban also sends a message, especially to kids who no longer see themselves in the books they read. So the best response to a book ban is to go to a school or library board meeting and make a stand for books. Reshma Saujani wrote an op-ed for Teen Vogue a couple weeks ago on International Women’s Day. One of her books, about young women of color learning to code, has been banned. Some of what she wrote:

At its core, the ban on my book isn’t about books at all. None of them are. Rather, book bans are about oppressing girls—especially girls of color, queer girls, and nonbinary people—by making us believe that our stories aren’t worth sharing, our aspirations aren’t worth pursuing, and our identities aren’t worth celebrating. ... If there was a common thread uniting these titles, it was that each offered an underrepresented point of view—one that could empower someone who shared it to challenge a broken system, and rebuild it in their image. In that sense, book bans are part of a larger, manufactured culture war to keep young people from understanding and uprooting harmful systems of oppression—all under the guise of, ironically, shielding them from harm in the first place. ... But if there’s hope, it’s that the opposite is true, too. Because as I have experienced firsthand, when you offer girls books that tell them how their differences make them special, they believe it. When you share stories that show them their dreams are possible, they pursue them. And when you give them proof that their world is changeable—and that they can change it—they won’t just do it; they’ll lead the charge. Indeed, history has shown time and time again that there are few things more powerful than a teenage girl armed with equal parts self-confidence and righteous fury. Today, from Austin, Texas to York County, Pennsylvania to Wentzville, Missouri, empowered girls are wresting back control of their education in order to create a better future for themselves, their friends, and every person touched by these bans. ... For so long, people have sought to silence women because they believe that our words are dangerous; that our very existence threatens the status quo. This International Women’s Day, let’s prove them right.

Mike Luckovich tweeted a cartoon of a slave auction and off to the side one gentleman says to another:

This history mustn’t be taught lest future generations find it “uncomfortable” ...

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote that “Large Language Model AIs,” the kind that are now available to make up an answer to anything, are pushing us beyond post-truth and alternative facts into the end of objective facts. Sumner shows an AI response that included a reference to a study, even citing the journal where it was published. But there was no such study. Which average person is going to check? The AI’s learning featured lots of articles citing lots of sources, so it did the same. Another AI response prompted Sumner to explain:

This is an AI, citing a lie created by another AI, which was citing an article from another AI, based on something that the last AI was instructed to write based on a joke. If you went onto the internet right now, asked a question, and got an answer that included a citation, that included a citation, that included a citation … how far would you really try to unravel things to determine if you were being told the truth?

And it seems Big Tech and every company on the planet wants AIs in every search engine, word processor, email app, spreadsheet, and any other type of app one can think of that will fill our discourse with “another layer of obfuscation, false authority, and just plain-vanilla lies.” We already have trouble agreeing on a set of authoritative facts. Shannon Bond of NPR reported that Ethan Mollick, a business professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, needed only $11, eight minutes, a photo of himself, and sixty seconds of himself speaking to create a video of him giving a (short?) lecture he never actually gave. There are already these deepfake videos of the nasty guy (getting arrested), Obama, Biden, and Zelenskyy. They could easily be created for nefarious political purpose, such as Biden declaring a war time draft. There are also scams of people posing as family members to steal money. Even if the fake is detected it spreads distrust for the truth. We aren’t ready for this. While Big Tech is trying to erect guardrails, some open source AIs are already out in the web and won’t have guardrails. There is also a difference between AIs where one goes to a site to use it and AIs that are baked into fundamental infrastructure where we aren’t aware it is in use. In response to a tweet expressing shock at how few Americans have passports, compared to Europeans who all seem to have one, Leah McElrath tweeted “Many Americans have no desire to travel overseas. The United States is a massive, diverse country to explore.” Then she included a map of Europe with her own state of Texas laid over it. The state covers from about Florence, Italy to the border between Germany and Denmark, from Vienna to the tip of Normandy. It covers a big chunk of Germany, half of Czechia and Austria, most of Switzerland, close to all of Belgium and Neterlands, and about a quarter of France. That’s just one (though the second biggest) American state. That reminds me of hearing from a couple European friends who visited America. They are surprised at how big it is and how long it takes to get from one side to the other. Yeah, Americans can see a great deal of scenery and a great diversity of humanity and culture without a passport. Even so, I’m glad I have mine. Of course, that comparison prompted me to find more. World Atlas says Europe (including Russia to the Urals) is 3.91 million square miles and the US (presumably including Alaska) is 3.53 million square miles. Mapfight shows one overlaid on the other with their similar sizes. Vividmaps shows a more accurate overlaying – with the eastern edge of Maine at the Urals the western edge of California is even with the shore of Portugal. It also notes the US is one nation and Europe is not. The page includes several other comparisons: latitude, obesity rates, homicide rates, road traffic death rates, and more.

Justified in doing real crimes to expose the imagined ones

I finished the book The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See. The story begins in 1988 when Li-Yan is a young girl of the Akha people in the mountainous tea growing region of China, a bit north of where Burma (Myanmar now) and Laos meet. These are a people who still protected themselves from evil spirits. Her mother is the region’s midwife and does things to protect newborns from those spirits and also handles situations that are taboo, like children of unmarried women and twins (animals have litters, people shouldn’t). Li-Yan shows great promise as a student. She has a boyfriend and they sneak into the woods for love. Not surprisingly, young couples are encouraged to test things out before marriage, but if the girl gets pregnant it’s her fault. Li-Yan gives her infant girl to an orphanage and later learns the girl was adopted and taken to Hollywood. Mr. Huang comes to town to help the villagers increase and improve their tea, because the market for it is booming. And Li-Yan gets into a school to become the tea equivalent to a wine sommalier. Yes, tea is spoken about in the same types of language as wine. This got me thinking. I drink tea. I definitely don’t follow the brewing procedures I’ve heard are done in England. A Chinese tea person would be appalled at what I do with it. The finer grades of tea would be lost on me and I’d probably have to avoid them because of the caffeine. I also don’t drink wine. So we learn a lot about tea and the ups and downs of the tea market. There is also a lot about how higher income and modernization affects these mountain communities. Because there are so many more men than women in China – during the one child policy more girls were aborted than boys – pushy mothers would try to get single Li-Yan to take an interest in their sons. And we hear about the daughter in America and what it is like to grow up with an ethnic Chinese face and white parents. I enjoyed this one. Hunter of Daily Kos reported on a Republican crime spree: tampering with election systems – the equipment and the way votes are handled – and also stealing election data. Hunter wrote there are three things driving these crimes: * It’s all based on conspiracy theories. In particular the QAnon or similar claims. The people doing the crimes are in or aspire to local party power positions. * They show the brazen Republican disregard for law. They assert they are justified in doing real crimes to expose the imagined ones.

It turns out that having a "president" willing to break laws regularly, alongside party-devoted lawmakers who are eager to simply scrub out enforcement of whatever rules he breaks, may result in more widespread party beliefs that Criminality Is Good Now.

* The criminal efforts are actually coordinated.

The crimes are all committed due to a belief in a handful of nebulous, nonsensical conspiracy theories that came from top Trump propagandists and which continue to be repeated now as core movement beliefs. The reason those beliefs continue is because there's a whole lot of Republican money being poured into making them continue.

Alisa Chang of NPR held an 11 minute discussion of people whose job it is to certify an election at the county and state level. The jobs are pretty straightforward and routine. She spoke to Republicans who had those jobs. Their integrity made sure Biden got into the White House, but that integrity also meant they are out of a job because they were replaced. Chang also had a 7 minute discussion with Justin Roebuck, the county clerk of Ottawa County, Michigan and with Teresa De Graaf, the clerk in Port Sheldon Township of Ottawa County. Both are Republicans. Roebuck is now including in his training of township clerks and poll workers what to do if a poll worker goes rogue. He hadn’t done this before. At a last resort, they call the police. One politician, who believes the 2020 election was stolen, has called for people to volunteer to be poll workers. He says that if something looks strange with the voting machine, pull the plug – which will just switch it to battery power. De Graaf said that part of her job is to work through poll worker applications and turn down those who are radical. She said:

They come in, and they want to be part of the process. But then they start spouting their beliefs and how the election was rigged and how they want to be part of the process because of that. But you can actually tell that their ultimate goal is maybe to create some chaos and to prove their point.

Roebuck added that a couple rogue poll workers can’t affect the outcome of the election, but ...

I think it's massive ripple effects of distrust in the process, intimidation, misunderstanding of what the process even is. And again, I think that's why it gets back to the heart of our training is so that we project the system in a way that voters can trust and feel comfortable and feel like they can come without disruption, without intimidation and participate.

Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos reported the Department of Homeland security is increasing efforts to counter disinformation coming from Russia and elsewhere. They say such lies affect border security and public trust in democratic institutions. So they have created a board to monitor and counteract disinformation threats. Republicans, especially the insurrectionists among them, didn’t take long to brand the head of that board a “speech czar” and the board itself as the Ministry of Truth. Don’t get that reference? Go read some Orwell. David Neiwert of Kos reported that Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas went to Fox News and talked about the invasion that Texas is facing on its border. He tried to compare it to Russia and Ukraine. McCaul isn’t the only one using that word for the current immigration situation these days. Neiwert pointed out that “invasion” has long been used to describe the immigration of those that are not white and Christian. But with Russia actually invading Ukraine, and Americans can see what that looks like every day Americans can also see this current Republican talk is wildly overheated. I’ve written several times about Republicans banning books. Tennessee has now passed a law that said a textbook commission (and we know who appointed them) has the last say on challenged books and their decision applies to all school libraries in the state. As for the step after that, state Rep. Jerry Sexton would like to burn them. He’d also like there to be a state book and have that be the Bible. To abortion rights again and the developments to the story I wrote such a long post about yesterday. Justice Alito wrote that opinion and a lot of commentary is appropriately aimed in his direction. Rebekah Sagar of Kos reported one of the things Alito wrote in the draft opinion is this about pro-choice activists:

Some such supporters have been motivated by a desire to suppress the size of the African American population. It is beyond dispute that Roe has had that demographic effect. A highly disproportionate percentage of aborted fetuses are Black.

Yeah, while the statistic is likely correct he is accusing activists of being racist and practicing eugenics. But that ignores the realities of black lives that supremacists like Alito make worse. Such things as: Because disparities in prenatal and birth health care it is more dangerous for a black women to bring a baby to term. A black woman is three times more likely to die of a pregnancy related cause than a white woman. There are also disparities in wealth, employment, food security, and the availability of child care. She may not be able to afford the child. Pennyfarthing quoted Jezebel who noted Alito cited Pleas of the Crown by Sir. Matthew Hale, published in 1736, 60 years after Hale died. Referencing a text about 350 years old is of interest to us because of what Hale did. First, he had two women executed for “witchcraft.” Second, he originated the idea that no matter what a man does to his wife it cannot be described as rape, an idea that still hangs around. Third, he described abortion as a “great crime.” Fourth, he though capital punishment should extend to kids as young as 14. Which means in an attempt to prove his point Alito had to reach for some mighty unsavory characters. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that the decision that Alito’s draft represents is what Moscow Mitch has been working towards since he refused to hold hearings for Obama’s nominee to the Supremes six years ago. He is acting like the dog that caught the car. Now that he has it he can’t deal with it. The reason: midterms. The state that has the highest support for banning abortion has only 30% support. And that’s a problem for Republicans. The other part of the problem is though Republicans set up the court for this purpose a large majority of the public didn’t believe the court would actually go through with it. So Mitch is scrambling to tell is caucus to talk about the leak, not the contents of the leak. One giant criticism of the pro-life movement is their support for life ends at birth. I mentioned yesterday that if the pro-life movement actually valued life we would see free medical care before and during birth, generous maternity and paternity leave, basic income, income to buy food, and free high quality education starting with pre-K. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that with forced birth soon upon us Republicans realize they need to pay lip service to the idea they should be concerned about the child after birth. So some are talking about social services in a wishy-washy manner. And others are making sure we know they will never support any program that helps children. Eleveld reported that five Democratic governors from swing states have taken up the cause of women’s autonomy. One of them is Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. This state is one where the vote for president is usually pretty close (though it went for Biden in 2020), yet because of gerrymandering Republicans have control of the legislature. Whitmer is doing two things. She called on the state Supreme Court to rule whether then 1931 law that bans abortion in the state is constitutional. And she is calling on Congress to approve a law that legalizes abortion. Other Democratic governors in swing states also calling Congress to protect the right of abortion are Steve Sisolak of Nevada, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, and Tony Evers of Wisconsin.

Are minorities treated badly here or something?

My Sunday movie was Circus Boy. This is a documentary, less than an hour long, of one day in the life. Tom and Mike are a married gay couple in Peterborough, Ontario. Tom is an instructor at the Academy of Circus Arts. Ethan started in gymnastics, then went on to the Circus Academy. Tom was Ethan’s instructor, then his mentor, then his second dad (with Mike as a third) when Ethan moved in. On this day in 2019 Tom drives to the Toronto airport to pick up his mother (they never say where she lives – far enough away she needs to fly to get there). That evening Tom and Ethan are to do a performance for Mom’s approval. I didn’t think that Ethan should need to do something to win her approval. Fortunately, it didn’t turn out that way. Through the day Tom explains to Mom how Ethan came into his life. Later, Mom talks to Ethan’s mother to hear that side and Ethan’s mom heartily approves of these men providing extra father figures for her son. We see Ethan practice on the trampoline and spin a fire baton (unlit). Where Tom and Ethan do best is with the cyr wheel. It is a tube bent in a circle with a diameter larger than they are tall. They step on it and reach up and grab with their hands. Then with their balance they let it roll and spin, which means sometimes they’re upside down. On Sunday I switched from the Firefox web browser to the Vivaldi browser. For more than a year Firefox had been doing a lot of misfiring – pages are displayed blank. Sometimes I could display the page in another tab. And sometimes I had to shut Firefox down, wait for all its subprocesses to close (which could take a whole minute) and try again. I got tired of it happening so frequently. Mozilla, who creates Firefox, doesn’t have a help desk. I tried using their forum and was told I needed to get rid of extensions (I didn’t have any), switch to safe mode (which didn’t make any difference), and buy a new mouse (which I eventually did). None of that fixed the problem and I didn’t want to battle my way through anymore. So I put up with the misfires until I got tired of them and took the time to research a replacement. So, on to Vivaldi. It’s rather nice to have a built in ad-blocker. I mentioned frequently that posts I want to discuss can stay in my browser tabs for months. Switching to Vivaldi included opening up each tab in Firefox and copying the address to a new tab in Vivaldi (and along the way deciding not to copy a few). Firefox displays only so many tabs, then allows one to scroll the tab bar side to side. Vivaldi doesn’t do that. Instead, it just makes each tab smaller. Which meant I soon had to use the feature of tab stacking. My stack of posts I want to write about now has 41 entries in it (at least now I have a count). Yeah, my attempts to delete old tabs didn’t work so well. That stack of tabs will be hard to work through because nearly every day I tend to accumulate enough things to write about that day. So I’ll see how Vivaldi meets my needs and what adjustments to setting I need to make. One problem to handle is making Vivaldi the default browser. At the moment that isn’t taking. John Stoehr and his Editorial Board talked to Jennifer Mercieca, a historian of political rhetoric at Texas A&M University. The topic was the Republican attempts to whitewash the J6 insurrection and the rhetorical tricks they use to do it. Those tricks are common enough they are named and studied: Denial that it happened – they were just tourists, they were peaceful. Differentiation – yeah, it happened, but it isn’t what you think. They were really antifa. See also every conspiracy theory. Bolstering – people love the nasty guy (without defining that “people” was a small percent of the population), patriots loved what happened (with a strange definition of “patriot”). Transcendence – look at the bigger picture, this is a small incident in the life of a great president. Eulogistic covering – something negative is covered by something positive. In the Capitol attack there were well-trained paramilitary operatives covered by ordinary people expressing free speech rights. Mercieca discussed wedge issues. There are a lot of things that we believe in common. A wedge is to take the things that we don’t have in common and amplify them.

The first example that comes to mind is the spectacle of “critical race theory” and what we teach our children. I have a school-aged kid and I can tell you that everyone is unhappy with the schools, including the people who work in them. It’s a hard job! And parents are so concerned about their kids. But we don’t fund our schools and our classrooms are overcrowded and kids are difficult to control and the whole thing is a mess and frustrating. But we don’t talk about it from that perspective. Instead, the right has riled up parents about “crt.” We could have a serious conversation about what’s not working well in our schools, what our kids need, how to fund that kind of education and how to produce really smart, happy kids, but instead we have a pro/con moral panic about something that isn’t even real. That’s what I’d call a wedge being used to divide people.

Stoehr concluded with a discussion of truth:

I think we’d really rather know than not know to face reality. It’s Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. We’re deluded by shadows. If we learn that truth, it hurts us. When we try to tell others about the delusion, they try to hurt us. It’s easier to pretend you don’t know about the delusion. But knowing is powerful. If you can know about the delusion, you can fix it. If you can see, it doesn’t have power over you. I don’t think we want to feel helpless. So you have to give people the truth in a way that makes them feel powerful and in control. So much of our political discourse is about disempowering people.

Aldous Pennyfarthing of Daily Kos discussed a study about the large number of people from Brevard County, Florida who were arrested as part of the Capitol attack. The study was done by Robert Pape of the University of Chicago and reported in The Atlantic. Wrote Pennyfarthing:

Pape and his researchers ran a few statistical analyses to help predict which regions were most likely to produce an insurrectionist, but most of the explanations they floated failed to pan out. Counties Trump won were actually less likely to breed an insurrectionist, and rural counties were also underrepresented. There also was no correlation between falling incomes and the number of MAGA coup participants a county produced. But in counties where white people were losing demographic ground, they apparently freaked. ... To paraphrase a popular meme, why would white people worry about becoming a minority in this country? Are minorities treated badly here or something? ... So we have some solid answers now. Why are so many people freaked out about immigration in a country that faces a long-term labor shortage? Racism. Why do people so easily accept that election fraud occurred in heavily Black areas such as Wayne County, Michigan; Fulton County, Georgia; and Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania? Racism. Why did a bigoted, bloviating incompetent receive 74 million votes for president, and why were people willing to give up their own safety and freedom to keep that guy in power? Racism. They think they’re being “replaced,” and after a lifetime of privilege, it’s just not fair.

My definition of privilege is I’m allowed to do something that I won’t let you do, which shows I’m higher in the social hierarchy. Mary Tracy tweeted, “World’s greatest democracy” and quoted:

Princeton University study: Public opinion has “near-zero” impact on U.S. law. Gilens & Page found that the number of Americans for or against any idea has no impact on the likelihood that Congress will make it law. “The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-signficant impact upon public policy.” – Gilens & Page, Perspectives in Politics

Nicholas Grossman, professor of International Relations at University of Illinois, quoted a tweet from Elise Hu about Steve Bannon recruiting people who don’t believe in democracy to serve as municipal poll workers. Grossman added:

Overgeneralizing here, but in general, the right is better at recognizing that power comes from institutions and force (or the threat of force), while the left overrates how much power comes from word choice, symbols, chastisement, and wanting it badly enough.

I had understood “anarchy” to mean a lawless, uncontrollable, chaotic, and dangerous situations or people. I even checked the definition online. The words and phrases they used were: social disorder due to the absence of government control, lack of obedience to authority, confusion and disorder. Leah McElrath tweeted a different way of looking at it.

There is NO connection between anarchism and white supremacy. (I’d argue they are antithetical to one another.) And anarchy isn’t about violence. It’s about order without hierarchy.

So a society or a government that is very much into maintaining the social hierarchy, such as here in America, someone or a group (including myself) that is working towards a society without hierarchy would look like the absence of control, lack of obedience, and confusion and disorder. That definition depends on “order” being equivalent to the hierarchy. I’m not invested in cryptocurrency, Bitcoin being the best known, and the more I hear about it the less I’m inclined to do so. That they are used many times to launder money is not a recommendation. There is a process called cryptocurrency mining. Since these currencies don’t have any physical manifestation no one has an actual shovel somewhere digging for minerals. This mining has to do with the way the various currencies are defined and recorded as who owns what. That recording is done in “blockchains.” The “mining” is done by computers solving really big equations. The more cryptocurrency there is the more complicated these equations get and the harder they are to solve. Which gets us to this post by Alexandra Martinez for Kos Prism. She reported that currency mining companies are buying up decommissioned power plants and turning them on for the sole purpose of powering thousands of computers to do that mining. This industry now has a huge carbon footprint and is dumping huge amounts of water used for cooling back into the environment. The costs to the environment, including global warming, are huge. Some of these companies say they are buying carbon offsets, but those trees are planted elsewhere. Commenter Nimblewill quoted from a local news source that currency mining is loud. Nearby residents are complaining. Nimblewill also noted that this is electricity that is squandered, that could be used more productively. Leilani Münter linked to a tweet by Digiconomist and paraphrased:

In 2021, Bitcoin consumed so much energy that it emitted more CO2 emissions than have been saved globally by electric cars. The carbon footprint of just one Bitcoin transaction is equal to the carbon footprint of almost 1.5 million VISA transactions.

On to issues related to the traditional definition of mining. Greg Sargent, in a tweeted promotion to one of his articles in the Washington Post, wrote:

A big deal: The coal miners' union just ratcheted up pressure on Manchin to support BBB. This is a seminal moment: The divergence in interests between workers and mine owners who oppose BBB has been exposed. Manchin must choose one or the other. Mine owners are now attacking the mine workers for supporting BBB. The owners explicitly argue that BBB would transition to clean energy too quickly! This perfectly shows that BBB is in workers' interests and against owners' interests. Remember when Hillary [Clinton] committed the "gaffe" of saying we'd have to transition coal workers to renewable jobs? Now the mine workers' union supports BBB in large part because it would aid that transition, blowing up years of mythologizing about all this. ... Manchin must choose.

Alas, I have a pretty good idea which way he’ll choose. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Manchin’s Democratic colleagues are publicly losing patience with his obstinance. They complain that many times they feel they are reaching an agreement and the next day they start again from scratch. There are some who believe Manchin is still working towards some sort of deal. Others are beginning to see what Manchin is doing is making sure a deal never happens. A few days ago I wrote that Cyber Ninjas, the inexperienced company that was in charge of the Arizona fraudit was facing a fine. Pennyfarthing has a few more details. The fine is because a judge ordered the company to turn over a set of documents. The company refused. A fine of $50K a day was added. They still refused. Now between the accumulated fine and other obligations the company is $2 million in debt. Add in various reports on how badly they handled the ballot recount. And Cyber Ninjas has released its employees and closed its doors. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, wrote a bit between a couple quotes that is similar to something I said recently:

There is a difference between individual risk (lower because of decreased virulence relative to Delta) and community risk (high with Omicron because of transmissibility and previous strain on health care/hospitals). That’s why “milder” ≠ “mild”.

Kelly Hayes tweeted:

They aren't saying: Spread is inevitable, so we need to protect the vulnerable, make healthcare and testing free, and make long term plans to address waves of long COVID. They're saying: Spread is inevitable, so get back to work and be glad that it's mostly disabled people dying.

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported on another way to tell how deadly this pandemic has been. We may not get accurate stats from various Republican governors intent on hiding the severity of the pandemic. But there is another measure they have no influence over.

Scott Davison is the CEO of OneAmerica, an Indianapolis-based life insurance company founded in the 19th century. To start the new year, Davison told the audience of an online news conference that “We are seeing, right now, the highest death rates we have seen in the history of this business—not just at OneAmerica. The data is consistent across every player in that business.” According to Davidson, the third and fourth quarters of this past year saw death rates “up 40% over what they were pre-pandemic.” Even more distressing, explains Davison, is that this is not some demographic anomaly with the eldest members of our society passing on. The 40% rise in death rates is consistent for working-class folks 18 to 64-years-old.

Einenkel added a way of explaining what life insurance is all about:

Comedian Greg Fitzsimmons once told a joke that the strange relationship a consumer has with life insurance can be summed up as the consumer placing a bunch of money on a table and saying, “I bet you I die this year,” and the insurance company picking up the money, counting it, and saying “We bet you don’t.” Life insurance companies do not care about your feelings. People either die or they don’t. Different groups of people have higher mortality rates for a variety of reasons, and life insurance companies don’t particularly care what those reasons are—they just need to know whether they can bet on you to pay them more money than they will owe you when you are no longer around. It is as simple as that.

I remember when the word “meme” meant “a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition and replication in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.” By “item” people usually meant “idea.” But the internet came along and a new meaning was added: “a cultural item in the form of an image, video, phrase, etc., that is spread via the internet and often altered in a creative or humorous way.” Of course, over the last year there have been a huge number of memes that Kos of Kos has encountered in writing his Anti-Vaxx Cronicles. So he thought it was time to put together a bunch of pro-vaxx memes. An example is Jesus doing a facepalm with the words: “I was crucified to save humanity but you won’t even wear a mask.” And one from Middle Age Riot:

Evangelicals: “God will provide.” If God didn’t provide you with common sense, basic human empathy, or half a brain, what makes you think he’ll provide anything else?

And many more to enjoy, including in the comments. Such as, “Nobody is trying to shove a vaccine down your throat. However, we do have this endotracheal tube ...”

They like the lie better

My church held its All Saints observance today. It is a time to remember those in the congregation and family of members since the last observance. This year it meant those who had died during the last two years. I was surprised there were only 18 names. I think because of the church being closed so long in 2020 a lot of people have stopped coming. I and a couple fellow ringers tolled a bell after each name. Those we remembered included my sister Laney, her wife Anners, and my step-grandmother. Seeing their faces on the screen and a candle being lit for them was a confirmation that they’re gone now. Aysha Qamar of Daily Kos reported on the Nobel ceremony in which investigative journalists Maria Ressa and Dmitry Muratov jointly received the prize for Peace. They were given the prize for safeguarding freedom of expression and telling the truth. Both gave a speech. Qamar wrote:

Ressa and Muratov also noted the sacrifices journalists have made, especially those who work in authoritarian states. Both journalists are known for their extensive work in the field and have angered their respected countries, facing threats as a result. Multiple colleagues of Muratov have been murdered or persecuted due to their work. “I want journalists to die old,” Muratov said. “There are so many more journalists persecuted in the shadows with neither exposure nor support, and governments are doubling down with impunity,” Ressa said. ... “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems: climate, coronavirus, the battle for truth,” Ressa said. ... Muratov also had something to say regarding social media. “Manipulation leads to war,” he said. “We are in the middle of a post-truth period. Now, everyone is concerned about their own ideas and not the facts. “Social scientists have shown that, when even knowing what is the truth and what is a lie, 75 percent of people will consider the lie as truth as they like the lie better. This is happening already. We are at the very bottom of the manipulation of the human mind.”

David Folkenflik, NPR media correspondent, tweeted a video from Patriot Takes of a session at Turning Points USA. Folkenflik described it:

Group that claims to be outraged about cancel culture literally offers training to college students on how to egg on (edge on?) profs to get them to say things to surreptitiously record to get them fired

Jennifer Cohn, election security advocate, added:

Yes, this is what the GOP does, & it’s not just TPUSA.

Cohn then described something similar, what Mike Caputo, protege of Roger Stone, did to Laura Krolcyzk Michael Harriot wrote an article for The Guardian about those who participated in the Capitol attack don’t understand that nationalism is not the same as patriotism. Louis Bridgeman tweeted a summary quote of the article:

They have pledged their allegiance to the flag, but not the republic for which it stands. Patriotism as performance is their only protection because a country that provides liberty and justice for all is too unbearable a thought. They’d rather kill it first.

My summary: These “patriots” don’t want liberty and justice for some people. These “patriots” want to maintain their permission to oppress some people. Therefore they don’t want democracy. Leah McElrath complains about Biden because she wants him and his administration to do better, not to undermine his legitimacy. Her current area of complaint is the pandemic. She tweeted:

The reason we submit to any state authority is so we don’t have to worry about every threat to our survival. Any major domestic security lapse—such as the ongoing negligence of federal pandemic response—is a state failure. If any state continues to fail, it loses legitimacy. ... Nonetheless, the reality is the state is still failing in its response. Every tool is not being used. Every resource is not being allocated. These are state failures. In perpetuating these failures, the Biden administration is delegitimizing itself. It’s deeply troubling. Simply put: It is storming outside. There is no future rainy day. This is it. And yet, all that could be done is not being done, either to minimize the cost in lives or to the economy. It’s endangering us all and endangering the future of the federal government as a whole

In a second thread McElrath responded to some pushback. People say “What more EXACTLY do you expect him to do?” Her answer: More. But Biden hasn’t fulfilled his campaign promises to respond to the pandemic. As for exact expectations, she’s been tweeting suggestions of her own and others for months. James Bandler wrote an article for ProPublica about how three families in the early 1900s avoided taxes so their wealth would last through the generations. He tweeted a link to the article with this quote from it:

“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society,” FDR wrote, invoking former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He then added his own knife twist: “Too many individuals, however, want the civilization at a discount.”

Lauren Floyd of Kos started an article with:

Police brutality doesn’t just happen. Despite popular Republican rhetoric, the spotlight cases of such brutality aren’t just exceptions to a rule of otherwise fair and humane policing—they are examples of a system that has long spun out of control, a system enabled by experts called to defend excessive force and the companies that profit from it.

The New York Times found 100 examples in a 15 year period where particular experts wrote opinions to defend police. These expert opinions would say such things as: A taser can’t cause adverse effect. A particular neck hold can’t cause brain injury. A face down restraint position can’t cause asphyxiation. And in the George Floyd case the knee to the neck couldn’t be a use of force because Floyd wasn’t in pain. A big problem is this testimony means many cases of brutality don’t go to trial. Floyd concluded:

So in short, experts defend police. Police pay companies for training and equipment. Companies pay to promote expert research, and experts defend police, and on and on. It doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the claim that police work mostly to protect and serve.

Bésame of the Kos community ponders whether we face a robotpocalypse. Robots can do so much now, from cooking fries to act with first responders. Are robots a threat? “Can we really trust robots and the industries that make use of them?” That last phrase is of interest. An example is Spot, a robot that looks vaguely like a dog that has appeared to dance in various videos. I’ve mentioned Spot before as a way of getting us used to something that might later be weaponized. On the other hand, robots are taking jobs that are dangerous or impossible for humans. Perhaps they might even take the job of stunt doubles in movies. They can help ease the current labor shortage. Robots do have a benefit. Back to the drawbacks. Some of those robots we let into our homes are listening, with the possible expense of our privacy. And many of the algorithms that make robots and computers useful carry the biases, the systemic racism and sexism, of their creators. These algorithms can deny loans and not be held accountable. Bésame included a video of those biases in action. A white hand placed under an electric soap dispenser gets a squirt of soap. A black hand under that same dispenser gets nothing. As we invite more robots into our spaces are we willing to put up with that? Floyd also remembered architect Paul Revere Williams. He isn’t well known because he was black. He designed churches, buildings, and homes in the Los Angeles area, including the “flying saucer” at LAX. Many of those homes were for those that became rich in the movie business, such as Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra. Because Williams was black he wasn’t allowed to sit next to a client, he had to sit opposite them. So he learned to draw upside down. He designed homes for neighborhoods where he wasn’t allowed to live, hotels – such as the Beverly Hills Hotel – where he was not allowed to stay. Now there is a great deal of attention when a Williams designed home is up for sale. Floyd’s post includes an eight minute video about Williams. It shows several of the buildings he designed.

We need to house a set of accurate history books

Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics, tweeted a thread:

Biden’s democracy saving efforts so far: No Supreme Court reform proposals No voting rights proposals No filibuster reform proposals No ethics reform proposals No campaign finance reform proposals No public campaign against the state voter suppression bills No public campaign to pressure Manchin and Sinema No public campaign against fascism No warnings about the authoritarian movement Continued expansion of executive power at the expense of legislative power Appointment of a timid institutionalist as attorney general One pretty speech about voting rights Massive expenditure of political capital on an infrastructure bill, coupled with massive compromise on the infrastructure bill, which still hasn’t passed Some good work on the pandemic ... Legally questionable military action in Syria Continuation of some of Trump’s worst immigration policies Appointment of extremely qualified experts to replace Trump’s bumbling, unqualified staff, restoring competence to govt leadership Cluelessness about the fascist threat Grade so far: C- (it would be a D, but I’m hopeful he’ll shift to filibuster reform after this coming week), which is up from Trump’s F- (and that was a gift because there is no grade below an F minus, so it’s not possible to truly grade Trump’s assault on the republic.

In another thread Shaub wrote:

Listen up, Europe, New Zealand other folks. Listen good. We’re gonna need you to carry some seed of democracy into the 22nd century. I know some of you aren’t up to the task. But we only need one or two countries to make it, so someone can house a set of accurate history books. We have some great books you can use. But you’re going to need to come get them very soon.

Brubs of the Daily Kos community wrote about an incident that rattled him. He was weeding his lawn and a young man came up and said he help. He was staring a yard service company using electric equipment and nature friendly chemicals. Two cop cars drove up.

Down went the window of the one closest to me. “Good afternoon sir, everything ok here?” the white officer asked. Not grasping the point of his question at first, I looked over to the young man; his head was down and body language was now stiff. I looked back to the cop, who was staring at him. That’s when the ridiculously obvious smacked me over the head: I’m an older white man in a fairly affluent white neighborhood, speaking to a young Black man standing over me while I’m on the ground.

The white person had to handle the situation. The blameless black person could do nothing. Brubs assured the officer he was fine. The cop cars drove off. He wondered if a neighbor had called the police.

The entire exchange lasted just a few minutes, and the chance to offer some witty comment calling out the officer was lost in my sudden awareness, and my desire to end the interaction. But I could, and I should, have done more. I wish I had asked the cop why? Why are you in front of my house? Why do you think you needed to make certain I was ok? Why didn't your dispatcher recognize the inherent racism in the initial call, if that is how you ended up on my doorstep? And why did you act like that young man was invisible during it all, with the exception of that initial look at him which was designed to signal why you were there?

Brubs gave the job to the black man. Commenter novapsyche wrote about having many white friends and ...

It took me until some time into my 30s that I realized that when I was out and about with my friends, I didn’t attract the baseline amount of ambient public monitoring. (That sounds paranoid; I assure you it is not.) It’s easier for Black people to go out in public when they have a White minder. I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, but it’s true. As long as I have a White friend or gaggle of friends around me, it’s like I have a societal hall pass. Someone’s vetted me and is vouching for me. Trust me, I do try to combat being so cynical.

TrueBlueMajority for Black Star Resistance of Kos wrote:

Which of these lines of asterisks is longest? Line One: ********************************* Line Two: *************************************************** Line Three: ****************** No one is watching you. No one has any idea which line you pick. Knowing the answer under these circumstances is one thing. Standing by your answer regardless of what others say is a completely different thing. ... [There is] evidence that even when people do know the factual answer, peer pressure will persuade them that going along with the crowd is better than making waves or standing out.

Here are a few of the situations that TrueBlueMajority asks us to consider:

* What if a close family member tells you excitedly in a phone call that s/he just heard line one is longest. Which line is longest then? * What if the highest spiritual authority in your worship community preaches that people who say line two is longest are damned for eternity? * What if you are in a work meeting with 20 people, and your boss goes around the table asking each person in turn which line is longest. All of the other 19 people say line three is longest. You are the last one asked for a response. What do you say? * What if a very highly educated person goes viral with a video insisting that smart people disagree about which line is the longest, because the word “longest” means something different to different people?

Dr. Lori commented:

There’s a direct and inverse relationship between one’s commitment to facts and one’s desire to be liked. If you’re secure in your self, it’s a lot easier to stand up to peer pressure.

The author replied:

That explains everything, Dr. Lori. Very few people have that kind of self confidence, and it is even discouraged in some fundamentalist cultures.

Commenter elfling added the answer one gives could be a matter of personal safety. The author noted some folks are not worth arguing with, then added:

Jane Austen has a wonderful phrase in Sense and Sensibility: “she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.”

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, has a few quotes of interest. From an article in the New York Times (author not named):

As lawmakers debate how much to spend on President Biden’s sprawling domestic agenda, they are really arguing about a seemingly simple issue: affordability. Can a country already running huge deficits afford the scope of spending that the president envisions? Or, conversely, can it afford to wait to address large social, environmental and economic problems that will accrue costs for years to come?

I mention this one not because I agree with it but because the excerpt – and, judging from the tone, the whole article – doesn’t mention an important aspect. This bill doesn’t and doesn’t have to run up deficits. It includes provisions to tax the rich, which this article ignores. Taxing the hugely rich is beneficial to our society beyond just raising money for government programs. The rich get their money by exploiting the working poor and taxing them restores part of the balance. The other part of the problem of the hugely rich is they have enough money to buy the government, which loses a basic function of protecting the little guy and the environment from the big guy. Dworkin also quoted EJ Dionne of the Washington Post:

It’s important to acknowledge another reality that goes beyond Manchin, Sinema and the Democratic Party as a whole: Severe structural problems in our politics and institutions are making it far harder to solve problems — and to have productive debates over how to do so.

The roundup included a quote from an article by Peter Sandman and Jody Lanard on Sandman’s website.

If you acknowledge that your opponents’ case is strong, some of them just might be open to the argument that your case is even stronger. If you claim they have no case, you have no shot. We call this “even-though risk communication”: * “Even though vaccine mandates are a huge blow to personal freedom, what’s more important right now, sadly, is that they are also a huge and essential step toward ending the pandemic.” * “Even though vaccine mandates are a huge step toward ending the pandemic, what’s more important right now, sadly, is that they are also a huge and unacceptable blow to personal freedom.” Concede the merits of the other side’s case before you build your argument that on balance – not 100% but on balance – your case is even stronger. And build your argument sadly, not triumphantly, taking full cognizance of the sacrifice you are asking of your opponents.

One more from the roundup – Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer, who wrote that Sen. Joe Manchin doesn’t look or act much like a Bond villain.

And yet make no mistake: West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin has positioned himself to destroy the globe in a way that Auric Goldfinger, Ernst Starvo Blofeld, or Lyutsifer Safin could have only dreamed of. This Friday night’s news dump that Manchin will exercise his veto power as the most conservative Democrat in the 50-50 Senate to kill the lynchpin of President Biden’s climate change agenda — $150 billion to help utilities transition into clean energy and away from dirty fossil fuels including coal, from which Manchin and his family have earned millions — is a gut punch to the world’s environment.

Joan McCarter of Kos wrote:

The de facto president of the United States, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, had a busy weekend making decrees about the limits he is placing on the actual president, Joe Biden, in passing his big economic agenda plan in the Democrats’ budget reconciliation bill. He has informed the White House that he will not allow the core element of Biden’s proposal on climate change, the Clean Electricity Performance Program, which would accelerate utilities’ shift from coal- and gas-powered plants to renewable technology—wind, solar, and nuclear—to help reach the goal of zero carbon emissions in power generation by 2035. Manchin is having none of that.

McCarter then discussed the child tax credit (CTC) that is providing much needed income to poor families. Manchin doesn’t like it. So McCarter looked at details provided by the Niskanen Center that shows how much the CTC helps families of West Virginia and how Manchin’s demands for means testing and work requirements will make their lives worse.

He is purposefully harming his own constituents. Why he’s opposed to helping families isn’t clear, unless it’s because he is at heart a Republican. ... Manchin’s stranglehold on the Senate—and thus on everything from saving our democracy to taking this last opportunity to stave off catastrophic climate change—has to stop. He’s not going to change his mind on this out of altruism or enlightenment. It’s got to be raw political power at this point, the kind that only a president can [wield]. Biden has to stop treating Manchin as just another Senate colleague and start treating him as someone he can break politically.

As for that last one, see the first section of today’s post. Our future doesn’t look good. Lea McElrath tweeted:

Reporters keep pretending Manchin is acting in good faith and there’s a rational answer to the question of what he wants. Manchin picked means testing for Biden’s signature child tax credit on purpose because he knows it’s a non-starter. He wants to obstruct. He’s obstructing.