Policy: drive liberals to anger, then mock them

My Sunday movie was Episode 1 of American Revolution by Ken Burns. I haven’t watched episodes 2-4 and probably won’t get to 5 and 6 unless I can find a way to stream them over the next several weeks. I’ll have to check whether PBS allows non-members to stream their shows. This episode covers 1754 to 1775. The story starts with the Seven Year War (French and Indian War) in 1754. It was actually a global war. These were George Washington’s first battles. He was part of the British military and those battles convinced him the British could be defeated. This was at a time the people still thought of themselves as British. The mainland (rather than the Caribbean) colonies were quite diverse. People came from various European countries in addition to England. There were also African slaves and indigenous people. How could such diversity be united into one country? The greater the percent of slaves in a colony, the more prosperous it was. Caribbean colonies were quite prosperous. New England colonies were not. England paid more attention to the Caribbean. Those who came to the American colonies were people who wanted their own plot of land. They did not want to work for the local aristocracy. There was a continuing demand for more land but the only available land was controlled by the natives. That meant violence. To reduce that violence Britain said no spreading beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Colonists said nope. Britain sent troops to enforce their edict. But the British government, having fought four wars (or maybe that was wars on four continents?), was deeply in debt. They decided the colonies should pay for the troops – the troops that prevented them from spreading west. Thus the Stamp Act. And that created the idea of no taxation without representation. Most of the episode is about the government in London enacting more ways to bring its colonies under control and the colonists rejecting them and becoming more united in their rejection. Then came Lexington and Concord, the first deaths, and the British retreat. Before then each colony had its own relationship with London, some rejecting the meddling and calling for defiance and others enjoying profitable relations they wanted to continue. But Lexington and Concord prompted a more unified view that the political links to England needed to be severed. I am impressed with the large range of artwork the series used to illustrate the scenes. Of course most of it I hadn’t seen before. I was amused at the painting of the young George Washington. I appreciate the show talked about the contradiction between colonists described themselves as slaves to England while having African slaves in their homes. I’ll have more to say about that when I finish the book I’m reading and about a third of the way through. When the nasty guy reclaimed the Oval Office Niece told me she wanted to get out of the country, though she doesn’t feel she is ready to support herself through such a drastic changes. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reported:

A recent Gallup poll found that 40% of U.S. women aged 15 to 44 said that they would move to another country permanently if given the opportunity—a jump of 10% since 2014. This increase seems to be exclusive to the United States, with other countries reporting fairly consistent numbers between 20% and 30%.

The nasty guy in the Oval Office is not the only reason, though a big one. There is a general sense the US is becoming increasingly unfriendly to women, and has been since about 2016. In the last year both in Britain and Canada there has been an increase in the Americans applying for citizenship. Americans living outside considering renouncing citizenship has jumped from 30% to 49%. Reasons for the desire to leave are restrictions on abortion and reproductive rights, the cost of giving birth is going up (as health insurance is getting much more expensive), and masculinity is getting more toxic. Dan Gearino, in an article for Inside Climate News posted on Kos, reported there are some things people on the left and right agree on. One is a “skepticism of entrenched power and a desire to dismantle systems that they think have ceased to serve everyday people.” And that includes increasing distrust for data centers.

Much of the discussion is about data centers, which are often large developments used to support cloud computing or artificial intelligence. But the underlying issues are broader, touching on the power of tech companies. For people who live near proposed data centers, there is an additional sense of powerlessness, which Inside Climate News has documented across the country, including the backlash to a plan for a huge data center in Bessemer, Alabama. “It’s about big tech,” Olson said. “To steal Bernie’s words, [it’s about] these big tech oligarchs that are calling all the shots at every single level of government right now.”

Gearino included poll results showing that for most things more people (and in some areas many more people) believe AI makes things worse and not better. The problem could be lessened if those wanting to build data centers talk about local benefits. The locals already hear about the high use of water and the likelihood of electrical bills going up. Companies are not working to alleviate those concerns. As for the benefits, some experts ask are there any? As part of the series on Explaining the Right Oliver Willis of Kos discusses how Republicans became shameless hypocrites. An example of them being hypocrites goes back to the 1990s when Speaker Newt Gingrich was portraying Republicans as the party of “family values” during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal while Gingrich was cheating on his wife as she fought cancer and eventually married his mistress. Of course, there are a lot of more recent examples.

For years, conservatives have made the concept of “owning the libs” central to their political ideology. The idea is to engage in behavior and use rhetoric that supposedly makes liberals angry, driving them to exhibit this anger, which conservatives then mock. Even if their behavior doesn’t provoke a tantrum, conservatives have elevated this brand of mockery above nearly everything else, including policy and ideology. This has resulted in the right, including right-wing media like Fox News, becoming fixated on “culture war” issues.

Since Gingrich was “owning the libs” his own infidelity got a pass.

This creates a permission structure on the right where Republicans are allowed to be contradictory, as long as a liberal somewhere is purportedly mad about it. But this kind of posture has a limit.

The limit is that it works great with other Republicans or MAGAs. It doesn’t work for anyone else and voters who aren’t Republicans are quite willing to throw them out of office. Emily Singer of Kos lists reasons why Democrats won the shutdown. I’ll let you read her explanations. Democrats brought health care to the forefront. Polls showed voters blamed Republicans more than Democrats. The nasty guy’s approval fell dramatically, going from -12 to -16. The shutdown gave Democrats a ton of campaign material for next year’s midterms, such as the nasty guy’s Great Gatsby party, which widely polled as inappropriate spending. On Sunday’s All Things Considered on NPR host Sacha Pfeiffer and St. Louis Public Radio reporter Hiba Ahmad discussed the tornado that hit St. Louis last May and toured some of the damage that is still quite evident six months later. Then they turned it into a discussion of the nasty guy’s desire to turn FEMA over to the states. They talked to Mayor Cara Spencer, who summarized the reason to keep FEMA national:

My argument would be that, as a nation, we would be better off, more efficient and certainly more effective if we centralize and share the resources and expertise across the nation for very unusual events, rather than saddling every single municipal government to being able to respond to what may or may not happen in the lifetime of each of those cities.

The article mentions Enright Ave of St. Louis as one that was hit hard by the tornado. There were other places hit harder, but the article doesn’t explain their location. I went looking at Enright Ave. through Google Street View and found something fascinating. Start on the avenue just east of Union Blvd. Google Maps say they rolled down the street in May 2025. The houses look to be in great shape. Then take a step east and the images are of July 2025. A lot of homes are damaged – windows gone or boarded up, walls and roofs missing and some covered in blue tarps, stacks of salvaged bricks, and piles of trash. This allows a person to compare a few houses before and after and to see the destruction on down the street. I then wondered, did the Google Street View people do this intentionally? If so, thank you. Yeah, this is the view of the street in July, six to eight weeks after the tornado. The NPR article says the street isn’t much different six months later. And that’s because the nasty guy and his desire to oppress those not in his billionaire class.

Women are choosing to remain single

A few years ago I heard about cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his sister pianist Isata. They were big news in classical music. I soon learned they had five siblings also highly gifted in music. I’ve since seen a video of Isata performing and watched a livestream of Sheku playing with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. A couple years ago I heard about the book House of Music, Raising the Kanneh-Masons written by their mother Kadiatu. Since it was published in Britain the word was I had to get it through something like Amazon-UK. Since I avoid Amazon I thought getting the book might have to wait until I visited Britain. But a few months ago I checked Barnes and Noble and found they had it for sale. So I bought. And now I’ve finished reading it. The mother spent hear early years in Sierra Leone, the daughter of local man and a Welsh woman. She was and part of a large extended family. Her father died and her mother brought her and her siblings to England and Wales to be with her parents. The grandparents were supportive of mixed-race children, the rest of England – not so much. She recounts some of the racism she experienced and the effect it had on her. She married Stuart, whose family lives in Antigua. Both are reasonably proficient in music. And their seven children are all prodigies. Isata, the oldest, wrote and performed a piano concerto by the age of twelve. Sheku won a prestigious young talent competition at sixteen and was invited to play at Harry and Meghan’s wedding. The mother wrote about recognizing her childrens’ talent and then doing all the family could to nurture and train it properly. The family was not rich and paying for all those lessons, including weekly train trips from Nottingham to London, and keeping the children supplied with good quality instruments that matched their size and talent was difficult. They were amazed with how generous people could be with time and resources. Music became a secret language between the siblings. They practiced together and offered each other suggestions on how to improve. They seemed to mind-read what the others were about to do. They were also quite talented at improvising – one could start a tune and others would add harmony and suggest new melodic ideas the others would take up. When Isata and Sheku are not in front of an orchestra they play duets or add brother Braimah and his violin for a trio. By 2019 the older ones were getting so many concert dates Mom couldn’t attend them all. The book ends with their experience with the COVID shutdown and seven creative people stuck in one house. I quite enjoyed the book. Of course, I quite enjoy classical music. Since the nasty guy won the election the 4B movement from Korea is trending in the US, as tonyahky of the Daily Kos community discussed. The movement is in response to the...

rampant sexism, abuse, and exploitation of women in that country. The term 4B stands for the four Korean words bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae and bisekseu, or the four “no’s” --no marriage, no childbearing, no dating or sex with men.

It’s not new as more women are choosing to remain single or staying single after divorce.

Only 38% of single women vs 61% of single men are interested in dating at all. And the reason more women want to remain single is because of the toxic behavior of large numbers of men, especially on dating apps.

Those numbers look quite unbalanced. In the US high levels of women experience rape or severe physical violence. Add to that women are less likely to have access to an abortion or be treated as a criminal if they do and add the possibility of birth control made illegal. And many women want to get their tubes tied (and do it soon while it is still legal).

Unfortunately, most white men in this country voted Republican, showing they have little to no respect for the women of this country at all, along with 53% of white women (who show they have no respect for themselves.) In a country like this, 4B may represent the only way many single women will be able to live their lives with any measure of peace, safety, health, or freedom.

Morgan Stephens of Kos also looked at the movement

And why are American women taking action? Because in Tuesday’s election, a majority of Gen Z men, or "podcast bros," cast their votes for Trump—a man whose handpicked conservative Supreme Court majority stacked the deck against women’s rights and overturned Roe v. Wade. The president-elect is also a textbook misogynist who used sexist language in the weeks leading up to the election when he said he’d “protect” women “whether they like it or not.” He is a serial adulterer who was also found liable for sexual abuse and has been accused of assault by dozens of others—and American women have had enough. With mounting solidarity, they are banding together (with some even shaving their heads in protest so as not to appeal to the male gaze) to adopt the 4B strategy: no more children, no more marriages, no more dating men until women’s rights are restored. Late on Election Day, when it was clear Trump had won his latest bid for president, 26-year-old white nationalist Nick Fuentes posted a short and infuriating statement on X: “Your body, my choice. Forever.” Fuentes, who dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, later went on his show “America First” and said to his 113,000 followers, “Hey bitch! We control your bodies. Guess what? Guys win again, okay? Men win again.”

In South Korea government leaders have noted a drop in the birth rate. They’re panicking over the 4B movement. The solution is simple: Give women the same rights and respect as men. While I applaud women asserting their power, there is a downside. I’ve mentioned the term incel, which stands for “involuntary celibate” – a man who women find so obnoxious they won’t date or sleep with him. Incels have been linked to mass violence. Many feel emboldened with the nasty guy’s election. Will women refusing to date all men increase the number and violence of incels? For that, perhaps we as a society should start dealing with the “loneliness epidemic” as Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote about in 2017. Lonely men are more easily radicalized. The threat of incel violence should not be a reason for women to stop their campaign for rights. The description of the 4B movement got me thinking of the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, first performed in 411 BC. I have not seen a performance. Wikipedia describes the play with:

Lysistrata persuades the women of the warring cities to withhold sexual privileges from their husbands and lovers as a means of forcing the men to negotiate peace.

Yeah, the idea is old – 2400 years old. A couple cartoons in the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos. One posted by Assigned Male starts with a boy saying Fuentes’ line “Your body, my choice.” A girl argues back, ending with...

The wannabe fascist podcasters who told you that other people’s bodily autonomy was a threat you your masculinity forgot to mention how weak it makes you look.

And exlrrp included a tweet from Jack Peat, “Taliban congratulate Americans for ‘not handing the leadership of their country to a woman.’ Donald Trump signed the deal that paved the way for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, allowing the Taliban to storm to power.” In a second pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos had a few good quotes. First, Steven Benen of MSNBC discussed what retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter said.

After quoting Benjamin Franklin’s admonition about democracy struggling to survive “too much ignorance,” the retired justice added, “I don’t worry about our losing republican government in the United States because I’m afraid of a foreign invasion. I don’t worry about it because I think there is going to be a coup by the military, as has happened in some of the places. What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible. And when the problems get bad enough ... some one person will come forward and say, ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem.’ That is how the Roman republic fell.”

Dworkin implied that Democrats didn’t fix the real problems when they had the majority. Stephen Waldman of Politico Magazine discussed polling and suggested one area pollsters didn’t ask about – where did they get their news? Down in the comments Mr. Race Bannon proposed a new map of Canada that includes the US states that voted for Biden (though they left out Illinois, Colorado, and New Mexico). In a third pundit roundup Dworkin had some good quotes. From Andy Beshear, Democratic governor of Kentucky

Yes, there are a lot of big, important issues facing our country, but when families are struggling in these core areas, it’s hard to focus on or reach anything else. If you are staring at the cost of your child’s prescription and wondering how you are going to pay for both it and your family’s dinner, the offense of the day in Washington, D.C. or the latest crazy thing a politician said just isn’t as important.

Dworkin added:

I am reminded of Bertolt Brecht in The Threepenny Opera: Food comes first, then morals.

I’ll summarize a quote from Nicholas Grossman of Arc Digital. Authoritarians want you to quit. Do not accept this is over. Other authoritarian regimes have fallen. This situation is bigger than you. Do something you can control, like rake your neighbor’s leaves. Down in the comments, as a commentary on a meme, exlrrp wrote “The American ‘Justice system’ is broken. Couldn’t put a convicted criminal in jail.” The meme has a picture of AG Merrick Garland and quotes Tristan Snell, former New York Assistant Attorney General:

Our prosecutors completely failed us. They had 4 years to enforce the laws against Trump, and they delayed, and they hesitated, and they were too cautious, and they finally went after him – but it was too little, too late. History will judge them, if there is any history left!

It was too late because the nasty guy was able to delay various proceedings until he was back in power and could dismiss them. A meme posted by exlrrp shows women in red hats working in a garden and says

With Trump’s plan to deport millions of migrants, MAGA cult members can now realized their childhood dreams of spending summers working the fields from dawn to dusk in the scorching heat with few breaks.

And another quotes Senator Sheldon Whitehouse:

The creepy billionaires who put him there will be coming for plunder. It’s a safe bet that epic corruption will stain the Trump years. The plunder of America will be through fat contracts, special interest favors, massive tax cuts, and license to pollute for free. To pull off their plunder, they will try to break America’s democratic institutions. So the fight will not be just against the inevitable individual acts of thievery, but against the degradation of whatever American institutions might stand in the way of their plundering.

David Hayward posted a cartoon of a sinking Capitol building pulling down a church. When the church ties itself to the state the state can pull down the church. And the church can pull down the state. Dr. MacLeod Cartoons posted one that says, “It’s hard to be a political cartoonist when you can’t bear to watch the news.” In one more pundit roundup, this one from just before the election, Chitown Kev included a three minute clip of Harris appearing on Saturday Night Live with the woman who plays her on the show.

The party of “please leave me out of this”

Last Sunday the NPR program Hidden Brain discussed two political categories, a political divide, in American politics. The usual assumption is this refers to Democrats and Republicans. But not so. Host Shankar Vedantam talked to Yanna Krupnikov, a political scientist at Stony Brook University. She and fellow political scientist, John Barry Ryan, wrote the book The Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American Politics. The audio is 55 minutes. There is also a transcript. Krupnikov saw a flaw in the studies that asked: Would you marry someone of the other party? If all you’re told about a person is their party affiliation you conclude it is quite important to them. So she revised the study, asking half the participants: Would you marry someone of the other party but they won’t talk about politics? Then the party didn’t matter so much. Krupnikov then explored the idea that the divide isn’t between the left and the right but between those deeply involved in politics and those who aren’t. And those who aren’t hold the majority. Some characteristics of the deeply involved: They are connected to politics for large parts of their day (somewhat true for me). They are interested in minor political developments, such as the nasty guy’s “Covfefe” tweet a while back leading to hours of debate (not true of me – and I hope this blog reflects that). They constantly talk about politics (yes, I talk a lot about politics in this blog, but not much beyond it). This is where social media comes in. In my daily life if I want to talk to someone about politics I have to search out someone. But on social media there is always someone willing to talk politics, either to reinforce my beliefs or to tell me I’m stupid. Since many people on social media – especially those who respond to political tweets – tend to be “loud,” as in ever present, one can get the impression that the number of people deeply involved in politics is “everyone,” a much larger portion of the population than they actually are. This loudness, this conflict, draws media coverage. Journalists are attracted to conflict. And that means they’re attracted to the deeply political. They’re the ones that demonstrate the narrative of polarization, who declare compromise to be a dirty word. So the deeply political people dominate news stories and dominate stories of public opinion. And they’re not the majority. The majority includes people who work more than one job, who have kids to take care of, who don’t have the time to be deeply engaged in politics. That means deep engagement includes a level of privilege. If one is deeply political one sees things that are horrifying. It is natural to want others to care about the situation as well, to warn others about the bad things coming, to get them involved. But when the majority see the deeply political they see that it seems one is supposed to be deeply political and they see what it takes to be deeply political. And they don’t want that effort and don’t have the interest. The majority also believe that all Republicans and all Democrats are all deeply political though most of them don’t talk about politics much. The majority believe they don’t know enough to be a part of the political world. They become the party of “please leave me out of this.” And they don’t vote. When confronted by partisans saying voting is so important they retreat even further. And that means politics caters to the deeply political (I can hear you saying, “well duh!”). But the voices of the other half are being ignored. We lose their ideas. We don’t address their needs. Politics is not all there is to life. Clay Jones posted a cartoon on Daily Kos inspired by the wildfires in Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott comes up behind a firefighter and says, “Have you tried dousing it with racism, razor wire, and abortion bans?” In the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos Denise Oliver Velez posted a lot of cartoons and a half dozen are worth sharing. Nick Anderson drew one of a boxing punching bag that hangs from a ceiling, this one in the shape of an elephant head. Biden is shown whacking away at it. The head says, “I miss the old, frail Biden.” Katie Britt did the Republican response to Biden’s State of the Union speech and seems to have done an especially bad job of it (after a long series of bad Republican responses to other SOTU speeches). The setting for Britt’s speech was a kitchen. That prompted Rachel Bitecofer to post a meme of a 1950s woman saying, “We don’t need rights, we have kitchens!” Joe Heller posted a cartoon showing a man watching TV that’s showing Putin gloating over Navalny’s murder. His wife says, “So, do you still think a president should have absolute immunity?” In honor of International Women’s Day Boyce created a cartoon of women standing, looking around, and waiting. One says, “I’m not sure the man’s coming, shall we go ahead and make up the punchline ourselves?” Christine Spadafora tweeted a cartoon by Ted Littleford. A white cop and a black child are sitting at a lunch counter.

Cop: What do you want to be when you grow up? Child: Alive.

Pat Begley posted one of a child sprawled on the ground. The caption says, “If you need to know if this dead child is Israeli or Palestinian before knowing how you feel about it ... You’re doing it wrong.”

Will cut the deal just to keep the legal expenses down

Yeah, there’s still a few things to mention related to the nasty guy’s fourth indictment. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed the current silly argument that what the nasty guy did really isn’t a crime. They do that by “breaking it down into its smallest components. And then trying to argue that if you dice them up small enough, none of the pieces are really a crime on their own.” After listing the individual indictments of Mark Meadows and Jenna Ellis Sumner wrote:

That Republicans are singling out tiny fragments of these actions and trying to make it seem as if that makes the whole indictment invalid is absurd in the extreme. Not only are these acts just a fraction of the total picture, but even the smallest, normal, everyday action can be illegal when it is done in furtherance of a crime. Just ask any getaway driver.

Kos of Kos wrote:

Trump has fashioned himself after a mob boss, but those guys are generally smart—they make sure to keep anyone who might testify against them either happy or dead. We can stipulate that Trump hasn’t resorted to murdering his enemies, but he could at the very least take care of those with access to his damning secrets. For example, he could pay the legal bills of all his indicted co-conspirators, making sure they remain dependent on him for their freedom. ... It’s simple self-preservation: If they can’t afford to pay their bills, their likelihood of turning into the state’s witness is exponentially higher. But of course Trump won’t do that.

Kos reported that the nasty guy has refused to pay the legal bills for Giuliani (who I see cartoonists are calling “Ghouliani”) and Jenna Ellis. He may refuse to pay Giuliani’s bills because they are so high. The bills for Ellis aren’t high (yet), but Ellis, though she has given him years of service, has stated her support for DeathSantis. None of these people are the good guys. Based on this sort of treatment several of them will cut a deal against their former boss. And some of them will cut the deal just to keep the legal expenses down. In a pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted Jonathan Last of The Atlantic. Last describes a couple hypothetical scenarios, which he can’t prove, about the vice nasty, but are also about the two political parties. If the vice nasty walked through a crowd at a nasty guy rally he would not be safe even with a security detail. His Secret Service team would probably prevent it. But the vice nasty could walk through a Biden crowd without security and the worst that would happen would be snide comments. Some might shake his hand for saving the Republic on Jan 6. And down in the comments connief57 posted a quote from Bruce Springsteen:

You are not alone. Decent Americans outnumber Trump supporters 3 to 1.

In the comments of another pundit roundup exlrrp posted a meme that says:

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Kos told the story of a conservative woman who goes by Reformed-Her 007. She won’t be voting this year (and her husband approves). Her reasoning isn’t that she’s disgusted with the nasty guy and a party that won’t challenge him. It’s because she thinks “things like voting and law enforcement should be reserved for MEN ONLY.” Kos then surveyed the conservative media and found many instances of people calling for a repeal of a woman’s right to vote. That included John Gibbs, a MAGA Republican House candidate last year. He gave the tired reason that women shouldn’t vote because the Founding Father’s didn’t put it in the constitution and they “understood liberty and democracy better than anyone.” They understood 18th century democracy and our understanding has matured. Other women decried the sentiment of the conservative woman – at least while women can vote. They say by not voting she cuts her husband’s voting power in half. An Associated Press article posted on Kos showed one cause of the Lahaina fire was live power lines downed by high winds. That left many people wondering why the electric company didn’t shut the power off. There was also a lot of complaining that with some power off (downed lines) people weren’t able to get notifications about the severity of the situation. So do you want notifications or the power off? Yeah, this is just one aspect of a lot of coming investigations. Hunter of Kos reported the conspiracy cranks are in action after the Lahaina fire. One claim was suspicious that the Obama estate wasn’t touched by the blaze (it’s on a different island).

The Maui fires would either have to charter a private boat to travel the 100 miles of Pacific Ocean that separate the two, or purchase a commercial plane ticket to Honolulu like the rest of us. Most wildfires do not have that kind of money.

There was also the claim that Bill Gates’ estate wasn’t touched either (it’s near Seattle with 2600 miles of Pacific Ocean in between).

Oh, and the proliferation of these especially ridiculous claims probably has at least something to do with a billionaire named Elon Musk now making it known he's willing to hand out cash prizes to the wankers whose conspiracy theories can drive the most traffic.

Quite the inspiration for Ukraine to keep fighting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Taiwan!

Some stuff that’s accumulated in my browser tabs while I’ve been watching Cinetopia films…

Back in 2017 Taiwan’s constitutional court struck down the part of the civil code that says marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman. The court gave the legislature two years to fix the situation. And yesterday, they did, choosing the option that uses the word “marriage” and even allows some adoption rights. The bill passed 66-27. Taiwan is the first country in Asia to legalize marriage equality.



CivicScience conducted a poll on this question: “Should schools in America teach Arabic Numerals as part of their school curriculum?” 56% of the responses were no.

I hope you recognize this was a trick question. The numbers we use in every day life – 1, 2, 3 and all the rest – are called Arabic numerals to distinguish them from Roman numerals – I, II, III and so forth.

The results prompted a tweet from CivicScience CEO John Dick:

Ladies and Gentlemen: The saddest and funniest testament to American bigotry we've ever seen in our data.

Dick adds that when the results were split by party the GOP responses were 72% no.



In response to the restrictive abortion ban in Alabama and an almost as restrictive ban just passed in Missouri, Matthew Dowd shared this:

We should pass a woman’s Heartbeat Law: if a woman has a heartbeat, you can’t tell her what to do with her body, ever.

Truthout tweeted:

If minimum wage had increased at the same rate as the average Wall Street bonus since 1985, it would be $33 today, instead of $7.25.

They have an article to go with their tweet.



A few days ago conductor Karina Canellakis made her debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. It went well, but not as planned. Just before the scheduled concert start, pianist Daniil Trifonov, became ill and had to be taken to the hospital. That sounds like an orchestra manager’s big nightmare.

At the scheduled start of the concert the librarian started handing out replacement music – Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony – to the orchestra already on stage. Though they would play it after intermission it still meant there was no time to rehearse. Canellakis had conducted it once before – five months ago. This symphony is considered part of the standard repertoire, but the newest members hadn’t played it before. Even though they played it cold, they played it well. Bass player Scott Feltham posted about it afterward, adding, “Time for a beer.”

Trifonov was well enough to perform in the second and third concerts of the series.

More than a million

The Women’s March in Los Angeles drew about a half-million people. New York and Chicago combined were another half-million. Thousands in smaller marches in many other cities. I haven’t seen estimates of combined totals. In addition, there were well-behaved crowds and no Nazis.

So how much coverage was there in the Sunday morning talk shows?

20 seconds.

So tell me again that having news organizations managed by men (some of whom are accused of sexual harassment) made no difference in the last election.

Women’s marches, round 2

There was a big article in the Detroit Free Press last Sunday about another round of women’s marches on the anniversary of the Women’s March on Washington a year ago. The paper listed a couple marches in Michigan, but Lansing felt too far away (though I’m quite aware it isn’t really) and Marquette is too far away.

Yesterday, I saw a link to the national website and checked if locations had been added. Several had been. The closest was probably the march in Windsor, Ontario, but that carried a few too many complications. Next closest was Ann Arbor in the diag of the University of Michigan.

So I went. I got there plenty early and walked around a bit and watched people gather. The weather was sunny with temps in the upper 30s F. Though the event was set to start at 2:00 the podium stayed empty until about 2:10. First up were three Native American women with their songs of welcome and blessing. Alas, they showed a deficiency of the sound system, which picked up their drums quite well, but wasn’t as good as picking up their voices. Then came a three person band with guitars and protest songs. Their sound setup was much better.

The speakers started at about 3:00. I didn’t keep track of all who spoke. I’ll just mention a few.

The first was a Muslim woman from Sudan who is a student at U of M. She decried all those who wanted her to fit in their prescribed boxes. But she doesn’t fit – being a black Muslim defied expectations. She said she doesn’t want to and shouldn’t have to fit in defined boxes.

A couple politicians spoke, remarking on the resistance of the last year and the work still to be done. Don’t look at the crowd and think we’ve got this. The march – and your involvement – must continue until at least November.

A speaker told her story of being a survivor of domestic violence. After suffering a few years of abuse she left. Her ex-husband began stalking her. He’s now in jail and threatening to kill her and her children as soon as he gets out. She talked about domestic violence statistics and the work that needs to be done. She made an important point: We should be teaching our youth the red flags of abuse. She wished she had known them before she married this guy. He surely showed signs ahead of time that she didn’t know how to recognize.

An Asian woman talked about how she is seen as little more than a sex symbol. To many men Asian women are sexy, more so than white women, and that sexy part is all these men see.

The crowd size was pretty good, a nice turnout. Here’s an attempt at a wide-angle view of the crowd:

Close to 4:00 I decided I was getting too cold, even though there were only two more speakers.

Daily Kos has several posts (five so far – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about events elsewhere across the country. These posts include photos. Estimates of crowd size say many exceeded last year’s events. A few that look to be quite large are New York, Asheville, NC, Washington, DC, Cincinnati, and Austin. The march in Missoula, MT was led by indigenous women. I rarely read Kos comments, though I did this time to see more pictures.

There was a table at the Ann Arbor event to allow people to make their own signs. I didn’t make one, though I enjoyed reading the signs around me, some of them quite clever. Here are a few I saw in person and online:

A certain person seems to exhibit all of the seven deadly sins.

“I’ve seen smarter cabinets at Ikea.”

“Does this ass [photo of the nasty guy] make my country look small?”

Held by a child: “I said ‘s**thole’ and lost privileges for a week!”

“Elect a clown, expect a circus.”

Constitutional protection but no amendment

I listened to a couple more episodes of the series More Perfect, stories about the Supremes.

The first one was related to the Citizens United case I wrote about yesterday. The show’s staff put on a 35 minute debate about the First Amendment and did it in two parts. The first part was about the Amendment itself. I’m not sure who the main debaters are – I thought there were two debaters in each of two parts, but the episode’s webpage lists only three names. One side pushed hard on how do we shut down the Nazis? Perhaps we declare their speech to be harmful. The other side presented his view succinctly and in a way that would please my friend and debate partner: Would you want the nasty guy’s minions deciding what speech was harmful?

The second part was should Facebook, Twitter, and other social media to ban hateful speech? They aren’t government, so the Constitution doesn’t directly apply. On one side was a black man who wanted to shut down Nazi groups. His opponent raised a number of points:

* Banning objectionable content is really hard to do. Algorithms cannot distinguish between users spouting hate speech and users trying to counter hate speech. Humans taking on those jobs have to deal with users who report “objectionable” content because they want to shut down people with whom they disagree. It seems we lose as many speakers on our side as we banish from their side. And under the current systems, there is no appeal.

* If algorithms were developed to accurately shut down hate speech sites, it wouldn’t take long for government or other outsiders to say: Here’s our definition of hate speech. Use it.

* It is much better to engage with those with opposing views rather than ban them (another point my friend likes to make). An audience member added to this one. He changed some pretty conservative views because someone engaged with him through social media. The black debater responded: I’m tired of having to educate white people. Gay people are tired of having to educate straight people. Women are tired of having to educate men.

This debate didn’t discuss what I see is an important part of First Amendment discussions, though the black debater alluded to it. What do we do about speech that is downright harmful? This is speech that is so damaging or so relentless that the receiver cannot respond and whose only option is to get off social media – then call their therapist for an emergency visit.

The debate also didn’t get into fake news or into Russian meddling through social media.



The second episode, almost an hour, was about women’s rights. In the mid 1970s the Equal Rights Amendment was making the rounds of the states. But it was ratified in only 35 of needed 38 states. It failed. So perhaps there was a way to given women constitutional rights without a constitutional amendment?

Up to this point the 14th Amendment and its Equal Protection clause was understood to refer to race – and nothing else. Racial discrimination cases were examined with strict scrutiny – those who created a discriminatory law had better have a very good reason for it. But sex discrimination cases didn’t have to meet that standard. A state bans female lawyers because a courtroom is no place for a lady? Fine with us.

Before Ruth Bader Ginsberg was a Supreme Court Justice, she was the head of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. And she was looking for the perfect case to take to the Supremes to suggest the 14th Amendment covered women.

She found it in a case from Oklahoma. Females could buy beer starting at the age of 18 but males had to wait to the age of 21. Yes, the guys were being discriminated against. But, said Ginsberg, even laws that discriminated against men was based on inaccurate stereotypes of women. Even so, the case would validate the idea that sex discrimination of any kind should receive the same scrutiny as racial discrimination.

Ginsberg made two shrewd moves. First, she had a local lawyer actually argue the case before the Supremes. She coached him on the points to make that would build the foundation for what she wanted (also: this is a gender case because if you use the word “sex” the men of the Supremes will have only one thought). He was enough of a bigot that he didn’t want to work with her, though he did incorporate her points. He was out of his depth and floundered before the justices. Ginsberg expected that.

Second, she wrangled one of her other cases to be heard directly following the beer case. For this one she did the arguing. The justices were sufficiently annoyed with the floundering lawyer that they took time out of the second case so that Ginsberg could explain what she wanted out of the first one. Yeah, an incompetent man followed by a competent woman.

And she won. She got the Supremes to establish that the “all persons” of the 14th Amendment included women.

Women are good for business

In last Sunday’s edition of the Detroit Free Press there was a front page article, Breaking the Boardroom Ceiling. It reported that women on corporate boards are good for business. General Motors’ board of directors is 50% women and the boards of Ford and Fiat Chrysler are well above 20%. In addition, 20% of board seats in Michigan based Corporations are filled by women and nationwide women fill 20.8% of board seats.

A nonprofit organization “2020 Women on Boards” started advocating for women on corporate boards back in 2010, aiming for 20% by 2020. The goal was reached three years early.

This trend of more women on boards is being pushed by investment companies that want a good return for some pretty large pension funds. That includes funds run by men. Their reasons for the push:

* Gender diverse companies are 15% more likely to outperform their peers. Women interrupt the “head-nodding group think.”

* The more male-dominated board has a higher likelihood of fraud. Women are more ethically sensitive.

* Women are less overconfident, and are more risk-adverse.

* At least half of consumer spending is influenced by women. Their views need to be represented during crucial decisions.

* Incidents that jeopardize corporate reputations and disrupt revenue streams would not have happened or would be addressed more quickly with more women on the board. This likely refers to sexual scandals, but probably a lot more than that.

Be an ally of women

Hey, guys – feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of women posting stories on Facebook and Twitter under the hashtag #metoo (in which women describe incidents of sexual abuse and assault – the number of tweets has been in the millions, though I don’t know how to get Twitter to give me stats)? Guys, do you feel you’d like to do something, but have no idea what? Women’s lives can be so mysterious to us dudes.

Don’t worry, guys, help is on the way. Helen Rosner, in a post on Medium, lists 20 ways a guy can support women. This, of course, assumes we’re way past stop abusing women. I’ll list only a few:

* Be pro-choice and be vocal in support of reproductive rights. Understand that the opposite of reproductive rights is forced childbearing.

* Support nontaxed menstrual products. Get over any embarrassment you may have about menstruation.

* Whenever you are in a group composed of only men (whether it’s social, work, church, or whatever) ask yourself why there are no women present. Then ask out loud why. Force an honest answer.

* Ask yourself what things you don’t do, for whatever reason, that you also think of as something women tend to do. (Sew? Send birthday cards? Care about skincare?) Try doing it for a while, just to see what it’s like to be a person who does the thing.

* Deprogram your beliefs about thinness being an optimal state of feminine beauty. Deprogram your beliefs that your desire matters in determining a woman’s worth.

Long pink chain

GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa and the GOP controlled legislature slashed funding for Planned Parenthood – not abortion funding (which it didn’t provide), but all funding. Planned Parenthood had to close four clinics, leaving 14,600 Iowans without compassionate health services. Another aspect of the story is familiar – 77% of Iowans opposed the cuts.

In protest activists created a pink paper chain with 14,600 links in it. Then they delivered this seemingly endless chain to the governor’s office and piled it up. Governor, you may be acting out of ideology (and ranking), but each link in this chain represents a person being harmed.

Cutting health services for women is misogyny, and thus a form of ranking – even when enacted by a woman governor.

They want women weakened

This afternoon I saw the movie The Zookeeper’s Wife. Antonina Zabinski, and her husband Jan run the zoo in Warsaw in the 1930s. It is obvious that Antonina loves animals and will do whatever is necessary to care for them.

Then the Nazis invade. Mr. Heck, the head of the Berlin Zoo (who seems to stick around Warsaw a lot) tells her the best animals in the zoo will be well cared for in Berlin. After those are hauled away the rest of the animals are shot.

Antonina tells Heck, I’ve got all these pens and workers, why don’t we raise pigs for the Nazi soldiers to eat? We can feed the pigs with the garbage from the Warsaw Ghetto. When Jan collects the garbage he also smuggles out Jews hiding beneath the garbage. They are hidden in the basement of the house. Antonina is a sweet and tender lady in the way she treats her traumatized guests. She also has an inner core of steel in facing down Heck.

The movie is a cat-and-mouse game of keeping their refugees safe from the nosy Heck. The movie is very much about resisting authoritarian regimes.

Of course, I thought a lot of the current American authoritarian regime. Would life in America get as bad as the Warsaw ghetto?

Sarah Kendzior has an academic background studying authoritarian regimes. So when she calls out the nasty guy and the entire GOP she knows what she is talking about. A lot of what she is saying lately is the nasty guy and the GOP really are that bad. They really are displaying a lot of the signs of authoritarianism. Take it seriously! The hidden Senate healthcare bill is one of those signs.

A tweet comments that the GOP being so cold hearted that they would pass a healthcare bill that takes away insurance from 23 million people doesn’t make sense. Kendzior replies in a tweet:

1) Profit 2) Weakened, sick population can’t fight back 3) Plan hurts women most; women lead opposition 4) Helps Russia + other adversaries

In another tweet she links to an article she wrote back in early May for the site Marie Claire that explains in more detail.

The healthcare law is not only a sadistic assault on the sick and vulnerable, but a gendered attack meant to render his most forceful opponents, American women, helpless. Autocracy and patriarchy often go hand in hand; the countries with the highest levels of political freedom in general tend to prioritize women's healthcare, education, and other basic rights.
…
And American women know it. Since Trump took power, protests against his administration have consisted overwhelmingly of women.
…
Women, in other words, are a huge problem for the Trump administration. Unable to silence our voices, they've turned to controlling our bodies—and repressing women, whether through biology or social structures, is a characteristic aspect of authoritarian rule. It's meant to frighten us into disillusionment and compliance. When survival becomes our primary objective—when anger about willful denial of climate change is overshadowed by the more urgent need to pay for a critical doctor's appointment—it's harder to organize, protest, run for office, or generally fight back. Instead, we have to live.
…
Republicans behave as if they do not expect the 2018 elections to be free and fair … When representatives flaunt their disregard for public will this blatantly, they insinuate that public will is irrelevant. It's a classic authoritarian tell: They see their political dominance as a lock.

Targeting women's health is part of this administration's broader autocratic strategy to shut the opposition down. They want women weakened, desperate, and politically irrelevant as public frustration grows.

The kind of president they will be

Donald Trump is pushing hard the idea that if he loses it is because the election was rigged. His ardent supporters (the only ones left) are also turning to violent rhetoric and actual violence against protesters. Others are ready to be poll watchers, which translates into poll intimidaters. The Secret Service is is beefing up security – apparently to protect the press.

Senator Jeff Sessions of New Hampshire is adding his voice to the claim of a rigged election. As is Trump’s VP Mike Pence. The GOP has been trying to tell Trump to stop it already with that rigged election nonsense – it hurts their lie about voter fraud and the need for tightened voter ID laws. But the GOP is losing court cases in their efforts to suppress the vote and are now defying these court orders.

One hashtag being used a lot on Twitter is #Repealthe19th. That’s the 19th Amendment of the Constitution, the one that gives women the right to vote. Which means lots of people want to go backwards on women’s rights and Trump has thus made women’s rights a central theme of his campaign. We aren’t in a post-feminist world anymore than we’re in a post-racial world.

This has prompted First Lady Michelle Obama to give a rousing speech. What we see as a candidate may be what we get as mayor, governor, or president. Sometimes the person in office is worse than what we saw in the candidate. Rare is the case that an office holder is much better that what we saw in the candidate. And candidates who are troublesome often are agonizingly awful once in office.

So, if a candidate is erratic and threatening, if a candidate traffics in prejudice, fears, and lies on the trail, if a candidate has no clear plans to implement their goals, if they disrespect their fellow citizens, including folks who make extraordinary sacrifices for our country—let me tell you, that is who they are. That is the kind of president they will be.

Colombia!

The Constitutional Court in Colombia has approved same-sex marriage! A nice map of the current state of things is here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_laws_pertaining_to_homosexual_relationships_and_expression.svg



The latest development in the GOP refusing to consider Obama's nominee for the Supremes, in two parts. (1) If the GOP prevails in November they want to get rid of the Senate filibuster to prevent the Dems from rejecting one of their nominees. (2) If the GOP doesn't prevail in November they want to hold an indefinite filibuster and leave a vacant seat (perhaps more than one) on the high court. Some have even suggested that they, not the president, should choose the nominee. Contradiction? Double standard? I don't understand.

A commenter reminds us the Constitution says the president appoints judges to the Supreme Court with the advice and consent of the Senate. If the Senate refuses to give that advice and consent the prez. can still appoint.



About a year ago Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal asked the state legislature for a religious freedom (license to discriminate) law. Legislators refused. So Jindal turned it into an executive order. The new governor, John Bel Edwards, has rescinded Jindal's order. It provides protections for LGBT employees in companies doing business with the state.



Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed the state's draconian religious freedom law. The Washington Blade, a gay newspaper, reports that it is an "open secret" the governor's son, Patrick Bryant, is gay and had been a target of an anti-gay attack. With the dad's encouragement the son moved to Austin, Texas to avoid a political embarrassment. Such family values.



In the face of fierce corporate opposition the religious freedom law in Missouri has stalled. Alas, it isn't dead yet.



Soraya Chemaly:

One day last year, I was thinking about the erasure of aging women in our culture and searched for the term 'venerable women.' I was curious about what images of wise and respected women the world produces. Google's seemingly baffled autocorrect responded, tellingly: 'Do you mean venerable men or vulnerable women?'

During the War on Drugs and the get tough on crime campaigns America built lots of prisons. It was also during this time that many prisons were privatized. That was a big way to make money – for the prison corporations, the communities that welcomed the prisons for the jobs produced (and taxes collected), and the state gov'ts too.

But sentencing and drug policy reforms are being taken up by many states and by Congress. This idea even has support among the GOP (that smaller gov't thing). That means there will likely be fewer people being incarcerated.

And that has local and state officials in at least Mississippi beginning to talk about how harmful it will be to lock up fewer people. Harmful to certain wallets too.

Notoriously for rights

There's a new book out, Notorious RBG, the Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik. I haven't read it, but have read the discussion on Think Progress by Ian Millhiser. The book shows us how central Ginsberg has been for women's rights through her presentations before the Supremes while she was a lawyer, her time as a federal judge, and her tenure as a Justice. She saw her mother as highly intelligent, but had wasted it because she was stuck in a society in which women took care of the family. Ginsberg vowed to change that, and has.

A few days ago I wrote that the next president will have the opportunity to bend the Supremes to the left or right. And if the next president isn't a Democrat, that might render Democrats powerless for a long time. Ginsberg was asked the logical question. Why not retire and allow Obama to appoint a successor, guaranteeing her progressive voice? She pointed to the dysfunctional Senate and said:

Who do you think President Obama could appoint at this very day, given the boundaries that we have? If I resign any time this year, he could not successfully appoint anyone I would like to see in the court.

Alas, the next election is not likely to change that, no matter who wins the presidency.

A 50th anniversary

Perhaps a year ago someone commented to me that it seemed that gay rights have come along quickly. This person said it took women 70 years to get the right to vote. The Seneca Falls Convention was in 1848 and the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, giving women the right to vote. My friend implied it took 70 years for black people as well, but I don't know what came in 1895 that culminated in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in 1964 and '65.

Yes, lots of people feel gay rights, or at least gay acceptance, has rolled over the country with astonishing swiftness. But these people don't know history and weren't paying attention.

With the arrival of marriage equality, which some say marks the arrival point of our movement, a few media people have been looking back to the Stonewall Riots of 1969. This is usually seen as the start of the gay pride movement because the following year was the start of the Christopher Street Liberation Day event, which was soon copied around the country as gay pride celebrations. Because the riot and the Christopher Street event were in June, most pride parties are in June.

I reminded my friend that though gay acceptance appears to have come quickly, it had been close to 50 years. And today is the 50th anniversary of the start of an important series of protests. The East Coast Homophile Organizations held their first protest outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 1965. There was probably a protest or two before then and protests at the White House followed. The leaders were Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings. Kameny was the one who insisted participants dress for the office – suits for men, dresses and heels for women (in Philly in July) – because a major complaint was that the federal government banned gay employees and protesters should look employable. Kameny had been fired by the gov't for being gay. It is good to know Kameny, one of the pioneers of our movement.

These protests continued through 1969. That year the protest was just two weeks after the Stonewall Riots and this time some of the protesters were no longer interested in conforming to the society's view of respectability. This tension between "establishment" leaders and those no longer wanting to conform and also the start of the Christopher Street events in 1970 meant the Philly protests became pride parades.

Even so, those Philadelphia protests were considered important enough that in 2005 a historical marker was put in front of Independence Hall to honor them. This was the first such marker for LGBT history.

This year the 50th anniversary of the first march will include a ceremony in front of the Hall, legal panels, and a VIP lunch with Judy Shepard (mother of slain Matthew) and Edie Windsor (whose case overturned the Defense of Marriage Act two years ago). Area museums will have related special exhibits. There will also be parties, especially in the nearby Philly Gayborhood.

There is much to celebrate for 50 years of effort. Inclusion in the national Hate Crimes law. Protection from discrimination in some states. Openly gay and lesbian candidates routinely elected to office. The right to marry. And a lot of societal acceptance.

But women will tell us that even with almost a century of voting rights they aren't equal to men in pay and position in society. And blacks will tell us their right to vote 50 years ago didn't end segregation and allow them to escape the slums. So it is with us. Our ability get married nationwide does not end the discrimination against us, as various voices have been saying all last week.

The latest example is from Mike Huckabee's facebook page. It says, "An attack on Christians and their religious liberty is a Hate Crime that must be prosecuted." He vows to implement that as an executive order on his first day as president. Alas, we know that "attack" translates as "even the mildest disagreement" and "religious liberty" translates as "our God requires us to persecute gay people."

A sarcastic commenter (scroll down) on the blog Joe.My.God included the image of Jesus paging through a big Bible and exclaiming, "Oh, here it is... Thou shalt not fixeth the gay cars or serveth the gay pizza."

Celebrate our progress. Honor those who made it possible. Then get back to work.

Don't even ask for exceptions!

I'm not sure I followed every nuance of Ari Ezra Waldman's latest critique of the Supreme's Hobby Lobby decision which allows some family owned companies to refuse to cover some forms of contraception. Even so, Waldman's conclusion is disturbing.

As part of the ruling the justices point to a part of the Affordable Care Act, in which Obama had already worked out a deal with religious institutions. They could fill out a document to proclaim their objection and the gov't would pay for contraception coverage.

But for highly conservative Wheaton College that wasn't good enough. Objectionable contraception coverage was still given to employees, even if WC didn't pay for it. So they challenged this compromise.

The way I understand it, the Supremes wrote the Hobby Lobby ruling saying the religious exemption to the ACA is for only this one thing. Nothing else will be allowed. We can't permit these exceptions to proliferate. Don't even ask.

The next day Wheaton College asked. And the Supremes said, well, maybe that too.

At the moment the Supremes haven't ruled that Wheaton College gets their exception. But the Supremes did imply there is a good chance WC will so they'll let them have their way until they get around to an official ruling.

Sotomayor, Ginsberg, and Kagan were livid and blasted their male colleagues in dissent. This WC mess does two things. It erodes the respect citizens have for the court. And it implies that the Supremes will look kindly on other religious exemptions – likely to the further detriment of women and sexual minorities.

Getting our rights quickly

I recently heard a speaker connect Tolstoy with Gandhi, who is connected to Martin Luther King, who is connected to Nelson Mandela (there were a couple more links along the way). As part of his story he remarked that the campaign for women to get the right to vote took 70 years. He said that it looked like the campaign for rights for sexual minorities will take a lot less time. Afterward I reminded him that we've been at this campaign for 50 years already. We're now marking the 50th anniversary of some of the earliest gay rights demonstrations. And the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) has been before Congress in some form or another for 40 years, only getting approval in the Senate last November. And John Boehner vows it will never come up for a vote in the House while he is its leader. Even so, I think it is likely we'll finish the job in less than 20 years.

I welcome their hatred

Terrence Heath reports that in spite of GOP efforts in rebranding they are waging a pretty effective war on women. Heath shows a series of images of various Congressional committee meetings and bill-signing ceremonies that feature anti-abortion bills. All images are all or almost all men, almost all white, and certainly all GOP. And the flurry of abortion restricting measures being passed in states across the country:

Last year, 22 states passed new abortion restrictions. According to data analyzed by Mother Jones magazine, of the 330 state legislators to propose or sponsor such bills, 257 — more than 75 percent — were male. The overwhelming majority — 94 percent — were Republicans; only 20 were Democrats. In the states, the restriction of women’s reproductive freedom has been an almost exclusively a white, male, Republican affair.

There is still a big income gap in America. Two-thirds of people earning $10K or less are women. In the middle class range, women pretty much match men. But of those earning $100K-$250K only a third are women. And above $250K less than a quarter are women.

And that income disparity means women are hit harder by GOP policies.

* The Paycheck Fairness Act is stalled in Congress because of too little GOP support.

* Cutting anti-poverty programs hurts women. About one third of American women are in or close to poverty.

* Cutting public-sector jobs hurts women. They hold lots of public-sector jobs because anti-discrimination laws affect those jobs more than private-sector job.

* Refusing to raise the minimum wage hurts women. See the stats above.

So much for "rebranding."



Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column, notes that several in the 1% are quite over the top in their complaints against Obama. Concentrating so much wealth at the top "creates a class of people who are alarmingly detached from reality -- and simultaneously gives these people great power." So they hold and proclaim "political and economic views that combine paranoia and megalomania in equal measure." They make it sound that our economic woes are because of their hurt feelings.

Yes, they are doing (slightly) worse under Obama. Their taxes are a bit higher. There has been some financial reform that limits their exploitation of weak regulations. Their money is a result of wheeling-and-dealing. Their loud response to Obama's efforts makes Krugman think the 1% has some serious doubts about deserving all that money. Which makes their lashing out all the more furious.

Perhaps Obama should claim a phrase from FDR. Roosevelt's actions against the 1% were much stronger than we've managed today. FDR said, "I welcome their hatred." It meant he was doing something right.



I like the outcome, but I'm skeptical of the reasoning. Thom Hartmann has a progressive radio show. I doubt I've heard of him before and the only talk radio I listen to is NPR. Hartmann looked at a bunch of state rankings put together by Politico and said that by a wide variety of measures Americans living in Red states did worse than those living in Blue states. That's the outcome I like.

Wanting to know more I went to the Politico story (though it took a bit to find it). On the first webpage it presents an overall ranking of the states along with the governor's name and the party. New Hampshire is at the top. Mississippi is at the bottom (at 51 -- DC is included). Michigan is 36th. The "R" and "D" designations are rather mixed with Gary Herbert (R) of Utah in 4th and Mike Beebe (D) of Arkansas at 49th.

Page 2 has all the individual stats and rakings for them. This is how Michigan fared:

Michigan's rank, value, range of values

Per Capita Income
34, $25,547, $20,670 to $45,004 (DC is way ahead)
Unemployment
49, 8.8%, 2.6% (North Dakota) to 9% (Rhode Island!)
Population below poverty level
36, 16.3%, 8.4% to 22.3%
Rate of home ownership
3, 72.8%, 73.7% to 42.4% (DC way behind all others)
This one I expected because Detroit was well known for its rate of home ownership, having the highest percentage of single family homes. One can get into a tall building and look across the city and see trees instead of high-rise apartments.
High school graduation rate
21, 88.7%, 92.1% to 80.8%
Life expectancy in years
35, 78.2, 81.3 (Hawaii) to 75.0
Infant mortality rate
38, 7.6, 4.9 to 12.0
Obesity rate
36, 28.5, 18.7 to 33.5
Gallup index score for wellbeing
36, 65.6, 71.1 to 61.3
Income inequality GINI coefficient
27, .4624, .4166 to .5343
Crime rate
39, 454.5, 122.7 to 1243.7 (DC has almost twice the rate of any state)
Percent of employees in Science, Tech, Engineering, and Math jobs
16, 5.6%, 9.7% to 2.7%
Back in 1931 H.L. Mencken, and Charles Angoff did a similar study, though with incomplete data. In that one Michigan ranked 12th. Mississippi was at the bottom.

I'm skeptical of Hartmann's claims because he doesn't show his methodology. Take the data for "R" and "D" states and average them all together? Pick the categories that best show his case? I don't know. And I don't know if I can trust him.

Hartmann concludes by saying that the GOP wants to enact policies such as slash the social safety net, cut corporate taxes, and privatize education and institutions held in common. But the GOP has already done this in the states they control and those policies have already been disastrous to residents.