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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Young girls were just the bait, extortion the payoff

In the comments of a pundit roundup for Daily Kos there is a discussion of the arrest of Andrew Mountbattan-Windsor (disgraced brother of King Charles of Britain). Commenter rugbymom wrote:

The charges against Andrew, from what I understand, don't have to do with having sex with underage girls -- but rather with giving Epstein access to highly classified information when Andrew served as a Trade Envoy for the UK government. The UK authorities and media have been far more attentive to what to me is the scariest (but also promising) aspect of the files: the possibility that the young girls were just the bait, and the money-laundering, political influence, insider information, espionage for Putin and others? was the real payoff. Oh, plus the blackmail and extortion opportunities. To me “Did Trump rape underage girls?” is the least important question. More pressing (and frankly more likely to result in charges?) is who else in the Administration, in Congress, possibly on the Court, was and remains part of a highly compromised circle that included foreign oligarchs, blackmail and extortion, etc. etc. And the UK authorities are looking hard at that, while our social media and even members of Congress are all focussed on “Did he Do It?” (even though he’s likely immune from being prosecuted while he's in office, is probably already incompetent to stand trial, and certainly will be by Jan. 2029).

Jen Fifield of ProPublica and Zach Despart of ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, in an article posted on Kos, wrote that the Department of Homeland Security released a tool called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE. It originally checked immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits but has been expanded under the nasty guy. It now collects confidential data from across the federal government and is promoted to give states a way to look for noncitizens in their voter rolls. The claim is that “millions” of noncitizens are voting. The first finding is that the people flagged as ineligible are actually quite eligible. The error rate is high and verifying their true status causes county election officials extra work. There is no guidance from DHS on procedures to deal with matches. One reason for the false positives is SAVE doesn’t know about immigrants who become citizens. The other finding is that across seven states with a combined 35 million registered voters, the system “identified roughly 4,200 people — about 0.01% of registered voters — as noncitizens.” That’s definitely not “millions.” Which means this is a great deal of effort expended to fix a non-problem, and that means the real goal is something else, such as casting doubt in the security of elections to give a reason to stop actual citizens from voting. Carrie Johnson and Tamara Keith of NPR discuss a particular case of the nasty guy abusing executive power.

The president wants the government he leads to pay him billions of dollars. Trump has filed multiple claims arguing he's been hurt by Justice Department investigations and the leak of his tax returns years ago. Now it's up to his own political appointees to determine whether to settle with their boss — and for how much taxpayer money. "There is a glaring conflict of interest with Trump being on both sides of the claim," said Edward Whelan, a former lawyer at the Justice Department and a political conservative who once clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. "It is outrageous that he and those answering to him would be deciding how the government responds to these extravagant claims."

Even the nasty guy has said he “will negotiate with myself.” One of the cases for which he is seeking damages comes from when federal agents seized classified documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate. Even in the worst cases the Justice Department rarely pays out more than $10 million. So the nasty guy is asking for at least 100, maybe 1000, times the rare highest payouts. The nasty guy thinks accepting all this taxpayer money is just fine because he’ll give the money to charity. And I’ll believe that only if the charities publish acceptance letters.

But at a time when Americans say their top concern is the cost of living and making ends meet, the idea of the president receiving a massive windfall from the government he leads may not sit well with voters — even if it is donated to charity.

The nasty guy’s Board of Peace met for the first time. The primary topic was Gaza. Leila Fadel of NPR didn’t talk about what happened at the meeting (it was likely secret). However, she did talk to Aaron David Miller, who served more than 20 years at the State Department, advising on Arab-Israel peace negotiations. He’s now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. One good thing about the Board of Peace is that it is trying to internationalize this problem. Gaza cannot be resolved by Israel and the Palestinians. There are three main issues. Who will govern Gaza? The Palestinian movement is a mess. Who will provide security in Gaza? There’s little hope there. Who will pay for humanitarian assistance, current shelter, and reconstruction? Maybe the Board of Peace can help with that last one. Internationalize means being able to bring in the huge required resources. But if Israel and Hamas can’t align their visions of the future no outside pressure or assistance will help. The Board of Peace does have a huge problem in that there is no Palestinian representation. One reason why that is a problem is that Israel has stated their policy is annexation. Miller said:

In the end, you need leaders who are masters of their politics in Israel and Palestine and leaders who are willing to overlook those politics to a degree to try to address not only their own constituencies' needs but the needs of others. And we do not have those kinds of leaders in the region. And frankly, we don't have them in Washington either.

As for a stabilization force, as long as Hamas and Israel are still shooting at each other, in spite of a cease-fire, no party is going to put boots on the ground.

The failure of democracies to rein in corporations

To commemorate the death of Jesse Jackson Bishtoons highlighted a phrase of Jackson. Love the saying, not so much the caricature. Jackson said:

Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York went to the Munich Security Conference and told the crowd:

I think one of the connections and relationships that is underdiscussed, particularly in the security space, is the fact that I believe we're seeing an economy … around the world—including in the United States—that extreme levels of income inequality lead to social instability and drives in a sense in authoritarianism, right-wing populism, and very dangerous domestic internal politics. And that is a direct outcome of not just income inequality, but the failure of democracies over decades to deliver. The failure to deliver higher wages, the failure to rein in corporations. There is a level of market concentration and corporate consolidation where a massive company can get so big that its consolidated power can rival that of nation states. Massive corporations that then begin to consume the public sector gobble up the spending. They start to call the shots, and we're starting to see this with some of the billionaire class throwing their weight around in domestic politics and in global politics as well.

Alix Breeden of Daily Kos reported that federal judge James Boasberg, who has been tussling with the nasty guy’s administration for many months ordered them to return some Venezuelan men who were wrongfully sent to prison in El Salvador without due process. However three of the men told Kos that they refuse to step foot in the US while the nasty guy is in office. They say they have no guarantees of being free while their cases are being heard. The risk of returning isn’t worth it. Two of the three said they would consider returning to the US when there is a change in president. The third said he would still be too afraid to come back. Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary, wrote in his Substack that according to the New York Times the Department of Homeland Security sent subpoenas to big tech companies demanding the names on accounts the criticize ICE to identify those who oppose what ICE and DHS are doing. Reich responded:

Hello? Kristi Noem? Robert Reich here. I hear you’re trying to find the names of people who are making negative comments on social media about ICE enforcement. Look no further. I’ve done it frequently. I’m still doing it. This note to you, which I’m posting on Substack, is another example.

Reich then listed several things ICE is doing – arrests without due process, inadequate care in detention camps, and much more – that are unconstitutional. Noem is defying court orders, also unconstitutional, as are those subpoenas. Noem seems to have forgotten that she is given power and being paid by the people of the United States and she swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. As was true for Reich. He did his duty. What the hell is she doing? In Monday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Jacqueline Alemany of MS Now

For now, Democrats are in the minority — limited to issuing strongly worded letters and exercising a mostly toothless investigative authority to rein in a president who has applied a maximalist approach to executive authority. But with increasingly rosy prospects for the party to win back the House in 2026, Democratic lawmakers are laying the groundwork for a sweeping expansion of oversight targeting the companies and CEOs who have done business with the Trump family, or sought favorable regulatory treatment, merger approval, or policy changes from the administration — from Paramount to Palantir. It is a strategy that Democrats believe could reshape corporate America’s relationship with Trump: By threatening future investigations into companies that curry favor with the administration, they hope to make CEOs think twice before opening their wallets or bending to presidential pressure.

In Tuesday’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Heather Cox Richardson from her Letters from an American Substack discussing the latest potential nasty guy grift.

On February 13 and 14, President Donald J. Trump’s representatives filed three applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark his name for future use on an airport. As trademark lawyer Josh Gerben of Gerben IP noted, the application also covers merchandise branded “President Donald J. Trump International Airport,” “Donald J. Trump International Airport,” and “DJT,” including “clothing, handbags, luggage, jewelry, watches, and tie clips.” Because of the trademark filing, Gerben notes, any airport adopting the Trump name would have to get a license to use the name, potentially paying a licensing fee. Gerben emphasizes that while it is common for public officials to have landmarks named after them, “never in the history of the United States” has “a sitting president’s private company…sought trademark rights” before such a naming.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon by Pedro Molina showing a man facing down ICE agents referring to what AG Pam Bondi said before Congress:

Papers? Oh, Bro! Haven’t you heard? We should all be focused on the Dow!

Parker Molloy tweeted a link to Sports Illustrated and wrote:

Sign of the times that there are multiple members of the Chicago Cubs who haven't been able to enter the U.S. because Trump's immigration crackdown has made getting visas impossible.

Herbilly posted a meme:

Let’s have illegal immigrants hunt down sex offenders for a chance at citizenship. We’ll call it “Aliens VS Predators.”

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted Shawn Ryan, a podcaster on the right, after Bondi sat in front of a House Committee and made that comment about the Dow. Bill has a very good reason for quoting someone on the right. Ryan said:

What you should be talking about is how you are going to investigate and prosecute any pedophiles that are running around on Epstein Island that you’re affiliated with. But we didn’t talk about that, did we? Oh, and what’s the excuse? What was the excuse? “If we prosecute everybody the whole system would go down.” Well, you know what that sounds like? That sounds like how Trump ran his campaign: “Let’s drain the swamp.” Doesn’t that sound a lot like draining the swamp? It actually is drain the swamps served up to you on a f---ing silver platter but you’re not gonna take it, are you? You’re gonna protect pedophiles! You’re going to protect pedophiles rather than go after them and hope that everybody’s happy that the Dow hit 50,000. Are you f---ing out of your mind?!”

The whole system would go down? The system of men who think they’re so far above the rules that they can abuse girls? Sounds like a goal worth working toward. In an LGBTQ Update for Kos Clio2 wrote of many topics. Here are a few of them:

If I have this right, the proposed federal "SAVE Act" (Republicans have a way with Newspeak!) currently before Congress would require proof of citizenship and ID matching one's birth certificate to register to vote, disqualifying not only trans people who have changed their documents, but a great many others--such as adoptees, and married women who took their husband's name. Voter fraud is, of course, minuscule, and this would amount to theft of people's votes. Reportedly Sen. Collins, however, has gotten over her usual fit of the vapors, making this a squeaker. :-/

Then Clio2 got into discussing bans on transgender care, both in the US and in Britain. And in Britain the efforts include closing a clinic treating trans children, and requiring schools ban social transition, including “using a different name, pronoun or haircut” and outing trans youth. There is also a book urging parents not to support their trans kids. And a tweet from Sara Hummingbird:

Policies based on lies is killing kids. "Good Law Project can confirm that in 2021-2022 suicides of trans children in England surged to 22, a marked increase from 5 and 4 the previous two years" It takes years for this data to be available there will be more. All these kids had the right to life.

A series of tweets by Toby Buckle (I’m not sure of the order):

one of the things i got from diving into the weeds of this debate for my reporting on it was just how small the core 'gender critical' team is almost all (anti-trans) reporting cites/ quotes the same half-dozen people the idea that this was a popular backlash to a socially dominant 'woke' worldview, pushing pronouns down all of our thoughts is absurd a decade ago most brits did not hold well defined views on this, there was a bi-partisan consensus for tolerance basically, we've utterly erased the rights & healthcare access of a vulnerable minority because a very small group (of apparently very well-connected) of people became fanatical about it & the (also very small) group who decide press coverage decided they needed relentless coverage a stat i always cite is the number of anti-trans articles in the press went from 60 in a year, to 7,500

DixTheory added, based on data from Parliament Committees.

Chart showing the frequency of trans-related articles by month in the UK press from 2012 to 2022. The count remains below 50 per 30 days until 2015, rising to 400 per 30 days by 2021, then peaking over 1,000 in 2022.

Clio2 tweeted a link to an article in The Pink News with the title and subtitle:

Publicly funded gender-affirming care is great for the economy A new study in Australia has found that increasing public funding gender-affirming care could save the government millions.

On a different topic Kat Tenbarge tweeted:

When a sitting representative refers to the Super Bowl halftime show as “pornography,” people should use that to reflect on how they and other representatives are simultaneously working to ban, censor, and restrict “pornography” and what that actually means And we don’t have to guess what they mean, because we can read Project 2025 ourselves and see that “pornography” is shorthand for LGBTQ people existing publicly. That’s what they’re working to ban, censor, and restrict online under the guise of “protecting” kids from porn And we also already know that these efforts have been in motion for years, and that sex workers, LGBTQ people, feminists, educators, and anyone who talks about bodies, women, and gender/sexuality is already being censored online and offline

TC added:

Yes, they've signalled using "pornography" the way Putin's Russia uses the term "hooligan"