Defining Unity

The United Methodist Church will be voting on a question of unity at a General Conference next February. So Rev. Jeremy Smith takes a look at how “unity” is being defined. He even gets into Girardian scapegoat theory. It’s all at my brother blog.

Cruelty is the point

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville quotes a bit of a Washington Post article about the nasty guy and his order to separate immigrant children from their parents. I mentioned this a few days ago. I notice the Post article keeps referring to families that cross the border illegally. But crossing the border seeking asylum is not illegal! This is a media failure.

I linked to McEwan rather than the Post because she adds an important bit. The Post article says the Department of Health and Human Services, the ones housing and keeping track of the kids, is at 95% capacity and is exploring a “last option” of housing the children on military bases. McEwan says DHHS is doing more than exploring the idea. They will soon make site visits at military installations.

Georgia Logothetis of Daily Kos has gathered a few comments about this policy from various pundits.

From Paul Waldman at The Washington Post:

Amid growing outrage over the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents when families arrive at the border, many are asking how the administration can be so cruel as to literally tear children from their mothers’ arms. There’s a clear answer, one that runs through all of the administration’s policies on immigration:

The cruelty is the whole point.

Catherine Rampell, also of The Washington Post, adds:

For decades, Republicans have championed traditional family values and having parents, rather than the state, take responsibility for their children.

This Republican administration’s inhumane treatment of helpless children — who are ripped from their mothers’ arms, detained in human warehouses and drop-kicked into “foster care or whatever” — reveals such rhetoric to have been a scam.

The Trump administration’s goal is to inflict pain upon these families. Cruelty is not an unfortunate, unintended consequence of White House immigration policy; it is the objective.

After all, if forced separations are sufficiently agonizing, fewer families will try to come here, no matter how dangerous their home countries are. Administration members have argued as much.

Trade: What the …?

If I remember right the whole thing about US tariffs on steel and aluminum was because because China was overproducing and dumping the rest on the world market. In trade, dumping has a particular meaning of intentionally selling a commodity below cost to drive competitors in other countries out of business.

So the nasty guy announce tariffs and invited companies and countries to apply for exceptions. Canada, Mexico, and the European Union got those exemptions, but only temporarily. I haven’t been able to keep track of what happened to the tariffs on China steel – the country at the center of this mess. Since this has been missing from the news about China I wonder if the whole thing got quietly fixed (a Chinese donation to a nasty guy real estate deal in southeast Asia probably worked wonders).

But the exemptions on tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and the EU expired. And the nasty guy decided to not renew them.

Welcome to an inside out world. China is one that Europe also says is the bad actor. The US, Canada, Mexico, and the EU could team up and really get China to do something about steel dumping. But the tariffs have been applied against allies and not the bad actor.

Canada and America share a 5,000 mile border with no military installations anywhere along the length. Our economies are closely interconnected (something we feel quite a bit here in Detroit). We’ve been great friends and allies for a long time.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville put together a few tweets on the subject and added some commentary. In a couple tweets Jasmin Mujanovic wrote:

Much of the post-1945 liberal international order, and especially after 1989, was based on two principles: collective security (i.e. NATO) and free trade (i.e. the EU, GATT, NAFTA, the WTO etc). Trump is systematically undermining both. This is a tectonic shift in world history. I fear even people who really should know better are in denial about the damage that is being done. Even if Trump & everyone else steps back from the brink of a global trade war, these are massive body blows to the integrity of what remains of liberal internationalism.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been saying the diplomatic equivalent of What the …? Mujanovic again:

… it is a clear signal of how fundamentally Ottawa feels betrayed. And that's a sentiment largely shared by the EU states. So, beyond the economic impact, it's the political fallout that will burn us all.

As I listened to this on All Things Considered on NPR I wondered: Why? Why is the nasty guy doing this? Who benefits?

McEwan has a good guess who benefits: Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Who has the strength to counter any aggression from Putin? About the only organization that can is NATO. Today’s action drove a wedge into NATO. McEwan suggests another reason: The two countries with the longest coastline in the Arctic are Russia and Canada. As the ice melts Russia is making moves to claim Arctic resources. Canada – without US backing – would have a hard time countering Russia’s moves. McEwan also suggests that Putin may make moves on Canada, not just the Arctic.

Skeptical? Here’s another piece of the puzzle. Zev Shalev summarizes and links to a New York Magazine article:

Trump’s 10% tariff increase on Canadian aluminum (among other metal tariffs on US allies) comes weeks after he saved Russia’s aluminum giant, Rusal, from disaster by granting a sanctions reprieve to its oligarch owner, Oleg Deripaska.

Commenter Fannie Wolfe gets the final word:

Especially as of late (and in light of news like this), I fear that the things this regime are breaking are not going to be able to be unbroken, even as a large portion of the political left might be pinning hopes on impeachment.

Intolerance and democracy

Back in August of 2009, a time when the Tea Party was making news and a threat of fascism was being discussed, I wrote (using the Tea Party point of view):

Democracy brought us abortion. Democracy, spread among even stranger immigrants, has knocked Christianity from its perch as the *de facto* state religion. Democracy has brought us a crushing national debt. Democracy has allowed women and non-whites to enter the power structure (even a Latina on the Supreme Court!). Democracy has brought us minority rights and hate crime laws. Democracy has brought us gay rights and gay marriage. Democracy bailed out the Wall St. thieves who caused this current recession and let them go without punishment. Democracy is going to take away affordable health care. Democracy wants to take away my guns. Democracy has given us a black president!

Who needs Democracy?

Now there are numbers to back me up.

Noah Berlatsky wrote an article for NBC News Think about a study by political scientists Steven Miller and Nicholas Davis titled “White Outgroup Intolerance and Declining Support for American Democracy.”

Their study finds a correlation between white American's intolerance, and support for authoritarian rule. In other words, when intolerant white people fear democracy may benefit marginalized people, they abandon their commitment to democracy.

The data comes from a World Values Survey, which conducted polls in many countries over a wide range of beliefs in 1995-2011. That’s well before the nasty guy ran for office, but well within the time the GOP leadership has been preparing for someone like the nasty guy. Berlatsky tells about a sample result from the USA survey:

People who said they did not want to live next door to immigrants or to people of another race were more supportive of the idea of military rule, or of a strongman-type leader who could ignore legislatures and election results.

The paper quotes American white supremacist leader Richard Spencer, and Berlatsky summarizes:

Ethnic cleansing is impossible as long as marginalized people have enough votes to stop it. But this roadblock disappears if you get rid of democracy. Spencer understands that white rule in the current era essentially *requires* totalitarianism. That's the logic of fascism.

We’re “fond of the Framers’ grand vision of liberty and equality for all,” said Miller of what is in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. But the Federalist Papers from the early years of our country show that bit about “for all” had a limited meaning of white men who owned property. I don’t know when the property part fell away, but the men part stayed until 1920 and the white part until 1965.

For a large portion of American history white men didn’t have to share democracy with women and minorities. Now that they do have to share it and now that they face the prospect that in a couple decades whites will be in the minority, democracy doesn’t look so good.

Berlatsky wrote that this isn’t something both parties are doing. A commitment to free health care isn’t a threat to the foundation of democracy. But a growing concentration of intolerant white people in the GOP is.

This intolerance is a sign of ranking. In this case it is people saying because I’m of higher rank I get to have things that you can’t have. A sign of my rank is I have it, you don’t. Another word for it is privilege. Intolerant people work mighty hard to protect that privilege and the ranking it represents.

Safer with guns?

I’ve still got some magazines I kept as I cleaned out Dad’s house. I’ll be reading National Geographic for a while, even though I threw out most of what I found around his house.

The magazine I’m reading now is Mother Jones, the March/April 2013 issue. I’d link to it, but their website doesn’t have ways of searching for and linking to old issues.

What caught my attention was Hits and Myths, this time a list of the top ten myths around guns. I’ve paraphrased them.

1. The government will come for your guns. Heh. The government, between law enforcement and the military, has 4 million guns. Civilians have 310 million.

2. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. But states with the highest gun ownership have the highest murder rate.

3. An armed society is a more polite society. But drivers with guns are 44% more likely to flash obscene gestures and are 77% more likely to drive aggressively.

4. A good guy with a gun can take out a bad guy with a gun. And in the last 30 years that has happened … zero times.

5. Guns in the home make it safer. For every time a gun is used in self defense there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 attempts at suicide, and 4 gun related accidents.

6. A person carrying a gun is safer. These people are 10 times more likely to be killed in an argument than stopping a crime. A victim is 4.5 times more likely to be shot if carrying a gun and 4.2 times more likely to be killed.

7. Women are safer when guns are around. Nope, her chances of being killed by an abuser go up 7 times.

8: It’s the violent video games. The Japanese spend more per person on video games. In America there are 88 guns per 100 people, in Japan there are 0.6 guns per 100 people. In 2008 there were 11,030 gun homicides in America. In Japan: 11.

9. More Americans are owning guns. Yeah, more guns are bought, but are held by a shrinking segment of the population.

10. All we need to do is enforce the laws we have. Except the NRA is doing all it can to make those laws unenforceable.

Start with democracy

David Akadjian of Daily Kos wrote a perceptive essay on capitalism and democracy. Corporate special interests have been pushing a particular frame for understanding capitalism. It straightforward and familiar.

It looks like capitalists (good) vs. socialists (bad). Some of the features of this story include:

We need to let markets “work”
Success is defined by individual achievement
Regulations “hold back” the economy
The private sector is better at everything
Government should stay out of the way

You know the story.

So how to avoid that trap? Commenter shrike warns us that if we use the corporate frame and try to defend socialism we’ve lost the argument.

Akadjian says it is better to replace the frame, redefine the argument. Start with democracy. This is when “an economy is run for the broad benefit of people in the country.” It is not feudalism where the country is run for the benefit of a few people. In feudalism the king owns everything. Will things work out if we stay out of the way of that system?

Ask people about the biggest problem in Washington and they might say it is money in politics. So under the idea that money is power we have the power of corporations over government and from there over the people. When government is removed or made ineffective then the power of corporations is directly over the people.

But our founding fathers defined it this way: The power comes from the people. The people empower government over the corporations.

Our Revolutionary War was against the British East India Company as much as it was against the British monarch. That original tea party was about monopoly tea.

For the first 100 years of our country our democracy chartered corporations. They couldn’t engage in activities outside the charter and were terminated if they caused public harm. That’s power that flows from the people.

Corporations have been pushing the idea that the private sector always can do things better than the public sector. So let’s ask what what the private sector does well and what the public sector does well. You’re not used to that question? The private sector is good at consumer products. Good. What about providing a service to everyone in the country? Consider roads – in rural areas it would be much harder to make roads profitable, so likely roads wouldn’t get built. What’s a good way to make a profit? Deliver the least amount of service. As I’ve mentioned several times there are things that the public sector does better – health care, education (profit goes to the least education), justice, law enforcement (if you can pay), public utilities, national defense.

When starting with democracy it make sense to: repeal Citizens United, have a non-partisan election process with strong voting rights, strong public education, and regulations and standards for corporations.

So work to replace capitalism v. socialism frame with democracy first.

An awful subject

The subject of this post seems particularly awful, but I have a lingering bit of doubt. So I’ll distinguish between fact and speculation.

First the facts.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is separating immigrant minor children from their parents. This is happening along the Mexico border, so I’m pretty sure we’re talking about brown people. The separation has been happening frequently enough and over a long enough time that the ACLU has taken ICE to court. Twitter user southpaw (who is a lawyer) has a link to a court transcript where the ACLU lawyer is pleading with the court. I haven’t read the transcript, which he warns is tough reading.

Dan Gilmor, another Twitter user notes these are people coming to the border legally. They are asking for asylum.

The nasty guy has called undocumented immigrants “animals.” Other GOP voices have piled on. Melissa McEwan of Shakesville reminds us such comments are dehumanizing and eliminationist – such language is used by authoritarians before they start eliminating people.

I’m less sure of the next parts, though the people stating them may be more sure than I am. All of this revolves around the question of why the separation?

Yonatan Zunger, in a Twitter thread, notes the number of children that have been separated might be as many as 7,000 in 2017. The number separated in 2018 might rise to 20,000, though that will require more facilities to house and process them. The rate might rise to 50,000 a year.

Another piece of the scene: Garance Franke-Ruta links to an ACLU article that ICE plans to start destroying records of immigrant abuse.

PBS Frontline reported that the Department of Health and Human Services “lost” the records of a thousand children. Were they returned to family or sponsors? We don’t have the records to say.

Or, as Frontline suggests, the kids ended up in the hands of human traffickers.

Zunger hints at one other possibility that might be a lot like Germany’s Final Solution.

McEwan reminds us that this is the canary in the coal mine. What happens to undocumented brown people will soon happen to documented brown people and then on to citizen brown people and on to other kinds of citizens the nasty guy doesn’t like.

McEwan’s readers, of course, reacted in horror. Then they address ways we might help. Talk to your Congresscritters. Start supporting immigrant rights groups, such as the Poor People’s Campaign or the International Rescue Campaign (I know very little of either).

No respect

Paul Waldman of The Washington Post takes a look at white males who voted for the nasty guy and their demand for respect. There is an assumption that if Democrats would show these people more respect they could take back Congress. Waldman says that’s foolish advice.

The Democratic “lack of respect” doesn’t come from Democrats and the policies that Democrats promote. That lack of respect comes from an industry and political movement constantly pushing the idea that Democrats look down on rural white males. This industry promotes such things as excesses of political correctness or a liberal professor who said something “offensive.” And pundits demand why aren’t you showing more respect?

Democrats either have to abandon their values and policies – the policies that help these same voters – or try for symbolic gestures of respect, that will be rejected anyway.

In the world Republicans have constructed, a Democrat who wants to give you health care and a higher wage is disrespectful, while a Republican who opposes those things but engages in a vigorous round of campaign race-baiting is respectful. The person who’s holding you back isn’t the politician who just voted to give a trillion-dollar tax break to the wealthy and corporations, it’s an East Coast college professor who said something condescending on Twitter.

So what are Democrats to do? The answer is simple: This is a game they cannot win, so they have to stop playing. Know at the outset that no matter what you say or do, Republicans will cry that you’re disrespecting good heartland voters. There is no bit of PR razzle-dazzle that will stop them. Remember that white Republicans are not going to vote for you anyway, and their votes are no more valuable or virtuous than the votes of any other American. Don’t try to come up with photo ops showing you genuflecting before the totems of the white working class, because that won’t work. Advocate for what you believe in, and explain why it actually helps people.

Finally — and this is critical — never stop telling voters how Republicans are screwing them over.

All that makes me think is what these voters want is respect for their racism.

Diplomacy didn’t work

Equality Michigan is an organization that advocates for LGBT issues at the state level. It also has a victim advocate program for those hurt by people or by the state’s laws. EQMI sent me an email to report that the Michigan Civil Rights Commission voted to adopt an Interpretive Statement saying that discrimination because of sex (already in the law) includes discrimination because of gender identity and sexual orientation. This action was taken because EQMI and many other groups have been pushing the legislature to add orientation and identity to the state’s Civil Rights Act for decades and haven’t gotten anywhere (and won’t as long as the GOP controls the legislature).

It didn’t take long for various lawmakers to shout: You can’t do that!



There was a lot of news a while back about football player Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem to protest the way minorities are treated by police. The National Football League has now ruled that teams can “impose discipline for those who protest publicly during the song.” As a compromise athletes may stay in the locker room during the anthem.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville reminds us this rule is designed to silence black players trying to draw attention to state-sanctioned violence against black people.

After the NFL announcement the nasty guy jumped on Twitter. Part of what he said:

You have to stand proudly for the national anthem [or] you shouldn't be playing, you shouldn't be there, maybe they shouldn't be in the country.

Yes, he suggested that those who object to state violence should have their citizenship revoked and be ejected from the country.

McEwan reminds us that is not an acceptable thing for the president to say. And let’s stop suggesting the nasty guy was joking.



The nasty guy dumped talks with North Korea. Lots of commentary out there, including from NPR. I’ll only paraphrase a tweet from Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut: Well, gosh, diplomacy didn’t work. We can check off that box and move on to unauthorized military action.



Leslie Stahl reports that she told the nasty guy his attacks on the press are getting old. She said his response was:

You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.

He’s not joking here either.



The nasty guy’s son-in-law and chief advisor finally got his security clearance. That’s in spite of lying on his security application, which is a crime. That prompted Sarah Kendzior, someone who studies authoritarian regimes, to resurrect a tweet from a month ago:

My litmus test for whether the Trump presidency may end early (and whether criminals will be held accountable) is Kushner. If Kushner is removed or indicted, admin is vulnerable. If he remains, it indicates a consolidation of power by Trump and backers -- a dynastic kleptocracy.

Fed up with gerrymandering

In Colorado the Dems run the state House and the GOP runs the state Senate. Even so, since the Dems also have a majority in the state Supreme Court, the districts for the legislature are gerrymandered a bit in their favor. So it is good news that in this divided legislature both chambers unanimously approved for the fall election a pair of constitutional amendments to set up an independent redistricting commission. There are two amendments because one is for legislature districts, the other for Congressional districts.

Ohio has passed a redistricting law. Utah and Colorado will have proposals on the November ballot. Michigan and Missouri have collected the signatures and waiting for certification. Sounds like citizens are fed up with gerrymandering.

Only a dictator

This is bad. Yesterday the nasty guy sent out a tweet that began, “I hereby demand...” The rest is somewhat irrelevant. Someone who values democracy does not begin communications with those words. Only a dictator does.

We’ll take a look at the rest anyway. The nasty guy wants to know whether the FBI or Department of Justice infiltrated his 2016 campaign.

Leah McElrath tweeted:

Trump appears to be setting up his own Attorney General (Sessions) and Deputy Attorney General (Rosenstein) to be forced to refuse a presidential order.

Which he might then use as justification for firing them.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville adds that some in the media still portray the nasty guy and his minions as “stupid” and incapable of long-term planning. But one doesn’t get to control the US government by accident. The nasty guy has a very clear long-term strategy, to be an authoritarian. Others may see it as “stupid” because if one is pursuing a goal of democracy – which the media expect – the things he does look stupid. But he’s after something entirely different.

McEwan concludes:

That was the plan. He didn't achieve it by accident.

Trump might not be sitting in the Oval Office without intervention from the Russians, but that is not an argument that he had no long-term plan on which he was executing. To the contrary, it's an argument that collusion became part of the plan.

As a result of the tweet mentioned at the top of the post, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI director Christopher Wray met with the nasty guy. Afterwards Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement:

Based on the meeting with the President, the Department of Justice has asked the Inspector General to expand its current investigation to include any irregularities with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's or the Department of Justice's tactics concerning the Trump campaign. It was also agreed that White House Chief of Staff Kelly will immediately set up a meeting with the FBI, DOJ, and DNI together with Congressional leaders to review highly classified and other information they have requested.

McEwan translates:

The president is currently under investigation. He's essentially asking to see what they've got on him.

That is just a brazen abuse of power.

And, as usual, there's no one around with the power and willingness to stop him.

A new opera

I went to the opera last night. The story of this opera revolved around … baseball. This is a new opera, premiered only last year, titled The Summer King.

The story follows the career of Josh Gibson, a real person. Never heard of him? You likely haven’t because he was black. But he was good. Some say he was the black Babe Ruth. Others insist Ruth was the white Josh Gibson.

In discussing this opera I have to use the N-word, no way around it. Gibson played for the Negro League – that was indeed its title. This was an alternative to Major League Baseball, which, in the 1930s, was all white. The Negro League had its own teams, including one in Detroit (actually in the enclave of Hamtramck). Gibson played for the Pittsburgh team and did play a game in the Hamtramck stadium.

An early scene is of Gibson playing in Yankee Stadium, in which he hits a ball out of the park, becoming the first person – white or black – to do so. Gibson is good enough that a local newspaper reporter begins to talk about Gibson being the one to break the Major League color barrier. A team owner actually talks to Gibson about joining his team, but into the conversation we see the owner held the meeting as a publicity stunt for the newspaperman and was really telling Gibson that it was a bad idea for him, or any black man, to consider joining the white teams. Gibson replies, what do I care? We have our own teams, playing fields, and fans. Though there is that little matter of pay.

Before the opera we heard a discussion featuring the composer, a baseball historian (I think), and Gibson’s great-grandson. The moderator commented that the Major League white players were not opposed to black teammates. They could see how good the Negro League players were and knew they’d be a great help in winning. Many white and black players were together on barnstorming teams during the off-season. While white players might have been welcoming, white owners and white fans were not.

Gibson and his teammates were offered jobs playing for a team in Mexico. The pay was much better and they were treated as the kings of summer (thus the opera title). A few years later when the Negro League offers to pay them the same as their Mexican teams they returned to America. But Gibson was beginning to have medical issues (the nature is never explained). A few years after that Jackie Robinson is announced as the one who will break the color barrier. Gibson is quite disappointed, but his medical issue takes his life a few months later.

The last bit of the opera declares that Gibson really was as good as his legend (he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame). And though he didn’t break the color barrier he played so well that other black men could figuratively stand on his shoulders and cross the color barrier he wasn’t allowed to cross.

A friend who also saw the opera said Gibson’s story didn’t really fit well as an opera. I agree. I also didn’t particularly care for the style of music (not all that melodic) and that the orchestra was frequently too loud and covered the singers.

Even so, a good evening.

Michigan Opera Theater does only four operas a year. This is the third year where one of the operas has been contemporary, written within the last fifty years. I thought the previous two made for excellent theater. This one, not so much. I applaud the for their efforts.

Which life matters more

The nasty guy and his minions will issue a rule saying federal money will be withheld from any healthcare facility that even mentions the word abortion.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville quotes from a New York Times article. Here’s a bit of the quote with McEwan’s response:

The policy, she said in a statement late Thursday, is "designed to make it impossible for millions of patients to get birth control or preventive care from reproductive health care providers like Planned Parenthood. This is designed to force doctors and nurses to lie to their patients. It would have devastating consequences across this country."

Which, of course, is the entire point.

McEwan again discusses why abortion needs to stay legal, available, and affordable. Abortion is healthcare. I’ll summarize her discussion. It is worthwhile to read her entire post.

No one is compelled to use their body to support another for several months – no one is obliged to give up an organ for another. People asked to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term are being asked to do something no other people are asked to do.

The fetus does not have an equivalent value to the person carrying it. We value some lives more than others such as inmates are valued less than free people. In the same way a woman should be valued more than a fetus.

The debate about when life begins is bogus. The anti-choice people try to cover that by saying the fetus is “innocent.” Isn’t the child who dies because of inadequate healthcare also innocent? What about the person who dies because of a crumbing bridge? It isn’t about when life begins. It’s about which life, woman or fetus, matters more.

Do we recognize women as humans of intrinsic value with their own autonomy and consent? It is only because a vast swath of our population won’t answer that with a resounding “yes” is there even space for this bogus debate about when life begins.

I’ll let McEwan conclude:

I have previously noted on many occasions that I'm hard-pressed to see why I should be any less contemptuous of a man (or woman) who sits at a big mahogany desk in a government building making decisions about my body without my consent than I should be of the man who used physical force to make decisions about my body without my consent.

It is an observation by which anti-choice folks are outraged. They are horrified to be compared, even obliquely, to sexual predators. As well they should be. I am horrified to have to make it. But anyone who holds the position that they should be able to legislate away my bodily autonomy and supersede my consent about what happens to my body shouldn't be too goddamned surprised by the comparison.

One must be ridiculously incapable of self-reflection to simultaneously argue that sexual assault (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn't want to do) is a Terrible Thing, but the denial of abortion (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn't want to do) is a Moral Imperative.

Be kind

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville quotes a section about The Poor People’s Campaign that staged a protest at the Capitol in Washington and will continue to do so every Monday until mid June. Police had apparently formed a barricade, which protest leaders, including Rev. William Barber and Liz Theoharis, intentionally broke through. They were arrested.

McEwan praises them for their witness and resistance to what the GOP is doing. She then notes we’re one of the wealthiest countries, yet we throw food away rather than “give handouts” to hungry children.

As the GOP is seeking to defund SNAP (formerly called food stamps) McEwan tweeted:

Republicans think people aren't entitled to food.

Let's just be really blunt about this: If you don't believe that people are entitled to food and potable water, you don't believe that people are entitled to live.

Good gracious! The response she got for saying that! Here’s just a couple replies:

So does someone else OWE them the food in question? Did they earn it? Who is handing out the daily rations in the end? Wheres my free stuff?

Let's be clear about THIS: Nothing that must be provided by someone else is, or ever could be, a right. That's called slavery.

Pardon me while I scratch my head. Being forced to give up some of your wealth so others can eat is slavery?

McEwan continues:

My suggestion that we should provide food and water to our fellow countrypeople who don't have access to it was met with aggressive contempt, resentment, selfishness, ignorance, and bigotry. With profound misunderstandings of what the role of government is even supposed to be. With literal arguments about how Jesus Christ didn't give handouts.

Something's wrong in America all right.

The lack of basic kindness was extraordinarily depressing, though entirely unsurprising. That very vacuum lies at the center of modern conservatism.

Jesus didn’t give handouts? I don’t have enough hair to scratch my head too many more times. I’m sure Jesus fed 5000 men (plus women and children) on at least one occasion. He did it because people were hungry, no questions asked or work required. Then there is that little thing of him offering his life for us.

I’ve been thinking: Want to resist the growing authoritarianism? An act of resistance is simple: Be kind. Refuse to take part in all this selfishness. Refuse the contempt, resentment, and bigotry. See those around you as people. Give to ease their needs.

The whole premise of the conservative movement is I’m more important than you, so I refuse to share anything. It’s all mine. They are teaching the nation that we’re supposed to be, that it is American to be, selfish.

Don’t buy into their selfishness. Be kind.

Amateur gamesmanship

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville quotes from Anna Fifield at The Washington Post. Here’s just a bit:

North Korea is rapidly moving the goal posts for next month's summit between leader Kim Jong Un and [Donald] Trump, saying the United States must stop insisting it "unilaterally" abandon its nuclear program and stop talking about a Libya-style solution to the standoff.

That “Libya-style solution” refers to Moammar Gaddafi who gave up nukes for sanctions relief – and was overthrown and assassinated a few years later. I’m sure Kim is saying no thanks.

Now add to that the nasty guy pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, demonstrating he won’t respect deals.

McEwan comments:

But neither party in this summit are actually interested in the ostensible goal of the summit, anyway. Kim wants legitimacy — an objective to which he's gotten closer care of Trump even agreeing to the summit, irrespective of whether it now happens. Trump and Bolton want an excuse to launch a preemptive strike on North Korea …

Kim wants Trump to keep demanding denuclearization, so he can have an excuse to walk away from the summit. Trump wants Kim to walk away from the summit, so he can have an excuse for war.

That isn't diplomacy. It's amateur gamesmanship from two of the most erratic, unreliable, egomaniacal, dangerous leaders on the planet.

US freezes, world simmers

In Michigan it seems we jumped from a warm end of winter to an early summer. For much of April the daily high was in the 50s (F) with local newspaper weather forecasts with charts showing the average highs in the 60s. By the end of the month radio news reports wondered if we were ready to set the record for the coldest April in Detroit (since records were kept). I didn’t hear whether the record was actually set.

Once we were in May the daily highs were in the 70s. It seems we missed the balmy 60s completely.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal weather people, say it wasn’t just Michigan. It was the eastern two-thirds of the country that stayed under a persistent flow of Arctic air, setting record cold in some places – coldest April in Iowa and Wisconsin – and nationally marking the coldest April in 20 years. I guess Detroit will have to settle for April 2018 being the second coldest.

NOAA also reports drought worsened in the Southwest and Great Plains.

Now contrast our April weather with this:

Jason Samenow of The Washington Post reports that for the planet as a whole it was the third-warmest April. The two warmer Aprils were in 2016 and 2017. Europe experienced its warmest April on record and Australia recorded its second-warmest.

Also: Kauai, Hawaii got just shy of 50 inches of rain in 24 hours, setting a record for the United States. Nawabshah, Pakistan hit 122.4F on April 30, likely setting a world-wide record for April. Yes, climate change models predict more intense heat and more intense storms.

So, if the world experiences the third-warmest April while the US is setting record lows, their sizzling temperatures must really have been up there.

Notorious

I heard the movie RBG had been released but only in a few theaters. In Sunday’s paper I saw it was at the two art house theaters in the Detroit area. This morning I checked online and saw the movie would be there only until Thursday. So this afternoon I saw it.

RBG is, of course, about Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court. It is a documentary about her life. She grew up in Brooklyn and lost her mother just as she was graduating from high school. She went to Cornell University, a good place for daughters in the early 1950s – with a ratio of five male students to each female if one couldn't find a husband at Cornell one was beyond hope. Ruth Bader did find a husband in Martin Ginsburg. The relationship had a chance because he wasn’t afraid of how smart she was.

Once done with law school Ginsburg had a hard time joining a law firm because she was a woman. But when hired she was formidable. In the 1970s she argued a series of cases before the Supremes having to do with gender inequality. She chose cases carefully and used her time to teach the justices that, yes, discrimination against women was a real thing, that it harmed women, and because it harmed women it harmed men and all of society. She made a difference in women’s lives.

In the late 1970s Jimmy Carter noticed that most of the federal court judges were white men. So he appointed Ginsburg to the DC Circuit Court, the one that handles disputes between branches of the government. In 1993 Bill Clinton nominated her to the Supremes. People didn’t consider her a candidate because she was already 60. But in her interview she captivated Clinton completely.

Through the rest of the 90s she was the author of many important decisions. But as the Supremes became more conservative she took on the role of the prime dissenter.

The movie also talked about how supportive Martin was. He could see her job was more important than his, so did what he needed to make hers happen. I had a chuckle when one of the final credits was, “The Martin Ginsburg award for supportive husbandry.” We also saw her friendship with Antonin Scalia and her love of opera. We saw a clip of her onstage at the Kennedy Center playing the Duchess of Krakenthorp in “The Daughter of the Regiment” (yes, a speaking role, with lines rewritten for her).

The movie also shows that she has become a pop culture icon with fans and being portrayed on Saturday Night Live.

I have profound respect for this Notorious RGB. May she live long and keep a sound mind and body.

Why embrace them? Why enable?

On the NPR show Weekend Edition Saturday this morning host Scott Simon had a discussion with Stephen Greenblatt, whose book Tyrant, Shakespeare on Politics has just been published. Greenblatt worked through Shakespeare’s history and tragedy plays and studied the tyrants. He concluded a few things that carry over into today’s world. He thinks Shakespeare wrote these plays as a way to ponder some important questions. Why do people, who know the aspiring rulers are liars, impulsive, dangerous demagogues, embrace them anyway? These people are concerned with their own interests, so why are they enablers?

Once the tyrant is in power how might the people get out of the situation? Shakespeare knew it wasn’t easy, but did portray ways that might lead out. The worst way is assassination. Shakespeare also proposes speaking truth to power (usually done by women in his plays), using the vote, and insistence by ordinary politicians of observing the procedures of democracy.

This looks like a book worth reading.



Jasmin Mujanović is a political scientist with a specialty in Southeast Europe. In a Twitter thread he wrote:

The point being: enforcing the rule of law, enforcing norms, and institutional and democratic integrity is fundamentally premised on a shared social and political commitment to those principles — one that is currently absent in the US. Don’t hold your breath for Deus Ex Mueller. Or still more clearly: countries turn authoritarian and/or illiberal when a significant portion of the elite and/or public decide they are, for whatever reason, OK w non-democratic governance. It’s not a complex process. It is, actually, quite terrifying in its simplicity. And if you don’t believe folks like myself, or @SashaHemon, or @sarahkendzior, who have drawn linkages w the present moment in the US & the history of E. Europe, C. Asia etc. then please just recall the *decades* of authoritarian rule in the American South well into the 20th Cnt.

Smoothing the way

I attended another memorial service this morning, this one for a member of my church.

Back in 2014 I posted to my brother blog about a new lesbian pastor at my church. That post includes pictures. Sue, the wife of this pastor, is the one who died. In that earlier post I described her as a partner. However, they did get married in 2011 in New York state. So the correct term is wife.

Since I got to know Julie and Sue in 2014 Sue has been battling ovarian cancer. Last fall the doctors ran out of options and this winter Sue entered hospice.

I’m familiar with pink ribbons for breast cancer. I’ve also learned that black ribbons are for melanoma, the skin cancer my mother had back in her 50s. The color for ovarian cancer is teal. So Julie and Sue’s family wore teal, her brothers sporting matching teal ties. I didn’t get the memo, but happened to wear my sweater that is closest to teal.

Pastor Jeff (also in the post’s pictures) had moved on to another church and came back for the eulogy, which was wonderfully funny and touching – and gay. He told an important story. I think at about the time Julie and Sue were married, Julie decided she was done with churches. She was tired of being hurt by them. But Sue said she had heard about this church with a welcoming reputation and convinced Julie to give it a try. During two visits they felt welcome. So after the second visit they went to Pastor Jeff, actually took him out to lunch. Julie said, I’ve enjoyed the two visits. But this is who we are. I don’t want to get involved if I’m going to be hurt again. Will we continue to be safe and welcome? Pastor Jeff said this was a big moment for him and the church. We had been talking the talk. Now we were being asked to put our money where our mouth is. He and the church did. Sue and Julie became prominent members. Pastor Jeff said that smoothed the way for other LGBT people. He named a few – including me.

On the back of the service bulletin Julie shared a few words about their love for each other. Julie said I wish for you to rest in peace, but I know you think peace is boring. So I wish for you to rest in excitement and wonder.

Julie and Sue helped me get through the passing of my father, mostly by just listening and offering hugs. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, Sue.

Rich v. Poor

Just in time for the Davos gathering last January the charity organization Oxfam International noted:

The world now has 2,043 billionaires, after a new one emerged every two days in the past year, the nonprofit organization said in a report published Monday. The group of mostly men saw its wealth surge by $762 billion, which is enough money to end extreme poverty seven times over, according to Oxfam.

Rebekah Entrango of Think Progress reports that Seattle is proposing a tax that would help the city’s homeless. That prompted Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos to put a new downtown building and 7,000 jobs on hold.

And that prompted Matthew Chapman to tweet:

By my calculations, as of 2018, Jeff Bezos has enough money to literally buy EVERY SINGLE HOMELESS PERSON IN AMERICA a new house at median market price, and STILL have $19.2 billion left over.

Bezos' net worth as of 2018: $130 billion.
# homeless in America as of 2017: 554,000.
Median market price of a house in America as of 2017: $200,000.
Bezos could end homelessness with his personal fortune and have enough left to still be in the top 25 richest men in the world.

Entralgo adds that Amazon’s growth in the city is one cause of housing prices skyrocketing. That’s one reason why many are homeless. Another is Amazon’s warehouse workers are paid measly wages.

Mr. Bezos, a fortune of $20 billion isn’t enough? I’ll probably say this many more times: It’s not about the rich getting a lot of money. It’s about the rich keeping the money out of the hands of the poor.

Where crime comes from

Volusia County, Florida is very much nasty guy territory. However, it also elected Michael Chitwood as sheriff. And his goal is to restore trust within the immigrant community. He said:

Where does crime come from? Crime comes from when you marginalize a race or a religion and you knock them out of mainstream society.

I like him already. Chitwood noticed that when a victim is undocumented and asked about it they shut down and don’t cooperate with police. So now he doesn’t ask. He does regular outreach to churches and schools reassuring people that helping the police won’t end in deportation. If ICE talks about someone wanted for murder Chitwood and his officers are ready to go. If ICE says they’re after someone with a visa problem Chitwood says we don’t have the manpower or training.

Perhaps as much as $60 million of the county’s economics comes from the farm field. Without immigrant or itinerant labor those farms are in trouble.

Missing fingerprints

Yesterday I wrote about how the nasty guy blowing up the Iran nuclear deal helped Russian president Putin by destabilizing the Middle East and driving a wedge into American-European alliances.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos explains another way Putin was helped. The Russian economy is a mess and Putin didn’t have the cash to fix it or pay for a variety of domestic programs he had promised. The big reason for the shortfall: the price of oil had fallen. Sumner goes into the details.

The price of oil has rebounded, now about $70 a barrel, up from a low of $26 when the nasty guy was elected. That alone gives Putin’s domestic situation a boost. But maybe not enough. There is a way to boost the price even more – restrict the supply by restricting a major oil producer … such as Iran.

With sanctions renewed other countries will be wary of Iranian oil. The cool part – for Putin – is his fingerprints aren’t on the trigger. He gets little blame and all the benefit.

Ohio is a bit more fair

In the primary elections held yesterday Ohio included Issue 1. It proposed a way to reduce gerrymandering in that state. The proposal doesn’t create an independent commission to draw the lines. Instead, it keeps the map drawing in the hands of legislators, but requires 50% approval from the minority party and 60% approval overall. Voters approved it.

JebbaTheButt, writing for Daily Kos, notes there is one potential flaw in the system. Minority voters may vote for a massively gerrymandered map if they are in one of the “packed” or supersafe seats for their party that allow for more seats for the other party.



The nasty guy blew up the nuclear deal with Iran. Part of what is in the nasty guy’s order is sanctions against companies who do business in Iran. In particular, American company Boeing (who, if I remember right, has been a target of the nasty guy), and various European companies.

So, sanctions against Iran will slow its economy and destabilize it. And that may destabilize the Middle East. Vladimir Putin of Russia is good at exploiting power vacuums left by destabilization. US sanctions against European companies drives a wedge between long-term allies. Again, Putin benefits. Which prompts Melissa McEwan of Shakesville to write:

Funny how every appalling decision by the Trump administration ends up seeming to work to Putin's favor, eh? What a coincidence.

The collusion continues to be right out in the open.

A bit of blackmail

I wrote about the discriminatory way the Michigan Senate wants to require some Medicaid recipients to work or study to keep their benefits. At the time I noted Republican Gov. Rick Snyder opposed the bill and added, “Good for him, but that doesn’t mean he’ll veto it.”

I wrote that because Snyder has a history of saying he opposes a bill, then signing it anyway. Sometimes it seems to be about apathy. Other times it is because he wants to “get along” with the Republicans in the legislatures. That sometimes means the legislators put pressure on the governor.

Like in this case. The Senate has approved the fiscal 2019 budget. In it there is a bit of blackmail. If Snyder and his administration don’t get a federal waiver for those work requirements then the salaries of the director and top officials of the Michigan Dept. of Health and Human Service would be suspended.

Legal? Democrat Sen. Curtis Hertel says no. The executive branch is supposed to implement (thus, interpret) the law. The legislature shouldn’t threaten the executive branch if the interpretation doesn’t go the way they want.

I believe both the Medicaid and the budget bills must still pass the House. And Snyder can still veto either one of them. I’m sure the legislature would get really annoyed if Snyder vetoes the budget bill because of this clause – which might be why Snyder might sign it.

United Methodist bishops recommend a plan

In the United Methodist Church the Council of Bishops have looked at the three plans a commission proposed about how to include LGBTQ people. They have made their recommendation for the denomination’s General Conference to be held next February. Details in my brother blog.

Manipulating the media

Last week Rudy Giuliani, just hired as the nasty guy’s personal lawyer, gave a big interview – on Fox no less – saying the nasty guy had indeed reimbursed that other personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the $130K given to porn star Stormy Daniels. This seemed like an incredible statement, especially since the nasty guy denied knowing about any such payment – and later claimed Giuliani didn’t yet know all the facts.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, long skeptical of the antics of both the administration and Giuliani (who has accumulated his own reasons to be called a nasty guy), thought this didn’t smell right.

Confirmation of her suspicions didn’t take long in coming. First, was the series of tweets supporting Giuliani from the nasty guy that were obviously (even I could tell) not written by the nasty guy. Then came a confirmation from Giuliani himself.

McEwan thinks that Giuliani suspects (or knows about) something in the files taken from Cohen’s office. Giuliani is spinning an interpretation of what might be revealed to get his version out there and shape public opinion. And to give the press a chance to say “both sides” have done it. Which they did. McEwan wrote:

So here's where we are: Once again, the Trump administration is manipulating the media, and delivering talking points to their base ahead of a disclosure that would be scandalous under normal circumstances.

Here, however, many members of the media spent the entirety of last night and much of the morning publicly laughing at what a dipshit Rudy Giuliani is. So now they have a strong incentive to pretend it's not a strategy, even when it becomes obvious that it is, because to backtrack and take it seriously would necessitate admitting that they were totally fucking wrong, missed the strategy, and got played.

And they certainly won’t admit to that. So they will abet the nasty guy again. And again.

One more question: Why isn’t a president’s lawyer paying off a porn star a scandal?

Interesting psychological twists and turns

DROzone, a member of the Daily Kos community, discusses a recent article in *The Atlantic*. The anxiety that prompted voters in 2016 wasn’t economic. That article features University of Pennsylvania political scientist Diana Mutz.

“For the first time since Europeans arrived in this country,” Mutz notes, “white Americans are being told that they will soon be a minority race.” When members of a historically dominant group feel threatened, she explains, they go through some interesting psychological twists and turns to make themselves feel okay again. First, they get nostalgic and try to protect the status quo however they can. They defend their own group (“all lives matter”), they start behaving in more traditional ways, and they start to feel more negatively toward other groups.

When whites who were high in “ethnic identification” were reminded they will soon be outnumbered by non-whites, their support for the nasty guy and his anti-immigrant policies increased.

And how did the nasty guy campaign? By doing as much reminding as he could.

As for economic issues, none prompted people to switch their vote from Obama in 2012 to the nasty guy in 2016.

DROzone agrees that economic messages didn’t work with his friends, the ones who don’t seem as progressive as they did back in 2012. The economic message seemed to backfire. People readily refuse a proposal that would help them such as Medicare for All because it would also help those people who would only take advantage of the system.

They refuse economic justice, even for themselves, because it is more important for them to maintain their social injustice.

It was racism.

Welfare as bridge or apartment

I’ve been hearing on Michigan Radio, the southern Michigan’s NPR affiliate network, that the state Senate has already passed a bill requiring Medicaid recipients to work or attend classes (some exemptions available). The radio summary includes part of the Democratic rebuttal, that the bill doesn’t take into account the difficulties in transportation and child care. Gov. Rick Snyder says he opposes the bill, that the state is better off when all residents are healthy. Good for him, but that doesn’t mean he’ll veto it.

Nancy Kaffer of the Detroit Free Press adds more. She mentions a few more reasons why the bill is a bad idea. Then she delves into the worst part. The bill allows for exemptions to this work rule for counties with an unemployment rate above 8.5%. Rural white counties, the base of the GOP majority in the legislature, would keep their Medicaid. But Detroit, with an unemployment rate higher than 8.5% is in Wayne County, whose rate is 5.5%. Detroit residents, 80% black, would not. The same dynamic is true in Flint and Genesee County and other poor cities.

The bill’s sponsors think that 20% of Medicaid recipients will lose coverage. Some will die. The state won’t save money because administration costs will go up by $30 million.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville responds:

This is legislation of the profoundly racist narrative that is extremely prevalent among poor whites, which essentially argues: White people just use welfare as a bridge. Black people use it as an apartment.

It's an attempt to entrench into law the notion that Good White Folks use welfare the way it's supposed to be used, to help someone who works hard but is just down on their luck get back on their feet blah blah bootstraps, while Black people cynically and selfishly abuse the system.

Takers and makers. The Republican Party isn't even trying to hide the white supremacy central to their policymaking anymore. Thanks to Donald Trump for showing they needn't even bother.

Immigration for mine, but not yours

Browser tabs have accumulated again as I spent time planning for my summer vacation. Just to be clear, for this retiree “vacation” means leaving home and going somewhere. I’m sure I’ll blog about it when the travel actually comes.

So, diving into those accumulated tabs:

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville has a couple items in her summary of things we need to resist. I’m working from McEwan’s excerpts, not the original article.

First, Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed notes the overhaul of the manual the Department of Justice gives to federal prosecutors. In: tough-on-crime policies, focus on religious liberty, cracking down on gov’t leaks. Out: need for a free press and public trial, racial gerrymandering, limits on prosecutorial power,

Second, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post says there is a price for the circus surrounding the nasty guy. Scandals take their turn in the headlines, usually not lasting for a day or two before pushed aside by another. But avoiding scrutiny is the nasty guy and his minions as they dismantle protections for workers, environment, and bank customers.



In another summary of resistance McEwan links to an article in the Guardian about 1,000 economists who sent a letter to the nasty guy saying the economic protectionism he is erecting is the same mistake that plunged the world into the Great Depression in the 1930s. McEwan adds that with the nasty guy an economic collapse might be the objective.

She McEwan also links to an article by Tina Vasquez in Rewire. Immigration enforcement laws had been guided by priorities, those who were a danger to the community were targeted for deportation. But ICE, unleashed by the nasty guy, is targeting everyone here illegally.

McEwan contrasts that with the news that Melania Trump’s parents are working their way through the citizenship process.



Thee was a shooting at a Waffle House that was disrupted when James Shaw yanked the gun out of the shooter’s hand during a reload. Daily Kos community member Bluestategreen says there is an important lesson:

A favorite saying of the gun crowd is, “Guns don’t kill people, people do.” Here’s the rebuttal. As soon as the shooter lost his gun, the carnage stopped.

I heard of a second lesson: Another favorite saying is, “To defeat a bad guy with a gun you need a good guy with a gun.” Again, nope. Shaw used his bare hand (and suffered a burn from the hot barrel).



Andy T, another Daily Kos member, notes that white supremacists aren’t displaying the swastika so much – we know what that means. With that on your chest or banner it is hard to deny you’re a supremacist. Instead, they’ve pulled out a few other symbols that don’t yet have modern meaning. Andy says these symbols are runes or letters from the Vikings. Why them? They’re the original and ultimate Aryan warrior culture. Several actual Nazis tied their cause to these Germanic warriors dominated Europe.



Democrats staged an heroic filibuster in the South Carolina Senate to defeat a bill to ban abortion. The Dems took turns talking, but nearly all of them had to remain on the Senate floor (some canceling travel plans) to avoid giving the GOP the three-fifths majority needed to end a filibuster.



But in Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer is about to sign a bill allowing adoption agencies to reject gay and lesbian couples. This is on behalf of Catholic Charities, who rank higher than we do. I’m confused by the claim, “… because it increases the opportunities for needy children to find loving homes.” Adoption agencies are more important than actual loving families?