Regionally curated subscription box of artisinal apocalypses

As I mentioned before I switch my radio to the CBC (the national Canadian network) during noon to 3:00 on weekdays. Today was a special program, a day to listen to indigenous voices. That lasted all day, not just the three hours I tuned in. During the news segments they announced a third set of unmarked graves were found at a third residential Indian school. So this day was a time to listen to indigenous voices. That meant stories and music by them. Some of it was the traditional native music I’ve heard. There were also indigenous composers who wrote in the Western Classical idiom, including writing for orchestra. Quite an interesting musical journey. Some of the stories were by people who had lived through the residential school system or had worked to reclaim traditions that were close to being lost to those schools. One person was asked, why don’t you just get over it? She replied, we can’t. More grave sites will be found. It was cool to hear a national radio network lift up indigenous voices, to spend a day listening to those usually unheard. It was cool to hear a part of a national conversation about recognizing injustices done by previous generations. Alas, it wasn’t my nation. Lily Altavena, in last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press, wrote about a couple cities in Michigan whose school board meetings were packed with residents demanding their children not be taught Critical Race Theory. The article is online, but for subscribers only. Of course, what the residents were talking about is the conservative talking points for their definition of CRT that has little to do with how CRT is taught in graduate schools. The talking points included how white children would be oppressed by teaching CRT. These school districts, Grand Ledge and Troy, have equity programs. The irate citizens had been told by conservative sources that these equity programs and CRT were the same thing. School boards had to explain the difference. An equity program wants to make sure all students, including children of color, those learning English, and those with disabilities, get the same opportunities as the white children. It looks at racial disparities and tries to correct them. It increases the use of texts written by people of color. It works to diversify the faculty and staff. It works to equalize the disciplinary practices. It does not declare white students are inherently racist. It does not teach them to hate America or to be ashamed of being white. Those claims of equity programs only serve to inflame parents. The school board meeting in mid June in Grand Ledge got so out of control the meeting was cut short. A week later people talked over one another, but the board managed to keep the meeting going. School boards are not used to this much rancor and chaos. And so much intentional misinterpretation of what they are actually doing. I wrote a while back about Christopher Rufo as the guy who has been pushing the redefinition of Critical Race Theory as a way of bludgeoning liberals. He did this through redefining the term in conservative language, then repeating it until his definition replaced the original. Jason Stanley quoted some of Rufo’s tweets and added:

Some people are out there using my work on propaganda and fascism as a how to guide. I know that Rufo is familiar with my work.

Jeremy Just added:

Every word ever written on totalitarianism - and that’s a lot of words - has been used by these grifters as a how-to guide. If only there was a similar body of work on the many efforts to counter it that have been undertaken over the years. How Counter-Fascism Works…

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported that Toyota has donated the most, by far, to insurrectionist lawmakers. The company says it doesn’t judge members based solely their refusal to certify the election. Instead, they donate based on issues important to the auto industry. Besides, there were a few they decided to no longer donate to. Customers are now declaring they will never buy another Prius. And Subaru is looking pretty good. A heat bubble over Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, and sliding over the Rockies into Alberta. Seven inches of rain in Detroit – one highway was closed for a few days because a pumping station lost electricity and couldn’t pump away the water. The American West is drier than it has been in 1200 years (noted from tree rings). Wildfires in California. Moscow had so much rain subway stations were flooded. Leah McElrath tweeted:

Here’s what I don’t understand: Global warming and the resulting climate crises are affecting everyone. Every nation. All people. There is no where that is immune, no infrastructure that is prepared. Why won’t we work together to treat it like the global emergency it is? Moscow, Portland, NONE of our infrastructure is prepared for what is happening. Global warming isn’t just about temperatures rising. Global warming sets off a cascade of events that result in more intense weather events happening more frequently. The violence of the resulting systems is something no human can hide from. Even those who own survival bunkers.

Daniel Michelsen of the Kos community has started a series of posts about the things we already know how to do to end the climate crisis. That we don’t use them is a political problem. The topic of this post is building insulation. Instead of installing a furnace we could spend the money on enough insulation that the appliances and body heat would keep it warm enough. But we insulate only to the point where the heat costs less than the additional insulation would add to the mortgage. But that assumes three things that aren’t true: 1. Energy costs will never increase, 2. interest rates don’t change, and 3. emissions don’t matter. Thirty years ago when I lived in Germany I attended a house warming for work colleagues. This celebration was done before the new house was finished, well before the family was ready to move in. This house was billed as ecologically friendly. The walls were thick because they enclosed stacked bales of straw. Not a Wolf tweeted:

It’s not climate change, it’s a regionally curated subscription box of artisinal apocalypses. Each month you get a new, bespoke, reminder of the inevitability of our decline delivered straight to your door. For the low cost of blood and your future, you too could be stuck in traffic at the end of all things.

Aysha Qamar of Kos reported Sesame Street is doing its part to combat rising attacks on Asian Americans. In a recent show, Alan, who is Japanese American, and Wes, a black Muppet, talk to Analyn, a Filipino American girl, who was teased about her eyes. Alan and Wes sing a song about being proud of our eyes, that they tell us the story of our family. This is just one part of an ongoing series of scenes tackling bullying and helping families talk about racial justice. Guidance is provided by racial equity groups. A video of the scene is at the bottom of the post. In the comments Nanny Ogg included a video of the recent visit of a girl and her two gay dads to Sesame Street. Alas, this video is only 40 seconds, not the whole scene. At least we see they were there.

Cruelty as a part of American politics

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Daily Kos, quoted Adam Serwer in the New York Times. Serwer wrote that the Republican politics of cruelty and exclusion started long before the nasty guy and will continue long after. There has always been a drive for some leaders to restrict blessings to a select few. What the nasty guy accomplished was to show Republicans how much they could get away with. Serwer names quite a few cases where he and they got away with a lot and still do. And the voter suppression laws they push are to make sure they can keep getting away with it. The word “cruelty” above was intentional. Sarah McCammon of NPR spoke to Adam Serwer about his new book The Cruelty is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump’s America. I’ve heard that phrase many times over the last few years and didn’t know it came from an essay Serwer wrote in 2018. This is some of what Serwer said in that interview:

Most people think of cruelty as an individual problem. And it is that, but what I'm focused on in the book is cruelty as a part of American politics, specifically the way that it is used to demonize certain groups so you can justify denying people their basic rights under the Constitution and exclude them from the political process.

Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, gave a speech in office declaring the black man is not equal to the white man and deserves to be a slave. But after the Civil War he wrote in his journal that slavery had nothing to do with the war. The most racist people tell themselves that their views aren’t racist. People still do that.

What I mean by cruelty is specifically the demonization of particular groups in order to deny them rights or exclude them from the polity. It's one thing to say that we're not going to allow in people on the basis of religion. It's another thing entirely to say that we are going to shatter families deliberately because we want to dissuade people from trying to come to the United States for a better life. We're always going to have disagreements in a democracy. That's what democracy is for. It's for reconciling disagreements. But what is not necessary is a politics where one side is trying to disenfranchise or exclude the other party's voters in order to maintain a grip on power. And that's what I mean when I talk about cruelty on a political level. ... The politics of cruelty that Trump's employed are a product of a system that encourages a minority of the country to engineer the government so that they are no longer accountable to the public. And Trump's real innovation was showing how much of that the Republican Party can get away with.

Jeff Singer of Kos Elections reviewed the results of the November election through the legislative districts in Michigan. My state is currently highly gerrymandered. Singer showed the GOP advantage by rating all the state House districts by the ratio of the vote for Biden and the nasty guy in the district and comparing that to their ratio in the state overall. Then he looked at the district in the middle. Biden won the state 51% to 48%, yet this middle district went to Biden 47-51. In the much smaller Senate Biden took the median district 44-54. That’s 13 points to the right from the statewide vote. Thankfully, a citizen’s redistricting commission is hard at work to keep this from happening again. I mentioned this next Michigan news briefly in a previous post. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported the Senate Oversight Committee, led by Republicans, issued a report on the 2020 election. Every Republican on the committee supported the report. The key sentence:

There is no evidence presented at this time to prove either significant acts of fraud or that an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity was perpetrated in order to subvert the will of Michigan voters.

Eleveld wrote:

No mass contingent of dead voters, no suspicious 100% precinct turnouts, no supposed ballot dump in Detroit that propelled Joe Biden to victory in the state, which he won by some 150,000 votes or three percentage points. In a separate statement, Oversight Committee Chair state Sen. Ed McBroom said, "We must all remember: 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof' and 'claiming to find something extraordinary requires first eliminating the ordinary.'" McBroom also called Trump's claims "ludicrous" in an interview with Bridge Michigan and said there's "good reason" to believe the conspiracy pushers were "purposely defrauding people."

Some party member are still pushing for a fraudit in Michigan. Others are concerned that obsessing over the 2020 election will alienate suburban voters in 2022 and 2024. Even with this report – supported by Republicans – the party is still pushing for new voter suppression laws. There are photos defining the character of Mrs. Nasty Guy. I don’t need to share them. SemDem of the Kos community believes a photo from a tweet by Kate Bennett defines the character of the current First Lady Dr. Jill Biden. A middle school student is nervous about getting a vaccination and Dr. Biden is there to hold his hands and shield his eyes from the jab. I’ve missed having a compassionate First Lady. A few weeks ago I heard on Canadian radio about a piece of music titled Considering Matthew Shepard. Yeah, this is about the young man, back in 1998, who was badly beaten and tied to a fence in Laramie, Wyoming. His murder caught national and world wide attention. The latest issue of Between the Lines, Michigan’s LGBTQ newspaper, had a list of five queer things one can do. The University Musical Society in Ann Arbor would stream their Pride offerings into July. This piece of music was one of them. Today I got onto the UMS site and saw this work would only be streamed through tomorrow. Glad I checked. I guess I’m watching this evening. Considering Matthew Shepard was written by Craig Hella Johnson for his thirty member vocal ensemble Conspirare. He played the piano and there were another eight or so instruments. The piece was first performed in 2018. It is about 90 minutes. Through the piece we hear from Matt (excerpts from his journal) and his parents, from the fence that held him up, from the killers, from Fred Phelps (remember him?) and his Westboro Baptist Church, and from the community. The performance included images projected behind the singers. What I saw this evening was, alas, not the whole piece. This video is an hour. In addition to the performance there were scenes of early rehearsals and performances, discussions by the composer, Judy Shepard, and others, and news clips of the events of the time and of related events since then, such as Obama signing the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, and the Pulse massacre in Orlando. I now wonder if I can see a video of the whole piece without the commentary. I would like to see and hear more than what was a part of this documentary. I hope I don’t have to wait for a local choir to take it on.

Election infrastructure

It’s been a while since I watched a free opera on Met Opera’s free streaming service that’s been running since the start of the pandemic. They are showing either operas I’m not interested in or in operas they’ve already shown and I’ve seen. Last night they showed one of interest I hadn’t seen before (though heard on the radio about a month ago). The opera is Billy Budd by Benjamin Britten. It is based on a short novel by Herman Melville. The story takes place on an English military ship in 1797 looking to do battle with the French. With that setting all of the singers and characters on stage are men (with a few boys). Gay that I am I much prefer listening to men’s voices, the deeper the better, than women’s. So that aspect was a treat. The ship is led by Captain Vere, well respected by the men. The master at arms in John Claggart, not respected at all. Budd is a newcomer on board, having been press-ganged into service. No matter to him because he considers himself a seaman and one ship is as good as another. Budd is well liked by the other men and the captain. But Budd’s handsomeness and goodness annoy Claggart, who is soon plotting ways of getting rid of Budd. The story is told with a prologue and epilogue by Vere looking back at the incident. He is anguished, even years later, because he could have saved Budd ... and didn’t. Britten was gay and his life partner was tenor Peter Pears. Many important tenor roles in Britten’s operas were written with Pears in mind (Pears played Vere in the premier). Britten was English and also a pacifist during WWII. Critics have noted that a recurring theme in Britten operas is “an isolated individual at odds with a hostile society,” as Wikipedia puts it. That very much describes Peter Grimes, the other Britten opera I watched in the last year. Critics and commentators are less decided on whether Britten tended towards that theme because of his own pacifism and gayness. A look at COVID data in Michigan based on Friday’s numbers shows that in the week before last the peak of new cases per day was raised from 184 to 190. The peak this past week was 136. Things are looking good! At least in Michigan. As for the rest of the country and the world, Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported the Delta variant of the virus, along with a new “Delta Plus” variant, are spreading quickly. These variants are also infecting and causing illness in people who have already been infected. Those who have been vaccinated with both shots are still protected, though maybe not quite as well as with the other variants. Because of this reinfection those who claim they don’t need to be vaccinate because they’ve already had COVID have lost their excuse. All this means the virus is spreading much more readily, but only among the unvaccinated. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said this week, “nearly every death, especially among adults, due to COVID-19, is, at this point, entirely preventable.” The faster we’re all vaccinated the greater chance of avoiding a variant that can elude the vaccine. A bit of solace. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that a Monmouth University poll found that 57% of Americans view fraudits (like the one going on in Arizona) as “partisan efforts to undermine valid election results.” A third of respondents saw them as legitimate efforts to find voting irregularities. 40% say the effort will weaken democracy, 20% say they will strengthen it. But on to the scary. Mark Sumner reported that Pearson Sharp of One America News Network said a lot in a minute. He repeated the claim the election was stolen. Then he called for the execution of tens of thousands of Americans over fake voter fraud claims. Sumner wrote:

At no point is there even a suggestion that the election might not have been stolen. Neither does he pause for a second to ponder how a conspiracy as large as the one he posits wasn’t easily revealed. And naturally, in reeling off a list of states where he contends that “audits” are sure to uncover problems, he ticks off Michigan despite the fact that a Republican-led commission there has concluded that it found no evidence of election fraud. As might be expected, this particular little speech is being met with great excitement on right-wing social media and chat rooms. Just as on OAN, no one is questioning the idea that a massive unseen conspiracy denied Trump another chance to keep not delivering on vaccines, or any of the other things he promised. They’re moving on to celebrating the idea that OAN must be aware something big is coming. They’re excited about getting to see those mass executions. They’re hoping that they come soon, soon, soon. And they’re all speculating about the best—meaning the most painful and humiliating—ways to kill tens of thousands of their fellow Americans. Or maybe just skipping anything that formal and simply nuking the parts of the nation they don’t like. This is where they live. This is what they’re stewing in. Both online and off, “conservatives” are being told that their countrymen are psycho commie traitors who deserve only death.

Biden got an infrastructure deal with Republicans. Joan McCarter of Kos supplied more, though there are a lot of details of the plan yet to work out. Yeah, we need infrastructure spending. However, there are some things in this bill that are not good. It is less than half of what Biden originally proposed. It cuts pandemic relief unemployment insurance and other programs. It requires raising state and local taxes to invest in broadband. It includes selling public assets to private companies so they can charge us for what should be public things – such as putting toll booths on bridges. On the good side Biden demanded that he won’t sign this bill unless there was a companion bill to cover the rest of what he originally proposed, even if that companion was passed only by Democrats. That bill would include climate infrastructure and care infrastructure. There were apparently two hours between the time Biden stood with a bunch of senators to announce the deal and the time Biden held a press conference to say the deal needs to be accompanied by a Democrat only bill. On a second post McCarter reported that predictably, Moscow Mitch declared that in those two hours Biden caved to an ultimatum from his left-wing base. Mitch said Biden is not serious about a bipartisan outcome. A couple other Republican senators did the hissy-fit thing, declaring they won’t vote for the bipartisan bill. Bill Scher tweeted:

If McConnell is trying to sink the deal, here's his problem: If he pressures the Group of 21 Rs to abandon it, then that frees up Manchin, Sinema etc to do the whole thing by reconciliation anyway. So infrastructure still happens, just without Rs getting any credit.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted a few sources on the topic. First, from Grist, on Biden promising the bipartisan bill and the Democrat only bill must be linked.

That means that Democratic leadership will attempt to shepherd a bipartisan bill through Congress, a massive feat in its own right, along with a budget reconciliation bill, which will require some serious herding of moderate cats in the Senate, with the aim of bringing both bills to a vote soon. Talk about a moonshot plan.

A tweet from Sahil Kapur:

For a number of Republicans, the explicit attraction of a physical infrastructure deal was to tank a separate multi-trillion Democrats-only bill. Biden + Dems building a credible structure to link the two is naturally upsetting to that camp.

Adam Jentleson tweeted:

The thing about the past 48 hours is that neither side can hide their strategy anymore. Dems’ strategy is to pass two bills. Republicans’ strategy is to use the bipartisan bill to kill the reconciliation bill. Everyone’s cards are on the table. Now it’s just a matter of who wins.

And Dworkin quoted a tweet by Mark Murray:

The 3 ways Biden's bipartisan + reconciliation vehicles could get derailed: 1. Conservatives revolt (which we're already starting to see). 2. Dem unity unravels. 3. The great unknown: Can Dems hold on to their fragile majorities thru the fall?

In this case I see the Republican point – from their perspective why support a bipartisan bill if Democrats are going to pass all the other stuff on their own? I also understand Biden – he had to try, and do so quite visibly, to get Sen. Joe Manchin to see how futile it was to try to negotiate with Republicans. So, yeah, lets lay the bipartisan attempt aside – along with all the stuff of swiping money already designated for relief and giving assets away to the rich. John Stoehr and his Editorial Board tweeted:

In response to a question Wednesday from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on what the Democrats were going to do after the Republicans blocked consideration of a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s voting laws—basically, Maddow was asking, “What are you going to do to save democracy?”— the Democratic senator from Minnesota said, “We can include election infrastructure in there.” By “election infrastructure,” she meant a sweeping overhaul of election laws. By “in there,” she meant in the second of two infrastructure packages the Democrats can pass w/o Republicans. And with that, the Democrats can save democracy while leaving the filibuster untouched. ... It would make a lot of sense for Joe Biden to stuff the For the People Act, or some variation of it, into that second “human infrastructure” package and do so in the name of national security.

Dworkin has one more tweet to share. I had written that the Catholic Bishops in America had started the process of denying communion to politicians who supported a woman’s right to choose. The denial is clearly aimed at Biden. Anthea Butler tweeted, with a link to a story in the Washington Post:

After controversy, U.S. Catholic bishops say there will be ‘no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians’.

Jennifer Bendery, a politics reporter for Huff Post tweeted:

Biden quietly hit a milestone yesterday: He's confirmed more lifetime federal judges than any president has done in 50+ years by this point in their first six months in office. It's still very early in his presidency. We're not talking huge #s yet. But. Biden has confirmed 7 lifetime federal judges so far. By this point in their first 6 mos, his predecessors had.... Trump: 2 Obama: 0 GWB: 0 Clinton: 0 GHWB: 4 Reagan: 0 Carter: 4 Ford: N/A Nixon: 7

Bendery cautions us: this rate does not mean Biden will surpass the massive number of judges nominated by the nasty guy (actually by the Federalist Society) and confirmed by Moscow Mitch in the last four years. It does mean Biden and Senate Dems are not wasting time. Albert Kim of Vancouver tweeted something that could apply to many cities (then reported the tweet went viral):

In times like this, it's worth thinking about how our city is designed - why can't I freaking sit down anywhere - in the shade - where are the public washrooms - where can I get water if I'm thirsty - without paying - why do I have to breathe car exhaust everywhere

Michael Harriot tweeted about Critical Race Theory:

I’m not really concerned about the stupid backlash to CRT, “wokeness,” or reverse racism… I just find it interesting that their worst fear is the horrific possibility of innocent little white kids being subjected to THE EXACT SAME THING their schools do to Black kids every day.

My friend and debate partner has taught me that correlation is not the same as causation. Even though the measurements of two things move together (correlation) does not mean one caused the other. Oded Rechavi of Tel Aviv University tweeted a photo that explains this situation. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included some quotes appropriate for Pride Month:

I was born of heterosexual parents. I was taught by heterosexual teachers in a fiercely heterosexual society. Television ads and newspaper ads [were] fiercely heterosexual. A society that puts down homosexuality. And why am I a homosexual if I’m affected by role models? I should have been a heterosexual. And no offense meant, but if teachers are going to affect you as role models there would be a lot of nuns running around the streets today. —Harvey Milk If homosexuality is a disease, let's all call in queer to work: Hello? Can't work today. Still queer. —Robin Tyler

Two quite different definitions of democracy

Carolyn Fiddler of Daily Kos reported the highlights of a new Kos/Civiqs poll. It says 87% of those polled are worried the US is becoming less of a democracy. A couple other things in the poll: 52% say transgender youth should get health care that supports their gender identity. 56% recognize people of color face discrimination based on race. 54% of Republicans say white people are treated unfairly because of race. Kerry Eleveld of Kos also looked at the results of the poll, in particular the other questions about democracy. Should America remain a democracy? 93% agree. Are the new voting laws passed by Republicans an attack on democracy or to protect it? 44% say protect, 50% say attack. Are the new voting laws proposed by Democrats an attack on democracy or to protect it? 46% say protect, 43% say attack. We recognize democracy is in trouble, but we’re almost evenly split on what to do about it. One aspect Eleveld didn’t mention is this shows there are two quite different definitions of democracy. Charles Blow wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times and Dartagnan of Kos discussed it. Dartagnan summarized it as advice for Democrats:

Forget about any ideals of compromise with the Republican Party. It has become utterly irredeemable, a wholly un-American juggernaut with one goal in mind: to suppress and eliminate the voice of the American people in running the government that controls their lives. ... As long as Trump and his ilk continue to be the model and template for Republicans and party leadership, and as long as Republicans continue to kneel and pledge their fealty to his disgrace, there can be no cooperation, no compromise with them, ever. On anything. That may be a hard pill to swallow for some, but it’s the truth all Democrats need to live by, for now, and for the foreseeable future.

Mark Sumner of Kos looked at a few countries with high vaccination rates. Some, like America, have seen a dramatic drop in COVID cases, down to a case rate of 248 per 100K. In others, like Uruguay, the virus is still raging. It has a case rate of 4000 per 100K. The difference is that Uruguay has been using Sinovac, made by China. This vaccine does not do well against variants of the virus, especially the delta variant, which is much more transmissible and much more deadly. Uruguay used it because China made its version widely available at little cost. The US vaccine production has been locked up by wealthy countries and costs more. So Uruguay didn’t have much choice. It’s great that the US and other G7 countries have made a billion doses available. Alas, that’s 4 billion short of what’s needed. I like the early afternoon program on CBC Music. That stands for Canadian Broadcast Corporation (hearing this is an advantage of living in Detroit, so close to Windsor). The host, Tom Allen, has a much more interesting and humorous take on classical music than the hosts on the classical station in Detroit. So I hear the five minute hourly news a couple times each weekday. Over the last couple days the news has been about finding another field of hundreds of unmarked graves on a residential school property. One was found just a few weeks ago. These residential schools were where First Nation (their word for native) children were sent to have their culture drummed out of them, to make them think and act more white. That’s as horrific as it sounds. Leah McElrath, who advocates for human rights around the world, linked to a column about the current find in the National Post. Then she added:

I keep thinking, “There are no words.” But there are: Child abuse. Ethnic cleansing. Genocide. Among others, like heartbreaking.

Then McElrath quoted Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, a member of Parliament from Nunavut, showing a map of these residential schools. I count about 100 of them. Qaqqaq wrote:

This is a map of every residential "school" site in Canada. Every dot is a crime scene. Only a few have been investigated so far. Canada, do not get used to these numbers. Do not let them become statistics. Put yourselves in the shoes of these children in the ground.

Qaqqaq added that the map is incomplete. It doesn’t show schools in Newfoundland & Labrador because that was not part of Canada at the time the schools were started. The map also doesn’t show day schools. Canada is coming to understand what they did. Similar schools were set up in the US. We’re ignoring what we did.

A decaying bridge tells everyone that "government" is incompetent

I bought my desk in the early 1990s. I bought this particular model because it was designed to hold a computer. It’s a rolltop model, though I haven’t been able to lower that top practically since I bought it. When I say it is designed for a computer I mean: * Cubby drawers designed for computer storage: 5.25” floppies and 3.5” diskettes. * A ventilated area for the pizza box shaped computer. * A central bay for the cathode ray tube monitor. * Pull out side boards with inset mouse pads designed for good traction against the ball in the mouse. * A place for the printer that can be closed away. * A built in surge protector with switches for the various components. * A pull out tray for the keyboard. As for all those great features: * I threw out the last of my floppies and diskettes 20 years ago and my current computer doesn’t have a way to read them. The previous computer probably didn’t either * Computers are no longer designed into pizza box shaped packages so the computer tower takes up space in the knee hole, as does the internet modem. * Neither of my two flat-screen monitors fit into the monitor bay. * The mouse doesn’t have a ball. It has a laser. And it has a hard time with the nearly featureless mousepad, though it did reasonably well on the wood grain around the pad. There just isn’t enough of that. * The printer doesn’t fit into the place designed for it. * Routing wires up to the surge protector is difficult so I have a second surge protector on the floor plugged into the first one, which has a switch I can reach. A second surge protector was easier to handle than several extension chords. * I do have the keyboard on the tray designed for it, though that is about the only thing I use as intended. In spite of all that it’s a beautiful piece of furniture. I got tired of the mousepad problems so went out yesterday and got a new one. It is quite thin so I easily laid it over the built in one (though not quite the same size). The cursor on the screen does a better job of following the mouse, so the new pad is worth the $10. Alas, it is more slick, so clicking on a mouse button sometimes also moves the mouse. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported on election situation in Alabama. The Republicans there have already passed their voter suppression laws and included a provision that the local GOP officials can overturn results they don’t like. Some of those local GOP officials are already acting by ousting election board officials they believe will be troublesome. One of those is Lonnie Hollis, a black woman on the Troup County election board. One troublesome thing she did in the 2020 election was to open a polling place in a black church. Yes, Democrats and democracy advocates are alarmed. Hunter of Kos discussed a New York Times story about the spectacular mismanagement of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the nasty guy. Ben Carson was the head of HUD, surely chosen because he knew nothing of the subject. That left party hacks in charge who made sure HUD did very little. Marcia Fudge, the current head of HUD will need a long time to set the organization back to doing what it should. Though the nasty guy oversaw HUD (more accurately, didn’t oversee), the emphasis on dysfunctional government started way before he took over the Oval Office. Wrote Hunter:

The demand that government be defunded, destaffed, broken up, its tasks given to for-profit corporate enterprises and the withheld funds be distributed to the wealthy, has been the Republican demand for, at this point, decades. It is the reason there has never been a serious Republican health care reform proposal, even as the party swore up and down it was inches from having one. It is the reason that Republicans are, as we speak, demanding a continued defunding of national infrastructure, even during crisis. If the roads are paved, citizens will be happy with government. If the United States gets the sort of mass transit options or high-speed internet access that citizens in other nations take for granted, Americans will like it. A decaying bridge is a signal to all that "government," in whole, is incompetent. Nobody's going to agree to privatize every road and highway in America, putting up toll booths and letting a future Amazon of infrastructure decide where you can go and how much it will cost you to get there, if things are going well.

A few days ago I mentioned that someone started pushing the idea that if the Republicans take over the House in 2022 the nasty guy could be named Speaker. Kos of Kos reported someone mentioned that to the nasty guy and he declared it “very interesting.” However, since then he has mentioned the idea to Kevin McCarthy many times. McCarthy is the current House Minority Leader, the guy who would normally be Speaker if Republicans regained the House. Kos wrote:

As mentioned in my last piece, the conservative fantasy is that Trump takes the job for 100 days, impeaches Joe Biden just because, and then quits to run for president. Does it make sense? No. Would Trump ever actually do any work? No. Would he get his shit together in 100 days to actually accomplish anything? No. Would anything even remotely looking like “policy” happen in that time? No. All this points to the conservative inability to quit Trump.

Kos then discussed another aspect. There are many nasty guy supporters who have voted only when the nasty guy is actually on the ballot (they didn’t show up in 2017, 2018, and 2019). Perhaps this is a way to imply he’s on the ballot without him running for anything.

Meanwhile, could McCarthy look any more pathetic? He could’ve ditched the Trump albatross after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Now he’s sitting there looking like a chump as Trump tells him—repeatedly—that he wants his job.

Two weeks ago I wrote about a cartogram that stretched state boundaries to show senators per million people in the state. I recently went looking for other interesting cartograms and found some in World Mapper. Of interest are two on this page. The first shows the size of a country based on its CO2 emissions with the color of the country based on emissions per capita. China is the largest in emissions, but America, also large, is highest in emissions per capita – America’s per capita emissions is twice China’s. Also large are India (though low in per capita) and Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Africa has been shrunk down to almost nothing except for South Africa and the countries along the Mediterranean. South America is pretty small. Europe is rather large with Germany the largest. Two more maps show emissions increase 1990-2015 and decrease in the same time. In the increase map China is huge, India is large, as is the Middle East. In the decrease map the largest area is Europe, especially Ukraine and other Soviet satellites. In this case the cause of decline is the fall of the Soviet Union and the halting of the most polluting industries. Another World Mapper cartogram of interest shows the spread of COVID. It’s in two parts, the first has a link to the second. The first shows the case map in April and July 2020, the second shows cumulative cases as of Jan 1, 2021. The second part also has an animation of the day by day spread over all of 2020. Of course, at the beginning China is huge. But soon Europe and America bloom in size. World Mapper has over 1100 cartograms on a variety of subjects. Under economy I saw cartograms for wealth in the year 1500 and distribution of McDonald’s Restaurants (very few in Africa). Ibram X. Kendi wrote the book Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. I have the book, though I haven’t read it yet. Kendi spoke with NPR host Steve Inskeep about the Republican assault on teaching about race. They also talked about his latest book Stamped for Kids, a youth version of the book. Then Kendi listed six books about race appropriate for children and young adults. I’ll have to add a few to my list of books to buy. Sravya Tadepalli, writing for Kos Prism discussed the importance of reflective and inclusive literature in school classrooms. Most books taught in English and literature classes are written about white men and feature white men. A few are written by white women. Students today think many are outdated and dull. It would be so much better if there was also literature by a variety of people of color. The benefit of such books include: If the book is about the culture of a person of color the student is much more invested in the story and that boosts reading comprehension. These students are usually behind in literacy That also boosts understanding of English when it is a second language. And, of course, the white students gain an understanding what their peers are going through. Though quite helpful a diversity of authors in a classroom does not solve problems caused by school segregation, disparities in school discipline, and insufficient school funding.

Expressly to hurt him

I stopped in at my friendly neighborhood bookstore (actually, no “neighborhood” bookstores, this is a national chain with a good selection and isn’t Amazon). Because we’re in Pride Month there was a table of LGBTQ books. I was surprised to see two books with a similar theme: the gay crown prince of England falls for an American. There is one difference – in one the American is the son of a female American president. Obviously, this is fiction – I’m pretty sure Prince Charles (age 72) and Prince William are straight. I bought one of them – the one where the American is not the President’s son. When I got home I looked them up online. The other one has a higher user rating. If this one is any good I may tell you about it. Sometime. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos discussed a report from the New York Times on Amazon’s employment practices. One aspect is the turnover (percent of employees who leave in a year) at one of Amazon’s fulfillment centers is 150%. Which means the staff is completely replaced about every eight months. This high turnover is intentional. Another aspect is these frontline workers have little hope for advancement into management. Part of that is the huge number of workers assigned to each manager, where most of the managing is done through surveillance and computers (just try to actually talk to your boss). Another part is managers are hired straight out of college without frontline knowledge. Why is this intentional? First is Jeff Bezos’ contempt for workers. Second, Bezos wants to prevent longtime workers from becoming stagnant, more devoted to the process than the result. Third, it keeps the workers from organizing a union. The downside is that some of these fulfillment centers in remote towns have already burned through the local labor pool and new workers need to be bused in. Bezos funded the creation of a space plane that will take people (those who can afford a ticket) to the edge of space for a short time (likely much less than an hour). If I was going to spend that kind of money (which I don’t have) I would want to at least orbit the earth a few times. I mention this because Bezos will be on the first passenger flight next month. And there’s a petition with lots of names asking the pilot to not let Bezos back to earth. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken a step closer to denying communion to politicians who support a women’s rights. Denying communion isn’t as bad as expulsion. The official denial will likely happen a year from now – for maximum impact in the 2022 election. This is clearly aimed at Joe Biden, only the second Catholic president. It is also in defiance of what the Pope has said. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the issue, writing:

Joe Biden is not just a member of the Catholic church, he is someone for whom that identity as a Catholic, is a lynchpin. It’s not just his history, it’s his core. Saying that Biden “goes to church regularly” is deeply underselling the extent to which he has committed himself to his faith all his life.

Being denied communion would hurt Biden deeply. Which appears to be the point. Sumner also discussed the effect this decision would have on the church, both Catholic and other denominations. The latest poll shows that only 47% of Americans claim church membership – it was at 70% just 20 years ago. This action would drive the number lower, in general, but also within the Catholic Church where a majority disagree with the Bishop’s stance on women’s choice.

The bishops have no illusion that their actions will cause President Biden to revise his position around abortion. They’re doing this expressly to hurt him. Yes, they’re doing it to harm Democrat’s chances politically, but even more they’re taking this action to hurt Joe Biden deeply, personally, where he lives. In both of these things, they may succeed. And then they will cherish how intensely they have caused harm to a good Catholic, and to many other good women and good men, and feel themselves justified. They will clutch that feeling to themselves and feel warmed by it. Because 74% of American bishops demonstrated conclusively that the most important feature of their position, is the ability to act out of spite for their own satisfaction—no matter who it harms, or what damage it does to the church. ... And the next Gallup poll will show that membership has dropped. Again. And Gallup will talk about how younger people just don’t have the commitment to church. Again. And the bishops will have a conference and figure out who needs to be hurt next time.

Lea McElrath tweeted:

To be clear: It’s the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops taking this action, and they’re doing so against the directive of the Vatican. This is about the continuing development of American theocracy in particular.

NPR is doing a series on Climate Change in Cleveland. Biden has been talking not just about the environment, but environmental justice. NPR went there because the city s actually doing something about it. In yesterday’s segment host Dan Charles talked to several people, starting with Matt Gray, former chief of sustainability. He is now senior vice president at Student Conservation Association, which runs environmental volunteer programs. The audio is 5 minutes. The written article seems to be much more than a transcript. And it has pictures. Gray said that many are realizing that climate action and climate justice are the same thing. The poor are most affected by climate change and helping the poor will go a long way of reducing carbon use. A big reason for that is poor people in old homes can’t afford to insulate or switch to a more efficient furnace and appliances. Homes produce about a fifth of greenhouse emissions. Helping with that also helps health (less asthma and less lead poisoning, for example) and lowers energy bills. A big aspect of the Cleveland plan is asking the residents what they need. Two of the answers that came back were better public transport and more trees to provide shade. Cleveland has done a lot even without state funding – Ohio is GOP controlled. The city is hoping the infrastructure package with its promise of retrofitting five million homes will send a lot of money their way. Today’s installment of Cleveland and Climate Change featured renovation to Flora Dillard’s home. An existing program paid for insulation and a new furnace. Dillard got it because she heard about it and applied. The whole process would be better if the residents didn’t have to apply. The current system relies on residents finding out and stepping forward. A better way is for the city, nicely funded by the federal government, to come to them. Noel King of NPR spoke to Jim Buzinski of Outsports about Carl Nassib of the Las Vegas Raiders football team announcing he is gay. Nassib has gotten a lot of support from his teammates, the league, and fans. Nassib is the first current NFL player to come out as gay. Before now players waited until after they left the game. Or they were like Michael Sam in 2014 who came out before the draft and never actually made a team and never played an NFL game.

A proposal for voting reform

Last evening I watched the movie Truman and Tennessee, an Intimate Conversation. It is a documentary about author Truman Capote and playwright Tennessee Williams. Both were gay. They were friends, though with some low spots, and they challenged each other towards better writing. Capote is best known for Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. His books are still being read. Williams’ major plays are The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and The Night of the Iguana. His plays are still being produced. The material presented included interviews by David Frost and Dick Cavett and a few others. In addition, Jim Parsons provided the voice for some of Capote’s writings and Zachary Quinto did the same for Williams’ writings. There were also clips from movies made from Williams’ plays and Capote’s books. Most of the movies of Williams’ plays were made during the era of censorship. The censors frequently wanted the ending revised to be a bit more upbeat. So Williams suggested watching all but the last five minutes. The movie discusses the love life of both men, including some of their lovers. Some of the lighter moments were the two men talking about the nature of friendship and love with Frost and Cavett. I enjoyed the movie. However, I was quickly annoyed with the frequent use of overlaying two images, usually two nature scenes or a nature scene with a photo of one of the men. There are many lovely nature images in the movie, but I didn’t need two together or a photo made less understandable because of the overlay. Last night I finished an epic book. It is The Bruce Trilogy by Nigel Tranter. It is a novelization of history in three books under one cover for a total of over a thousand pages. The story is about the adult life of Robert Bruce, King of the Scots (the people, not the land). It begins in 1296 when King Edward of England humiliates King John Baliol. Edward had stepped in just four years before when the Scots throne became vacant and Edward led the process to sort through the various claimants, including Bruce’s grandfather, and to jigger things to make the Scots King beholden to him. So the Scots throne is vacant again. And Bruce is becoming quite annoyed with Edward’s cruelty. We follow Bruce as he claims the throne for himself, then unite the clans and drive the English out, then work to keep them out and get a peace treaty. Through it all Bruce developed into a quite good military tactician, able to force his enemies to fight on his terms, where his soldiers had the advantage. I’m sure the author created the dialogue. The rest of the story seems accurate – at least from what I can tell from various websites on the history of the area. I ended up learning a lot of Scots history, including the series of Scots kings who inherited the throne so young a regent was needed. That began with Robert’s son David. I bought the book 30 years ago when I lived in Germany and had business trips to England, with personal trips to Scotland. Yeah, it sat on the shelf for 30 years, partly because it wasn’t on the yet to read shelf. Also, because a thousand pages is enough to make one ponder do I really want to start that now? It took me five weeks to read and I enjoyed it. William Wallace is a character in the first of the three parts. According to the book the movie Braveheart and Mel Gibson got one thing wrong – Wallace is described as six foot six, or almost two meters. Gibson isn’t that. Alas, there was also a discrepancy between the book and its cover. The text describes Bruce as having auburn hair. The guy on the cover has black hair. Stephen Wolf of Daily Kos Elections wrote about a welcome development. For the last half year Sen. Joe Manchin has been known for being the key vote in the Senate. If Joe doesn’t like a bill it won’t get far. And Joe had said he didn’t like the voter rights bill, the For the People Act, also known has HR 1 and S 1. The welcome development is that Manchin has put out a proposal of the parts of the bill he does like – mandated early voting, ban partisan gerrymandering, voter registration with driver license renewal, prepaid postage for absentee ballots, require disclosure of dark campaign money, and a few more. Manchin has a few disagreements with S 1, the most controversial is that he is for a national voter ID requirement. That is already one of the widely used methods of voter suppression because poor people, usually minorities, have a harder time getting an ID. But this could be a worthwhile compromise if it blocks gerrymandering, the other widely used method of suppression. The ID requirement could prompt creating a free and widely available national ID card. Kerry Eleveld of Kos took up the story. Manchin’s proposal got the endorsement of Stacy Abrams, the Georgia voting rights activist. That prompted the Senate GOP close ranks against it and for Moscow Mitch to mock Manchin’s work as “Stacy Abrams Substitute” and declare all Senate Republicans would oppose it. So ... Will Manchin’s investment in this effort prompt him to repeal the filibuster, if only for this bill? Considering the bill to investigate the Capitol attack was voted down and the infrastructure bill is struggling, maybe Manchin is getting the message there will never be ten GOP senators on anything of substance. Manchin has said voting reform bills won’t work if they’re not bipartisan, no matter how desperately they’re needed. Alas, he’s right. If his reforms get zero GOP votes the GOP base will assume the provisions are another way of stealing the vote. And Moscow Mitch has already started the work of making sure the base makes that assumption. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted a bit of an article by Ian Millhiser on Vox that explains Manchin’s proposal. Then Dworkin quoted a Millhiser tweet:

One thing I learned from reading Joe Manchin's new voting rights proposals is that he is really smart and has excellent staff. This is a really granular set of proposals. I rarely encounter lawmakers who bother to learn an issue at this deep of a level.

After all this time of railing against and dismissing Manchin, that’s interesting! Dworkin also quoted a tweet by Nicholas Grossman:

Repeating the truth about January 6 is tedious, even exhausting. But the people lying about, downplaying, defending, and apologizing for it appear inexhaustible. So the choices are (1) keep repeating the truth, shooting down lies and conspiracy theories, or (2) conceding to them.

Heroes, of course, require enemies

David Neiwert of Daily Kos discussed the need of the GOP to use Critical Race Theory to fabricate an enemy. He began:

The modern American right is preoccupied with being viewed as heroic, in particular with its self-conception as savior of the republic. Heroes, of course, require enemies. So throughout postwar history, right-wing ideologues have specialized in concocting them, supposedly dire existential threats to the nation spun into whole cloth out of tidbits of half-fact: Communists, Satanic occultists, New World Order overlords, cultural Marxists, antifa, Black radicals, adrenochrome-harvesting pedophilia rings—all have had their turns as right-wing bogeymen. The latest is critical race theory (CRT), which seems to have appeared out of nowhere as the latest great threat to America.

The emphasis on this particular bogeyman appears to come from Christopher Rufo, in contact with dark money organizations and with a history of promoting these kinds of theories. Neiwert discussed several state legislatures who are talking about or have enacted laws to ban CRT (without naming it which, of course, leads to wide interpretation).

Even some of the participants are surprisingly upfront about the dynamic at work here: At the end of the day, it’s a way to whip up the voting base by hijacking their amygdalas, whipping the footsoldiers into line and into a froth—all for the sake of making a buck and a media rep.

At one point Rufo tweeted:

We have successfully frozen their brand—"critical race theory”—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category. The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think “critical race theory.” We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.

Translation: they are redefining the term to make it something vile in the public mind. Alex Shephard of The New Republic explained:

The fact that critical race theory is always so hazily defined—and also so completely malevolent—makes it the perfect catch-all malefactor for a culture-war-obsessed right that’s desperate to end conversations around corrupt policing and structural racism. It is everywhere and nowhere at once; a spectral threat forever lurking in the shadows that’s just nonexistent enough to ensure that it can never be defeated.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported there is a new book out titled Close to Zero, by Jonathan Vankin. The title comes from a comment by the nasty guy early in the pandemic: “You have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” Vankin lays out and documents a few important things. The nasty guy underplayed the severity of the virus. Then he sabotaged the government response. As a result 400,000 Americans, according to some studies, would not have died if the government had acted like other governments had during the crisis. Officially we’ve just passed 600,000 dead. Estimates say the actual death toll is above 900,000. Other questions Vankin delves into: Why was most of the media unwilling to sound the alarm on the crime of the century? Why did Democrats so readily buy into the idea of simple incompetence? Was there a broader purpose behind the nasty guy’s actions? I checked Michigan’s COVID numbers. The peak in cases per day this past week was 184 on Monday (and likely includes weekend counts). The case rate continues to drop. Also on Monday the deaths per day peaked at 16. Hunter of Kos reported that Rep. Thomas Suozzi of New York is proposing a one time wealth tax. Several people, especially Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have been calling for an ongoing wealth tax, but that hasn’t gotten far in the Congressional process. So maybe a one time tax, geared towards paying for infrastructure and recovery costs, has a better chance. The chances may go up with it being called a “patriot tax.” Hunter wrote:

But the branding—now that's spectacular. The Patriot Tax. Whenever you want people to vote against their own self-interests, one of the easiest ways to do it is to claim that only dirty rotten America-haters would refuse to comply. It's the path America regularly uses to clear the way for new wars, for example. Singling out people who have so bled America's now-skeletal middle class as to now own their own islands and intercontinental ballistic missiles as being "unpatriotic" in their greed is not exactly a rhetorical stretch. Of course tax dodgers are unpatriotic. It's self-evident! And every wealthy American alive today has benefited greatly from tax policies specifically crafted to allow them to evade payment.

Kelly Candaele, writing for Capital and Main, a partner of Kos, talked to Morris Pearl and Erica Payne, authors of the book Tax the Rich! How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer. The book got written because of the 2017 tax law that was so beneficial to the rich. A bit from the discussion: Payne said:

The biggest way the rich avoid paying taxes is they get taxed on their capital gains as opposed to their labor. If Morris and I make $100,000 but I make it from working and Morris makes it from investing, I end the year eight or nine thousand dollars poorer than Morris, even though I worked all year long and Morris just pushed a button on his E-Trade account. It’s much more advantageous to make money off of your capital gains than to make money off your labor. So [the U.S.] pretends to embrace the American work ethic but we don’t actually value work.

Payne, discussing incentives for moving plants and facilities outside the US.

It’s in the tax code because Republican donors told them to include it. They are not “America First” Republicans, they are campaign donor first Republicans. The only people the Trump tax plan was positive for were the small number who fund the political campaigns of the people who voted for it.

Pearl added:

The Republican logic was basically, we have to appease rich people or else they will be mean to us. ...

Payne, discussing Democrat governors:

Some of the biggest problems we have with state-based tax codes are in states that are run by Democratic governors. In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis supports lower taxes on rich people. Andrew Cuomo fell over himself to try to prevent progressive taxation from taking hold in New York. Gavin Newsom is not exactly beating the drums for a progressive tax system.

Yeah, that means the rich are buying Democrats too. They also have a well funded campaign about how high taxes on the wealthy are bad for everyone else. Payne listed things he would change in the tax system

First I would equalize ordinary income and capital gains tax rates and inheritance tax income over a million dollars. I would reform the corporate tax code so that companies could not pretend that they do business somewhere other than where they do business. I would implement a minimum global tax like [Secretary of the Treasury] Janet Yellen has been suggesting. I would put in a substantial wealth tax.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported (about ten days ago) that Moscow Mitch blasted Biden’s proposal of a corporate tax hike as “radical.” Eleveld explained the only people who think it is radical are Republican lawmakers. After listing companies, Nike and FedEx, and people, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, who don’t pay any tax, Eleveld got into public opinion. There were 59% of poll respondents who said people or corporations who don’t pay their fare share bothers them a lot. A conclusion is simply raising taxes isn’t enough. That won’t make the tax system more equitable. The tax system must be restructured. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her wealth tax has support from Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Brendan Boyle. This tax has support of 63% of likely voters. So get to it. Jay Rosen tweeted an agreement with an article Timothy Snyder wrote on Substack. Rosen added he didn’t see anything on the horizon to stop it. Snyder wrote:

The scenario then goes like this. The Republicans win back the House and Senate in 2022, in part thanks to voter suppression. The Republican candidate in 2024 loses the popular vote by several million and the electoral vote by the margin of a few states. State legislatures, claiming fraud, alter the electoral count vote. The House and Senate accept that altered count. The losing candidate becomes the president. We no longer have "democratically elected government." And people are angry. No one is seeking to hide that this is the plan. It is right there out in the open. The prospective Republican candidates for 2024, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, are all running on a big lie platform. If your platform is that elections do not work, you are saying that you intend to come to power some other way. The big lie is designed not to win an election, but to discredit one. Any candidate who tells it is alienating most Americans, and preparing a minority for a scenario where fraud is claimed. This is just what Trump tried in 2020, and it led to a coup attempt in January 2021. It will be worse in January 2025.

Sam Brodey of the Daily Beast, wrote that while Sen. Joe Manchin is taking a lot of heat for declaring he wants to keep the filibuster and appearing to block several issues dear to progressives, he’s not alone, he’s not an island. Behind Manchin are several senators quite willing for him to be the heat shield. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema may be the vocal one and rather consistent in wanting what Manchin does. But there are several others – the roster changing with the topic – are content to not have reporters trailing after them. Brodey discussed several of these quiet senators.

Climate change is happening now

The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, was before the Supreme Court for the third time. This time the decision for preserving the law was 7-2, even in a conservative majority court. Perhaps now it is here to stay. Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan, tweeted an explanation of the ruling. The suit was brought by individual plaintiffs saying they were coerced by the individual mandate of the ACA that required them to have health insurance. But a few years ago the GOP in Congress zeroed out the penalty for not having insurance. So the law says you must, but the consequences for disobeying the law are nothing. So, explained Bagley, “they can't be coerced by something that ... doesn't coerce them.” Since they experienced no harm, they have no standing to bring the suit. Case dismissed. Even though Justice Clarence Thomas agrees with the dissent, he still voted to toss the case for lack of standing. Those two dissenting votes were Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch. I’ll let you wade through their reasoning. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Daily Kos, included late night commentary, including one appropriate for the topic.

Today the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare again. The court decided Texas didn’t have standing to sue because nobody was forced to pay a penalty for not getting insurance. Why? Back in 2017 the GOP-controlled Congress passed a bill cutting the individual mandate penalty to zero. The Republicans' previous attempt to kill Obamacare killed this attempt to kill Obamacare. Turns out the GOP is its own worst enemy. Also: everybody else's. —Stephen Colbert

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

Here’s the complete list of all the changes that will outlast Biden’s term and are cause to rejoice that democracy has been protected against the next authoritarian assault: Here’s the complete list all the legislative reforms to protect democracy on which Biden has spent any political capital at all:

The Shaub lists how busy the GOP is in passing voter suppression laws. Leah McElrath tweeted:

Our Democratic leaders appear to view accountability as divisive. Impunity for inciting and collaborating with insurrection, impunity for negligence leading to mass death, impunity for colluding with a foreign enemy to gain office...

Kos of Kos discussed the latest thing being discussed by the GOP: If they retake the House in 2022 they want to declare the nasty guy to be Speaker. According to the Constitution the Speaker does not have to be a member of the House and doesn’t have to be elected to anything. According to one scenario, the nasty guy will serve 100 days, then turn the job over to current Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (yeah, the nasty guy will surely give up power). Then the nasty guy will launch his campaign for the 2024 election. And in those 100 days he’ll impeach Biden. Kos wrote we should encourage this talk. Because over the last four years Democrats turned out to vote to get rid of the nasty guy. And many nasty guy supporters only show up to vote when he is actually on the ballot. The GOP has come up with several alternate lists of who was responsible for the Capitol Attack: It was Antifa. They were really just tourists. Mark Sumner of Kos reported the latest scapegoat: The FBI. You expected this reason to make more sense than any of the others? Sumner also reported that five years after Lake Meade was at record high levels, it is at record lows. Lake Meade is behind Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. The low water is a result of a drought across the West, which, at the moment, is also experiencing record high temperatures. Low water means the dam has a harder time generating electricity for cities across the West, such as nearby Las Vegas. Low water also means irrigation for farming is starting to be cut. Climate change is happening now. Attorney General Merrick Garland has announced a plan to attack the problem of domestic terrorism. David Neiwert of Kos said it is actually quite good. There was fear the plan would call for new laws (which would be used to harass people of color). It doesn’t. Another fear it would be a “war on terror” type of response. It isn’t that either. Instead, it is built around enforcing the laws already on the books, and around removing extremists from law enforcement. We have a new federal holiday! It was passed just in time to celebrate it this year. It is Juneteenth, marking the day the last slaves in Texas were freed. Telushk tweeted:

Juneteenth is not just a holiday about the end of slavery in general, it’s specifically about how white slaveowners lied to preserve slavery even after it had already been abolished for several years. An important detail with lessons for the present.

It’s about a history not told from the perspective of slaveholders

Biden was in Europe this past week talking to leaders of the top democracies and of NATO. Today he talked to Vlad Putin (no discussion of that today). After four years of the nasty guy how are world leaders looking at Biden? Laura Rozen, who reports on foreign policy, tweeted that our allies have doubts, though Biden did pull us out of the pandemic. Sarah Kendzior quoted Rozen, then tweeted:

What message does it send when a govt won’t investigate an attack on its own Capitol by seditionists who now announce their plans for a sequel unimpeded? Or that the former POTUS was a known career criminal who pardoned the criminals who aided him? Who would trust that country? Refusing to enforce accountability isn’t strength. It’s dangerous denial that hurts not only Americans but anyone who deals with the US. Yes, actions speak louder than words — and when it comes to elite criminal impunity and compromised institutions, there’s been little action. Trump and his lackeys treated NATO like a protection racket, threatened foreign officials with violence, blackmailed others, backed the enemies of our allies and the allies of our enemies...and walked free. Why would you trust a successor admin that won’t enforce accountability? The Trump admin was a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government. A bunch of its lackeys are still in office. Others are roaming free with state secrets that could be used to hurt allies. If I were a foreign leader, I’d ask Biden about that ongoing nat sec threat.

Walter Shaub, formerly of the Office of Government Ethics, tweeted:

Lots of folks in the White House & Congress think it's enough to behave better than Tump. They've moved on from worrying about democracy and are spending all their political capital on fixing the roads and pipes. So what can you do? Lose the hero worship and start pounding them.

Republicans are trying to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools. Of course, none of them can define CRT. Or care to understand that CRT is college level stuff. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote the real goal is to keep education racist. Clawson included a tweet from Philip Lewis that includes a couple paragraphs from a textbook approved for 8th grade history. The excerpt talks about a family with 120 slaves. After the war they “lost all their property in slaves” and now had to do field work using freed people who demanded “high wages.” Clawson wrote:

It’s pushback against this kind of history—in which the concerns of a wealthy slaveholder are presented sympathetically while enslaved people are the source of “justified fear” and problematic demands for “high wages”—that Republicans are so worked up about. ... But some teachers say that their colleagues are intimidated by the laws, and that the attacks on “critical race theory,” which no one is actually teaching at the elementary, middle, or high school levels, will have an effect on the teaching of anything about race—exactly as Republicans intend.

Clawson told the story of a teacher who presented Alice Walker, but got so much pushback she won’t next year. Clawson concluded:

That’s the game. It’s not about the legal academic school of critical race theory. It’s about Alice Walker. Or a history not told from the perspective of slaveholders. It’s about keeping white people on top in the teaching of history and literature, and intimidating anyone who would teach anything else.

Joan McCarter of Kos reported several progressive senators are now telling Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, sure, go ahead and try for your bipartisan bill (and good luck with that), but we’re not voting for it unless there is a companion bill that does all the other stuff we need to do, especially climate stuff, that happens without the filibuster. Sen. Tina Smith said the two bills need to be “chained together with a lock that cannot be broken. Alas, since there is a 10 day holiday break in early July and recess through August and half of September, this combination may not be approved before Fall. Though there are calls to cancel recess. Katie Hobbs is the Secretary of State in Arizona. Of the four top statewide offices she’s the only Democrat. She’s been battling the GOP recount and fraudit craziness since November. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported Hobbs has had quite enough of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post (naming Sinema directly). She wants help from Sinema and the rest of Congress to pass voting rights bills as fast as possible. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, has a couple quotes worth repeating. From Tim Miller of Bulwark. Miller said the fraudit in Arizona will conclude soon and it will create a storm. I add that storm will bolster the nasty guy’s claim he will be reinstated in August. And when he isn’t it will bolster the reasons for another government attack. Dworkin quoted Ezra Klein of the New York Times:

What the Rich Don’t Want to Admit About the Poor The American economy runs on poverty, or at least the constant threat of it. Americans like their goods cheap and their services plentiful and the two of them, together, require a sprawling labor force willing to work tough jobs at crummy wages. On the right, the barest glimmer of worker power is treated as a policy emergency, and the whip of poverty, not the lure of higher wages, is the appropriate response.

They way I’ve heard it (and probably wrote a time or two): Unless you are poor you are complicit in oppressing the poor. Ending with a pretty picture here. Click on the photo to see the whole thing.

He said and demonstrated exactly who he is. Believe him.

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos asks the question: Moscow Mitch has repeatedly said and demonstrated exactly who he is. Will Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema believe him this time? The latest evidence of who Mitch is came on Monday when he was on the Hugh Hewitt radio show. This is one of Mitch’s favorite confessionals. Hewitt asked if the GOP gains the Senate majority in 2022 and there is a vacancy in the Supreme Court in 2024 would Mitch approve Biden’s nominee? Mitch already did that to Obama, blocking Merrick Garland from the Supremes. Mitch answered Hewitt, “I think it’s highly unlikely.” Meaning, according to McCarter, definitely not. Hewitt backed the scenario up to 2023. Mitch responded, “Well, we'd have to wait and see what happens.” McCarter said that’s another hard no. “So, yes, if McConnell regains the majority next year, Biden will not be allowed a Supreme Court appointment.” McCarter listed several other things that show who Mitch is. Declaring his purpose is to thwart 100% of Biden’s agenda. Denying Garland so Gorsuch got on the Supremes. Approving Kavanaugh though he’s unqualified. Rushing through Barrett, though she’s unqualified. Is this not court packing? Mitch has no qualms of twisting and tossing Senate rules when that benefits him. Why don’t some Democrats believe Mitch when he has so thoroughly shown who he is and how evil that is? Why aren’t Democrats similarly ruthless? In another post McCarter reported that Biden has given Manchin and Sinema the task of getting ten GOP votes for the infrastructure bill. In the meantime some Democrats, Bernie Sanders is one, who have started working to pass the infrastructure plan through reconciliation where there is no filibuster. Adam Jentleson, who wrote a book about the filibuster, tweeted a thread. First he quoted Sahil Kapur:

The way to understand Mitch McConnell’s actions on blocking Garland in ‘16, to reversing that standard for Barrett in ‘20, to suggesting he’d block Biden in ‘23/‘24: He is betting that Democrats won’t do anything to retaliate when they have power. So far that bet is paying off.

Jentleson added:

For McConnell, the cherry on top is getting to watch Democrats convince ourselves that we're bring super smart and savvy for not wielding our power aggressively.

Autarkh replied, quoting a New York Times opinion:

Actual savvy: "We learned decades ago from economists & game theorists: Once cooperation breaks down, the only play to restore it is tit-for-tat. It’s the only way both sides can learn that neither side wins unless they cooperate."

Jentleson responded:

Yes, this. In another thread I called it Vizzini logic, which might be too nerdy or niche for most. In any event, what Democrats mistake for savvy is often a delusion that they can have it both ways.

Scott Coley, writing for Faith, Philosophy, and Politics, discussed racism and patriarchy as two strands of the same authoritarian theology. He wrote among evangelicals there is overlap between those who embrace patriarchy and those who support slavery and segregation.

The overlap isn’t coincidental: all of these commitments flow from an authoritarian outlook that organizes people into a divinely ordained hierarchy, based largely on innate physical characteristics, and conceives of morality as a matter of obedience to one’s natural superiors. They all hold that God has designed some people to exercise authority, and God has designed others to practice submission to authority. Moral order is achieved when we inhabit our God-ordained place in the hierarchy; and apart from that hierarchy, there is no morality. According to this paradigm, there’s no inconsistency in holding a church gathering that violates public health mandates, and then invoking Romans 13 to admonish those who protest U.S. immigration policy or the rate at which our government kills and imprisons African Americans. The men who embrace this conception of morality don’t even seem to understand the tension: by all appearances, they believe that Romans 13 is addressed to those for whom God has ordained submission—the disenfranchised and dispossessed—not those in authority, like themselves. In their view, laws and public policies that crystalize inequity are evidence of God’s design rather than a consequence of human depravity: systemic inequality is an expression of moral truth rather than a transgression against it. ... Once we’ve embraced the authoritarian’s premise that God has designed some people for dominion and others for submission, the line between gender-based subjugation and race-based subjugation is morally arbitrary. ... Whether it’s organized by race or gender, authoritarian theologians baptize their preferred social hierarchy in biblical proof-texts that they alone have the authority to interpret and deem sufficiently clear to bind the conscience of all believers.

Here is the text of Romans 13, verses 1-2, then verse 8, from the New Living Translation. Verses 1-2 is what is referenced above. Verse 8 is for contrast.

Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. ... Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.

Coley’s writing so very much matches what I’ve been thinking over the last several years. That they have chosen this theology because it supports a social hierarchy. What I read in the Bible, especially the books on the life of Jesus, is loving someone means abolishing the hierarchy. A few days ago I posted that the nasty guy has claimed he’ll be reinstated in August. The failure of that happening could ignite a second government attack. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community adds a little detail on why that might happen. A poll done by Politico/Morning Consult asked how likely the nasty guy will be reinstated (no, they didn’t use those words). Of Republicans, 17% said “very likely” and 12% said “somewhat likely.” There’s a sizable contingent for an attack right there. Pennyfarthing spread the word on an important question that should be asked more frequently with the answer publicized more broadly. There have been a lot of laws passed by the GOP in several states banning transgender girls from participating in girl’s sports. These laws have sections on enforcement. Such as this, about the law in Idaho:

The law includes a provision that allows for anyone to file a claim questioning the sex of an athlete. The adjudication process could lead to sex testing that would allow for genital exams, genetic testing and hormone testing.

That led journalist Oliver Willis to quote a tweet that asks: Why are Republicans in multiple states obsessed with children’s genitals? We should talk about that obsession every time they talk about banning trans kids from doing something. Willis also noted recently a top nasty guy campaign official was imprisoned for pedophilia. Leading Republican Jim Jordan ignored abuse. That all points to a connection to their obsession. Sarah Kendzior tweeted:

The attack on "critical race theory" has little to do with theory and more a fear of: 1) historical accuracy 2) students recognizing a continuous line between atrocities of the US past and present 3) students recognizing parallels between atrocities in the US and other nations When students learn the full scope of history, good and the bad, and that, as Arendt said, most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil -- they may have greater expectations for the present. They may sense their place in history and make a choice.

Judd Legum, a writer for Popular Information, tweeted an introduction to an article on that site:

25 major companies that sponsor Pride parades, and turn their Twitter avatars into rainbows and present themselves as champions of LGBTQ rights have donated more than $10 million to anti-gay politicians in the last two years. We looked at the contributions from corporations that tout their commitment to LGBTQ rights to: Members of Congress with a ZERO rating from @HRC. Sponsors of anti-trans legislation in AR, TN, NC, TX, and FL. The results were not pretty. ... Comcast has been adorning its social media posts with rainbows. One tweet says: "Pride is the love we share. And with Xfinity, it’s Pride all year." But Comcast has donated more than $1.1 million to anti-LGBTQ politicians since 2019. Comcast donated more than $30,000 to the sponsors of anti-trans legislation introduced this year in Florida & Texas. That includes 2K to @VoteRandyFine who has targeted the trans community for years and is quoted in the media misgendering trans people.

The thread ends with a list of the 25 countries and the amount they donated to lawmakers with a zero rating from the Human Rights Campaign and the amount they donated to sponsors of anti-trans legislation. Slapping rainbows on everything is a thing, especially during pride month. But that doesn’t mean the corporation is gay friendly. Leah McElrath tweeted:

I’m witnessing a familiar, troubling dynamic in discussions of the #DeltaVariant of the COVID-19 virus and want to remind people that—when it comes to a pandemic—if you wait until there is evidence of a problem near where you live to implement precautions, it is already too late.

So get vaccinated (I’ve been protected for two months now) and keep wearing your mask indoors. McElrath quoted Cyrus Shahpar, the White House COVID Data Director:

Reminder: it takes 5-6 weeks to reach full immunity after you get your first dose of a two-dose vaccine (assuming you get second dose on time). The delta variant is rapidly spreading, will be the majority of US cases in that time frame. Important to start building protection now.

Gay love in Chile

My Sunday movie last night was The Strong Ones. It is set in southern Chile near the city of Valdivia – about 500 miles south of the capital Santiago. Yes, they spoke Spanish with subtitles in English. Lucas arrives to visit his sister. He meets Antonio who works on a fishing boat and takes part in military reenactments of when the Chileans drove the Spanish out of the local fort. They fall in love. I thought the movie was slow paced. It was also vague. Did Lucas live in Montreal, Canada, or did he just study there and now lives in Santiago? It briefly mentions disapproval of Lucas by his family – have he and they gotten over that? There seems to be difficulty between the sister and her husband, but that is only hinted at. The title (translated from Spanish) says they are strong. In what way? I didn’t see anything that required a great deal of resolve. Antonio is a friend of the sister. After he and Lucas encounter each other a few times Antonio takes Lucas back to the sister’s house. Once the car is stopped Antonio stares at Lucas for a few moments. Then Lucas leans in and suddenly there is passionate kissing. This strikes me as a bit unrealistic – not that I have much experience in these things. I found this movie while looking at the list of LGBT movies on Fandango. It was rated highly by Rotten Tomatoes, though I’ve since figured out the RT rating system is like/don’t and if all reviewers like a movie can get 100%. This is less useful than Metacritic that assigns a rating of 0-100 for each review then averages those together. But Metacritic didn’t rate this one. A little more poking around I see the Spanish title is La Fuertes and Google translates that to powerful, strong, hard, tough, robust, mighty, and intense. It also means Fort – such as the military place where the reenactments are done. There are several forts around the mouth of the Valdivia River. So – the movie title was mistranslated. Instead of implying the men were strong it implies they were keeping something in or out. Alas, the movie was too vague to capitalize on that idea.

Designed to be undemocratic

My friend and debate partner was in debate mode this morning. He objected to a recent post that mentioned population weighted voting for the US Senate. This is an idea that votes by senators in populous states, such as California, should be proportionally worth more than votes by senators from low population states, such as Wyoming. My friend said we should leave the Senate as the Founding Fathers designed it. He agreed we should get rid of the filibuster, which is not a product of our founding documents. Our Founding Fathers discussed and rejected the need for supermajorities, which the filibuster enables. I note the filibuster has a much better chance of being removed than weighted voting has of being enacted (leaving aside whether weighted voting is constitutional or not). However, my friend brought up a bigger point, which I’ll turn into a question. Is the Senate, as designed by our Founding Fathers, undemocratic? That, of course, depends on who you ask. I did a search for “senate is undemocratic” and got a variety of answers (I tend to use duckduckgo these days rather than Google). Conservatives say yes it is democratic. Progressives say no it isn’t. I didn’t read any further than the descriptive blurb that came with each link. Since I am a progressive and have been writing this blog from the progressive viewpoint – and since I highly distrust conservative arguments – I’ll mention a couple reasons why progressives believe the design of the Senate is inherently undemocratic. I’ll start with the basic one. I heard it today, though I didn’t catch where. In a democracy (or representative republic) is Congress supposed to represent the states – or the people? This is important when the Constitution, the founding document, begins “We the People.” I’ve heard (but don’t have sources) that say the Senate was designed to represent states to make sure the number of slave states and free states were evenly matched. That would prevent abolitionists from overturning slavery. This seems likely after all the discussion I’ve heard about the Electoral College being designed to prevent overturning slavery. Though it’s related I’ll leave the EC out of this discussion. Whether or not the Senate was designed to maintain slavery, it was certainly used that way, starting with the Missouri Compromise in 1820. States were loosely entered in pairs, one slave, one free. Representing states equally was likely important when the original thirteen states were separate entities and had little to hold them together. That is no longer important in a country as woven together as this one is – I’m an American who happens to have been born in Ohio and currently lives in Michigan with siblings in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Texas. Also, in the last half century the phrase “state’s rights” has been code for states wanting to maintain racist policies. Back in January Laura Clawson of Daily Kos discussed political scientist Douglas Amy and his website Second Rate Democracy. One item in Amy’s list of undemocratic processes in America is that no other western democracy has a body like our Senate where the 40 million voters in 22 states get 44 Senate seats while the 40 million Californians get two seats. I checked census numbers. The 25 least populous states have about 52 million people. Should they be able to control the laws that govern the other 279 million people in the country? There are several other sources that discuss the imbalance in the Senate. My answer to the question I posed is yes, indeed, the Senate was designed in a way that is undemocratic. Many of those who disagree (certainly not including my friend) benefit from its undemocratic nature and will strive to maintain it.