Blah, blah, blah

I had a nice day in Ann Arbor today. Beautiful weather too. The day included lunch with my friend and debate partner – the emphasis on friend today. Then I wen to the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Through all the decades I’ve lived in Southeast Michigan this is my first time to that museum. What drew me was the exhibit Oh, Honey, a Queer Reading of UMMA’s Collection. It will be there until February 20. A few months ago I saw a gay themed exhibit at the Flint Institute of Arts. The art was interesting but was annoying in how small it was, how few pieces of art. This one was ... smaller. So why are LGBTQ themed art exhibits so small? Also of interest was a room of Western art in which the racist past of several works was explored. For example, one painting is of the son of a wealthy English family. Yeah, rich people commission paintings of themselves and offspring. It is a way of declaring who they are. Towards the end of the description it explains his grandfather (or maybe father) got his wealth through the African slave trade. I got through the museum in about 75 minutes, though I didn’t read every explanatory sign. And I just glanced at the Asian pottery. Young Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg spoke at the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Italy. It was a time for the youth to discuss the climate situation before the adults meet at the World Climate Summit and COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland in November. Business Insider quoted just a bit of Thunberg’s speech. The words from national leaders “sound great but so far have not led to action.” Then:

Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah.

Amy Westervelt, an investigative journalist, tweeted a thread:

Periodic reminder that the window of opportunity for moderate solutions on climate was slammed shut in favor of oil company profits for 30 years and now all of the options are extreme. The only choice we have left is choosing radical change and thereby getting to shape it somewhat or waiting to see what extreme changes Mother Nature has in store. I meet people all the time who think we have more say than that, and that a comfortable path still exists. That not rocking the boat is still an option. Generally these folks are the ones who still value compromise and civility over survival. Truly sorry, but time to wake up. The other day someone asked me what the climate movement was going to do to appeal to moderates and I had to point out that actually all anyone did for decades was try to appeal to moderates and win over climate deniers and *gestures everywhere* perhaps time for a new thought?

Eric Holthaus, a Rebel Nerd of Meteorology, responded:

There is no separating justice from radical, transformative change in all aspects of society. They are the same. We are in a climate emergency even if everyone doesn't know it yet. Knowing this is what made Greta sail in a boat across the Atlantic. Knowing this is what's making millions of Gen Z young adults unable to imagine their own futures and unwilling to have kids. Knowing this (and apparently not caring) is why Biden is still OK'ing new oil drilling. You can't un-know something this profound. It will shape every part of your life, or it will slowly eat away at the back of your brain while you pretend everything is OK. That's life in 2021. Everything is not OK. We have to change the whole system. It's all connected.

From today’s news it sounds like Congress managed to pass a spending bill to keep the government functioning for perhaps another ten weeks. There’s still the debt ceiling to raise by mid October and Republicans are saying they will contribute no votes, even though they contributed about $8 trillion to the national debt while the nasty guy occupied the White House. Then there are those physical and human infrastructure bills to pass, the bills that have been in the news for several months. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported that a big holdup on the $3.5 trillion human infrastructure bill is Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. She refuses to support the existing bill but is also not negotiating. In negotiations one give a counter offer or at least explain what she doesn’t like in the package. And she refuses to say. It seems she wants the House to vote on the $1 trillion physical infrastructure bill already passed by the Senate. But progressives rightly fear that once that bill is approved support for the bigger bill will collapse. I’ve heard over the last few days a reminder they money from that $3.5 trillion bill is to be spent over ten years. That’s $350 billion a year. And that’s smaller than the annual defense budget. Nicholas Wu, who covers Congress for Politico, tweeted a photo of a couple of signs displayed by fans at a (Washington DC?) baseball game. The signs say:

Dems don’t f--- this up. Our lives are not a game. Pass 3.5T.

In another of Greg Dworkin’s pundit roundup for Kos with several good quotes, I’ll start with a quote from the first commenter, who goes by Learn and referred to the other Senate obstructor, Sen. Joe Manchin.

Basically Manchin is representing his personal interest in having power… if he agrees to anything, he loses it.

Dworkin quoted tweets from Asawin Suebsaeng:

anti- COVID vaccine rhetoric is killing GOP voters. But for Trump, other prominent Republicans, and Fox and other conservative media, it's a cash cow. So… good for them, I guess! "One Fox News insider…described the anti-COVID-mandate segments and vaccine-resistant commentary as 'great for ratings.’ Another…said the numbers clearly demonstrated…[this issue gets] 'our viewers more excited or engaged than’” virtually every other kind of segment these days.

Then a quoted tweet from Michael Knigge:

After a German election in which the lead switched among *3* parties & that ended w/ a narrow, upset victory for party widely deemed unlikely to win at the outset, no top candidate has questioned the legitimacy of the democratic process. Sounds trivial, but isn’t.

Then a quotes about the media. One from Mark Jacob who tweeted a thread:

I used to edit Page 1 stories for the Chicago Tribune, including many from Washington. In this thread, I explain why the media (including me) have been unintentionally complicit in the rise of fascism that threatens our democracy. Mainstream media have long tried to treat Republicans and Democrats equally. Some, like me, thought that was the way to be fair. In fact, it was the way to be lazy and not have to sort out the facts. Just quote a Democrat and quote a Republican and you’re done. When I edited political stories, I went so far as to count the quotes from Republicans and Democrats, thinking an equal number would make us fairer. I didn’t think I was helping either party. I thought I was helping the readers. I was wrong. ... The Republicans have overwhelmed the media with corruption. They’ve created scandal fatigue, prompting journalists to do something I call ethics norming. That’s when something that would have been a huge scandal in the recent past is considered normal now. The Republicans have pulled off quite a trick. If news is defined as something unusual happening, GOP corruption is not news because the party is so widely corrupt. Some media have turned off their outrage impulse and decided that corruption is normal.

And tweets from Greg Sargent:

Dems hoped to "shame" McConnell on the debt limit. Instead they're sputtering with limp outrage while Mitch gets "savvy" points from the media. Time to nix the debt limit in reconciliation. Force Republicans to be the ones howling with ineffectual outrage. I want to clarify something. Whatever the particular approach, what's important is the overall posture: One that sees the limitations of shaming Rs and recognizes that their bad faith gets rewarded by bothsides media coverage. Numerous procedural possibilities flow from this.

Dan Diamond tweeted an image and video of a particular protest. Peter Staley, Gregg Gonsalves, and James Krellenstein, veterans of HIV/AIDS protests, put a huge pile of fake skeletons in front of the house of Ron Klain, White House Chief of Staff. The pile looks to be twice the height of a man. They say the skeletons symbolize the deaths of people in other countries waiting for COVID vaccines while the Biden administration focuses on third doses for Americans. Commenters debated whether it is appropriate to protest at a government official’s house. In a tweet posted before the funding bill passed and a government shutdown still possible, Dan Price wrote:

Before the pandemic, there was 1 person worth $100 billion. Now there are 10. Before the pandemic, those 10 people were worth $650 billion. Now they are worth $1.4 trillion. And the Senate is ready to shut down the government and deny vital services to avoid taxing them at all.

Also before that bill passed, Ronald Brownstein responded to a New York Times tweet saying Republicans have warned they will block spending and debt ceiling bills in the Senate. Brownstein wrote:

Just to be clear, Senate Democrats & Biden are directly providing Republicans the hammer with which to batter the national & world economy through a debt default-by upholding the filibuster rule that allows McConnell to make this threat. It's the Dems' choice to empower the GOP.

Eleveld reported the dropping approval rating for the Supreme Court – 57% of Americans say the court has gotten “too partisan.” After quoting a few more numbers Eleveld added that such a number means it is time for serious discussions of court reforms.

Looking for monsters under a kid’s bed

Tucker Carlson of Fox News has started talking about White Replacement Theory. So Lulu Garcia-Navarro of NPR talked to Kathleen Belew. Belew is a professor of history at the University of Chicago and the co-editor of A Field Guide to White Supremacy. Though Carlson recently started talking about it, the idea is more than 100 years old. Somehow non white people or foreigners will immigrate, reproduce, and seize political power. Stronger versions of the theory also talk of white people becoming extinct. The Anti Defamation League has known about this theory all along because “non white people” is code for Jews, specifically a supposed cabal of Jewish elites. Belew explained more that the feared action would be anti-democratic and result in a permanent liberal majority. That fear is based on the idea that the US is supposed to be a white nation. The fear rears up every time there is a big increase in immigration from a place like Haiti. It also gets attached to the census results showing the US is more multiracial, which supremacists see as apocalyptic and a foreshadow of racial annihilation. The theory also gets attached to voting and gerrymandering. Replacement theory used to be a fringe idea. It is no longer. Also, Republicans are no longer talking about solutions to immigration issues The idea that the white race will be annihilated if non whites take over is projection. Supremacists have shown they are quite interested in and willing to annihilating those who are not white. Ms Entropy, who describes herself as a Cassandra of Geoploitics, tweeted a thread about replacement theory. Here are some excerpts.

Racists fought to preserve segregation by claiming Civil Rights activists were extremists creating instability to undermine the American way of life. FBI J. Edgar Hoover was one such figure. Many pointed to “outside agitators” — which merged well with Red Scare ideology. Segregationists were so racist they didn’t see Black activists as smart enough to be in control of the Civil Rights struggle. Instead, it had to be Communists, aka “THE JEWS!” Why? “Jews promote miscegenation while only marrying in-group to undermine white racial superiority.” ... When you see hysterical references to ‘by 2050 [etc] whites will be the minority’ or ‘Replacement Theory,’ you’re witnessing white supremacists’ fears and assumptions. And here’s what it means: “The West rightfully belongs only to White Christians.”

As “proof” that non white takeover means white genocide they look at South Africa. The rhetoric at the end of the Apartheid era implied that if Nelson Mandela took over it would be at the expense of whites. Yeah, at the expense of white stranglehold on political power and the end of their state sanctioned oppression of blacks. But not at the expense of white lives. This morning on NPR Odette Yousef talked to Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. The topic was the Proud Boys, which the SPLC designates as a hate group. There are 40 chapters across the country and they claim a membership of 40,000, though is likely well below that. The group is doing quite well in spite of its leader Enrique Tarrio being revealed as a federal informant and 15 members under charges of conspiracy. One way they have survived is they have been building alliances with – providing muscle for – other conservative causes, such as anti mask protests and protests over Confederate monuments. Miller said one goal of the Proud Boys is to “normalize the idea of violence in politics.” One result of that is “a wave of bills that are aimed at suppressing protest, and even allowing people run over protesters and have immunity for doing so.” This is a profound shift pushing conservatives even further right. Many times NPR stories have transcripts of the audio. At other times the story’s webpage has a news article that follows the audio. This time I see the text news softens the audio. In the text the first phrase I quoted in the previous paragraph is “normalize their brand of politics.” While the quote (which doesn’t appear in the audio) explains a bit more what that brand of politics is it doesn’t use the word “violence.” To me that word is key. Last Friday Daily Kos posted an article of a leaked preview of the results of the Arizona fraudit. I waited for a story about the actual release of the results, supposedly last Friday afternoon, but I haven’t seen it and didn’t find such a story in a search of Kos. So I’ll go with a story about the leaked version. So, yeah, Laura Clawson of Kos, working from a report by KJZZ, reported that Cyber Ninjas, the company doing the audit, released a draft report of what they found. Short answer: Biden won. Just like he did in November. Even better, he got 99 more votes and the nasty guy got 261 fewer. Which is not the result anyone expected from a fraudulent audit. Even so, Cyber Ninjas and Republicans are still spinning hard. The report still has many of what others are calling “faulty conclusions” that claim the election system is problematic and blaming Maricopa County election officials for not cooperating. Even though the report confirms the election was quite accurate and Biden really did win, Republicans are now calling for fraudits in Ohio and Texas. Clawson concluded:

The votes don’t matter to them. The evidence doesn’t matter to them. Undermining people’s faith in elections to set the stage for 2022 and 2024 is the goal here. And no pesky finding that whoops, there wasn’t fraud in the county they most wanted to find fraud in is going to derail that plan.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that, indeed, Texas has announced a “full forensic” audit. Wrote Eleveld:

Honestly, it's hard to imagine how the Texas fraudit could look any more cheap, tainted, and dumb. Donald Trump won Texas in 2020 by more than five points, so whatever the audit might find, there's basically no pot to stir in terms of national results. The state has found no serious evidence of irregularities despite offering $1 million rewards to anyone who helped uncover 2020 fraud. Texas officials also announced their sham audit no more than eight and a half hours after Trump demanded it of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Philip Bump of the Washington Post:

The point was always to try to bolster reasons to be skeptical of the results. This was framed by state Senate President Karen Fann (R) as being an effort to rule out various conspiracy theories about the election but looking for monsters under a kid’s bed only reinforces that monsters are worth looking for. The Republican base — and a state party that had encouraged people to be willing to “give their life” for the fight against purported voter fraud — was clamoring to be taken seriously. So the Senate Republicans took them seriously. To an extent. The group selected to conduct the review was called Cyber Ninjas. Run by Doug Logan, who’d publicly embraced debunked conspiracy theories about the election, the firm had no experience in actually reviewing election results. It was quickly obvious that no wild goose would go unchased, as most obviously evidenced by volunteers involved in the effort being tasked to try to identify bamboo fibers in cast ballots under the cringey theory that illegal votes had been flown in from Asia.

Dworkin also quoted a tweet from Adam Grant:

It isn't true that facts never change minds. They just don't change minds that are already made up. If you see your ideas as identities to defend, you twist and resist data to rationalize your views. If you treat ideas as hunches to test, you embrace data to update your views.

Leah McElrath tweeted:

Data point one on the fact these “audits”—like the one in Arizona—are about sowing mistrust in the electoral process and paving the way for violent power grabs. Data point two on how these “audits” like the one in Arizona are about paving the way for power grabs by force based on manufactured distrust of the electoral process. Data point three on how these “audits” are about creating division and stoking violence: Here a Trumpist Arizona state senator alleges that a fire at an EGG FARM was supposedly actually destruction of evidence related to the 2020 presidential election.

The first data point includes a video of the Arizona Capitol with people waiting for the results to be officially released. There are also a dozen militia members with semi-auto rifles. The second data point includes images of threats of killing Maricopa County officials because of the audit. The third data point quoted a tweet from that state senator. Also in Texas (though more than a week old): Aysha Qamar of Kos reported that Dr. Alan Braid performed an abortion in Texas in violation of the state’s new ban. He wrote about it in WaPo, saying he had a duty to care for the patient. He also declared he was making sure the constitutionality of the law got tested. He said, “I believe abortion is an essential part of health care.” Several organizations praised his bravery. WaPo separately reported that a lawsuit against Braid has been filed. It was filed by Oscar Stilley, who both wants to make sure the law goes before the courts and wants to collect the $10,000 bounty. Stilley also shows how bizarre this law is – he is currently in home confinement in Arkansas as part of his 15 year sentence from a conviction of tax fraud. More news from Texas: The Kos elections team reported that Texas has released a draft of their district maps for the next ten years. While it didn’t target strong Democratic districts it did highly gerrymander the whole state more in Republican’s favor. Districts that narrowly went for Biden are now much more firmly Republican. One district went from 59% white to 74% white. The Republican hold on the state will be maintained. Tina W, who lives in district 35, tweeted a map of her district. It includes parts of Austin, snakes along I-35, and includes parts of San Antonio. Tina then linked to a tweet by Marcel McClinton, who showed an image of the districts around Dallas and Fort Worth. It shows a few thin and meandering districts, sure signs of gerrymandering. One of them, the 6th, appears to include a chunk of suburban sprawl with a narrow band to connect it to Ellis County to the south – one chunk of Democratic leaning suburbs tied to a bigger chunk of rural Texas, neutralizing the Democratic vote. McClinton wrote:

If you believe its possible to out-organize racist voter suppression and gerrymandering, I would like for you to come to Texas and share your miracles for all to see.

The Kos election team also reviewed the gerrymandering in Ohio. Yup, the new maps preserve the GOP dominance in the state legislature – likely 62-37 in the House and 23-10 in the Senate. But it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Back in 2018, when voters in Michigan were campaigning for an independent citizens redistricting commission, the GOP in Ohio got scared and passed reforms. They didn’t enact an independent commission, but did put into the constitution that maps cannot unfairly benefit one party. Even then various analysts, including the Kos election team, saw the reforms as a sham to head off attempts at more effective reforms, such as a citizens commission. Lawsuits will be filed. The state Supreme Court currently has a 4-3 Republican majority, though GOP Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor has been a frequent swing vote. Gov. Mike DeWine lamented, “What I am sure in my heart is that this committee could have come up with a bill that was much more clearly constitutional. I'm sorry that we did not do that.” That “we” confirms that he is on the redistricting commission. And he voted for the maps. So if he is sorry they aren’t more fair why did he vote for them? Meredith Shiner, a recovering national political reporter, tweeted:

Based on messages I receive, a huge story on Capitol Hill reporters either are ignoring or downplaying is the tremendous fear, exhaustion, anger and burnout among Democratic staff. We could be on the brink of a mass staff exodus, which would be bad for the institution and country.

Misha Linneham, who has campaigned for several Democrats, added:

Similarly, a lot of folks I know from the campaign world are extremely frustrated by the fact that they put everything on hold over the last three years to elect Dems to save the country, and the people we worked for are mostly incapable of actually doing the saving.

Linneham wrote he had been in Arizona knocking on thousands of doors for Kyrsten Sinema and is now angry she is being a key obstructor of needed reforms to keep democracy alive. With Haitian refugees in the news Michael Harriot tweeted a condensed history of the country, including that it was the first country in the West, way back in the 1700s, to eliminate slavery by overthrowing its slaveowners and how white supremacists in the US and France have been making sure Haiti remains the poorest country in the West. Harriot also tweeted:

I bet the people who are angry about oppressive vaccine passports at restaurants and school mask mandates are gonna flip out when they hear what Black people have to do to vote, right? What? Why is everyone laughing?

Stay away from hospitals

We’re in Banned Books Week. The American Library Association wants us to think about books that are challenged for removal from their shelves. This year they are using the slogan “Books Unite Us, Censorship Divides Us.” The top ten most challenged books in 2020 are: George, Alex Gino Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds All American Boys, Jason Reylonds and Brendan Kiely Speak, Laurise Halse Anderson The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie Something Happened in Our Town, Celano, Collins, Hazzard, and Zivoin To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck The Bluest Eye, Tony Morrison The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas Something different from previous times I’ve written about banned books: This time there is only one LGBT book in the list. That’s the first one, which is about a transgender girl. I think this is progress. All the rest were challenged for the other usual reasons: use of profanity, too sexually explicit or depicts sexual misconduct, or uses racial slurs (though I think the real reason is it doesn’t portray racism in a positive light). New this year is a reason I hadn’t seen before: the claim that the book promotes anti-police views. There is also the old and silly claim: libraries should not give books to children that require discussion. Sheesh, those sound like the best kinds of books. On the same webpage is the lists for several prior years. The top ten list for 2019 includes eight books challenged for LGBT content. Last week I wrote about a plan by John Eastman to overturn the Electoral College vote last January 6. That plan called for the vice nasty to declare the EC votes of several states were in dispute (they were not) and using the counts of the remaining states to declare the nasty guy won. Chitown Kev, in a pundit roundup for Daily Kos, quoted Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times who wrote the plan would not have worked. The joint session of Congress, in which the EC counts are counted, depends on the consent of both chambers. Once the vice nasty started to seize control of the process there would have been more than howls of protest from the Democrats. Pelosi would have suspended the session, stopping the count and certification. On January 20, Pelosi would have become acting president, the vice nasty would have been out of power, and the counting session would have resumed. In addition, there would howls of protest from the 81 million people who voted for Biden. The nasty guy supporters demonstrated they could have prevailed against mass protests. But Gen. Mark Milley has demonstrated what side the military would have been on. This is an escalation. In another pundit roundup on Kos, Greg Dworkin quoted Ben Collins of NBC.

Anti-vaccine Facebook groups have a new message for their community members: Don’t go to the emergency room, and get your loved ones out of intensive care units. Consumed by conspiracy theories claiming that doctors are preventing unvaccinated patients from receiving miracle cures or are even killing them on purpose, some people in anti-vaccine and pro-ivermectin Facebook groups are telling those with Covid-19 to stay away from hospitals and instead try increasingly dangerous at-home treatments, according to posts seen by NBC News over the past few weeks.

David Neiwert of Kos discussed a study by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. The report says essentially that Facebook is the biggest source of disinformation. Though Facebook says it is cracking down on disinformation it isn’t doing nearly enough. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary. Here’s one of them:

Right now Democrats control the Senate by the thinnest of margins, and naturally Republicans want to take it back. But as they fight to make gains, they'll also have to defend 20 seats of their own. So far, five Republican senators have announced they're retiring. And to honor their service, they'll each get a commemorative watch that, just like them, stopped working at the time of the Capitol insurrection. —Samantha Bee

Gorgeous cinematography

I’m not watching a movie this Sunday evening, though I started watching Tony Awards concert. The reason for no movie tonight is I saw one on Friday and another on Saturday. The Friday movie was Raya and the Last Dragon by Disney. For a few years (though not last year) my church has been offering an outdoor movie night where a kid-friendly movie is projected on the side of the building and those who want to can bring their own chair and watch. I enjoyed this one and appreciated its message of resolving conflicts by trusting the other. Yeah, that can be hard. And doesn’t always work, as shown in an earlier scene in the movie. The Saturday movie was a part of the Freep Film Fest and also a part of the Dlectricity event in Midtown Detroit. This film fest shows documentaries with some connection to Michigan or Detroit either in subject matter or the director or producers. This has happened for several years (though not last year) and I’ve seen a few interesting films. Dlectricity is an after dark event held around the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Detroit Main Library and surrounding area. These are various things that mostly are projected onto the sides of the buildings. Some include sound (and some of that live). Some are interactive. There is also a bike parade with bicycles decorated with lights. I’ve seen the event in a previous year and probably wouldn’t have bothered if the movie wasn’t in the area. The movie was Awaken, by Tom Lowe. It was shown in the planetarium of the Michigan Science Center, which is across the street from the DIA. The description said it was shot in high definition over a period of five years in 35 countries with an uplifting score. Sounded pretty good! So I went. The movie is made up of spectacular images. Many are in slow motion, many of the others are sped up. We see a dancer in the woods with graceful leaps that, in slow motion, make her look like she is floating. On the slow side there are kids running, a group walking through the woods holding torches, views of waterfalls, riding reindeer across a stream, and scenes from several festivals in different parts of Asia. On the fast side were flights over clouds with mountains or buildings sticking through, flights down the length of a freeway, and of stars wheeling overhead as the sun begins to illuminate the trees or landscapes (though I wondered how they kept the stars visible once the sun was up). All of it with gorgeous cinematography. And about halfway through the 80 minutes I started yawning. One reason for my boredom was they kept revisiting the same scenes (though different parts of it). Another was this was beautiful imagery, but there was no story. A third reason was many of the scenes went on too long and that much slow motion dragged the whole thing out. A final reason was the theater. This is a dome planetarium, so the seats are always in a reclining position. The movie was projected on the front part of the dome, not on all of it, so leaning my head back into the headrest wasn’t the right position (besides, when was the last time that headrest was sanitized?). So my neck did not enjoy the movie. At the door to the Science Center I was asked to show my vaccination card, a first for me. I was also told to keep my mask on. I looked over the audience and saw most of them, perhaps all, wore masks.

Responsible prosecutors would never ignore so much evidence

I had to run my furnace today. The high was 59F. We should be back to 70F tomorrow. Over the last few days there has been news of the various options the vice nasty considered using to disrupt the Electoral College vote last January 6th. One of those bits of news was when vice nasty called former Vice President Dan Quayle and the former VP told him his job during the count was strictly ceremonial. The law didn’t allow him to do anything else. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reports on a scenario devised by John Eastman, an attorney who represented the nasty guy in some of those failed lawsuits in the states. Eastman also claimed Kamala Harris was not an American citizen and thus ineligible to run for vice president. Eastman’s plan: * When the vice nasty got to Arizona he was to claim the state had submitted multiple slates of electors (a lie) and their count would be deferred. * He would repeat that false claim for seven other states. * He would declare that only 454 of the 538 electors had been recognized. Of those the nasty guy got 232 and thus won. Of course, Democrats would howl. * In response he would declare no candidate won and turn to the 12th Amendment. That says each state delegation gets a vote, not each elector nor each member of Congress. Since more delegations – 26 – are Republican majority (though overall more members are Democrats) again he would declare the nasty guy won. That scenario ignores the Elector Count Act of 1887. Eastman had an answer for that – the law was unconstitutional because naming electors is a state duty, though there has been no court ruling on the law. The goal was, of course, to generate enough chaos (and there would have been chaos) that Republicans could claim the nasty guy won. And allowed to stay in the White House until the various cases were trotted through the courts, leaving us to wonder how democracy died. Thankfully the vice nasty didn’t try it. Sumner also reported that the New York Times obtained a memo from the nasty guy election communication team. A few days after the 2020 election the team discussed the claims that were circulating. These were claims about all aspects of the voting machines made by Dominion and Smartmatic, such as programmed in Venezuela, and connected to George Soros and antifa. The memo listed – and thoroughly debunked – every claim. Perhaps a week later, on November 19, 2020, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell held a press conference to claim the election was rigged and that they had proof. During that presser they repeated every claim the memo had debunked. They were repeating things they knew were lies. Dominion is suing Giuliani and the nasty guy campaign for defamation. The trial is ongoing. This memo is now a part of court papers for the trial. And that doesn’t look good for the defendants. Which is good for us. Chitown Kev, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post. She wrote the Republican Party has no interest in actually governing. She added this:

But the constant stream of revelations makes it all the more difficult for the Justice Department to avoid prosecution of the former president or his cronies. Responsible prosecutors would never ignore so much evidence revealing an insurrectionist instigator’s intent (critical in proving serious crimes), nor would prosecutors upholding their oaths miss the seriousness of the plot to overthrow a government. Refusal to prosecute would amount to an invitation to repeat the coup in 2024 and beyond.

The nasty guy is still working to remove his perceived enemies. One of them is Moscow Mitch. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported the nasty is trying to depose the party’s leader in the Senate as that leader is trying to bring his party back into the majority. This is more than a party in “disarray” – a term frequently used against Democrats when the media sees even a glimmer of disagreement. This is more like the TV show Survivor. Mary Trump wrote a book about her uncle the nasty guy. She tweeted that we’re living on the edge and the current system is rigged against democracy. The prompted Leah McElrath to tweet:

If we were to compare our political system to a house, our house is teetering on the edge of a cliff with an eroded foundation. Many are expending tremendous effort trying to hold it up and keep it from falling while others are trying to push it off. But the foundation is gone. Assuming we aren’t right-wingers trying to push it off the cliff or accelerationists trying to do so from the left, we need to ask ourselves how best to allocate our resources in terms of reactivity (keeping the house from falling) and proactivity (rebuilding its foundation). Of course, there are also those of us who have reached a point of realizing the house is likely going to fall eventually and, as a result, are considering allocating our resources toward preparing for that eventuality.

A few days ago I said I would write about the “Justice for J6” rally held at the Capitol last Saturday. And now I am. Sumner posted a report on the rally that same afternoon. The rally was to demand justice for those who participated in the January 6 Capitol attack. By “justice” they mean release of the attackers from whatever prison they’re in. In preparation for the rally the Capitol Police put up fences and increased their presence. They even asked the National Guard to stand by. The rally organizers spread the word and expected about 700 people to come. They got maybe half that. Darrell Lucus of the Kos community reported that one reason for the low turnout was many on the right were claiming the event was a “false flag” or “honeypot.” Instead of a true rally by nasty guy loyalists the claim was it was really put on by antifa (the false flag) for the purpose of entrapping (the honeypot) attendees into committing violent acts. One of the things Martin Luther King said was the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. Professor Fleming, a critical race sociologist, tweeted a rebuttal.

Sometimes I wonder if the “moral arc of the universe” language is actually harmful Enlightenment dogma that encourages magical thinking and civic laziness. In reality, the universe has no moral arc. Gains can be forever lost. Rights can be undone. Progress can be crushed.. Everything around us, everywhere on this planet is showing that there is nothing inevitable about our survival, much less about progress. The belief that things will somehow “work out” despite all evidence to the contrary helps ensure that things will not, in fact, work out..

Yes, some white liberals do believe in that magical thinking and have used the phrase. Commenter Stephen Robinson added:

MLK also spoke of the “fierce urgency of now." He never shrugged off current day issues as something that would magically resolve themselves decades later.

I’ve been avoiding writing about the Haitian refugees living under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas. It is hard to deal with such abuse happening under the Biden administration. I’ll let you read about it elsewhere – there are plenty of sources. However, here is a good new story, a tweet from Nate Mook of the World Central Kitchen (of course, they would arrive):

Things I never imagined I’d be doing on a Tuesday morning: Buying 2,000 packets of baby food to make sure the most fragile Haitians living under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas have something to eat. Sorry for cleaning out your shelves today, HEB. See you again tomorrow.

HEB is a grocery chain in Texas with a reputation of giving back to the community. Commenters rightly note the WCK would do better working to get wholesale prices from a supplier and not disrupt the local HEB customers. But if they’re just getting started on the venture this may be what they have to do now. McElrath tweeted:

We need a new, specific word to describe the unique stress of watching as systems of power fail to act in proportion to urgency. Suggestions?

Some of the words proposed: ElMolino: Armagedimpotence VanessaSax2k: Exasperage Rabid Badger: Caligulabotomy Katz: Annihilanxiety Tobi: Thursday Jules: Electile Dysfunction StaceyCeeJay: Ostriching The book of Genesis in the Bible talks of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yeah, Sodom is how we got the word sodomites to describe gay men, but a close read of chapter 19 shows the story was about rape, not about same-sex love. Because strangers in town were not treated well (as Genesis 19:24 puts it):

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven.

skralyx of the Kos community, working from a story published in Nature Scientific Reports, wrote that evidence is mounting it really happened. Perhaps it isn’t just an allegorical story. Maybe not by a vengeful deity, but by a meteor impact around 1650 BCE. The ruined city of Tall el-Hammam, which might have been Sodom, has some shocked quartz, which only shows up around meteor impact sites, even if the meteor explodes before it hits the ground. The Bible also says that Lot’s wife looked back on the destruction and was turned into a pillar of salt. An explosion of this magnitude near the Dead Sea would have thrown salt water over the surrounding countryside, rendering the usually fertile land unusable for a few hundred years – and archaeologists have noted the villages in the area were abandoned for about 600 years.

Republicans are literally murdering their margin of victory

Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community quoted a report by Berkeley Lovelace Jr. of CNBC as he discussed the COVID pandemic is now the deadliest US pandemic. The official number for COVID, above 670,000, has passed the official number for the 1918 flu pandemic. I used the word “official” because the real numbers for both are much higher, with the number of COVID deaths likely above 1 million. Dartagnan wrote:

The most appalling aspect of this country’s death toll caused by the COVID-19 pandemic versus the 1918 Spanish flu is the extent to which this nation in 2020 had the tools available to mitigate it. As Lovelace explains:

Unlike today, there was no vaccine for the 1918 flu. There was also no CDC or national public health department. The Food and Drug Administration existed but consisted of a very small group of people. Additionally, there were no antibiotics, intensive care units, ventilators or IV fluids.

Nor was there any mature science of virology in 1918, and, as Lovelace points out, “Scientists hadn’t even seen a virus under a microscope.”

Leah McElrath tweeted a few more comparisons:

In the past year and a half: More Americans have died from COVID-19 than total military deaths on both sides in the Civil War. Five times as many as US military deaths in WWI. 200,000 more than US military deaths in WWII. Ten times as many as US military deaths in Vietnam.

Ryan Struyk of CNN tweeted some numbers. This is over the last two months, not the whole pandemic.

Right now: 2,031 deaths/day 10 days ago: 1,655 deaths/day 20 days ago: 1,401 deaths/day 30 days ago: 1,000 deaths/day 40 days ago: 535 deaths/day 50 days ago: 386 deaths/day 60 days ago: 272 deaths/day

Kos of Kos included a chart from Dr. Christopher Johnson. It is a bar graph with each bar representing counties with the same percentage of people voting for the nasty guy. The length of the bar is the death rate per 100K from July 1 to Sept. 7, 2021. On the left is the bar for counties where less than 10% voted for the nasty guy. The death rate in these counties is 3.7 per 100K. On the right is the bar for counties where more than 90% voted for the nasty guy. The death rate here is 27.7. Several bars in between show the more counties voted for the nasty guy the higher the death rate during this time. Kos then looked at the statewide margin of victory in a couple close races. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis won in 2018 by 32,463 votes. Also that year GOP Sen. Rick Scott won by 10,033 votes. Kos wrote, “Republicans are literally murdering their margin of victory.” For that conservative voices blame liberals. John Nolte of Breitbart is one of those voices. I won’t bother with his ramblings or with the way Kos pulled it apart. I will include Kos’ summary:

Conservatives have no agency. They have no ability to think for themselves. They are driven by “feelings” of being mocked or ridiculed. They are so weak that they would rather die than listen to sage medical advice. Nolte may not mean to make such a ridiculous argument, and make such a stark admission about his own people, but that’s the end result. Conservatives are so weak that they would rather die than to feel like a liberal “cucked” them. I didn’t realize we had that massive power, to exterminate an entire political movement by simply asking them to not die.

Conservatives are saying their perceived position in the social hierarchy (and that position had better be above you liberals) is more important to them than their lives. David Neiwert of Kos wrote that some of the defiantly unvaccinated are starting to use a name for themselves: Pureblood. That name is supposed to indicate their blood has not been contaminated by the vaccine. Some go as far as declaring they will not date or have a child with a vaccinated person. Of course that name was chosen for a reason. In the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling many of the followers of Voldemort claimed they were pureblood, that their lineage all the way back was only magicians, not like other magicians who had muggle (non magician) parents. The claim was ancestry was more important than magical ability. Not surprisingly, many did have muggle ancestry they tried to hide. These were the people defeated by the end of the seventh book. The other people insistent on racial purity: Nazis. Dartagnan also wrote about Elkhart County, Indiana. The county health department applied for and were set to receive a $3 million federal grant to help the two big hospitals reach out to Black, Hispanic, and Amish residents to help treat such things as diabetes, cancer, heart disease and other chronic conditions as well as mental health. And work with the CDC to track local COVID infections and assist with contact tracing. That last little bit brought out the conservative voices who loudly shouted their “concerns” of government tyranny. The county council unanimously rejected the grant. Since most of those who would have benefited from the grant were people of color there was probably some racism in there too. Kathryn Ivey, an ICU nurse, tweeted:

I really wish yall non healthcare folk understood the straight up apocalyptic vibe in hospitals right now. I'm good at words and this is truly beyond me to describe. The stress. The constant death. The overflow units that were never meant to house vented patients. Every bed full. One patient not on a ventilator. Nurses are pissed as hell that we're still doing this. Docs exhausted.

Ratchet Nurse, who works in the ER, tweeted:

A patient had the nerve to say to me "this is what you signed up for when you do this job." when discussing Covid. I corrected him & said, "no, sir. This is absolutely NOT what I signed up for. I can handle the virus. I've never been treated like the enemy till now."

Aysha Qamar of Kos reported Lewis County General Hospital in upstate New York has mandated the vaccine, in line with a mandate from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In response, at least six employees of the maternity ward resigned. Gerald Cayer, CEO of the Lewis County Health System said at a news conference, “We are unable to safely staff the service after 24 September. The number of resignations received leaves us no choice but to pause delivering babies at Lewis County General Hospital.” Pregnant women will have to find another hospital. In a post from a week ago Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the request that a vaccine booster shot be authorized. Here’s the summary: Yes, a booster would improve protection against severe illness and death. But protection, even if down a bit, remains quite high. The exception is people with compromised immune systems. The much better use of vaccine doses is to get them into the arms of the unvaccinated, both in America and in countries around the world. In October 2020 artist Sucanne Brennan Firstenberg put 150,000 small white flags outside RFK Stadium in Washington, DC. That was one flag for each person who had died of COVID at that time. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Firstenberg has installed the flags again. This time they are on the National Mall near the Washington Monument. And this time she placed more than 670,000 flags. The flags cover more than 20 acres. Every flag represents a loved one who died. Many of the flags have messages from survivors to those they lost. They’ll be there until October 3. The delta wave has been so deadly Firstenberg had to order an extra 60,000 flags. Einenkel included a few pictures, including one from the top of the Washington Monument that shows a bit of the size. He also included tweets from Democratic Rep. Andy Kim of New Jersey. These tweets include closeups of some of those personal messages.

Prince Hal

My Sunday movie yesterday was My Own Private Idaho, a 1991 movie starring River Phoenix as Mike and Keanu Reeves as Scott and directed by Gus Van Sant. Mike and Scott are part of a group of young men who work as hustlers – sex for money. Some of them talk about getting caught in bad situations. Their clients are mostly men. Mike has narcolepsy, meaning he passes out in stressful situations. Scott is the son of the city’s mayor, one that is highly connected. Dad is annoyed that Son appears to be squandering his life. For now, Son is rejecting all that Dad offers. Mike and Scott have been friends for a few years when the story opens. Though Scott frequently quoted Shakespeare, it was only towards the end that I realized Scott’s character is modeled on Prince Hal of Henry IV and V. There is even a Falstaff character. Reading about the movie later confirmed my guess. For part of the movie Mike and Scott head out together trying to find Mike’s mother. Part of that trip is to Idaho. Another part is to Italy, which made me wonder: How did Mike get a passport so fast? I though this one was a bit eccentric. I enjoyed it. I checked Michigan’s COVID data from Friday: The peaks in cases per day for the last three weeks were 2283, 2903, and 3296. This is a steady rise, not one that jumps up quickly. Deaths per day during the last three weeks hit 31 once, 29 twice, and 27 once. This isn’t over. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Daily Kos included a couple quotes of interest. In response to a tweet saying that Idaho has issued a universal DNR order, Dr. Noor Bari wrote:

Every adult diagnosed with COVID-19 in Idaho is on a universal do not resuscitate order. Every adult. Don’t try to live with the virus. Get vaccinated if you can. Wear a respirator or well fitted mask, good seal, and ventilate your workspaces/schools.

The second quote is one Dr. Bari added to the one above.

It’s also important to note that the state plan is a framework. It is meant to help hospitals make an impossible choice: decide who gets life-saving care when they don’t have enough for everyone. It is not an order for hospitals or medical workers to withhold medical care when they can adequately provide it.

A living, breathing Confederate monument

It has been a few months since I last wrote about an episode of Gaslit Nation. I paused because what hosts Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa discussed was getting overwhelming. However, this week’s episode Quid Pro Joe is about Sen. Joe Manchin and is a follow up of one of their episodes back in April. Since I wrote about that episode I thought I should write about this one. Manchin has had the nickname of Quid Pro Joe for several years. The term quid pro quo means essentially “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” That’s also the currency of the nasty guy mob family. Manchin is the single vote in the senate threatening to block the $3.5 trillion package that’s mostly about infrastructure, though also about strengthening the social safety net and doing a lot about the climate crisis. Chalupa then focused on what is in the package for children, how it will lift many out of poverty and support them from a very young age. This package is a very big deal. So Manchin screwing over children, the country, and the climate is a big deal. It is important to understand what’s in it for him. Chalupa said that Manchin is essentially an Exxon lobbyist. Though coal is no longer a big part of West Virginia’s workforce, it is a big part of Manchin’s finances. So Manchin is a single selfish, greedy, rich person in the US Senate, which is set up to protect greedy rich people. The Senate ...

continues to be one of the serious damaging mistakes of the founding fathers. It continues to plague the American experiment. I know the founding fathers launched a revolution, then fought a war, then had to establish a government and deal with the aftermath of war. And none of that was easy. But their bad judgment and compromises threatened not only our democracy, but the world.

Manchin’s daughter, Heather Bresch, was the president and CEO of drug company Mylan. Under her leadership the price of EpiPens, which stop life-threatening allergic reactions, rose from less than $100 to over $600. Her compensation rose from $2 million to almost $19 million. Manchin’s wife Gayle, head of the National Association of State Boards of Education, lobbied states to require schools to stock EpiPens. A lot of quid pro quo in one family. There is now a class action lawsuit against Mylan for monopolizing the EpiPen market. That huge price hike hurts people. Bresch profited off death. She is a white-collar criminal. She merged her company with one in the Netherlands to get lower tax rates. So she’s also a tax dodger. Why is Bresch not being prosecuted? This is known to members of Congress. Why isn’t this being used as leverage against Manchin? Why aren’t Democrats using LBJ-style, or even Moscow Mitch-style, arm twisting to get Manchin to serve the American public, which is his job? A key part of that $3.5 trillion package would allow Medicare negotiate prices with pharmaceutical companies – such as Mylar – which would save the government and citizens billions of dollars. It would also give Medicare more insight into how pharma executives set prices. For the Manchin family that’s now a conflict of interest. Chalupa said,

Manchin used to be tough on pharmaceutical companies and drug prices, but they apparently bought him off by hiring his daughter.

So why don’t the Democrats buy Manchin by giving his wife a cushy job? They tried. Republicans and their dark money machine have more money than Democrats do and offered a higher bid. Kendzior thinks part of what drives Manchin is oligarch envy – wanting to live like oligarchs in Russia and Middle East. Kendzior said that oligarchs

want further erasure of any kind of legal constraints. They want to build dynastic kleptocracies. They want to have elite criminal impunity not only for themselves, but also for their families. And they've discovered that the best way of doing this is by installing themselves and installing their family members into office. Because when you are making the law, you can live above it.

We’ve been seeing it in the Republican party for a long time and that idea has taken over the party. We’re now seeing it within the Democratic Party. Not it is frightening because this level of corruption and kleptocracy is an “immediate existential threat to our existence” mostly through the current climate catastrophe. Even if Manchin could be bought off, there’s still the problem of oligarchs living above (and rewriting) the law and able to buy off politicians. The election of Biden has not changed this problem because it is a justice issue and our legal system is broken. On Friday I wrote that Manchin agreed to a revised Freedom to Vote Act. He also said a few days ago, “The filibuster stays as is.” Chalupa said:

So that means they're going to need 10 Republicans in the Senate to join them. And that's simply not going to happen, obviously, because Republicans depend on voter suppression to come to power and stay in power. So Manchin is just doing this—the Freedom to Vote Act—because he needs to buy himself some PR. He needs to get some good press headlines. He needs to continue his gaslighting of America so people are distracted thinking that he's a team player when, in reality, he's an enemy within.

As Chalupa said in the previous episode about Manchin:

Joe Manchin will never come around because Joe Manchin is a living, breathing Confederate monument. Joe Manchin profits from White supremacy, which continues—like the centuries-old system of slavery before it—to exploit human bodies for profit. His daughter did this. His wife did it. And now he's doing it from his perch in the US Senate. And he doesn't care about all the non-White lives that are most vulnerable to the climate crisis, that are most vulnerable to slipping through the cracks, to being plunged deeper into poverty. The climate crisis, the greed crisis plaguing the healthcare industry, the economic crisis, the growing income inequality gap, those are crises that impact all of us, but they hit non-White people harder, and the damage lasts across generations. Joe Manchin, like the living, breathing Confederate monuments before him, simply does not care.

Kendzior noted the climate catastrophes – hurricanes and fires – are being met with incredible inertia. She is told “Don’t worry about Manchin!” Which is quickly followed by “Oh, but there's Joe Manchin. Nothing we could do. Why bother trying?” Are Democrats afraid to take on Manchin because they don’t want to deal with entrenched corruption, including their own? Does Biden and his Department of Justice hesitate to go after Bresch because that would renew (baseless) attacks on his son Hunter? Sleazy and illegal have become incredibly blurred over the last 30 years. Perhaps Democrats can win a couple seats in the Senate in 2022 (Val Demings over Marco Rubio in Florida could be one of them) so that Manchin isn’t so pivotal. Alas, voter suppression laws, such as those being passed in Florida, may prompt too many people to think it’s rigged, so why vote? Vote anyway. But Democrats have to stop treating voting as a bargaining chip. Voting is too fundamental. In the rest of the episode Kendzior and Chalupa discussed the possible fallout of the California recall (they taped the episode the morning of the vote and I waited for the transcript). That included Larry Elder, the top GOP opponent, talking about fraud while the election was still going on. Thankfully, Elder’s loss was so big he dropped that story. They also talked about the “Justice for J6” rally that was held today, though a few days in the future at the time this episode was recorded. Kendzior talkd about what might happen. Today’s news was: not much. 700 people were expected, about 450 showed up. I’ll have more on this later.

Set it to a billion trillion quadrillion dollars and be done with it

I picked up my car today. A couple days ago I took it to a repair shop because the alternator wasn’t doing its thing. I took a day to decide I did want to repair it, even though the price was close to the value of the car. Then it took the shop two days to get a new alternator. Timing was getting tight because I had an afternoon doctor appointment I made two months ago and probably couldn’t reschedule for another two months. I was also out of time to call someone to give me a ride. Thankfully, the repair was done in plenty of time and the shop’s shuttle service was reasonably prompt. I got to the appointment in time. Then I went to the grocery. Because I didn’t have a car for three days I was beginning to run out of some foods. Hunter of Daily Kos discussed the debt limit. That’s the amount of money the government is allowed to borrow. Since Congress continually has deficit budgets (I believe the last surplus was in the late years of the Bill Clinton presidency), Congress keeps having to raise the debt limit, causing a fight each time. Which they must do again by mid October. As for this year’s game of chicken...

I'm not sure there's been any past Republican effort as lazily nihilistic as the one that's currently forming, however. The seemingly unanimous take of Senate Republicans, as guided by (of course) Sen. Mitch McConnell, is that the debt ceiling of course needs to be raised as rote responsibility of government—and that Republicans will absolutely block attempts all attempts to do so so that Democrats have to do it without them. It's not a "we must reduce the debt" stance. It's not an attempt to play chicken with the nation's credit rating or an attempt to shut down government this time around. The Republican position this time is that while this paperwork may be a necessary part of government, it's better for Republicans to not do that governing so they're just ... not going to. ... Republicans don't intend to use their position to negotiate anything. They just don't wanna do it so they're not going to. Instead, their plan is to make Democrats do all the governing, then run midterm campaigns blasting Democrats for doing it. CNN reports that McConnell's intent is to make Democrats "own" a newly raised debt ceiling by forcing them do it through unconventional means, after all but a handful of Republican senators wrote a letter declaring both that the nation "should not default on our debts under any circumstances" and that if "Democrats threaten a default" it will be their fault for not ramming it through despite Republican attempts to block it. ... So then, Democrats, just erase it. Don't just boost the cap to whatever number will put us in this same position 10 or so months from now; get rid of it. Set it to a billion trillion quadrillion dollars and be done with it. That also can be done in reconciliation, since Republicans are demanding the Democrats use reconciliation to address it, and will defuse this particular bomb so that Ted Freaking Cruz and friends cannot blackmail government every damn year in order to boost his fundraising numbers.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported on a new poll from Quinnipiac University. The poll showed a negative 37%-50% job approval rating of the Supreme Court. That’s the lowest approval rating for the court during the time this poll question has been asked, which started in 2004. It is also a steep drop from July 2020 when the rating was approval 52% to 37%. On Monday Eleveld reported the House Ways and Means committee released their tax plan. They say it will raise $2.9 trillion to almost pay for the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan it will be a part of. Other sources say the bill would raise about $2 trillion. Some of the provisions: * Partially roll back the 2017 corporate Republican tax giveaway. * An increase in taxes for those earning income over $400K * A surtax on those earning over $5 million. * An increase in the capital gains tax rate, though smaller than expected. * An increase in the minimum tax on overseas earnings. This will slow down the wealth gap, which is at levels not seen since just before the Great Depression. While the bill is a start many progressives say it doesn’t go far enough. The super rich can still pass their estate to heirs without taxes. Of course, Republicans claim it will hurt the working poor the most. Sure. On Tuesday Eleveld reported on what’s going on with that $3.5 trillion bill. There’s timing – the House is close to a self-imposed deadline while Sen. Joe Manchin complains the bill is being rushed. There’s the price – progressives and Pelosi are saying $3.5 trillion is the minimum while Manchin is saying that’s too much. And there’s the tax hikes, discussed before. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community wrote that MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan brought out a clip from eight months ago of Manchin saying the infrastructure bill might need to go as high as $4 trillion. At that time he was concerned the package might not be big enough. Pennyfarthing suggests what changed his mind is that the fossil fuel industry provided a generous lining for his pockets. Also on Tuesday Eleveld reported that the For The People Voting Rights Act has been tweaked a bit and is now the Freedom to Vote Act. The tweaking was done to please Manchin and a few other centrist Democrats, though is still robust enough that progressives will still support it. Pleasing Manchin is surely the point. He called it a “step in the right direction.” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that Manchin is now discussing the bill with Republican colleagues to see if he can get ten votes from them (a big surprise if he does). Eleveld listed the various components of the bill. It sets minimum standards in several areas – for 15 days of early voting, for vote by mail, for voter IDs. It also requires paper ballots, disclosure of dark money, and protection of election workers. I’m disappointed in one provision. It allows states to choose their method of redistricting, though it lays out federal mapmaking criteria that are enforceable in courts. I had hoped it would demand redistricting be done by independent citizen commissions as I helped make happen here in Michigan. The big question is whether Manchin’s investment in the bill and his inability to get ten Republicans will get him to support ending the filibuster. The independent redistricting commission in Michigan is hard at work creating new maps they’ll bring out for public comment over the next couple months. A few weeks ago the commission went before the state Supreme Court and said can we get an extension on our constitutionally mandated deadline? The court said no. The commission now just says we’re not going to make our deadline. That deadline is next week. They’re not done in time because the census data was late. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary. Here’s one:

Being president isn’t a fun job right now. Climate change, murder hornets, and of course the relentlessly-maddening fact that Joe Biden has to ask people to take a life-saving vaccine. It's like if we're skydiving and he has to convince us to open our parachutes. —Jimmy Kimmel

They sent the fire trucks home while the buildings were still on fire

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed the current state of hospitals. Before getting to the COVID situation Sumner reminded us that health care conglomerates, which own hospitals, have been working to make sure there are just enough hospital beds for the patient load. Empty beds can’t be billed. That means 60-75% of hospital beds were full before COVID arrived. The goal is to maximize profit, which is distinct from taking care of people.

It is not a system designed to deal with a crisis in which tens of thousands of people need hospital care for a single disease every day. It’s especially not a system designed to deal with such a crisis for months on end. It’s not built for it. It’s not staffed for it. It’s not supplied for it.

Alabama doesn’t have any open ICU beds. Hospitals in Houston set up overflow tents, which is not good with Hurricane Nicholas bringing heavy rains. And Idaho has such a rise in cases that it is a problem ... for Washington state, Spokane in particular. That is a big problem for Washington residents who have a non COVID need for a hospital. Also annoying because Washington’s vaccination rate is one of the highest while Idaho’s rate is close to the bottom. In a second post Sumner reported that in places such as Texas and Florida, well, in half the nation, have permanently weakened the powers of public health officials to control any pandemic. These laws or executive orders block mask and vaccine (not just COVID) mandates, bock imposing quarantines, or block the close of businesses and schools. Sumner wrote:

Republicans didn’t just limit the powers of officials to deal with the raging pandemic. They did it while the disease was still spreading, hospitals overflowing, and thousands still dying. They didn’t just close down the fire department; they sent the trucks home while the buildings were still on fire.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that Biden’s vaccine mandate was an assault on private businesses and a power grab. That prompted Bill Scher to riff on the state’s new abortion ban.

Under Texas rules, your right to choose the vaccine exists for six weeks after which if you remain unvaccinated any vaccinated American can sue you.

I like that idea. Larry Elder was the lead Republican candidate in the bid to remove California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Before the recall election Elder started saying that if Newsom kept his seat it was because of election fraud. Then Newsom kept his job, winning 67% of the vote. SemDem, of the Kos community reported that Elder is singing a different tune.

Elder lost by so much, however, that he realized he didn’t want to look like the sore loser Trump is. Elder rejected Trump’s statement that the election was rigged and asked his supporters to be “gracious in defeat.” This is something Trump is literally incapable of doing.

"Partisan" no longer suffices to describe it

My Sunday movie was The Wedding Banquet, a 1993 movie by director Ang Lee. Yeah, I’m revisiting an old one I hadn’t seen before. It is billed as a comedy/drama, though I thought more drama than comedy. Wai Tung and Simon are gay lovers. Wai Tung’s Taiwanese mother has been putting the pressure on him to get married and give his father the grandson he’s been waiting for. So Wai Tung agrees to marry Wei-Wei, which would help her get her green card. His parents announce they are coming. An old army friend of the father announces he’ll host the wedding banquet. Of course, things get complicated. It was amusing and touching. Alas, the story required some good old cultural homophobia. A while after watching this one I began to think maybe I had seen it before. Much of the movie didn’t look familiar, though there was a late scene between Wai Tung’s father and Simon, that did. Or at least the broad outlines did. I wonder if scenes like that have appeared in a lot of gay movies (yeah, there’s no answer to that since I didn’t say what happened in that scene). The scenes of the actual wedding banquet are similar to the movie The Farewell which also featured a fake Chinese wedding, though there was no gay relationship on the side. On Monday afternoon I was on my way to a specialty grocery when the radio in the car cut out. When I had a moment I glanced at the display and it said, “Low Battery.” I knew it wasn’t the car battery because that was only two years old. I didn’t think the radio had its own battery. Another mile and the airbag warning light came on. The mile after that the antilock brake system warning light came on. No problem. That’s needed in winter when driving on ice. Soon the brake warning light came on. I knew that brakes weren’t a problem because they had just been replaced. As I pulled into a grocery parking spot the engine cut out. Yup, when my shopping was done the car wouldn’t start. No attempt to turn over the motor. There was enough juice that the CD player (yeah, I still have one of those) decided it needed to cycle through all six CDs. I refuse to carry a cell phone, even if it would be handy at a time such as this. I went back into the store and was able to use their phone to call road service. I was first told the wait would be 90 minutes but a guy was there in 20. He cleaned up the attachment posts on the battery and connected his test equipment. As I suspected, the battery was fine, though out of power. The alternator wasn’t. He charged up the battery and advised I go straight home. I said the service center I used would be even closer. So I went. I go there ten minutes before they closed. Their oil change service said I would have to go to full service. I got in there five minutes before they closed. Thankfully, a woman allowed me to use their phone to call to get the number of a friend who picked me up. She even stayed a few minutes late. However, I had to go back outside and fill out the service request envelope, put my key in it, and push it in the slot. The service center called Tuesday morning. The price of a new alternator is about five times what the road service guy suggested it might be and labor doubled the price. That amount came seriously close to the value of my 15 year old car and brought up the question of whether it is worth fixing. I spent the rest of Tuesday checking the value of this car, and prices of available cars. I would like my next car to be an electric, but I don’t know how soon small electric sedans will be available. It might be a couple more years. So a used car to last those years might be good. I also checked another repair shop. That guy didn’t want to estimate a price without seeing the vehicle because he got tired of customers saying, “But over the phone you said the price was ...” But I had to know if the hassle of getting the car to him was worth it. So he estimated a price, which was quite close to what the first shop wanted. Then I got to be thinking it is hard to go out to see cars when one doesn’t have a car to get there. Besides, just a couple days is not enough time to research my options – I need a car on Friday. So this morning I called the first place and said go ahead and fix it. I should get it back tomorrow. But I probably won’t get a new one quickly, considering how much money I just put into this one. My goodness, a lot of browser tabs have accumulated since I last wrote! I’ll need several days to get through them. Hunter of Daily Kos wrote a good rant in response to Supreme Court Justice Amy Comey Barrett urging her peers to not let personal biases influence their rulings. She doesn’t want the their rulings to be partisan. Hunter went into detail in saying too late for that. He listed partisan rulings, including several kinds of voting restrictions Republicans are busy passing, then concluded:

New laws include means by which the Republican Party can install partisan acolytes to challenge the vote tallies of counties that vote against them. Does the public believe the Supreme Court will stop them, or help them? The question here is not whether the Supreme Court is now being perceived as too "partisan" by the public. At this point, large sections of the public believe the court has passed beyond partisan and is now altering, unmaking, and justifying new laws to such an extent that "partisan" no longer suffices to describe it. It appears to be an effort to undermine laws themselves rather than tolerate a decline of conservative power; are such broad actions legitimate, from the court? And what happens if the public broadly decides they are not?

Georgia Logothetis, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted a couple articles of interest. First from Emma Pierson, Jaline Geradin, and Nathaniel Lash of the New York Times:

During the latest coronavirus wave, in July and August, at least 16,000 deaths could have been prevented if all states had vaccination rates as high as the state with the highest vaccination rate. The number of lives that could have been saved will grow unless vaccination rates in lagging states improve.

Second, John Cassidy at The New Yorker wrote about Biden’s vaccine mandates and the rule that slowing the virus is the way to fix the economy. Cassidy discussed a study that showed that people don’t choose to go to a store based on whether there is a lockdown, but on their fear of the current rate of virus spread. Hawaii Delilah tweeted a link to an article in the Washington Post and noted that Republicans in the California recall election were using the Big Lie, saying if they lose it is because of fraud by Democrats (Gavin Newsom won his recall by 67%). Delilah added:

This playbook has gone international because Bolsonaro in Brazil is using it.

Greg Sargent wrote an opinion piece for WaPo, then tweeted about it:

This is ominous. I've compiled numerous examples of high-profile GOP candidates who are vowing to contest future losses as illegitimate. In GOP politics, this is becoming a badge of honor, and that's a serious threat to democratic stability. ... The willingness to abide by election losses, on the understanding that you can live to fight another day, is a hallmark of democratic stability. But it’s becoming a hallmark of GOP primary politics to publicly renounce that ethic, defiantly and proudly.

SemDem of the Kos community wrote the Republican war on election workers is working. He documents several of the attacks and what that means for professional election administrators.

They are already paid dismal salaries and are expected to be experts on logistics, cybersecurity, communications, customer service, and voting law. Now, in addition to having to face harsh criminal penalties for administering their duties, they and their families have to live in fear. And that’s not the worst of it. Is it any wonder they are leaving?

Hunter also wrote about a California bill, likely to become law, that requires companies to distinguish whether their products are theoretically recyclable or actually recyclable, meaning there is someone out there recycling it. If only the former this bill would require them to remove the recyclable symbol from their product. Recycling centers currently handle the difference between theoretical and actual. They have to dispose things that can’t actually be recycled. This bill shifts the burden to the manufacturer, who should know their product. Customers would then not send the theoretical stuff to the recycle center. They would also demand packaging and products that can actually be recycled. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary:

All I'm saying is, if you're in charge of one region of my body, what sense does that make? Just the uterus? At least take the whole bottom half—I want a federally-funded pedicure! Can you do that? Of course you can't, you dumbf---s. So don’t take charge of the biggest decision I'll ever make in my whole life when you can't even get me a goddam pedicure! —Amber Ruffin on Late Night

A vaccine mandate helped win the Revolutionary War

Another check of Michigan’s COVID data today. Because of the holiday on Monday the data is likely to shift over the next couple weeks. At the moment, the week’s peak in cases per day for the last three weeks is 2215, 2174, and 3016. Over the last two weeks the deaths per day has reach 26 once and 27 twice. In response to a tweet that claimed our Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves over mask and vaccine mandates, Michael Harriot tweeted a history lesson. In 1706 a black man in Boston convinced his owner to try inoculating his family and friends against smallpox. That prompted the first anti-vaxxer movement. Half the town got sick and 1 in 7 died, though only 1 in 40 of the inoculated died. Massachusetts became the first to promote public vaccination. The next year another epidemic hit and less than 3% caught it. Thomas Jefferson, while president, mandated vaccines. James Madison created the National Vaccine Agency. Another smallpox epidemic broke out in 1900. Again vaccination was mandated. Again there was an anti-vax movement. And the Supreme Court upheld a compulsory vaccination law. In 1998 Andrew Wakefield published a study saying the MMR vaccine caused autism. It was a hoax perpetrated by a rival vaccine company. But very few news outlets that reported the study also reported the hoax. Measles killed kids around the world, except in the US, where we had a vaccine mandate. One more bit: George Washington mandated his troops be vaccinated against smallpox. That gave them an advantage over the British and helped America to become independent. Leah McElrath of Houston responded to a tweet from Dr. Peter Hotez, who wrote that Texas has passed 60,000 COVID deaths and is averaging 200 deaths a day. She wrote:

More deaths in one state in an 18 month period than the total number if Americans killed in the Vietnam War in a decade.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by planes crashing into them. The crew of a fourth plan fought back to keep it from its target. In New York many first responders helped save a great number of people and many of them lost their lives trying to save more. NPR news programs used today’s programs for remembrance. Other news outlets surely did the same. Greg Dworkin, in yesterday’s pundit roundup for Daily Kos, quoted Spencer Ackerman of the New York Times, who discussed the relationship between Sept. 11 and Jan. 6:

The war on terror accustomed white Americans to seeing themselves as counterterrorists. Armed white Americans on the far right could assemble in militias, whether in Northern states like Michigan or on the southern border, and face little in the way of law-enforcement reprisal. ... They considered themselves to be doing what America was doing all this time: combating terrorism, since, as patriots, they couldn’t be committing terrorism.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported on Wednesday Biden laid out ambitious goals for solar power. He wrote:

Getting solar power from around 4% of the nation’s electricity to 40% by 2035 will take a genuine national mobilization that adds 30 gigawatt hours of solar capacity each year. But if it’s not done, the U.S. will not reach the goals already set for reducing carbon emissions. In the process, the U.S. would create between 500,000 and 1.5 million solar-related jobs, retake a leadership position in solar power, greatly reduce greenhouse gases, create a much more flexible and reliable power grid, and not see an increase in electricity prices. All of which sounds like a goal that any nation should strive toward.

But some of the media coverage of the effort has been negative. NYT noted how the effort will strain the aluminum, silicon, steel, and glass industries and the rush to hire workers will mean many won’t be part of a union. Sumner noted, “That’s the kind of negative framing that does not happen by accident.” Yes, there are big challenges in switching from fossil fuels to renewables in the largest change industry is facing in 200 years. However, that is much better and much less expensive than doing nothing. I hope some company realizes a great place for solar panels is over big box store parking lots – actually, every parking lot. In addition to generating electricity these panels will shade cars from the hot sun – and perhaps be convenient places for recharging electric cars. McElrath tweeted a thread saying she is beginning to see herself as an accidental anarchist. She is not advocating overthrowing the state. Rather she wants us to recognize the state is no longer functioning for the greater good, isn’t meeting the needs of the people, and won’t be the agent of change we need.

Many causes of mass suffering are accelerating. Our responsiveness must reflect that acceleration. Political structures as they exist are not only failing to reflect the acceleration, they are often seemingly interfering with the efforts of groups of individuals to do so. We have to decide when our efforts to influence the system are merely serving to reinforce our fears of powerlessness in the face of profound change. We are not powerless. We have ourselves. We have each other. Perhaps it is time for our interconnection to become our focus. ... Rather than waiting on the state to save us, I am beginning to believe we must begin focusing in earnest on how more effectively to save one another. Perhaps by doing so, we can live into the future with hope rather than hopelessness, feeling empowered rather than powerless.

Governing while Democrat

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed a report from the New York Times about the taxes the rich are not paying. Yeah, we know they’re not paying. So here are some new stats. Like this one. Over the last ten years the amount of money the 1% didn’t pay and should have is $7 trillion. That’s 18 months of the federal budget. When one gets money through a job their pay is automatically withheld and sent to the government. Which means working and middle class people are quite good at filing tax returns, many in hopes of getting some of it back. The rich don’t get paid that way so their income is not withheld. So they underreport and underpay. The way to fix this: Properly fund the IRS. Right now it can afford to go after only the middle and working class folks – people who don’t have complicated returns. Sumner wrote:

What’s being left on the table each year is enough to cover all unemployment payments, SNAP and other child nutrition programs, have a few billion left on the side for all foster care programs and children’s health programs—every one of which Republicans are sure to claim is too costly. What it would take to recover those funds is a tiny fraction of the benefits that would result. But somehow, Republicans—or specifically, Republican donors—don’t want the IRS to spend more time looking at the wealthiest 1%. And there are 7 trillion reasons why.

Joan McCarter of Kos wrote:

The insanity of governing while Democrat was on full display Wednesday as numerous political figures fought over how much money is okay to spend on helping people have better lives. In a rational world, policymakers would look at a problem—say, nearly half of senior and disabled people not having dental care—and determine how much it would cost to fix that, then find that money. Like from raising taxes on rich people. Or maybe just enforcing the tax laws already on the books and getting the money from fat-cat tax dodgers [see above]. It's how it works for defense spending. "Look—there's a shiny new plane which may or may not work and costs $100 million per pop! Let's get it!" Then the nation sinks $1.62 trillion into a black hole over three decades even though the damn thing doesn’t work, and has to spend billions more on yet another plane. That just keeps happening. But making sure a senior citizen has teeth with which they can eat? Allowing them to age in their own homes with adequate, paid assistance? That we have to pinch pennies on. ... The point is, we are the richest country in the goddamned world. We can afford all of these things. We don't have to treat policies—and the people whose lives they would change—as game pieces to be traded.

Some of that reluctance to spend money comes from ideas pushed by conservatives who don’t want the government to spend money on those people. A federal balanced budget amendment has been a conservative dream for a long time. The main idea is that a family budget must balance. A small business budget must balance. A city budget must balance. A state budget must balance. But the federal budget is not any of these. McCarter reported that Rep. John Yarmuth, chair of the House Budget Committee is now saying out loud, “We can spend whatever we need to spend in the interest of serving the American people.” That’s progress. Stephanie Kelton, former chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee for the Democrats, wrote a literal book on that myth. She’s also been posting about it. Short version: treating the federal budget like a family budget does not serve the public interest. We as a country can have nice things. Leah McElrath tweeted: “I think ‘rural’ is an attempt to invoke the romanticized mythology of the family farm.” Which prompted Jessica Huseman, editorial director of VoteBeatUSA which helps small newsrooms survive, to tweet:

Yes! And I cannot tell you how many people say s--- to me about farm subsidies. Who do you think gets those subsidies? There are no mom and pop farms anymore. They work on big farms to get those subsidies and then still have to drive half an hour to a f---ing grocery store. ... Increasingly, small family farms are being bought up by gigantic corporations who get the farm subsidies that so many people who live in suburbs and urban areas think are the equivalent of providing appropriate services to these communities. They are not.

Lauren Floyd of Kos discussed the difficulty of people of color have when buying a house. She included a report from The Wall Street Journal that the buyer of roughly one in five houses isn’t going to move in. They buyer is a pension fund or a corporation wanting to collect the rent. This is making housing more expensive for everyone and owning a home more out of reach for black people. There is an election next week in California about recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom. Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported that Fox News is already saying that if Newsom is not recalled it’s because Democrats cheated, there must have been vast election fraud. I’m sure we’re going to hear that leading up to every election from now on. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed an article in The Washington Post, which begins:

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s supreme court voted unanimously on Tuesday to decriminalize abortion, a striking step in a country with one of the world’s largest Catholic populations and a move that contrasts sharply with tighter restrictions introduced across the border in Texas.

That happened even though Mexico is 82% Catholic. It happened because there is a strong women’s movement and women make up half of Mexico’s Congress. This might also influence the rest of Latin America. And maybe the US? Cheryl Rofer, who writes on women’s issues, tweeted a thread refuting the phrase “life begins at conception.” It’s a phrase used by the forced pregnancy crowd in a misleading way.

The celery and carrots in your vegetable drawer are alive. So is the mold on the cheese. Being alive by itself doesn't require a particular ethical stand. Before conception, the egg and sperm are alive. Nobody is insisting that men be prosecuted for killing all those alive sperm. Where does "life begin" for the celery and carrots? The seeds that made that plant are alive, as was the plant that made them. Or, for that matter, for the egg and sperm? Everything living owes its life to its parent. What are the forced birthers saying when they say that "life begins" at conception? And by "conception" do they mean fertilization or implantation? What they are trying to do is to impose a value on the conceptus, not to make a biological statement. And that is, of course, a matter of belief. Religious belief, even, as that quote tweet refers to Catholic doctrine. Laws against abortion impose religious restrictions on all. Roe v. Wade attempted a practical definition, in terms of viability of the fetus.

Ferrel Bruce showed an image that explains the concept.