It’s all right there, in black in white

In a post written earlier this week Mark Sumner of Daily Kos listed the efforts that the nasty guy and his minion put out to end America as a democracy. Many of these things were revealed in the last week or so. I’ve already mentioned the memo from John Eastman describing how the vice nasty could subvert the Electoral College counting to keep the nasty guy in office. There was also: The plan to install Jeffrey Clark as acting Attorney General so the Department of Justice could give its official approval to the claims of voter fraud from Rudy Giuliani. That was thwarted by the release of the recording of the nasty guy threatening the Georgia Secretary of State to find him a few thousand votes. There was Steve Bannon preparing to “cast enough of a shadow over Biden’s victory” to destroy faith in the election system. And Giuliani’s efforts to discredit the election, even knowing his talking points were lies. Sumner concluded:

The violent assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6 wasn’t the culmination of Trump’s efforts; it was the tip of an insurrection iceberg. The overthrow of American democracy was plotted and planned, in the White House, in conservative think tanks, in Trump’s campaign offices, and in state Republican parties. Not only did it represent the greatest threat to the nation since at least the Civil War, that threat remains intact. This is the biggest story, bar none, in the history of the nation. A story against which Watergate would barely warrant a footnote and Iran Contra would be lost in the details. So why is that story not on the front page of The New York Times, or The Washington Post? Why isn’t it at the top of CNN or NBC News? The only real question that remains is not what Donald Trump set out to do, but why the media was such a failure in its job to sound the warning. And why it’s failing again.

Yesterday Sumner wrote about this again. He reviewed the evidence of the plan – the roles of Eastman, Clark, Bannon, and Giuliani. Sumner wrote:

None of this is rumor. None of this is conjecture. None of this is coming secondhand. It doesn’t require assembling a panoply of clues or making logical leaps. It’s all right there, in black in white, much of it on stationary that carries the White House seal. Donald Trump planned to not just contest the election, but declare himself the “winner” on January 6, ending over two centuries of American democracy. It not only should be the biggest story in decades, it definitely is the most important story—a greater threat than the nation has faced since the Civil War.

Then Sumner reviewed the reasons the mainstream media outlets used to explain why they are not covering it: There’s so much news to cover (like a white woman who went missing and later found dead). This is no worse that the nasty guy’s locker room talk (see: Access Hollywood tape). John Eastman (who on the nasty guy’s legal team and head of influential conservative institutes) is an unknown lawyer so of no interest. And ... the big one ... the coup didn’t succeed.

This should come as a great surprise to every person ever jailed for a crime starting with the word “attempted.” But more than that, it is undoubtedly a great relief to the people who planned and attempted to execute this coup. Because what the national media is telling them is clear enough: Keep trying, because we’ll ignore everything you do until you get it right.

In a change of topic Sumner wrote about Sen. Joe Manchin, one of the major holdups in the Congress getting anything important done – such as the infrastructure bill with lots of initiatives to do something about the climate crisis.

The reason for this is simple enough: Joe Manchin profits from coal mines. He started the mining company Enersystems in 1988, and that company is still operated by his son. Let’s make this really simple: 1. Sen. Joe Manchin makes about $500,000 each year directly from stock in his coal brokerage company. 2. President Joe Biden is proposing a higher tax rate on those making over $400,000, and both the infrastructure bill and reconciliation bill are designed to turn the nation away from coal. Does that make the problem clear enough?

Sumner reviewed that coal is dying. Other forms of energy are cheaper. Even so, Manchin is working to stop the transition from coal.

The coal industry is right now putting half a million dollars into Manchin’s pocket every single year, and also providing even more wealth to his family. That he refuses to just shrug and turn off that tap is not a mystery. So bribe him. Not in an illegal way. Just bribe him in the time honored way that people have always been bribed in Washington, D.C.

Yeah, it isn’t fair to give golden parachutes to the guys who were at the front of creating the climate crisis. But do it anyway. Make the payment big enough for Manchin, his son, and the others to go away. Then sign the bill. Sumner again. This time he wrote about COVID and how bad it is getting in the US and how low our vaccination rate is. The death rate in the US is higher than other wealthy nations. The number of deaths in the US is higher than the rest of the G-7 countries combined. This analysis came from The Economist. They used the official case and death numbers, and since these are known to be inaccurate in some states (now why would Florida want to hide how many people have died?) the numbers also use an excess death model that compares overall deaths to similar periods before the pandemic. They did this for all the countries and the US still is way out ahead. Rebekah Sager of Kos reported that Cox Medical Center in Branson, Missouri is using grant money to give their 400 employees “panic” buttons that will call hospital security when a COVID denying patient or family member becomes violent. Many staff no longer go out in public wearing their scrubs. Other hospitals across the country have done this too. Sager concluded:

So, not only are people not getting vaccines and gumming up the works at hospitals around the country to the point that medicine is having to be rationed, but they’re additionally a violent menace to the people trying to help us when we’re sick?

Knowing the stink COVID deniers are raising at public school boards. Charles Jay of the Kos community checked the mask and vaccine policies at some of the prep schools where the 1% send their kids. Yup, they have strict mask or vaccine requirements. One has a lenient mask mandate because the vaccination requirement is so strict siblings younger than 12 cannot visit the campus. Jay concluded:

So while many Republican governors—aided by right-wing media outlets like Fox News—are working to prevent public schools from imposing vaccine or even mask mandates to protect children, the nation’s elite private schools tasked with educating many of the right’s most vocal leaders see these mandates as absolutely necessary.

Hunter of Kos discussed an article from NYT about a new legal defense network for election workers. It was set up because there is such a big threat from Republican backed laws and Republican calls for violence with the goal of intimidating – shoving aside – election workers. Some of those new laws slap heavy fines on workers who make mistakes. The network will connect election workers with volunteer legal service. I went looking for an article online, one that I read in print. I didn’t find it. Instead, I found something else quite cool. The University of Michigan Spectrum Center focuses on gender and sexuality as it works to create an inclusive environment for the university community. It is marking its 50th anniversary. It is rather hard for me to think an LGBTQ related place was active on an American university campus in 1971. Yeah, that’s cool. Even more cool is the University of Michigan Marching Band did a tribute to the center as part of their halftime show on September 25 in the game against Rutgers. They played the songs I’m Coming Out, Born This Way, Heart to Break, We Are Family, and True Colors. I’m not familiar with the middle one. All the rest are defiant statements or calls to be who you are. At the end of that part of the show the band formed the words “Love Wins.” You can find a video of the whole show in the Spectrum Center Twitter feed. For the second half of the show the band formed lines in the corner of the field in front of the Alumni Band seated in the stands. The two bands played a few old standards, including the fight song. When I was in high school (about a half century ago (yes, really)) I went to a lot of home football games for a simple reason – I had two brothers in the marching band. The family usually sat near where the band sat when it wasn’t on the field. This band was quite good, even winning area (maybe also state) awards. At one point I studied the marching instructions for one of the band’s pieces – the various movements assigned to each squad of four that resulted in the patterns on the field. Using graph paper and the instructions I recreated the patterns for this piece. I then tried to create some of my own patterns. I never showed these to anyone, so this might be news to my brothers. I attended a few football games in college, but I didn’t go to a big university and the marching band wasn’t all that good. But since I don’t go to football games it has been many years since I’ve seen a marching band. I do remember a time when I lived in Germany I talked to a couple music students and was amused when one of them talked about his year at an American college and his season in the marching band – he had never seen such a thing before and was baffled when fellow students tried to explain the concept to him. It seems marching band styles have changed a lot in the 50 years since I watched a band regularly. No more pinwheels or moving patterns. The band did form shapes, such as spelling out words, but they did it by essentially walking from one position to the next as one shape deformed and another one formed. They held that position for a while, then walked to another shape. It was good to see a marching band again. It was great to see a band embrace LGBTQ acceptance!