Just need to see if the country cares enough to hold them accountable

Brother came for a good visit. He came Tuesday afternoon and took him back to the airport this morning. He’ll spend a couple months with his daughter and family and visit me again in February – he has to change planes in Detroit, might as well stay a while. I let him indulge in his enjoyment of home improvement projects, so I have a new kitchen faucet (the old one leaked). Yesterday afternoon we went for a drive so I could show Brother a bit of what the area is like. My immediate area is generic suburbia that requires a car to get anywhere. Part of our route was through the Brightmoor neighborhood of Detroit, one of the most poverty stricken. It is so poor that the city came in to demolish blighted houses and much of the area is now urban prairie. Barely two miles away is the thriving neighborhood of Rosedale where many of the houses have features that make one think of castles. Brother was puzzled and troubled by the contrast. I don’t know all the causes of Brightmoor’s poverty, though I’m sure redlining and racism in general are a big part. Lauren Floyd of Daily Kos discussed and quoted more of Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent from the Supreme Court ruling that the way the Texas abortion ban law was written really does mean courts can’t review and overturn it. Floyd also reported that Gavin Newsom, governor of California, said progressives can play that game. He is directing the state legislature to design a law that allows private citizens to sue anyone who “manufactures, distributes, or sells an assault weapon or ghost gun kit or parts” in California. Commenter TheShadowKnows noted that the right to bear arms is directly in the Constitution (at least how Justice John Roberts and colleagues interpreted it a few years ago) and the right to an abortion is not. So the current pretenders in the court will have no trouble overturning the California gun case while upholding the Texas abortion ban. Rebekah Sager of Kos reported Gov. DeathSantis of Florida has enacted a new bit of legislation called the “Stop Wrongs Against Our Kids and Employees Act” – the Stop WOKE Act. He said, “No taxpayer dollars should be used to teach our kids to hate our country or hate each other.” Yeah, we know getting kids to hate each other is not what Critical Race Theory is all about and how the uproar is all a screen to keep their children from learning about racism so they will keep perpetuating racism. Instead, Sager discussed the word in the middle of the name of the law.

“Woke” has always been a word that belongs to Black people. It was first used to remind Black folks to keep their eyes open to white supremacy. “Stay woke” started as a rallying cry during protests against police brutality in Ferguson, but it goes back even further to Lead Belly using the term in 1931. Today, the term has evolved into something for white people. Progressive white people need to become “woke” as allies to Black and brown people, they need to be enlightened about the plight of America’s racism in our new “post-racial” society. And right-wingers use it to fearmonger. Now woke is dead. The only people who use it are those who’ve sullied it or those who have no idea about its true etymology—people who don’t really look at history for what it was, but what they wish it was.

I don’t think “evolved” is the right word there. A better way to say it is the word “woke” has been co-opted and redefined by white people to denigrate black people and other white people. Just after the Oxford, Michigan school shooting Leonard Pitts, in an opinion piece printed in last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press, wrote about how Republicans and related conservative groups have stepped up their efforts to ban books.

We live in a world where students huddle under their desks in active-shooter drills, but conservatives are concerned that learning about race might make them uncomfortable. A world where children have PTSD from seeing friends slaughtered, but conservatives fear that reading about sex might expose them to things they’re not yet ready for. A world where kids go to school with bulletproof backpacks, but conservatives think books have gotten way out of hand.

There has been a lot of news from the House Commission to investigate the Capitol attack. I won’t report all of it. A great deal of the news is about Mark Meadows, Chief of Staff in the nasty guy White House and a major coup plotter. Meadows agreed to testify before the Commission and handed over 9000 documents. Then he changed his mind and the House voted to charge him with contempt of Congress for ignoring their subpoena. Those 9000 documents have, of course, lots of juicy details. Mark Sumner of Kos looked at some of those details. He wrote out a timeline of events and then explored an alternate scenario based on what we’ve learned recently. Sumner described three tracks to the plan. The first was how they might overturn the Electoral College vote. The second was a theoretical justification for overturning the cleanest, most closely observed election in American history. This became known as the Big Lie. Evidence wasn’t required. The third track was to generate anger to justify violent action.

The coup plans were the means of execution. The legal claims, ridiculous as they were and are, were the justification. But the rally track, the violence track, was the lever to make it all happen.

I had reported (several months ago) that the plan told to the vice nasty that when the Electoral College votes were counted, he should say the tally in Arizona was in dispute (it wasn’t) and repeat that claim for each of the other five close states. When the count got to Arizona there were objections (though not from the vice nasty). The House and Senate separated for two hours to debate the objections. That debate was interrupted when the members fled their chambers for a safe space. Later that evening after the attackers were cleared and the shaken members returned to the task the Arizona objections were dealt with and the count continued. The alternate scenario considers the possibility the attackers don’t actually enter the Capitol until much later. The House and Senate reconvene and vice nasty has a chance to declare the Arizona votes in dispute. Only then do the attackers enter the Capitol and the nasty guy declares a do-over election under military supervision. That implies the attack happened too fast. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post:

Multiple pieces of evidence have emerged pointing to a deliberate effort to overthrow our democracy. And it is former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows who is key to piecing them all together. Now, we just need to see if the country cares enough to hold all those involved accountable.

In another Gaslit Nation bonus episode (alas, only available to subscribers) host Sarah Kendzior said she believes there will be a lot of violence around the 2022 and 2024 elections. The actors will know they have the backing of police, the media, the nasty guy, and some members of Congress. They know they will not suffer for their violence. They way to change their perception of backing is to prosecute the leaders of the Capitol attack (who currently appear to be protected) and the instigators, including the nasty guy. She didn’t talk about how likely that will happen. Dartagnan of the Kos community reported that Republicans are already planning for the first debt limit vote after they retake the House in 2022. The debt limit is about being able to cover money that has already been spent by the federal government. If the limit isn’t raised (or abolished) the government cannot pay its ongoing expenses, including interest on federal bonds and the trust in them would disappear, leading to a profound wrecking of the American and world financial systems. Yet the Republicans are already planning to hold the national and world economies hostage. For ransom they want Biden to make drastic cuts to national social spending programs. This would be more than big cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. It would also be all other social programs in the federal government and all of the programs in the not yet passed Build Back Better bill. Such a default would not happen under Republicans led by Moscow Mitch. But in 2023 his power may be curtailed and the GOP members elected next year are likely to be much further to the right. Sending the nation over a fiscal cliff is a necessity for the return of the nasty guy. The result would be chaos and crisis, all of which would be blamed on Biden. And the nasty guy would claim that only he could restore order (to chaos inflicted by his own party). There is a way out of this hostage threat. Democrats can raise the debt ceiling by enough so that another vote isn’t needed for several years. The threat has already been issued. Will Democrats heed it? Adam Jentleson and Sahil Kapur tweeted that no, they won’t. The current debt limit resolution is to raise it enough to get through the 2022 midterms – exactly playing into Republican hands. Ian Reifowitz of Kos reported that Vice President Kamala Harris and her Jewish husband Doug Emhoff have mounted a Jewish mezuzah to the doorframe of the official Vice President residence. This particular mezuzah has a meaningful history, which Reifowitz related. Jews and a lot of other people appreciate the significance and visibility. The Vice President’s Office celebrated Hanukkah, this time as a matter of religion, not as a symbolic ceremony. Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen have shown up in Kentucky to serve hot meals to people whose homes have been destroyed by the tornadoes that swept through the state a week ago. Jack Sillin, a student meteorologist at Cornell University, created a map of the longest lasting Kentucky tornado using captured radar images. Lots of news outlets talked about a tornado that went for 220 miles. Actually, it traveled 600 miles from Little Rock to Cincinnati and lasted over 11 hours. That’s scary. Michael Harriot tweeted a thread on how Fox News would’ve covered Jesus. Excerpts:

Immigration officials are investigating reports of a Nazareth couple who traveled to Bethlehem to deliver an anchor baby some are claiming as “King of the Jews.” People are saying the parents went to Bethlehem's nicest hotel and demanded a free room! He was dressed in "Swaddling Clothes," which I think is an urban fashion brand. Why isn't anyone singing "Joy to the world" for white kids from two-parent homes who were responsible enough to make a reservation at the inn? We shouldn't praise the actions of these irresponsible parents. Oh great, another brown kid who doesn't know who his father is. Did you know that frankincense and myrrh are the main ingredients in homemade explosives? Look, it's King Herod's job to protect our country and the only way to do it is to kill all the firstborn sons. You can't be soft on terrorism. I'm sorry, but no one wants to listen to some unqualified minority who got into carpentry school on affirmative action. He wouldn't need to heal the blind & cure leprosy if he told his followers to get a job so they could afford healthcare!

I would not trust those claims about frankincense and myrrh.