The Maestro in love

If you write today’s date in the US fashion of month first and you leave out separators you get: 123123. My Sunday movie was Maestro about the love between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre, who became his wife. I’m pleased to see the movie did not avoid Bernstein’s love of several men. Was he bisexual? Was he gay and married a woman anyway? From this movie and its depiction of the love he showed Montealegre I’m more likely to believe he was bisexual, but the only one who can say for sure is Bernstein. The story begins, of course, with his 1943 call to conduct the New York Philharmonic with just a few hours notice and turning it into a rousing success. Since he was the assistant conductor he was supposed to know the music for that exact situation, though he may not have rehearsed with the orchestra. Little of the movie shows Bradley Cooper, who portrayed Bernstein, actually conducting an orchestra. There is a six minute segment of him conducting the finale of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony and Cooper does a fine job at being as over the top in his conducting as Bernstein was. There are news reports he studied conducting for six years to get those six minutes right. One aspect of that scene amused me – the scene took place in Ely Cathedral in England but the sound didn’t reverberate as it would in such a big stone space. What was on the soundtrack was recorded by the London Philharmonic ahead of time. Cooper looked like Lenny and sounded like Lenny and, since Lenny appeared on TV and other video recordings so frequently, Cooper had lots of examples and did a good job in acting like Lenny. Nearly all the music in the movie is either Bernstein’s own or Mahler’s. That right there is a good reason for me to watch.

Capitalism has always come into conflict with freedom and equality

Now that the nasty guy is blocked from the ballot in two states, an Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos discusses the question: Can he run? Some of the points: Several states have ruled on whether the nasty guy violated the 14th amendment and should be barred from being on the presidential ballot. And these rulings have been all over: Yes he should be banned, not he shouldn’t, we aren’t the ones to say.

Until the high court rules, any state could adopt its own standard on whether Trump, or anyone else, can be on the ballot. That's the sort of legal chaos the court is supposed to prevent.

The nasty guy’s lawyers have reasons why he should be on the ballot. The prosecuting lawyers have reasons why he shouldn’t. The insurrection was almost three years ago. This is an issue only now because until the nasty guy filed papers to be on the ballot it wasn’t a question courts could take up. Is this a partisan issue?

Well, of course it is. Bellows is a Democrat, and all the justices on the Colorado Supreme Court were appointed by Democrats. Six of the 9 U.S. Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republicans, three by Trump himself. But courts don't always split on predictable partisan lines. The Colorado ruling was 4-3 — so three Democratic appointees disagreed with barring Trump. Several prominent legal conservatives have championed the use of Section 3 against the former president.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Perry Bacon of the Washington Post who says we should use the 14th Amendment to keep the nasty guy off the ballot.

The argument that doing so would be undemocratic is nonsense. Democracy is not just elections; it’s also a broader system of rules, laws and norms. Even if you think democracy is mostly about elections, you can’t support having Trump as president again, because he only supports elections if he is declared the winner. It cannot be a requirement of democracy that you allow the election of leaders who will then end free and fair elections — and therefore democracy itself.

When Nikki Haley was asked about the cause of the Civil War and did not mention slavery she accused the person asking the question of being a Democratic plant. Monte Wolverton posted a cartoon of Dark Brandon exhorting actual potted plants to, “Go Now!... To town hall meetings everywhere and ask GOP candidates hard questions!” Another AP article reported that the very Republican legislature in Ohio approved two anti-trans bills. Very Republican Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed them. Yeah, he defied his caucus. They’re contemplating an override. On the law banning treatment for gender transitioning DeWine said:

Now, while there are rare times in the law in other circumstances where the state overrules the medical decisions made by the parents, I can think of no examples where this is done where it is not only against the decision of the parent, but also against the medical judgement of the treating physician and against the judgement of the treating team of medical experts. Therefore, I cannot sign this bill as it currently written.

As I read that I kept thinking isn’t the same true for laws banning abortion? Didn’t Ohioans just vote to put abortion protections in the state constitution? Since abortion is protected in Ohio that might be why DeWine didn’t think of it. DeWine did announce three actions his administration will take. First is direct agencies (which ones isn’t reported) to ban transitioning surgery on those under 18. This is to combat the fallacy that gender transitioning goes straight to surgery – which doesn’t happen anyway. Second, he agrees with the legislature there isn’t sufficient data on those who receive gender affirming care. So he is directing appropriate agencies to gather the data. Third, he and his team will draft rules to prevent “pop up clinics” to make sure families get accurate counseling on care. The legislature passed one bill banning puberty blockers and hormone therapies, treatments available for more than a decade and long endorsed by major medical associations. Another bill would have banned transgender women from girls sports, for the bad reasons claimed in other states. These were vetoed. Here’s an article that’s been sitting in my browser tabs since early October. I accumulated a bunch of other articles to discuss along with it and since then I wrote about more important (or shorter) topics. This article is by John Patrick Leary for Economic Hardship Reporting Project and was posted on Kos. The article discusses neoliberalism, which Leary defines.

Neoliberalism is an economic philosophy and a political system devoted to enforcing economic competition, protecting the power of businesses, and celebrating the “free market”—that is, the capitalist market—as the wisest and best judge of people, institutions, and ideas. ... Capitalism, which relies on the productive power of hierarchy—many people working under the authority of a smaller group of bosses—has always come into conflict with political systems based on freedom and equality. Neoliberalism, [Wellesley College history professor Quinn] Slobodian argues, is a response by politicians and capitalists to protect the market from interference by democratic representatives of the people. So, for example, when international free-trade agreements, like NAFTA, require national governments to privatize public utilities and adjust their labor laws to encourage economic growth, they allow corporations and private businesses to overrule government demands for social justice.

Some examples. There is the Lyft driver that is classified as an independent contractor and must maintain their car at their own expense. There is the Detroit student who must navigate the “archipelago” of charter schools, some operated at a profit where they and their parents don’t have much time to research options, leading to anxiety. There are social media corporations mining teenagers’ social lives for advertising dollars. What used to be free or low cost public college now force massive education debt. In Britain public housing was privatized and those who could not afford maintenance sold to investors, who increased rents and made Britain’s affordable housing crisis worse.

This is neoliberalism in a nutshell: The state uses its muscle to break up a public asset, turning what had once been a public, democratic obligation (providing and maintaining affordable housing for the people) into an individual’s personal obligation, subject to the power of the private market. In the process, an asset built and maintained by a democratic government—public housing—became, in the end, just another engine to create private fortunes. ... None of this is exactly new, even if the problems are getting worse. Defining neoliberalism can seem unnecessarily complicated if we concentrate too much on that prefix—what’s so “neo” about low wages and expensive housing? So, to keep it simple: Neoliberalism is the newest stage of a very old conflict between capitalism and democracy.

On to those other articles. One is even older than the Leary article. It is by Aldous Pennyfathing of Kos, though the useful quote is by Greg Sargent of WaPo:

New data on tax avoidance by the ultrarich badly undermines GOP claims to being an anti-elite, pro-worker party. It shows that if Republicans get their way with regard to the IRS, a nontrivial number of very rich Americans would continue to underpay taxes they owe, effectively making out like bandits — some literally so. Nearly 1,000 tax filers who earn more than $1 million per year have still not filed federal tax returns for at least one year from 2017 to 2020, according to IRS data provided to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

So, yeah, Republicans are the party of the rich and rich tax cheats. Remember the news about the high price of eggs in the fall of 2022? In a story from late November Mark Sumner wrote:

As Bloomberg Law reports, food companies began complaining about the price-fixing scheme all the way back in 2011. What’s more, the scheme was seemingly put in place in the 1990s, if not sooner. The story about the price-fixing of eggs turns out to not be so much about how food producers conspired to drive up prices at a time when the nation was struggling from the lingering effects of a pandemic. It’s a story about how food industry groups and corporate producers are always looking for ways to cheat the system. ... When it’s all put together, what it shows is an industry that has been manipulating the market for seemingly three decades or more, and that took advantage of both a real disease [bird flu] and media hype about inflation to disguise a naked grab for record profits. ... Inflation caused by corporate greed can’t be addressed by raising interest rates that harm consumers. Solving the underlying problem can’t be done until the public is fully aware of the real cause of rising prices. But corporate media is failing them on this issue, as it is on so many others.

In early December Meteor Blades of Kos wrote:

A new report from progressive UK.-based think-tanks IPPR and Common Wealth says profiteering played a major role in jacking up prices far above the rise in costs, reinforcing a previous but narrower study showing such an impact. Among other things, the researchers called for a global corporation tax to curtail unrestrained profits.

In early 2022 energy, mining, monopolistic food, technology, telecommunications, and banking all saw “profits leap ahead of inflation.” Some of these companies tripled their profits. Because energy and food prices feed into costs across all sectors of the economy the profit grabs made inflation run higher and last longer. Food production got particular attention because the largest four food companies – Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill, Bunge, and Dreyfus – control about 70-90 percent of the world grain market. The profits for the four rose 255% in 2021. In mid-November, Sen. Bob Casey, chairman of the Subcommittee on Children and Families released a report —“Stuffing Their Pockets: How Big Food and Agriculture Businesses Are Making Your Holiday Meals More Expensive.” From the report:

This report examines how the agribusiness companies that process Americans’ food have increased prices for everyday staple foods and raises questions about why those price increases are necessary. These same companies have a history of engaging in price-fixing, colluding to raise prices, anti-competitive conduct, and touting their ability to raise prices without limit. [...] Finally, the Department of Justice recently initiated a lawsuit that suggests almost the entire chicken, turkey, and pork industry are engaged in price-fixing practices.

Comically minimal ego-stroking

An Associated Press article posted to Daily Kos adds more detail to what I wrote about the nasty guy being booted from the primary ballot in Maine. This is the important part that I didn’t know about before:

The Trump campaign said it would appeal Bellows' decision to Maine's state courts, and Bellows suspended her ruling until that court system rules on the case. In the end, it is likely that the nation's highest court will have the final say on whether Trump appears on the ballot there and in the other states.

Yesterday I also wrote about candidate Nikki Haley avoiding saying slavery was the cause of the Civil War. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed why she did it.

But Haley is not running for the post of presidential historian. She is attempting to become the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, and she faces the daunting obstacle of winning over a Republican primary electorate almost completely in thrall of Donald Trump. And like the other Republican hopefuls Trump has left floundering in the detritus of his wake, she knows that her only path lies in somehow distinguishing herself in the eyes of those voters. And if that means pandering to their fantasies about themselves and their forefathers’ motivations, then so be it. ... More to the point: Haley’s clumsy effort to whitewash the history of slavery in this country is emblematic of a deeper rot suffusing the modern Republican Party to this day, one that instinctively seeks to blur, and ultimately obscure, the pervasive racism still so prevalent among its rank and file voters.

It’s important to ask and easy to answer: Why do they want to obscure the pervasive racism and the slavery that was a part of it? Because they want to keep doing it. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted several reactions to Haley’s comments. A couple of those reactions: Sarah Longwell tweeted: “The people who don’t want to acknowledge slavery already have their candidate in comfortable racist Donald Trump. Nikki needs the other people!” Politico reported Haley accused the person who asked the question of being a Democrat plant out to embarrass her and other Republican candidates. In the comments the first cartoon is by Mike Luckovich showing a scene from Wheel of Fortune. The question is “What was the Civil War fought over?” The solution so far is:

__ __ A __ E R Y

And Haley guesses: “Drapery.” Which, for a few people, brought to mind the scene from the old Carol Burnett Show titled “Went with the Wind” which is worth the 9 minutes. Alas, the image and sound quality aren’t very good. Alas, it looks like You Tube is cracking down on those who don’t subscribe yet block ads. Remember all those votes Republicans took in an attempt to overturn Obamacare? There were at least 50 such votes. Joan McCarter of Kos reports Republicans have a new Obamacare, a law they hate as much as that health plan. The new target is the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. There are several components of the bill they are trying to repeal. The piece most frequently in the news is the additional funding for the IRS to hire agents to go after rich tax evaders – precisely why it is a Republican target. There’s also Greenhouse Gas Reduction, High Efficiency Electric Home Rebates, greener energy codes, and much more to save the planet. They do like to brag about the infrastructure projects in their districts they voted against. An AP article discussed the impact AI deepfakes could have on elections. We’ve already seen fabricated images used in campaigns. There will be more plus fabricated candidates saying fabricated things. There’s an effort in Congress to regulate AI images, but no bills yet. Some states are trying to fill in the gap. Another problem is the “guardrails” on social media are fading. The biggest part of that is Elon Musk and X where one of the things he did was gut the teams that fought against misinformation. Also, Meta has removed policies that protected against misinformation and laid off content moderators. Add to that the nasty guy’s front-runner status. He’s known for creating and spreading misinformation, especially the claim elections must be rigged if he didn’t win. The good news is election officials around the country are working hard to get correct information in the public’s hands so misinformation can’t take hold. A second AP article discussed more election threats. There are foreign threats, especially Russia, China, and Iran. The Russian threat is the most obvious – Putin has a better chance in Ukraine with the nasty guy in office. But China and Iran are also trying to disrupt things – consider the mess if a ransomware attack hit voter rolls just before the election. Our adversaries are serious and well-funded. Another challenge is two-thirds of county clerks are new since the 2020 election due to retirements and threats prompting resignations. And some of those new people are election deniers. Because of those threats many election workers are building up their defenses. More are shifting to paper trails rather than relying just on the electronics. Alas, there are places like Hinds County, Mississippi where the just don’t have the money for improvements. Kos of Kos wrote that Taylor Swift is one of the biggest threats to conservatism. Of course, I’ve heard of her and I know her tour is called “Eras” that she’s making a lot of money from. But I know little of her music because I don’t listen to popular music. Why is she a threat to conservatism? She’s quite successful – Kos lists details. And she’s a successful woman. Then add in this:

The ideal Republican voter is a white, married male with no college education. And their biggest nemesis? A single, college-educated young woman. And who does Swift speak to? Young, single women. And what does she preach? Personal empowerment and political participation.

Her songs are about political activism, the double standards women face, that she’s not a big fan of marriage, and the songs show a strong personal identity. Conservatives are afraid of her because she has a strong fan base and what if she convinces them to vote? Since she’s not married conservatives use that against her, and “unmarried,” already used as a slur, devolves into “promiscuous.” But the more they go after her the more likely her fans will defend her and heed her calls to vote. She has plenty of time for those calls between now and the election. A while back I wrote about liberal women not wanting to date conservative men and how one pundit saw that as a threat to the institution of marriage and someone (not the men) had to change. Kos filled in how widespread the problem is of liberal women rejecting conservative men. Dating apps are more than three-quarters men, so the odds are bad in general. Dating sites report two-thirds of women won’t date someone with opposing views on abortion. Reaction to those stats in conservative media are, of course, over the top. Add into that conservative dating apps that flop because women don’t want to be associated with it. Kos included the story of a woman who used a dating app to get a couple men to confess to being a Jan 6 insurrectionist. She used “comically minimal ego-stroking” to get their story, just a bit of “Then what?” It worked because so many of these men are so desperate to have a woman talk to them.

Would you sell them out?

Charles Jay of the Daily Kos community wrote about a new history textbook for Russian high schools. He worked from images posted on X by Mark Bennetts of The Times of London. The book is for grade 11 students, which is their last year of high school. There are some notable features of this history book. It teaches that the nasty guy lost the 2020 election “as a result of obvious electoral fraud by the Democratic Party.” It also says that Biden’s entire career has been “accompanied by corruption scandals” and that he and his family “have commercial interests in Ukraine.” No mention of the nasty guy’s criminal charges. As part of that narrative it says that (while their own elections are fake) elections in democracies are (also) fake. The new history book says nothing about the collapse of the Soviet Union and Gorbachev’s policies of Perestroika and Glasnost. As for the Cold War, it ended because Gorbachev gave “unilateral concessions” to the West. Historian Nikita Sokolov called the new book an “outrageously bloated propaganda leaflet.” Yes, it is indoctrination. Similar to the indoctrination Gov. Abbott of Texas and Gov. DeathSantis of Florida are doing with their bans of lessons and books about black and LGBGTQ people and about climate change. Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote about an article that historian Timothy Snyder wrote for the Kyiv Post back in November. In it Snyder posed a repeated question. Here’s a bit of it:

Americans have an alliance in North America and Europe which has existed for more than seventy years, with the goal of preventing an attack from the Soviet Union and then from Russia. Imagine that, when the Russian attack came, the hammer fell on a country excluded from that alliance. Ukraine indeed took the entire brunt of the invasion, resisted, and turned the tide: a task assigned to countries whose economies, taken together, are two hundred fifty times larger than Ukraine's. In so doing, Ukraine destroyed so much Russian equipment that a Russian attack on NATO became highly improbable. With the blood of tens of thousands of its soldiers, Ukrainians defended every member of that alliance, making it far less likely that Americans would have to go to war in Europe. Would you sell them out?

Snyder also notes because of American support for Ukraine China is not making moves on Taiwan, though China is watching what we do very closely. Also, American is seen as the guarantor for democratic societies. Do we want to weaken that reputation? Plus...

“Putin has a theory of victory that involves votes in the US Congress,” and clearly “thinks that he has a better chance in the Capitol than he has in Kyiv.” Snyder rhetorically asks whether our intention is to prove Putin correct.

Finally, what’s all this assertion that Americans are “fatigued” with the war? We aren’t even fighting and giving money is hardly “fatiguing.” Snyder wrote:

If we stop supporting Ukraine, then everything gets worse, all of a sudden, and no one will be talking about “fatigue” because we will all be talking about disaster: across all of these dimensions: food supply, war crimes, international instability, expanding war, collapsing democracies. Everything that the Ukrainians are doing for us can be reversed if we give up. Why would lawmakers even contemplate doing so?

There is much consternation about what presidential candidate Nikki Haley said at when asked a question by a reporter. The question: “What was the cause of the United States Civil War?” All the uproar is because her answer did not include the word “slavery.” Chris Geidner of Law Dork News tweeted the full text of the exchange. In his opinion the answer should end Haley’s political career, though I’m sure it only endeared her to Republicans. I want to mention one little bit of Haley’s answer. She said, “I think it always comes down to the role of government. We need ... freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way.” On the face is a plausible reason for the Civil War, a reason that hides a great deal. What she is saying is we need freedom to oppress other people through enslavement without the Northern government getting in the way. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Iowa and Nebraska dropped food assistance to kids who are not in school during the summer. They declined significant federal aid for that program. States are disenrolling kids from Medicaid after pandemic-era protections ended. In some states this is now a “child health insurance crisis.” McCarter’s point is these red states proclaim how “pro-life” they are. But that doesn’t extend to their post-birth children. It seems red states hate children. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed a new climate report put out by Global Tipping Points. It identified 25 potential climate tipping points and five are already at risk of tipping. A tipping point has to do with a system in which one component may change gradually while the whole system seems only minimally affected. Then the component reaches a particular level and the whole system changes quickly and radically. When systems are interconnected – like the global climate – that could mean...

Triggering one harmful tipping point could create “a domino effect of accelerating and unmanageable change to our life-support systems,” according to the report's authors.

Understanding these tipping points means we also understand “business as usual” can’t continue. Some of those tipping points at risk involve: Arctic and Antarctic sea ice cover, plus the ice sheet on Greenland. Their collapse would mean extensive sea level rise, perhaps as much as 20 feet. Shifts in rainfall patterns could change grasslands into forests or deserts and dry up several of the world’s largest lakes. The failure of the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current could create severe weather changes in both North America and Europe. The failure of other ocean currents could disrupt the Southern Hemisphere monsoons. I thought of an example of this last bit I had heard from another source. The jet stream (I think) blows across South Africa about half the year providing rain and then is offshore to the south the rest of the year. A warmer earth may mean the jet stream stays offshore the whole year, resulting in much less rain. The Amazon Basin could collapse and the rainforest could become significantly drier, trapping less carbon. There are some positive tipping points. These include the sharp reduction in the cost of renewable energy and the rising sales of electric vehicles. Even so, these good things need to be stimulated through government efforts. The report says it isn’t enough to monitor CO2 levels and temperatures. That should not be at the top of our list of concerns.

It’s how rising temperatures may trigger events that fall like a line of dominoes, taking much of the environment and human society down with them. And the scariest thing may be how often the report confesses that we don’t understand all the factors behind many of these potential disasters.

An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported the Michigan Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court’s ruling that permitted the nasty guy to stay on the state’s primary ballot. The Supremes said, “We are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court.” The plaintiffs could try again if the nasty guy makes it to the general election. But that seems too late. Why allow a candidate to progress to the general election if he will be disqualified once he gets there? The ruling contrasts with the one in Colorado which said the nasty guy should be banned because he led an insurrection. And today there is news out of Maine. Bulldozer of the Kos community reported the state’s laws say the Secretary of State qualifies candidates for a ballot. So the Maine SoS was asked to hold a hearing. The nasty guy responded to the petition but otherwise offered no defense. The ruling is that the nasty guy is removed from Maine ballots. Spencer Kornhaber of The Atlantic has been writing about memorable Christmas tunes. This article looks at the song “Do You Hear What I Hear?” written by Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne Baker in 1962. This was about the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. With that as background what do we make of lyrics such as, “a voice as big as the sea?” Kornhaber doesn’t have an answer. The words “pray for peace, people everywhere” takes on new meaning. Kornhaber notes saying it this way is “beyond any one religion.” And the words “a star, a star, dancing in the night with a tail as big as a kite” come close to describing a nuclear missile taking off on a column of flame. Jeff Danzinger posted a cartoon on Kos showing what Santa does on December 26.

Keep him out of power or prepare for Brownshirts

Sister and Niece came over for the afternoon of Christmas Day, a pleasant visit. Sister and I got to talking about Muppets because when I was in Austin Nephew and family, as part of their tradition of setting up their Christmas tree also watch a movie, frequently the Muppet Christmas special from some time in the 1980s. Sister is of the opinion that Muppet shows prior to the death of Jim Henson in 1990 are good, those after not so much. I added the missing element of later shows appears to be charm. I was pleased that Charles Jay of the Daily Kos community posted some of the great guest appearances on Sesame Street. So I took some time to watch some of them. They included Lena Horne singing to Kermit, opera singer Marilyn Horne doing an “Aida” themed song about cookies, Billie Eilish singing with the Count, Patti Labelle singing the alphabet, Ray Charles explaining braille, and Itzhak Perlman talking about easy and hard. Once some of those played You Tube offered more suggestions, such as Sesame Street singing a Tiny Desk concert at NPR. After all that I didn’t have enough time to watch the two hour movie I was considering. So I pulled out a DVD from the first season of the original 1970s The Muppet Show. I bought it when the old bookstore Borders went out of business. I had watched only one episode. So tonight I watched two more, with guests Connie Stevens and Joel Grey. Yes, they were charming, though two at a time was plenty. Alas, this was the era of the laugh track and the laughter came way too fast after the joke. I didn’t see the movie I was planning on, but I had an enjoyable evening. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that police are investigating threats and incidents against the Colorado Supreme Court justices who ruled to remove the nasty guy from the primary ballot. Mark Sumner of Kos also mentioned the death threats against the Colorado justices. Then he reported that the nasty guy is declaring (again) that Biden is the source of all his woes. Sumner also adds more incidents where a complaint by the nasty guy has inspired threats against the people the nasty guy named. Ruling against the nasty guy in court will take a unique level of fortitude. Sumner also reported on a poll conducted by the Des Moines Register and NBC news about what Republican caucusgoers think about the nasty guy quoting Hitler. 42% say the phrase that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” makes them more likely to support him. Only 28% said the phrase made them less likely. The phrase that his enemies are “vermin” drew a 42% favorable response with only 23% made them less likely to support him. With that kind of response the nasty guy will continue to use those phrases and expand his repertoire of vile Hitler quotes. A while back I discussed the latest issue of The Atlantic that is full of articles about how bad a second nasty guy administration would be for the country and world. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed one of those, the one written by Juliette Kayyem about how the government would be changed into an institutionalized tool for violence. Kayyem was part of the Department of Homeland Security under Obama. Dartagnan also mentioned the violent threats against the Colorado justices. These threats are familiar, seen frequently when the nasty guy claims a grievance against someone. Yousef Odette of NPR says violent threats is because his followers “have been conditioned by Trump and right-wing media to exist in a near-constant state of defensiveness, bordering on paranoia.” They’ve been conditioned to believe Biden has gotten away with it again. So an attack on the nasty guy is equated to an attack on themselves. An example is the many Capitol attackers who have been sent to prison, sometimes with lengthy sentences. Because they went to prison I might be next. The big question facing the nation is whether those voting for the nasty guy are prepared for the institutional violence. For many they do support such violence because they assume it will directed at people lower in the social hierarchy and not at themselves. All violence maintains and enforces the social hierarchy. There are currently checks on violence. Some of it is legal action against violent actors, some is societal disapproval. But those checks will be reset if the nasty guy returns to the White House. Some of the institutional violence will come from the pardoned insurrectionists. Groups like the Proud Boys would be delighted to do the nasty guy’s bidding and if they go out on their own they will have his blessing. Some of the violence will be from a weaponized Department of Justice and FBI. As for the police and courts, if they don’t approve of the violence they could be overwhelmed by the number of violent incidents. Viktor Orbán of Hungary might project a “soft” fascism onto a populace still recovering from a half century of communism. But America has no history of institutional violence and its people will rightly protest and rebel against it. The country could be so riven with violence as to be ungovernable (which some fascists will see as a good thing). The choice next fall will be about decisively keeping the nasty guy out of power or preparing for Brownshirts. Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution posted a cartoon that is indirectly about how hard it will be to convince a good part of the populace of the nasty guy’s threat. A young boy sits on Santa’s knee and says, “You’re too old! I’m supporting the Grinch!!” In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted several people on their reaction to the Colorado justices banning the nasty guy from the primary ballot. First is from Lisa Needham on Public Notice who wrote that it was Justice Neil Gorsuch, back when he was on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote that a naturalized citizen could be barred from the presidential ballot. The Constitution says the president must be a natural-born citizen.

The Tenth Circuit ruled against him [the hopeful candidate], with Gorsuch writing that states have “a legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process” and that because of that, they can “exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office.” It’s that quote that makes its way into the Colorado Supreme Court opinion.

Bill Scher of Washington Monthly wrote that the Colorado case could help restore or destroy the Supreme Court’s legitimacy. George Conway of The Atlantic wrote how reading the text of the Colorado ruling changed his mind about the decision as he heard it in the news.

But last night changed my mind. Not because of anything the Colorado Supreme Court majority said. The three dissents were what convinced me the majority was right. The dissents were gobsmacking—for their weakness. They did not want for legal craftsmanship, but they did lack any semblance of a convincing argument.

Elie Mystal of The Nation reminds us of the text of the 14th Amendment.

It doesn’t say “convicted” of insurrection. ... It says what it says: Government officers who engage in insurrection cannot be officers of the government again.

Special Counsel Jack Smith had asked the Supreme Court the primary question facing the case of the nasty guy trying to overturn the 2020 election. Is the nasty guy immune from prosecution for actions while he was president? The Court said they won’t hear the case now – it is before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. When they’re done with it you can come back. But waiting for the lower court means the Supremes may not have time to rule before they adjourn at the end of June, which means the insurrection case could hang open until October – or well past the election. Even by June most convention delegates are chosen. Last week Sumner reported on what Elon Musk said recently. It was initially ignored because it was said at the same time that Musk said nasty things to his advertisers. The part that didn’t get reported then was Musk saying the idea of unions “creates a lords and peasants sort of thing.” Said the lord about his peasants. Sumner said it’s “the lack of unions that turn workers into peasants.” Then Sumner discussed the big advantage of being in a union. Since the 1980s and the big decline in union membership there has been a big jump in CEO compensation. Money that unions don’t demand be paid to workers gets paid to executives. If Tesla and SpaceX were unionized the workers would have participated in the wealth generated by the companies rather than most of it going to Musk. Which means he may not have become rich enough to buy Twitter and trash it. Tesla workers are trying to unionize in Sweden, supported by workers in Norway and Denmark. Musk is furious, trying to sue everyone. He’s also terrified because after the big wins by the UAW with the Big Three automakers, the UAW chiefs have signaled Tesla in the US is a target.

Musk has a right to be afraid. Because when workers unionize, the bosses of the Gilded Age lose. And the unions are coming for Elon Musk.

Yesterday I helped Sister understand Musk a bit more. To put it simply: He is from South Africa and was on the losing side when Apartheid ended and black people took over the government. An AP article reported that back in October NASA’s Psyche spacecraft blasted off to study a rare metal asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. Loaded on board was a short video. Earlier this month, when 19 million miles from Earth it conducted a test of how fast a laser could transmit the video back to earth. The test transmission was a success. The test video was, naturally, a cat video. It was of the cat named Taters chasing a laser light. This article doesn’t include the video, but it is easily found online. Paul Berge posted a cartoon of the infant 2004 reading over a list of the previous year’s accomplishments. “Court ruling on sodomy and same-sex marriage ... A gay Episcopal Bishop ... Boy Meets Boy ... Chip & Reichen ... Man 2003, you were totally off the Kinsey scale!” and the departing year replies, “Girlfriend, I was queerer than all the gay ‘90s put together!”

Russian soldiers died to influence the American election

On Wednesday, two days ago, Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community discussed a report by Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post. Judge Beryl Howell wrote that in Rudy Giuliani’s defamation suit the defendant can’t postpone paying the $148 million to plaintiffs Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman. He had accused them of election tampering, which had made their lives hell. While the two women may have to go back to court to enforce the judgment they don’t have to wait the usual 30 days. The judge ordered this because Giuliani is likely to hide his assets and is unlikely to succeed on appeal and also because Giuliani kept defaming the two women even through the trial. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that on Thursday Giuliani filed for bankruptcy. The filing says he has nearly $153 million in debts and under $10 million in assets. Those debts include $148 million from the judgment mentioned above, other legal judgments, money he owes his lawyers, and close to a million in unpaid taxes. Bankruptcy doesn’t dissolve debts from a “willful and malicious injury” inflicted on someone. So he may be paying that $148 million for quite a while. Here’s another chapter in a story I’ve written about before, and another one where two parts of the story appear on consecutive days. On Thursday Charles Jay of the Kos community wrote that Robin Vos, the Republican leader of Wisconsin’s Assembly had called off this threat of impeaching Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz if she didn’t recuse herself from a case challenging the heavily gerrymandered electoral maps. Part of the reason for calling off the threat was the Democratic Party and public response to an obvious power grab. Another part is Vos talked to three former conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justices and two of them reminded him that impeachment should only be used for actual crimes and corruption. And a third part is Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would get to name her replacement. And on Friday (today) another AP article reported that the Wis. Supremes ruled that the legislative maps were indeed highly gerrymandered and need to be redrawn by March 15 to be used for the 2024 election when all of the Assembly and half of the Senate are up for election. The maps are so gerrymandered that even though Biden had a narrow victory in 2020 Republicans have a supermajority in the Senate and are two seats shy of a supermajority in the Assembly. A big part of the justices’ argument is more than half of the Assembly districts and almost two-thirds of the Senate districts are not contiguous, and thus unconstitutional. Democrats argued the gerrymandering was so bad the entire Senate, not just half, should be up for election in 2024. This article does not say whether that request was granted. Continuing with gerrymandering and elections, Stephen Wolf of Kos Elections reported another Republican led state refused to comply with the Voting Rights Act. This one is North Dakota, where the minorities are Native and their reservations were split into two districts to prevent them from having a majority in any district. This follows similar suits in Alabama and Georgia. The reason for the stubbornness is because of a case working through the courts claiming private citizen groups cannot challenge VRA violations, only the US Department of Justice can do so. They know full well the DoJ doesn’t have time to prosecute all the cases – and under a Republican president the DoJ could refuse to enforce the law at all. A three judge panel of the 8th Circuit has ruled private parties can’t sue. It is now before the full 8th Circuit and will likely go to the Supremes.

For decades, the Supreme Court has ruled on VRA litigation involving private parties, including the recent Alabama case. However, given how often the Supreme Court's far-right majority has sought to undermine the VRA in other cases, little can be taken for granted—and that's exactly what North Dakota Republicans are counting on.

Another AP article reports that in various places in battleground states fake electors, those who falsely tried to file electoral college votes in favor of the nasty guy and were indicted for it, are now in control of city or county elections. Not that they have any experience in actually running elections. Nor are impartial. Mark Sumner of Kos looked at a declassified, yet heavily redacted report from the National Intelligence Council about foreign interference in the 2022 midterm election. Yes, there were actions taken by Russia, China, and Iran. But there was an astounding connection on page 7 that, if accurate, shows how far Russia went and how damaging it was to its own people. To explain it Sumner discussed the state of the war in October of 2022. Ukraine finally took Lyman. Over the next three days Russia appeared to retreat on every front. Long held Russian positions collapsed. By mid month there were reports the city of Kherson was being evacuated. Then there was an interlude and Russia held on. Though their positions were underequipped towards the end of the month Russia brought in more troops. In the first days of November Ukraine was on the move, yet Russia seemed unwilling to quit. Then on November 8 there was a quick and massive retreat. And on the 9th there was an official announcement of withdrawal from Kherson. Why? Why hang on, losing well over 12 thousand men and so much equipment in an effort that looked so hopeless, and suddenly withdraw? Because November 8 was the American election. Russia wanted to appear strong to boost the chances of Republicans. In another post Sumner explains more about the declassified and redacted report:

It is clear about the rationale for why both the Russian government and its proxies sought to help Republicans. “While Russian officials most likely recognized that U.S. support for Ukraine was largely bipartisan, Russian influence actors disproportionately targeted the Democratic Party,” the report concludes, “probably because Moscow blames the U.S. president for forging a unified Western alliance and for Kyiv’s continued pro-Western trajectory.

The Russian help was much more than holding onto positions in Ukraine. They had fake accounts on social media and enlisted commercial PR firms and “influencers.” If they’re named they’re in the redacted part, so we don’t know who got a Putin payday. They work their influence by exploiting issues that “already generate media attention and partisan friction in America.” Issues like racism and whether US aid to Ukraine was still a good idea. And Russian military officials “proposed delaying the Russian withdrawal from Kherson until after the midterms to avoid giving a named political party a perceived win before the election.” China’s efforts were more “to support or undermine specific candidates,” as in whether a candidate made statements for or against China. Iran’s efforts were more about generally reducing faith in democracy and elections as they emphasized social divisions. They said they were nonpartisan, but these efforts are easily seen as pro-Republican. Dartagnan discussed an essay by David Frum in The Atlantic that explains Republicans are rejecting more aid to Ukraine for one reason – to please the nasty guy. There is the question of why the nasty guy is enamored with Putin. Does he admire Putin’s wielding of cruel and ruthless power? Were some of his businesses propped up with Putin’s money? Has he been blackmailed and is now a Russian asset? We may not know the truth for decades, but it doesn’t matter now. His grip on the base is so tight Republicans feel compelled to align with his wishes. Which means if he wins Republicans will go along with his complete abandonment of Ukraine and pulling out of NATO too. Frum used to be a Bush II speechwriter --- he was deep in the conservative world. But he also noted:

If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.

Dartagnan then summarizes all the ways that statement is being proved right. Frum tackled the idea that refusing aid to Ukraine is only a bargaining chip to seal the US-Mexico border. Immigration is way too complicated and comprehensive immigration is the last thing Republicans want to discuss. So, yeah, a substantial portion of the Republican Party has been coopted by the nasty guy and thus Putin. That’s quite a reversal from just a few years ago. And, yeah, this is a profound betrayal of both Ukraine and Europe.

His fascist rhetoric is "unhelpful"

I wrote yesterday about the Colorado Supreme Court tossing the nasty guy off the presidential primary ballot. Today are some responses to that ruling. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote first about reactions from fellow candidates. Haley said the issue should be in the hands of voters. (It was in the hands of voters and they said no. Do Republicans want a rematch so they can overrule voters?) Christie’s response was a muddle. DeathSantis said nothing. The strangest was Ramaswamy who declared he would remove himself from the ballot if the nasty guy wasn’t put back. Sounds good to me. He also called on Christie, DeathSantis, and Haley to remove themselves. In his rant he did not use the word “democracy.” Then the Colorado Republican Party threatened to replace the primary with a caucus where there is no ballot. And they turned it into a fundraising opportunity. And Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick threatened to remove Biden from that state’s ballot. Don’t be surprised if Texas AG Ken Paxton files such a suit. One of the nasty guy’s claims is he’s more electable than DeathSantis or Haley or the rest of them. Kerry Eleveld of Kos suggests with the nasty guy being tossed off the Colorado ballot and with similar cases in 16 other states that electability claim may no longer be true. Can his rivals take advantage of the moment? Joan McCarter of Kos reported as this Colorado case heads to the Supreme Court and the nasty guy’s immunity case and others now at the court there are growing calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself. If he doesn’t and if the new ethical standards are to mean anything Roberts needs to force a recusal. The reason is straightforward: The cases are about insurrection and Ginni Thomas was deep in the insurrection plot.

“The federal recusal statute requires that any ‘justice, judge, or magistrate judge … shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned,’” [Senate Judiciary Committee member Richard] Blumenthal writes. “In addition, recusal is required when a Justice ‘or his spouse … is known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding; [or i]s to the judge’s knowledge likely to be a material witness in the proceeding.’”

In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Jesse Wegman of the New York Times discussing the case getting to the Supreme Court.

They are aware that he will whip his die-hard followers into a frenzy against the Supreme Court itself, just as he unleashed his followers to try to bend Congress to his will on Jan. 6. The justices’ challenge will be to face all of this head-on rather than to run scared from it, as so many Republican lawmakers did on that day, when they continued objecting to the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral votes even after the bloody attack on their workplace. The justices’ challenge is to not twist the law in a craven effort to appease an authoritarian movement that sees violence as the answer, win or lose.

There are several other pundit comments in the post and appropriate cartoons in the comments. Sumner reported:

Trump is not just humming Hitleresque themes, but bellowing full-bore Nazi slogans to his red-hat rally crowds. It shows that just as he has done so many times in the past, he has crossed the line and found that the white supremacist territory on the other side suits him just fine. Trump is making his similarity to Hitler into the core of his 2024 campaign.

The latest phrase is “poisoning the blood,” a phrase straight from Hitler. It could be as much a part of the 2024 campaign as “Lock her up” was in 2016. Juana Summers of NPR spoke to reporters Odette Yousef and Franco Ordoñez about that phrase. Some of what they said: Yes, the nasty guy’s dehumanizing language has increased and the target has shifted from outsiders, such as Muslims, to political opponents within the US. Posts on Truth Social talk of this being the “final battle to save America” with the implication this is the last election. He’s no longer flirting with with autocratic themes, but now into strongman messaging. He says the enemy cheats, so the rules are already broken, so elect me to break them for you. When he targets a person that person gets a lot of threats. And there are parts of his base who want and are counting on him being a dictator. Eleveld reported that Biden has taken note, creating campaign messages pointing out what the nasty guy said and how that mimics what dictators have said. Some news organizations are making the same points. Eleveld also reported what we might expect. About all Republicans can say about the nasty guy’s fascist rhetoric is that it’s “unhelpful.” Beyond that they didn’t condemn it. An Associated Press article posted on Kos looked at the things we’ve learned from the nasty guy’s New York fraud trial after 40 witnesses and 2½ months. Some of them: The courtroom was a campaign stop. Every courtroom appearance was a chance to stand before the cameras and rail against how unfair the trial was. Even with how fraudulent his statements of value were Deutsche Bank still loaned him lots of money. It makes me wonder what Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa (who I haven’t listened to in a long time) would say about the global crime syndicate that influences Deutsche Bank using those loans as way to pay him for serviced rendered. The nasty guy tried to buy the Buffalo Bills football team back in 2014. But there were doubts about his real net worth. If he had completed the purchase he wouldn’t have run in 2016. His residence in Trump tower, where he lived from at least 2012 to 2016 was almost 11,000 square feet, though on financial statements he declared the size to be 30,000 square feet. The guy doesn’t know how big his apartment is? As I’ve written I recently took two trips by airplane. On both flights of both trips I checked one bag and paid the fee, and carried onboard a bag small enough to fit under the seat in front of me. I watched, but didn’t take part in, the scramble for overhead bag space with some passengers having to leave bags at the end of the jetway. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed the old, comfortable way of flying compared to the modern, uncomfortable way. The incentives that created this mess also created a predictable response – people try to gain the slightest advantage over their fellow passengers. Well into the discussion Dartagnan quoted a bit from the article Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer, written by Tim Wu in 2014 for the New Yorker. Modern airlines make their money with extra fees.

Here’s the thing: in order for fees to work, there needs be something worth paying to avoid. That necessitates, at some level, a strategy that can be described as “calculated misery.” Basic service, without fees, must be sufficiently degraded in order to make people want to pay to escape it. And that’s where the suffering begins. ... Fee models also lead most people to spend unwarranted time and energy calculating, agonizing, and repacking in the hope of avoiding paying more. The various fees make prices hard to compare, as a ticket can now represent just a fraction of the total expense. These are real costs, and they are compounded by ticketing practices, which demand perfect timing. When customers miscalculate their schedules or their plans change, the airline is ready with its punishment: the notorious two-hundred-dollar rebooking and change fee

. Sigh. If it didn’t take Amtrak 36 hours to get from Detroit to Austin... Or arrive in Charlotte in the middle of the night... I actually did take Amtrak from Detroit to St. Paul. That 15 hours was bad enough.

Why hasn’t there been a declaration of a climate emergency?

An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reports the important news of the day – the Colorado Supreme Court declared the nasty guy is ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot due to the Constitution’s insurrection clause. A lower Colorado court had found the nasty guy had incited an insurrection, but did not bar him from the ballot because they said the insurrection phrase did not clearly cover the president. The Supremes said it is nonsensical to have that phrase apply to senators and representatives and not the president. Various Republicans declared it to be election interference and politically motivated. The nasty guy’s lawyers say they will appeal to the US Supreme Court. The Colorado ruling is stayed until January 4 because January 5 is the deadline for the state to print presidential primary ballots. In 2020 the nasty guy lost Colorado by a wide margin, so keeping him off the ballot there will make no difference in the election outcome. However, the case does set a precedent for high courts in other states. Liberaldad2 of the Kos community discussed some interesting details of the Colorado ruling. First, while the court’s vote for keeping the nasty guy off the ballot was 4-3 none of the dissents disagreed he was guilty of insurrection. Two of the dissenters believed this should be decided in a federal court. Second the dissenters (well, all the justices on the court) were appointed by Democratic governors. That means this wasn’t a partisan witch hunt. I finished reading a book that would have fit in well with yesterday’s long discussion of climate issues. The book is Facing the Climate Emergency, How to Transform Yourself with Climate Truth by Margaret Klein Salamon with Molly Gage. This book arrived in the mail one day without me ordering it. The publisher or a climate agency must have gotten my address from a progressive group. That climate agency is The Climate Mobilization (TCM), an organization Salamon started. I let the book sit for a long while on my to-read shelf, then put it in my car to read while I’m waiting. So it took a while to get through its 120 pages. Here are some of the main points of the book. There are a lot of things and services out there to help us feel better. Which leads to the question: Why do so many of us feel bad? Salamon says it is because we recognize our planet is dying and through our passivity we are helping kill it. No, we’re not the primary driver of the planet’s ill health – corporations are. But we can face the truth and do something about it. So this is a self-help book, helping us to face whatever reason why we are so passive when it comes to climate damage. A bit reason is the problem is so vast and seems so intractable we want to avoid it to avoid the pain. Instead, we should face the pain and let the pain drive us to get to work, because the problem is worse than we think. The planet is not yet lost. Too many climate organizations operate with a “fear of fear” – don’t scare the donors. But that means they propose policies that don’t do enough good. It also means they avoid telling the truth about the potential for the collapse of civilization. People need the truth to be able to prevent and prepare. A big part of preparing is to quickly go to carbon neutral – even better is carbon negative. And the policies so far in place won’t get us there fast enough. So educate yourself on the true state of things. Yes, the potential collapse of civilization. The main driver of that will be migrants fleeing uninhabitable parts of the world and many developed countries gearing up to keep them out (see current news about Republicans and the southern border). There is also the potential collapse of agriculture from shifting weather. An early step in this self-help journey is to allow yourself to feel your feelings and do so without judgment and with compassion. A few examples of people told not to feel their feelings: A grieving person told to get over their grief. A person who is horrified they feel rage against a parent instead of love. A man being told feeling an attraction to another man is sinful. From this step go on to feel our feelings about a dying planet. Yes, this takes work and self compassion. In relation to the climate feel the fear and feel the grief. This includes the fear and grief that a collapsing civilization will mean to long-term relationships – or to their absence. Then begin to imagine a life of a climate warrior. Think about the skills and talents one has to contribute towards that goal. At the start of America’s entry into WWII the nation went into emergency mode. Everyone was asked to do their part. People accepted rationing as a part of their personal effort. Everyone was focused on the goal and had a contribution to the solution. Everyone, especially the federal government, directed a huge allocation of resources to the effort. America became the Arsenal of Democracy. We’re in a much more dire situation than we were during WWII. Why hasn’t there been a declaration of a climate emergency? Why is there still a culture of compromise rather than declaring failure is not an option? TCM has created an emergency action plan. A few items in that plan: The ecological footprint of the global economy is at 1.7 planets per year. It must be reduced to 0.5 planets per year. Stop all new fossil fuel infrastructure and phase out fossil fuel industries within ten years. Make energy conservation a top priority. Everyone has a role to play. We don’t need to wait for the government. Look to the example of the AIDS crisis and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) that was effective in demanding the federal government treat AIDS like a regular epidemic. Those heavily involved did not treat it as business as usual. Many were fighting for the lives of their friends and for their own lives. To paraphrase Larry Kramer, ACT UP leader: Why aren’t we so scared that we’re screaming for action? Ready for action and just waiting to figure out what to do? There are many organizations to join and donate to: Sunrise Movement (geared towards youth), Extinction Rebellion (be ready to be arrested), Justice Democrats, and TCM. Tell the truth loudly to those around you and through your social media connections. Salamon then asks important questions: How much time do you have for volunteer work? Five hours a week? Twenty? Fifty? What are the skills and talents you can offer an organization? For example, if you’re a lawyer can you offer pro bono legal services? Can you lead a team or are you a follower? Can you care for the children of other volunteers? Can you plan actions and events? Do bookkeeping? Do tech support? Grant writing? The climate movement can use it all. How much money can you donate? Where can you cut costs so you can donate more? How much savings do you have and will a hefty savings account be of any use if civilization collapses? That last question is of interest to me. In contrast, if I drain my account and civilization doesn’t collapse how will I take care of myself in my waning years? Do you have a particular idea for saving the planet? Perhaps start your own organization, though it will take a great deal of time and work. And one of the biggest needs: Are you willing and able to fundraise? Very few organizations can run just on volunteers. All would be delighted with your efforts. There is one more task we can all do. Tell the candidates in your area running for all levels of office that you will support them only if they are willing to declare a climate emergency. Let me know if you want to borrow my copy of the book. Or look for it online. Ready to be a climate warrior?

A weak sauce of climate half-measures

My Sunday movie was C’mon, C’mon. It’s the story of Johnny, a single middle aged man suddenly having to care for his nine-year-old nephew Jesse over several weeks. This could have been about the clueless guy stepping into being a parent and making a mess of it. There is a bit of that, but the story is so much more, which is why it got a lot of rave reviews. One reason for the depth is that Jesse’s father is mentally ill and his mother has to travel to where Dad is and get him into a treatment program. And that isn’t easy. While she’s doing that also taking care of Jesse would be too hard. So Johnny steps in. Johnny is frequently on the phone with his sister to get insight into what Jesse is doing. Jesse is very good at asking uncomfortable questions. Because of his dad, Jesse’s mother has been teaching him techniques for understanding his feelings. Johnny needs time to understand to do that too and he reads articles on how to effectively communicate with a child. By the end Johnny and Jesse get along pretty well. Johnny works with an organization that interviews kids about what they think of the future and how they’re feeling. The kids like it because here’s an adult actually interested in what they have to say. When the movie opened I saw a scene from the sky. In just a moment I realized, hey, that’s Detroit. Yes, Johnny was in Detroit for the first round of kid interviews. Johnny goes to Los Angeles to stay with Jesse. But work must happen, so they’re off to New York, then New Orleans. I enjoyed this one a lot. It’s a great story and is well acted. I am puzzled about one of the director’s artistic choices – the movie is in black and white. The big LGBTQ news of the moment: An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reports Pope Francis issued a document that approves allowing priests to bless same-sex couples. The document reaffirms opposition to same-sex marriage and civil unions and the blessings should not come near the time of the wedding or formalizing the union. It also says the request for a blessing should not cause an “exhaustive moral analysis” which should not deny the blessing. I think I see a distinction that the blessing is for the people in the union, not a blessing of the union. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the pope’s action. Over the last several years several churches and several politicians have equated recognition of LGBTQ people with an attack on Christianity. On the same day as this news from the Pope the New York Times placed beside it news of the huge number of conservative congregations leaving my own denomination of the United Methodist Church. The NYT article says about a quarter of the nation’s 30,000 UMC churches have disaffiliated over LGBTQ issues (wouldn’t have been better to report three-quarters of the churches that stayed?). Hopefully, in April the UMC will get rid of the prohibitions over what LGBTQ people can do in the denomination, rules that aren’t being enforced anymore. Other mainline Protestant churches – United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church, Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and others have already declared their support for LGBTQ people. There’s even an Alliance of Baptists that have split from the conservative Southern Baptist Convention. And yes, when denominations welcomed LGBTQ members, people and congregations left. That SBC has essentially purged its progressives and even moderates. And while every religious group is losing members the SBC is falling fastest. Alas, the media still equates the “Christian perspective” with the religious right. I’ve been collecting global warming articles waiting for the end of the COP28 meeting (and waiting for time to write). From December 3 an AP article said the big topic of the day at COP28 was how a warming climate affects human health. The problems come from pollution and from diseases that spread more widely as global warming upends weather systems. Also on December 3 Meteor Blades, in an Earth Matters column for Kos reported that Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan signed a bill that mandated a switch to 100% clean energy. State electricity utilities must get 50% of their power from clean sources by 2030 and 100% by 2040. That’s a quick jump, though climate activists say it should be faster. Utility engineers and Republicans say the speed of the mandates are unworkable, which will further increase energy costs and make it less reliable. There are several other provisions in the package. One problem with the package is the definition of “clean.” It can include natural gas if 90% of its carbon dioxide emissions can be captured. That may rely on corporate self-reporting that doesn’t account from leaks from wellheads and pipelines. So by 2040 calling natural gas “clean” is BS. Blades also wrote that GM, Ford, and Stellantis (current owner of Chrysler) are pulling back on their conversion to electric vehicles. That implies the whole EV market has slowed. But while demand for Big Three EVs has slowed, the overall market hasn’t. Tesla is doing quite well. Back before Thanksgiving Charles Jay of Kos discussed a report by the Guardian that determined:

The richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%, with dire consequences for vulnerable communities and global efforts to tackle the climate emergency.

More quotes from the Guardian, the first from Greta Thunberg:

Either we safeguard living conditions for all future generations or we let a few very rich people maintain their destructive lifestyles and preserve an economic system geared towards short-term economic growth and shareholder profit.

That elite group of 77 million people includes those paid more than $140K US per year, which seems like a low entry point, but 99% of the world’s residents earn less than that. One possibility is a high income tax or a wealth tax. But, the Guardian quoted an Oxfam report:

This elite also wield enormous and growing political power by owning media organisations and social networks, hiring advertising and PR agencies and lobbyists, and mixing socially with senior politicians, who are also often members of the richest 1%, according to the report. In the US, for example, one in four members of Congress reportedly own stocks in fossil fuel companies, worth a total of between $33m and $93m. The report says this helps to explain why global emissions continue to rise, and why governments in the global north provided $1.8 trillion to subsidize the fossil fuel industry in 2020, contrary to their international pledges to phase out carbon emissions.

On December 6 Bill Laurel of the Kos community posted one of his updates of the health of the planet. At the top of the post is the chart of daily surface air temperature that caused a lot of consternation when it showed a big jump at the start of July. The chart now has data through November and since July the daily temperature has remained noticeably above the lines for every year since 1979, sometime as much as a half degree Celsius above. Also on the 6th Blades reported on an investigation by Drilled that showed that in major trusted news sources stories about the climate crisis frequently have alongside sponsored material. “Known as advertorials or native advertising, the sponsored material is created to look like a publication’s authentic editorial work, lending a veneer of journalistic credibility to the fossil fuel industry’s key climate talking points.” This is a partnership between the media companies and the fossil fuel industry and is essentially greenwashing the fossil fuel companies. On December 11 Camila Domonoske of NPR explained why the big oil companies are not big energy companies that supply energy from all kinds of sources, not just oil. Yeah, some companies are dipping toes into diversification. But the return on investment (I think that’s the measurement used) is 20% to 50% for fossil fuels and 5% to 10% for renewable energy. Renewables have the advantage of reducing the huge economic costs of climate change and save millions of lives. But those don’t appear in a company’s financial spreadsheet. Also, those companies are well established and have lower risk. Companies pushing renewables are newer and have higher risk. Yeah, wind and solar companies make profits, but oil companies make big profits. In another Earth Matters article Blades reported during the COP28 conference that Kamala Harris pledged $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund. This is the fund to help developing nations adapt to a warming climate. It has been significantly underfunded since it was created. Good to hear Harris made the pledge. Good luck getting it through the US House. Blades also reported on an article by Sara Miller Llana and Stephanie Hanes of the Christian Science Monitor who interviewed young people around the world. These young people have unprecedented children’s rights, such as a safe home and the ability to go to school, yet this Climate Generation is facing unprecedented challenges. What they found is the youth are stepping up to meet those challenges and pushing back on the way things are done now. Back on December 8 Kos of Kos wrote about the dispute between Venezuela and Guyana. Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro declared he was annexing a big chunk of Guyana, known as the Essequibo region. Kos explains what is going on, starting with the history of colonization. There’s a big reason why Venezuela wants the area – lots of potential for oil and mineral wealth. There’s also a big reason why Venezuela’s claim won’t get far – the disputed region is wilderness. Guyana very intentionally created no roads between itself and it’s greedy neighbor. In the December 17 edition of Earth Matters Blades included reactions from the end of COP28 and the report it issued. Bob Berwyn of Inside Climate News reported the good news is the final consensus report actually named fossil fuels as the major contributor to global warming. The bad news is what to do about it is “a weak sauce of climate half-measures” that are not anywhere near adequate to do anything. One reason why it is weak is COP28 president Sultan al-Jaber, an oil executive, gavelled through the report when the representatives of 39 small island states most affected by global warming were out of the room. A tweet from Peter Kalmus:

Everyone is celebrating the first ever inclusion of “fossil fuels” in a COP stocktake, whereas I feel this is shameful. 28 years? To simply mention the cause of this global heating nightmare? Shows just how the entire COP process has been co-opted. This is how we lose a planet.

Brad Johnson of Hill Heat noted the final agreement includes the phrase “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems” and that it has “a flurry of caveats and loopholes.” One of those loopholes is the word “transitioning” is way too vague. David Wallace-Wells of NYT wrote that the report is an endorsement of the status quo. Yeah, there is movement in the right direction...

Global sales of internal-combustion engine vehicles peaked in 2017. Investment in renewable energy has exceeded investment in fossil fuel infrastructure for several years running now. In 2022, 83 percent of new global energy capacity was green. The question isn’t about whether there will be a transition, but how fast, global and thorough it will be. The answer is: not fast or global or thorough enough yet, at least on the current trajectories, which COP28 effectively affirmed.

Kate Aronoff of The New Republic said nearly 200 countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. But countries most adamant the final report should say “phaseout” rather than transition are the ones planning to increase their extraction of fossil fuels. The top countries planning an increase are the US, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Umair Irfan of Vox reported one big omission from the final report – the methane from the food we eat.

From tilling soil to planting crops, to fertilizer, livestock, manure, harvesting, shipping, and waste, food systems produce 34 percent of overall greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture is the single-largest anthropogenic, or human-driven, source of methane, and most of that is from our appetite for meat. Animals raised for food account for 32 percent of human-driven methane.

Bill McKibben of Common Dreams wrote about the word “transition”

If the language means anything at all, it means no opening no more new oil fields, no more new pipeline. No more new LNG export terminals. And by itself it will accomplish nothing. ... But it is—and this is important—a tool for activists to use henceforth. The world’s nations have now publicly agreed that they need to transition off fossil fuels, and that sentence will hang over every discussion from now on—especially the discussions about any further expansion of the fossil fuel energy.

Asad Reman of The Guardian wrote:

The UK, US and the EU not only point-blank refused to discuss cutting their own emissions in line with both fairness and science, but their agreement on “fossil fuel phase-out” has more loopholes than a block of Swiss cheese. It comes without acknowledgment of historical responsibility, or redistribution, or the remaking of a financial system of debt, tax and trade that has been rigged to keep developing countries locked into exploiting resources simply to fill the coffers of rich countries. Our movements, our frontline communities, know these are lies. Scientists know they are lies, and so do many developing countries. Those already living the realities of unjust climate breakdown know that 1.5C will result in a death sentence for the poorest, yet we remain on track for 3C global heating.

Naveena Sadasivam of Grist wrote about how the nasty guy and the Republican Party will trash any efforts to reduce emissions. Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that has a large number of green goodies in it is being rebranded as “Irresponsible Reckless Alarming.” Patrick Blower has a cartoon about the conclusion of COP28. Two men are walking toward the waiting airplanes. One has a document “Yet Another Climate Deal” and the back of his shirt shows a COP World Tour from Bonn in 2017 to Baku next year. The other says, “See you next year, man...”

It is more Alito’s court than Roberts’

A couple days ago I wrote about Speaker Mike Johnson claiming to be a modern Moses ready for a Red Sea moment in which his adversaries are swallowed up by the sea – a lot of non-believers suffer before the believers get to the Promised Land. My friend and debate partner replied privately, describing what happened to Moses after the Red Sea incident. Before Moses and the Israelites reached the Promised Land Moses did something to displease God and he died before entering. Does that imply that if Johnson is claiming to be a modern Moses he won’t live to see the Republican Promised Land? Or maybe he’ll just lose the Speakership? I’ve long known that conservatives can be very selective in what parts of the Bible they read. My friend and debate partner gave me a copy of the latest Consumers Report with its latest car ratings. He said I might be interested because of the number of electric vehicles CR has declared as unreliable. Many auto companies don’t yet know how to reliably make EVs. Two days later – this morning – NPR aired a story of reporter Camila Domonoske visiting the Consumers Report garage for testing cars. Part of the report was how CR has had to change how they evaluate EVs, now different from how they evaluate gasoline cars. For example the testers test the range of an EV by driving it until it dies and needs to be towed back to the shop. The segment ends with Domonoske talking to Jake Fisher, who runs the CR auto testing program, about the reliability problems. Fisher says they’re growing pains. All the technology is new. It will get worked out. And once EVs more reliable people will love them for their speed, low effort in driving, and how quiet they are. And this evening NPR’s Scott Detrow talked to Consumers Reports autos reporter Keith Barry and to White House infrastructure advisor Mitch Landrieu. The other big concern about EVs is will the driver find a charging station in time? This is a big question now because building out charging stations is part of the infrastructure bill passed a couple years ago and only now are the first chargers being installed. Landrieu said don’t worry. Starting up takes time. The build out should progress quickly now. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos discussed a report by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak of the New York Times on how much the overturning of abortion rights was orchestrated by Justice Samuel Alito, and by extension Leonard Leo and his dark money empire that got several conservative justices on the Supreme Court. First, Alito kept rescheduling the case, an unusual nine times, until after Ruth Bader Ginsberg died and her replacement Amy Coney Barrett was nominated, confirmed, and had time to settle into the job. When Alito wrote the decision he lifted whole passages from the amicus briefs from people in Leo’s dark money network. Then Alito (well, someone) released the draft of the ruling which froze the text. Justice Gorsuch signed on without requesting changes. Within days so had Thomas, Barrett, and Kavanaugh, again without requesting changes. That prevented Roberts from attempting a less sweeping decision. That means this is more Alito’s court than Roberts’. And the public sees it as such. Or maybe it’s Leo’s court. In a post from ten days ago Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that Sen. Angus King of Maine has changed his stance on gun control. That was prompted by the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine back on October 25. He is joined by Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico to introduce a new bill to prevent rifles from being automatically reloaded. Instead of restricting guns the new bill is about making guns less deadly. In this case it limits “large-capacity ammunition feeding devices” to ten rounds or fewer. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine has also changed his position. He no longer opposes an assault weapons ban. Alas, the King-Heinrich bill doesn’t go as far as banning assault weapons. Even so, it is a good step in that it will reduce gun violence. Any bill that does that is good. Getting it passed is doubtful. EJ Dionne of the Washington Post wrote a column about the King-Heinrich bill. It is not behind a paywall. A few things he wrote: Yes, Republicans routinely oppose gun-safety measures.

But it’s also true that a fair share of Democrats representing rural areas are reluctant to join their big-city colleagues in support of laws too often cast as expressions of disrespect for traditions of gun ownership. The price of culture war politics is steep when it comes to gun regulation.

A provision in the bill says that if an existing gun violates the new magazine limits the owner can give it to a family member or sell it to the government. They can’t sell or give it to anyone else.

King and Heinrich have yet to find Republican co-sponsors, and — no surprise — the National Rifle Association wasted no time in coming out against the proposal. But the gun lobby’s power is slipping, and pollsters have found that parents’ worries about the safety of their children in school are increasingly driving the gun debate. One sign of change was passage last year of modest reforms in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first gun-safety measure enacted in nearly 30 years. Yes, it’s astonishing that so many politicians who tout how tough they are on crime are eager to declare their loyalty to guns and those who manufacture them rather than to the people whose lives they threaten. But winning this fight requires pragmatism and persistence. Here’s hoping that some practical senators from gun-friendly states can turn the tide.

Drew Sherman tweeted a cartoon showing an elephant saying:

We don’t have a gun crisis, we have a mental health crisis! I’m not gonna do anything about either of them, I just wanted to clarify.

This is fun! The White House posted a video of members of Dorrance Dance tap dancing through various rooms of the White House to the sounds of Duke Ellington’s jazz interpretation of a movement from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. It’s quite good and enjoyable. Better yet conservatives are pissed over it, though their reasoning doesn’t make any more sense than it usually does. The dance and decorations certainly look a whole lot better and more festive than when the nasty guy’s wife was in charge. Maybe they yearn for her strange décor?

National “checks and balances” and institutions of democracy won’t save us

I began to feel my recent cold loosening its grip about ten days ago. But getting from “feeling better” to “feeling good” took about a week. Sometime during that recovery a friend listened to my litany of symptoms and suggested what I had was COVID. I do not have COVID testing kits and did not visit a doctor, so I don’t know whether that friend was correct. This may have been my second or third bout of COVID. I definitely had it in January 2022 (with medical tests to verify). I may have had it in July 2022 while attending a big handbell gathering. I kept a mask on and one night when the symptoms were bad I considered leaving the event and heading home, but the symptoms were gone in the morning. Afterward, a friend said she had tested positive when she got home. And now might have been the third time. Much praise to vaccines that lessened the severity of symptoms. The possibility that I might have had another bout of COVID, along with news that COVID cases are rising, prompted me to download Michigan’s COVID data for the first time in four months. The data was updated on Tuesday, December 12. The good news is the number of deaths per day has been in the single digits, except for one day, for seven months. There were ten deaths in that exception. The bad news is the number of new cases per day has indeed been rising. The new cases per day rose in August, crested in September below 1000 cases per day, dropped a bit in October, and has been rising since. Over the last four weeks the weekly peak has been 943, 1411, 1272, and 1245. My charting program now displays 2¾ years of data. Next time I download the data I probably should revise the program to chart only the last year. If I don’t the month designations will begin to overlap. This morning on NPR Steve Inskeep and Leila Fadel marked 50 years since the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Before then people, especially the government, justified oppressing LGB people because they were considered mentally ill. I left the T out of the acronym because the change was about orientation, not identity. After the change the mentally ill excuse could not be used, though the government had other ways to fire or discharge LGB people, such as declaring them a possible blackmail target and thus a security risk. Religion declaring homosexuality as sinful was not a part of this discussion. This NPR segment quoted early LGB activists Barbara Gittings and Frank Kameny. But it doesn’t say anything at all about why the APA made the change. There’s nothing about the brave gay psychiatrist (alas, I don’t remember his name) who testified before an APA conference while wearing a mask and using a microphone that distorted his voice. Alas, there are still groups, mostly church groups, that still try to “cure” us. Thankfully, more states are banning “conversion” therapy that is merely an excuse for torture. NPR’s Fresh Air host Tonya Mosley had a 35 minute discussion with Charlie Savage of the New York Times about why a second nasty guy administration will be so much worse than the first one. Savage has also written a couple books on growing presidential power, one covering the Bush II years and the other covering Obama (!). This will be a strange election with the nasty guy having to make courtroom appearances between campaign events. Even so, he’s on track to be the Republican nominee. Much, likely all, of the campaigning will be about revenge, mostly against Biden, though also against Democrats and any Republicans who don’t display enough loyalty to him, but rather are loyal to the party or the country. However, the big difference is the growing infrastructure, the sophisticated policy apparatus that is growing up around him and backing him. And that makes his words more than the usual bombast. The things he says he will do: One: Change the Department of Justice from an independent part of the government with the charge to protect the weak from the strong into a driving force to protect him and punish his adversaries. He believes the DoJ has been weaponized against him, so he feels justified in weaponizing it against his opponents. In his first term the DoJ didn’t bring charges against Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, former FBI director James Comey, and others, much to his fury. Enough existing employees, even conservatives, raised legal objections to his punishing his adversaries. That infrastructure – the well-funded think tanks – have been writing legal rationale and vetting lawyers who will support, not resist, what he wants to do. All these people are actually saying this, so it isn’t a secret. One bit of that legal rationale is that the DoJ is supposed to be doing the bidding of the president and the Constitution says nothing about a president opening investigations of his opponents. Some of these think tanks, like the Heritage Foundation, are saying they’re creating all this infrastructure for whoever is the next Republican president. But a lot of this work reflects Trumpist ideology. Two: Attempt to implement the unitary executive theory, developed back in the Reagan years. It says Congress cannot create an agency the president cannot control. An example is Federal Reserve – the president can appoint the leadership, but then has no more control. This theory says, for example, that the president should have control over Federal Reserve decisions on interest rates. And, in this example, a president could cut interest rates to help with reelection, no matter the economic mess it made later. Three: Revise federal civil service classifications so that a lot more jobs – any job that might touch policy – are seen as political rather than civil service. They become partisan spoils with hiring now based on loyalty rather than competence. Four: The nasty guy was able to take over the Republican Party in 2016 because of his radical opposition to immigration. His proposals were mostly thwarted in his first term. They won’t be in his second. Up to now deportations might be a few hundred thousand a year. The nasty guy is talking millions a year with all sorts of draconian policies and camps to make it happen. The think tanks believe much of what they want to do is currently legal. If not, he will have a more compliant Supreme Court and maybe a more compliant Congress. Yes, deportations on that scale will disrupt social and economic connections. Agriculture, hospitality, and many other economic sectors will face labor shortages. But Stephen Miller, an advisor and white supremacist, says that’s good. It will open more jobs to citizens and they’ll be at higher wages. Some jobs will go unfilled because Americans are not willing to do things like pick crops, no matter the pay. Five: Many policies in the nasty guy’s first term were blocked because they were badly written. He and his minions are now much better at putting policies in a form that would pass judicial muster. They have a much better understanding of how to manipulate the levers of government. Six: They have a much more compliant judiciary because he got lots of appointments to many federal courts through the Senate. Seven: The nasty guy intends to use the Insurrection Act, the one exception to the Posse Comitatus Act that prevents using the military for domestic policing. He intends to use it for such things as disrupt protests, especially Black Lives Matter protests, to support immigration agents at the southern border, and to enforce order in the “crime dens” of Democratic-run cities. In the last case he won’t wait for mayors to request assistance. Eight: There won’t be the incompetence and dysfunction of his first term. These think tanks will have rosters of competent people – not competent in performing the functions of government, but competent in carrying out an authoritarian agenda. Nine: The nasty guy “has worn down, outlasted, intimidated into submission and driven out Republican lawmakers who had independent standing and demonstrated occasional willingness to oppose him.” Those Republicans who disagree with the nasty guy privately fear violence if they oppose him publicly. Ten: There have been a parade of people in the first administration who have talked about how they restrained him from his more radical ideas and how he is unfit to be president. They and their restraint won’t be there during a second term. So the lawyers – and everyone in the second administration – will be much more likely to say yes to everything, even (especially) the cruelest things, the nasty guy will come up with. That’s ten reasons why the nasty guy will be much more successful in making himself dictator, if he ever gets back to the Oval Office. No, the national “checks and balances” and the strength of institutions of democracy won’t save us. The checks and balances have been co-opted and institutions are crumbling from attacks of claims of already being partisan. I had mentioned even vulnerable House Republicans had voted for the impeachment inquiry. These are the 17 Republicans elected from districts Biden won. So even though they are somewhat vulnerable and even though House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, the guy who brought the inquiry approval to the floor, has become a national laughingstock because of the complete lack of evidence, they all voted for him. As Joan McCarter of Daily Kos wrote:

But this isn’t about Biden. It’s about proving loyalty to Donald Trump, and plenty of Republicans will happily admit that.

Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, were election workers in Georgia. After Georgia went to Biden in the 2020 election Rudy Giuliani accused the women of election tampering. Yes, what he said were lies. The women, who are black, received threats and harassment. It was so bad they couldn’t go out in public. So they sued Giuliani for defamation. And an Associated Press article posted on Kos reports the jury took only ten hours to award the women $148 million in damages and punitive damages. Giuliani kept repeating the lies to the press and kept saying he had evidence that would prove his position. But he never testified and that evidence was not included in the trial. His lawyer said that he was not fully responsible for the harassment the women faced. The lawyer also suggested the award could “financially ruin” his client. Good. The case will be appealed.