Must prove not their worth but their worthlessness

Yeah, I’m still writing about him. I hope I’m writing about him for only four more months. Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community wrote that over those four months we don’t have to listen to the nasty guy’s campaign attacks and lies or the consider the felony convictions or puzzle over the campaign promises (or their lack). We don’t need to consider what he did during the Capitol attack in the final days of his first occupation of the Oval Office. We have enough information about his fitness for office by what he didn’t do during the attack. Because what he didn’t do was call off the attack. And he didn’t do it for more than three hours. Even though there were aides and his children insisting he needed to.

Trump has the distinction of having demonstrated to every single American—over an interminable, three-hour stretch on Jan. 6, 2021—just how unfit he is to lead this nation.

It is time to remind voters of that. Mark Sumner of Kos reported on Flag Day:

The New York Times is ready to hand the flag over to Donald Trump to fondle as much as he wants. In a nauseating article that can’t stop gushing about how Trump is the “51st star,” the paper is just so overwhelmed by Trump hugging and kissing the flag and the patriotism of his big red tie that they declare the flag the property of just one party. President Joe Biden doesn’t agree. In a new ad, the Biden-Harris campaign unabashedly celebrates the history and meaning of the American flag— a flag that belongs to everyone. “The stars and stripes were created to unite us,” the narrator says in the ad. “It is a powerful symbol that Americans stand together.”

Sumner then mentioned some of the ways Republicans are calling America a nation in decline and a “cesspool.” To that Sumner wrote, “Hugging the flag while slamming the nation is not patriotism.” I’ve written about cryptocurrency data mining that uses so much power that coal-fired electricity plants are not being shut down, but are being sold to data mining sites to generate more dirty power. Sumner reported that AI is following that same path. Back to crypto for a moment. In 2023, Arkansas passed the “right to mine” bill to protect Bitcoin miners from regulations and taxes. The state Republicans want Arkansas to be the “crypto hub.” A year later, leaders hear that people don’t like living next to sheds with screeching computers. Also, for all that noise and energy use crypto data mining is for a fake currency. On to AI. Nvidia, the company that designs AI chips, has topped Apple as the company with the largest capitalization (stock price times number of shares). That value is way above $1 trillion. And now Chris Taglo, editor of the Heartland Institute, is squawking that AI is so important (and so hungry for electricity) that we as a country just gotta abandon all our plans for stopping climate change. We gotta keep those coal fired power plants humming. They’re saying this as the Midwest and Northeast are experiencing a heat dome and while every month in 2023 set heat records every month so far in 2024 has been hotter. Yup, in the choice between a livable planet and AI, they’re going for AI. Now AI might have an advantage over crypto in that AI might be useful and might produce some highly needed something. Might. But even Taglo is merely hopeful that what we’ll get out of AI will be beneficial. And not a second existential threat. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev had a couple interesting quotes. First, from Timothy Snyder, in his “Thinking About” Substack, talked about what the nasty guy is looking for in a vice president, emphasis on “vice.” Normally, the top guy looks for complementary virtues. That won’t work for the nasty guy.

The vice-presidential candidate cannot be seen to complement Donald Trump, since as a Leader he cannot be seen to have any shortcomings or flaws. His is a specific kind of fascism, though, without any plan beyond retribution. Trump's backers at home and abroad understand that the rage will provide cover to dismantle the operations of the American government -- so that oligarchs need not pay taxes, for example, or so that Russians can commit atrocities in Ukraine. And so those who wish to join the Republican ticket as the vice-presidential nominee must prove not their worth but their worthlessness. They must demonstrate that they do not challenge Trump in any way, and that they would not, should they become president, provide any resistance to those who would like to see American government fail. They must engage, in other words, in a politics of impotence, a determined effort to show that they lack determination.

Kev also quoted Thomas Friedman of the NYT about the tight spot Israel is in due to Iran’s proxies threatening a three-front war from Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank.

But Israel is led by a prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has to stay in power to avoid potentially being sent to prison on corruption charges. To do so, he sold his soul to form a government with far-right Jewish extremists who insist that Israel must fight in Gaza until it has killed every last Hamasnik — “total victory” — and who reject any partnership with the Palestinian Authority (which has accepted the Oslo peace accords) in governing a post-Hamas Gaza, because they want Israeli control over all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, including Gaza. ... No friend of Israel should participate in this circus. Israel needs a pragmatic centrist government that can lead it out of this multifaceted crisis — and seize the offer of normalization with Saudi Arabia that Biden has been able to engineer. This can come about only by removing Netanyahu through a new election — as the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, bravely called for in March. Israel does not need a U.S.-sponsored booze party for its drunken driver.

That’s another voice saying that while Israel does not have a policy of genocide against Gaza, some members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition do. Way down in the comments are three good cartoons. One by Garthtoons shows a teacher explaining to her class, “And so we created a federal holiday for Juneteenth to remember the end of slavery in the U.S., though I’m legally forbidden to teach you why that affects anyone’s lives still today.” Adam Zyglis posted a cartoon titled “America’s Parade...” It shows a parade of caskets with the occupants saying such things as “Saw a concert.” “Went to school.” “Prayed in a synagogue.” Watching it is Uncle Sam, thinking, “It’s semi-automatic.” Drew Sheneman posted a cartoon showing a man putting a second olive into his martini, saying, “I’m sick of all this whining about groceries. Do you have any idea what inflation has done to the price of Supreme Court justices?” One of the musicals nominated for a Tony Award, the show I watched on Sunday, was Suffs. It’s about the Suffragette movement leading up to women getting the right to vote in 1919. The song from that show that was featured was “Keep Marching.” I thought the words are wonderful and went looking for them. Here’s some of those words:

I won’t live to see the future that I fight for Maybe no one gets to reach that perfect day If the work is never over Then how do you keep marching anyway? Do you carry your banner as far as you can? Rewriting the world with your imperfect pen? Til the next stubborn girl picks it up in A picket line over and over again? And you join in the chorus of centuries chanting to her The path will be twisted and risky and slow But keep marching, keep marching Will you fail or prevail, well, you may never know But keep marching, keep marching ‘Cause your ancestors are all the proof you need That progress is possible, not guaranteed It will only be made if we keep marching, Keep marching on