Top advisers became worried about the political fallout

I finished the book A Song Everlasting by Ha Jin. This story of Tian opens with him as the lead tenor in a Chinese cultural exchange choir on tour in New York. One of Tian’s friends who had already established himself in the US invites Tian to sing at a cultural event. At Tian’s insistence the tour director lets him stay in the US a couple extra days. But the event is culturally Taiwanese, not Chinese. So when Tian gets back to Beijing he condemned for his foolishness. He is asked to turn in his passport. Instead, he uses it to flee back to New York, leaving behind wife Shuna and teenage daughter TingTing. That’s all in the first ten percent of the book. The rest of the story is Tian trying to establish a singing career in the US, mostly among the Chinese diaspora. There are also numerous efforts by the Chinese government to get him to return to the motherland or at least stop singing songs not part of the required propaganda canon. There are attempts to discredit him when he refuses. Along the way Tian wrestles (a bit) with whether he would be better in a life of comparable ease in China singing propaganda or not singing at all or be a struggling artist in America able to sing what he wants. He laments the growing figurative distance with his wife brought on by his literal distance from her. There is even a comparison of Chinese and American health systems. The story is enjoyable, though I wondered how to characterize the writing. Plain might work. Simplistic seems too simple. It seems rather emotionally bland and at times there seems to be a lot of explaining. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported on the details of the on again, off again tariffs imposed on Mexico and Canada. Part of the reversal appears to be Mexican and Canadian leaders pushing back, part of it is reports on what tariffs will do to the auto industry and agriculture, and part of it is a big drop in the stock market. Kos of Kos wrote that one should not underestimate Canada. They may be small in population, but the nasty guy is turning on their own patriotism. What looked like a landslide for the Conservative Party in October’s election is now close to an even match with the Liberals. Canada also has some Americans on its side. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, who had disparaged Kamala Harris, calls the tariffs the “dumbest” in history. Rural Americans and their newspapers and senators are complaining about what tariffs would do to the agriculture economy of red states. In his first time in the Oval Office the nasty guy imposed tariffs and had to bail out farmers. This time there may not be enough money in the federal budget for a farmer bailout. I had written a while back that Republicans and Project 2025 called for privatizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the department that runs the National Weather Service and issues weather warnings – and giving two reasons for it. One, NOAA funds research into climate change which they want to stop and two, they wan a company to make money off what the government is giving away for free. Last week Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Musk and DOGE have started firing workers at NOAA, aiming to cut 10% of 11,758 workers. Democrats condemned the move.

While Musk and DOGE have been unable to prove they have found any fraud or provided taxpayers with any meaningful savings, the San Francisco Chronicle points out that while the National Weather Service’s budget is around $1.4 billion, which averages to around $4 per tax payer, it is estimated to provide Americans with $102.1 billion in benefits. That's a lot of bang for the buck, according to any metric. You could even call it a model of “efficiency.”

Are you rich enough to pay for your daily weather report? Lisa Needham of Kos said a week ago we should celebrate the small wins. There are buffer zones around abortion clinics that limit how close anti-choice protesters can get, a space that is rather small. The zones are more important since the Supreme Court overturned the right to an abortion. Yet, this same court declined to hear a case that would have allowed them to declare buffer zones unconstitutional. Anti-choice demonstrators hate buffer zones.

They argue they have a First Amendment right to “counsel” people who are going to abortion clinics, framing their efforts as gentle, persuasive conversations. Instead, what the record in Turco showed actually happened was that anti-choice protestors blocked access to the clinic, assaulted patient escorts, screamed directly into patients’ faces, and videotaped them. Additionally, a meager eight-foot gap doesn’t prevent clinic patients from hearing protestors or seeing their signs. So, in terms of a First Amendment right to express oneself, all the buffer zones prevent is getting in the face of a patient and making them feel physically threatened. Protestors can still scream and wave their pictures of bloody fetuses—they just have to do it a few feet away. According to Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s failure to take up these cases and throw out buffer zones entirely was an “abdication of our judicial duty.” Yes, Thomas is big mad that only he and Justice Samuel Alito would have agreed to hear the cases. As Mark Joseph Stern pointed out over at Slate, it isn’t unexpected that Thomas thought his conservative colleagues would join him in overruling Hill and ending buffer zones.

The nasty guy has no interest in stopping anti-choice protesters from being violent. He showed it by granting clemency to protesters who had blockaded clinics. Also, Republicans are working to pass a national abortion ban. So this small step by the Supremes is welcome. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Jonathan Lemire of The Atlantic:

Jesse Watters, a co-host of the Fox News hit show The Five, is usually a slick deliverer of MAGA talking points. But on February 19, Watters told a surprisingly emotional story about a friend working at the Pentagon who was poised to lose his job as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce. “I finally found one person I knew who got DOGE’d, and it hit me in the heart,” said Watters, who urged his Fox colleagues to “be a little bit less callous.” Although Watters soon resumed championing DOGE, the moment went viral. Trump watched the clip and asked advisers if it was resonating with his base of supporters, according to one of three White House officials I spoke with for this story (they requested anonymity so they could discuss private conversations). Over the ensuing weeks, the president grew unhappy with the television coverage of cuts affecting his voters, according to two of those officials, while the White House fielded calls from Cabinet members and Republican lawmakers frustrated by Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul empowered to slash the federal government. Some of Trump’s top advisers became worried about the political fallout from DOGE’s sweeping cuts, especially after seeing scenes of angry constituents yelling at GOP members of Congress in town halls.

Way down in the comments Jesse Duquette posted a cartoon with the caption, “When standing up to fascists, it’s important to always maintain a sense of decorum - Democratic Party proverb.” The cartoon shows a landing craft approaching the D-Day beach and one soldier says, “What if we tried wearing pink and holding little signs instead?” A meme posted by exlrrp and written by Brian Tyler Cohen says:

The US military has removed photos of the B-29 bomber “Enola Gay” – which dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan – apparently because it contains the word “gay,” which violates their new anti-DEI rules.

And way down in the comments is a cartoon by Jonesy for Private Eye Magazine showing a field with a scarecrow wearing a large dress and a young man sewing frills along the bottom. His parents are watching. His mother says, “I think our son is trying to tell us his future isn’t in farming.” In the comments of a roundup from a week ago is a meme posted by Annie:

Believing a small group of billionaires are suddenly working tirelessly for the benefit of the working class requires a spectacular level of stupidity.

A cartoon by Toonerman shows this exchange:

Red hat man: I didn’t think it was MY federal job they was gonna cut. A dog: But if other folks lose their jobs that’s okay? ... you’re a selfish prick.

Is this school better? You're not allowed to know.

I visited the Detroit Auto Show this afternoon. My purpose was to talk to representatives of the various car companies to ask if they have an electric car that meets my needs. My needs are straightforward. I want a car. Not an SUV or a truck. A car. And it doesn’t need to be very big. I want one car. I don’t have space for two. I want an electric car with a sufficient range to visit by brother on one charge. He lives about 275 miles away. The trip is short enough that I don’t want a lengthy recharging stop halfway through. Any farther than that and I’ll likely stop for a meal and could include a charge. The bad news is car companies are not there yet. The good news is they’re getting close. Several said they have vehicles with a 300 mile range or close to it. Alas, most of these vehicles are SUVs and bigger than I want and costing much more than I want to pay. Stellantis has a nice little electric car, but it gets only 150 miles on a charge. Jon Paul Sydnor is a writer for Street Prophets, a progressive Christian community on Daily Kos. He recently wrote that concepts of God matter and he proposed a progressive concept of God. The post discusses a lot of theology, most of which is of no interest to me (and likely to you). However, this is one idea that is interesting and is related to conservative Christianity.

Christian theologians, following Plato, have insisted that since only imperfect things can develop or increase, and God is perfect, God cannot develop or increase. Divine development would imply divine imperfection. ... Intentionally or accidentally, this concept of God condemns change. If God is immutable—static and unchanging—then to be static and unchanging becomes our highest ideal. If God is immutable, then by implication that which is must take priority over that which could be. All change becomes decline. Divinized immutability reinforces social rigidity, preserving entitlement and preventing reform. Such stasis was never the intention of the Hebrew prophets or Christ Jesus.

Eli Hager, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, discussed the school voucher program in Arizona. The example in the story was Title of Liberty, a private Mormon school in Mesa that went out of business. It’s source of income was voucher payments through the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. There were some reasons why this particular school failed. But there were other reasons related to the way Arizona set up their voucher program. Some of them: The law that created the ESA provided zero transparency into a school’s finances, or academic quality. Parents has no information on whether this school was better than that school (or any good at all), had a solid or shady past, and was financially healthy enough to stick around for the entirety of their child’s education. Public schools in Arizona are tightly regulated and their performance is known. That’s not true of charters. Schools that take public money yet have no public accountability is baffling to many educators and parents. The vouchers benefit the rich, who could afford the tuition anyway. They don’t benefit the poor mainly because high-quality private schools don’t exist in their neighborhoods. Parents who send their kids to private schools can speak at public school board meetings and vote in school board elections. Public school parents cannot attend the board meetings of a private school. Defenders of vouchers say the American education should be a free market of options. But if the quality of a school is a secret a parent can’t make good purchasing decisions. A parent needs quality assurance. The No Child Left Behind law, a big legislative achievement of Bush II, was big on transparency and accountability. Schools had to prove they were educating kids up to state standards. The same standards applied to schools accepting vouchers. About 2017-2020 studies “found that larger voucher programs had produced severe declines in student performance, especially in math.” The declines were blamed in part on overregulation, which prompted no regulation and secrecy. Is the school you’re considering for your child better? You’re not allowed to know. Oliver Willis of Kos discussed why Republicans are so eager to blame various people for the Los Angeles fires and their severity. Willis includes several examples of their accusations. Their tirades aren’t just about the fire and they’re not new. California is frequently targeted because it is highly Democratic.

Over the decades, conservative politicians and right-wing media have frequently used California as subject of scorn and derision because of the state’s liberal politics. California has embraced many progressive policies on the environment, gender equality, LGBTQ+ equality, and racial equality, while also being the home to the entertainment industry and much of the tech industry. When something bad happens in California, conservatives flock to the issue to use it as “proof” that liberalism and the Democratic Party are also bad.

In the case of the fires the severity can partly be blamed on conservatism and their climate change denial. Willis also reported that this time Republicans aren’t content to lay blame. They’re now talking about politicizing the fires. There is talk to link relief funds to a plan to raise the federal debt limit. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. With the way the government is spending money (to soon be made worse by renewing tax cuts) the debt limit has to be raised. Not doing so means a government shutdown. Also, because of the House Freedom Caucus Republicans on their own don’t have enough votes to raise the limit. So enticing Democrats to vote for the increase by throwing in wildfire aid might be good. But it is also bad because it sets a precedent. If done once there will be a next time. And next time the pairing may not be with raising the debt limit, but with such things as tax cuts for the rich, or efforts to remove LGBTQ books from school libraries, or authorization to invade Greenland. I also remember that a big reason why the nasty guy wants the debt ceiling raised is so he can extend tax cuts to billionaires. That’s bad. But he is going to do that anyway. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Edward Helmore of The Guardian:

The politicization of the Los Angeles fires could be showing signs of intensifying. To opposing political factions, the ruin of parts of Los Angeles offers an inviting but deadly tableau on which to lay out their contrary agendas. To Democrats, the intensity with which the fires took hold, propelled by the late-season Santa Ana winds, is evidence of climate change that some Republicans deny as a political hoax. To some Republicans, including Trump, the fires are evidence of mismanagement under Democrats’ racial- and gender-equity drives. ... Warren Davidson, an Ohio representative, called on Friday for federal disaster relief to be withheld from California unless the state reforms its forestry management practices.

And from Parker Malloy of The New Republic:

The same people who spent years telling us climate change isn’t real are now trying to blame the fires on the fact that the L.A. Fire Department’s chief is a woman. Never mind that Kristin Crowley worked her way up through the ranks for 22 years. Never mind that the department’s leadership is still predominantly male. The right has found a way to combine their favorite bogeymen: diversity initiatives, California governance, and climate science. ... This is the playbook we’re going to see for every climate disaster going forward. Rather than acknowledge the role of climate change, rather than have honest discussions about infrastructure and emergency preparedness, the right will search for ways to blame their cultural grievances. Everything becomes evidence of their preferred narrative: Hydrant failures become proof of Democratic mismanagement, female leadership becomes proof of “woke” politics gone wrong, and the actual causes get buried under an avalanche of manufactured outrage.

In the comments of a second pundit roundup is a cartoon by Mike Luckovich. It shows a person at the base of a devastated hillside crawling for help. A person labeled “GOP” says, “You want aid? Put on this MAGA cap.” And exlrrp posted a meme:

Over a MILLION acres of wildfires in Texas last year. Funny that it wasn’t blamed on poor water resource management, black or female firefighters or [Gov.] Greg f---ing Abbott.

CEO pay up 1,460% while typical workers’ pay up just 18.1%

The United Auto Workers contract with General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis (the current company owning Chrysler) expired Thursday night. The news Friday morning was that the UAW had called strikes at one plant of each company. This is the first time they called a strike at all three at the same time. Strikes will be called at more plants if the talks drag on without a deal. I worked in the auto industry for close to three decades. I had an office job so was not in the union. I went to work during strikes (I was far from any plant). And when the new contract was signed what improvements the union members got I also got. I benefited from the union. The central issue of the strike is, of course, money. The union gave concessions to keep the companies in business during the Great Recession. Now the companies are making big profits and the union says it is time to get back what they gave up. The companies are saying we need the money for the transition to electric vehicles. The union says EVs are good (though require fewer workers) but those battery plants you’re building had better be unionized. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported that Mary Barra, the CEO of GM, showed how clueless top management be. Her compensation is 362 times more than the median pay for workers at her company. Compensation for the CEOs of Ford and Stellantis are similar. Barra saw a 34% increase in her salary (time frame not mentioned) and she thought a 20% increase for workers was good enough. Einenkel concluded:

According to the Economic Policy Institute, CEOs for the top 350 U.S. firms made about 20 times more than their typical worker in 1965. Between 1978 and 2021, CEO pay has increased 1,460% while typical workers’ wages have increased just 18.1%. You don’t have to be a Nobel Prize-winning economist to understand this isn’t a workable model.

Yeah, that’s what this strike is about. Hunter of Kos reported the nasty guy and DeathSantis went to Washington to court some conservative organizations. Among them is Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. It has been quite a while since I’ve come across those names. So I did a scan of blog entries. Between 2010 and 2016 I wrote about Perkins nine times. The last time to lament he had been appointed to the Republican Platform Committee. That lament is because the FRC has been designated a hate group by the SPLC because Perkins’ lies about LGBTQ people are used to justify our oppression. I have more laments because national media still likes to quote Perkins and candidates for the White House still think visiting him is important. Hunter explained the attraction:

Because what's important is that Donald Trump hates: He hates good and hard and often. That is the motivating force that drives anyone and everyone who would travel to Washington, D.C., to attend a Family Research Council event.

Last Monday Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about Republicans and taxes.

If Hunter Biden is behind on his taxes, it’s the worst crime in the world and worthy of a congressional probe spanning three House committees. If anyone else is dodging their taxes, that’s just smart.

That sentiment is playing out in the Republican demand to rescind the big budget increase for the IRS. Sen. Chuck Grassley warns of an IRS strike force with AK-15s ready to shoot a small business owner. That budget increase also comes with guidance on who the newly hired agents should focus their attention. * Those with income over $1 million with more than $250K in back taxes. * Construction contractors who pay multiple subcontractors, because that’s frequently a sign that those subcontractors are really shell companies to funnel money back to the rich owner. * High income earners who use foreign bank accounts, because that’s a way to hide income. * Large transactions in digital currency because that’s also a way to hide income.

So the IRS is coming after rich people who are known to be behind in their taxes, and groups who are going out of their way with shell companies, foreign accounts, and digital currency to hide their real income. All of which sounds … pretty darn reasonable. And it certainly raises a question: Why are Republicans so anxious to stop these audits?

Sumner also wrote about ways legislatures in red states are stripping power from urban voters. That’s things they do beyond portraying cities as a “crime-ridden, corrupt, dysfunctional hellhole,” a phrase recently used against Chicago. There were states that overturned local efforts to encourage students to wear masks during the pandemic, to overturn attempts to protect immigrants, to disband a board looking into the use of deadly force against black people, to usurp control of elections in Houston and Harris County, to overturn requirements that construction workers get water breaks, to take control of Jackson, Mississippi away from its black residents, and much more.

A 2018 law review article showed that as Republicans gained more power in state legislatures following 2010 redistricting, they used that authority to bear down on cities. “The past decade has witnessed the emergence and rapid spread of a new and aggressive form of state preemption of local government action across a wide range of subjects, including among others firearms, workplace conditions, sanctuary cities, anti-discrimination laws, and environmental and public health regulation.”

The fear is their efforts to indoctrinate their kids won’t succeed

I wrote yesterday about Russia fighting out in the open, where they’re easy pickings, when the could stay in their fortified trenches and let the Ukrainian’s come to them. Kos of Daily Kos gives a couple reasons why they might be doing that. 1. The message from Putin might be to not give up any land – including the few kilometers between the original front and the strong defenses. 2. Russian soldiers have no faith in the fortified trenches. Perhaps they feel like easy targets to Ukraine’s longer range artillery or they don’t know how to properly use those defensive positions. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that a federal judge has struck down the Arkansas ban on gender affirming care for children. Arkansas was the first to ban such care, so their ban was the first to come before the court. Here’s a key sentence from Judge Jay Moody’s ruling:

Rather than protecting children or safeguarding medical ethics, the evidence showed that the prohibited medical care improves the mental health and well-being of patients and that, by prohibiting it, the state undermined the interests it claims to be advancing.

Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about the legal troubles of Hunter Biden, son of the president. In a deal with the US Attorney’s Office Hunter will plead guilty to two charges of misdemeanor failure to pay taxes, and one felony charge of possessing a gun while using drugs. This is a very unusual deal. Hunter didn’t pay the taxes in 2017-2018, but did pay in 2021. Filing charges after the taxes were paid is quite rare. Also prosecution for possessing a weapon while using drugs is almost always restricted to cases where the defendant is also facing charges on gun violence or drug sales. So even though Republicans say Hunter got off easy, he’s facing stiffer charges than others in his situation – Like Roger Stone, who failed to pay $2 million in taxes and whose case was resolved without charges. I think that’s about 100 times what Hunter failed to pay. US Attorney David Weiss was appointed by the nasty guy, who bragged Weiss was among the most supportive of the MAGA cause. It was under the nasty guy that Weiss began to investigate Hunter. And when Dad became president and Merrick Garland became AG Weiss was given ultimate authority in this case. Wrote Sumner:

Biden, Garland, and everyone else at the DOJ gave Weiss free rein over every aspect of the case. If he didn’t charge Hunter Biden with more, it’s because he didn’t find more. This was the most Trump-aligned attorney doing his worst, punishing Hunter Biden in a way most people would not be punished for, with charges most would not face, and still the Republicans are screaming. Because they were never interested in the truth, or really in Hunter Biden. They just need someone to vilify. It doesn’t really matter who.

Sumner also wrote about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. He wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal to get ahead of a ProPublica article about Alito’s corruption. Yeah, another justice accused of corruption. When the ProPublica article appeared later, Alito’s piece was shockingly accurate. Of course, the guilty usually know what they’re guilty of. Where have we heard this before? Alito was offered a fancy vacation (private jet, exclusive lodge) by a rich dude (Paul Singer) who later had cases before the Supremes. Alito didn’t report the value of the gifts (he didn’t think he needed to) and didn’t recuse himself from the cases. It’s another example of the justices being the only ones allowed to judge their behavior. ProPublica's article included the central conflict in the case, as a law professor put it:

If you were good friends, what were you doing ruling on his case? And if you weren’t good friends, what were you doing accepting this?

Most people don’t get these sorts of trips. Most people can’t afford them. Most people don’t have friends who can give them such a trip.

If Alito is looking for a little tip, it’s actually quite simple to tell if an act is corrupt. Just ask, “If I was not a judge, member of Congress, or other public official, would I be getting this gift?" If the answer is no, then accepting it is corrupt.

Rom DeathSantis has been saying “We believe in education, not indoctrination.” Laura Clawson of Kos wrote that if teachers really had the ability to indoctrinate they have a long wish list. Some of the things on the list: Treat themselves and others with kindness and respect. Follow directions, read the syllabus, ... don’t copy the PowerPoint outline and expect an A. Stop beginning papers with “Throughout history.” Use semicolons correctly. Put their name on their papers. Wrote Clawson:

The point is, teachers are trying to get students to do things and learn things all the time. It’s literally their job description! But they’re often unsuccessful at indoctrinating students into the most basic practices endorsed by every single teacher they have through their years of school. They don’t have the power of mind control. The nefarious practices Republicans are labeling “indoctrination” wouldn’t work if students weren’t open to them. The fear Republicans are expressing is that their own efforts to indoctrinate their kids won’t succeed—that their kids will be LGBTQ+ or will call out racism when they see or hear it. They want the schools to actively participate in keeping their kids in line by denying them knowledge. There is real indoctrination out there. But it’s not about Disney movies or which books school libraries make available. ... To be indoctrinated is to be taught to accept a set of beliefs uncritically, without considering other points of view or bodies of evidence. Where have you seen that in your life? In school? At home? In church? In a political group?

Walter Einenkel of Kos discussed a lecture by William Darity Professor, of Public Policy at Duke University. The lecture was titled “Does everyone lose from racism? Insights from stratification economics” and was given at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Einenkel wrote:

During the question and answer section of the lecture, a young man spewed what many would consider a right-wing, neo-libertarian talking point about Black “trends” of “higher crime rates” and “high illegitimacy rates” that would supersede any structural criticism of our country. Professor Darity deftly dismantled this fact-free “propagandistic method” and asked what exactly “crime” meant to this young man, noting that if it means a “history of violence,” then there is “unquestionably” only one group of Americans who, far and away, have participated in general and racially focused violence at levels unmatched by other groups of Americans.

Jon Cooper tweeted a cartoon showing the character Lisa Simpson (I had to look up the show to make sure I had the right name) in front of a screen that says:

Black lives matter is not an anti-white movement. Feminism is not an anti-men movement. Pride is not an anti-straight movement. This isn’t about you.

I add that each of the three is an anti-hierarchy movement and many straight white men are deeply invested in the hierarchy. Michael Thomas, who writes a newsletter about climate change looked at why American vehicles are so much larger and so much more inefficient than in other countries. He starts with a comparison with the best selling vehicles in America and Europe. In Europe that is the Peugeot 208, about 2.3K pounds, $22.9K, and 50 mpg. In America that is the Ford F-150 pickup, about 4K pounds, $35.7K, and 25 mpg. Yes, there was a fuel efficiency law passed in 1975. It helped. For a while. Then (I think in 1985) lobbyists happened.

At the last minute, auto lobbyists convinced Congress to make a subtle change to the bill’s text. They got the fuel efficiency standards for trucks to be set separately from cars. The revised bill basically said, “Every *small car* has to hit 27.5 miles per gallon.” The truck standards would be set separately in a process that was much easier to corrupt. So what'd automakers do? They started making bigger cars in order to avoid regulations. This loophole significantly changed the economics of making cars and trucks in America. It became much more profitable for automakers to make big trucks and SUVs. Recently GM, Ford, and Chrysler stopped making small cars entirely. Instead the companies are focusing on selling their more profitable trucks and SUVs. All of this has had disastrous effects on both people and the planet. ... Auto lobbyists proved decades ago that it’s possible to design policies that encourage one type of vehicle over another. Now it’s time to pass policies that encourage people to buy smaller cars with a smaller impact.

I don’t want or need a truck or SUV. They’re to big and power hungry for my modest needs. Maybe I won’t be waiting for GM to make an electric car. Maybe, after 27 years in the American auto industry, I don’t ever buy American again.

Remain honest with yourself

It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. A good chunk of last week was taken up by organizing and going on a two-day trip. The purpose was to take my parents’ ashes to the ancestral farm.

On to stuff that’s been sitting in browser tabs for a while.

Sarah Kendzior, who studies autocracies, quoted journalist Tikhon Dzyadko of RTVi in her Gaslit Nation podcast:

Under an autocracy, there is one rule of survival: remain honest. Autocracy is not frightening in that it prohibits and intimidates; autocracy is frightening in that it uncovers in man the darkest, the most cynical and low. Autocracy teaches man to lie even to himself. And so, in order not to accept autocracy and play by its rules, you need to be yourself and remain honest – primarily with yourself. And continue to do your job, as long as it is possible. In other words, do what you must, come what may.

BFSkinner, part of the Daily Kos community posted about a recent NBC News survey.

According to the most recent survey, 68 percent are either enthusiastic (14 percent) or comfortable (54 percent) with a candidate who is gay or lesbian,

The most surprising finding to me was an examination of the senior population….

And, while seniors are more likely to voice reservations about gay candidates, a majority (56 percent) now say they have no objections. That’s up from just 31 percent in 2006.

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal spoke to the House Judiciary Committee during a hearing for the Equality Act to ban discrimination of LGBT people. Part of what she said:

My beautiful, now 22-year-old child told me last year that they were gender non-conforming. And over the last year I have come to understand from a deeply personal mother's perspective. I've always been a civil rights activist, I've always fought for my constituents in my communities to have equal rights, but from a mother's perspective I came to understand what their newfound freedom—it is the only way I can describe what has happened to my beautiful child—what their newfound freedom, to wear a dress, to rid themselves of some conformist stereotype of who they are. To be able to express who they are at their real core.

And since this deeply impactful moment last year, my child who has always done well in school but has carried what a mother can only describe as a heavy burden of conflict in their own being that I could not fully identify or help to express. Since this deeply impactful moment last year, my child's embracing of their non-conforming gender identity and all that it has allowed, all that it allows in terms of their creativity, their brilliance, their self-expression … the only thought I wake up with every day is my child is free. My child is free to be who they are and in that freedom comes a responsibility for us as legislators to protect that freedom, to be who they are.

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos took a look at the nasty guy’s decision to roll back vehicle efficiency standards. When this was first talked about in the administration Scott Pruitt, head of the EPA at the time, selected an adviser to write a report showing the rollback is a wonderful idea.

Didn’t turn out that way. The report says the rollback would cause the industry would lose 236,000 jobs over the next 15 years. Reasons:

* The rest of the world insists on cars that are more efficient and less polluting, so American companies would have a harder time selling outside America. American companies have already abandoned much of the small to midsize market.

* Auto companies would drastically reduce research and development spending. That means a loss of engineering jobs. Profits will go to investors, not to innovative suppliers. The overall economy loses.



David Neiwert of Daily Kos looks at Big Tech and their struggle with the far-right extremism that has filled their platforms. The big reason why it is a struggle is that…

their revenue streams are built around attracting such content.
…
The formula for success that emerged over time at YouTube is simple: “Outrage equals attention.” Brittan Heller, a fellow at Harvard University’s Carr Center, observed that it’s also ripe for exploitation by political extremists and hucksters. “They don’t know how the algorithm works,” she said. “But they do know that the more outrageous the content is, the more views.”

And the more views, the more money these platforms will roll in. Hate and division become the fuels for profit in this system. It’s a recipe for cultural disaster.

The Department of Homeland Security has disbanded an intelligence and Analysis unit that focused on domestic terrorism and white supremacist violence. Melissa McEwan of Shakesville explains what it means:

So now we're just flying blind(er) on rightwing extremist violence, including and especially anti-choice and white supremacist terrorism.

That, of course, is not an accident. That is a design. Because malice is the agenda.

One assumes Donald Trump and his deplorable henchmen won't be mad if their decision to allow domestic terrorism to flourish in the darkness of inattention also results in dramatic acts of public violence that justify the expansion of authoritarian policy, under the auspices of security and "protecting" us.

If they were actually interested in protecting us, they wouldn't have disbanded a unit charged with doing precisely that.

McEwan points us to report by Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress about a death penalty decision from the Supremes. Millhiser calls it “the most bloodthirsty and cruel” opinion of the modern era. That’s because of the majority opinion written by Neil Gorsuch. He tossed out the basic understanding of “cruel and unusual” punishment. The state of Missouri may effectively torture a man to death as long as it doesn’t inflict pain for the sheer purpose of inflicting pain.

Yes, malice is the agenda.

Lighting the road

Pardon me while I grumble.

I retired from the auto industry almost a dozen years ago (that’s not what I’m grumbling about). Sixteen months before then I bought a new car using my employee discount. I still have and use that car. It’s now 13 years old with 174K miles. It has been through one big accident. It carried me back and forth to Dad’s house over the 30 months it took to clean it out, which added 40K miles. It still runs good, starts promptly (though on occasion needing a second try), and I figure it will go to at least 200K, which will take about 2½ years.

Though there are days (thankfully they are rare) I can get really annoyed with the car and the company that designed it.

And – you guessed it – this weekend was one of those times.

Thursday evening I noticed the driver side headlight was out. I didn’t go anywhere Friday, so didn’t deal with it until Saturday, when I knew the weather would be a tiny bit warmer.

I got out the owner’s manual which listed helpful instructions: pull off the bulb cap (a piece of rubber that keeps the bulb assembly clean), twist off the bulb retainer ring, pull the bulb straight out. Install in reverse order.

But the instructions don’t say anything about removing the power connector and how to align the bulb to get it to fit back in.

And the instructions don’t say anything about trying to do this in a cramped space where one can’t see what one is doing and can barely fit two hands into the space.

I fussed with it for about 15 minutes, long enough to see the spare bulb I had wasn’t a headlight bulb. I went off to an evening movie (First Man, an enjoyable show) hoping the police didn’t see me with a dud headlight.

Sunday afternoon I went to an auto part store and bought replacement bulbs, getting two, figuring the other will likely go soon, which is what happened once before with this car. Then in the warm (50F, warm for December) afternoon I worked at changing the bulb. Between Saturday and Sunday I had these difficulties: Getting the bulb cap off. Getting the bulb out – the wires weren’t long enough to get the tip of the bulb back far enough to get it out of the housing. Getting the bulb off the connector (I think I broke half the lock). Getting the new bulb back in the housing (for the same reason I had trouble getting the old one out). And getting the new bulb aligned with the tabs of the reflectors and pushing it in far enough to fasten down the retainer ring. I may not have had the retainer ring on the right way and nothing on it gave me a hint which way it should go.

The tiny space where my hands had to go was hemmed in by other engine compartment components (the space around the engine is quite efficiently packed). One of those was held in place by a clip with a sharp edge. I had been struggling with it for a half hour when that edge drew blood for the second time.

With that I decided I’m done. I can take the whole mess somewhere – like my usual service center – and have them do it. But I still had an event to attend Sunday evening. So I got the bulb as close as I could to the intended position, verified it worked, and went on my way.

After that evening event I wrote a letter to the company’s customer relations office complaining that changing a headlight should not be this difficult, that it was a very poor design, and that their manual was quite inadequate. I seriously doubt they’ll do much for a 13 year old design. However, I hope it has some influence on future models. The letter went out in today’s mail.

This afternoon I went to the service center and told them to change both bulbs. Might as well have them change the second while they’re at it. I hate sitting in their waiting room with the TV on, so I walked to a library a few blocks away to sit and read.

When I got back to the service center they said the bulb had melted into the plastic of the reflector. They refused to try to extract it. The bulb works (meaning it is legal), but the bulb isn’t positioned properly within the system of reflectors so there isn’t much of a forward beam.

I talked to the service guy and asked him whether I’ll be struggling to see because the light isn’t where it needs to be. He didn’t test it to tell where the light is going, though pulling up to my garage door I can see where it is going – up and to the side.

To replace the melted area they have to replace the whole light and reflector assembly on that side of the car. And to do that they have to take off and put on the bumper. Total cost, parts and labor, is $180. So I could leave it as is. They couldn’t do it for a few days anyway because the assembly isn’t in stock.

As for the other light, they did replace it with the bulb I brought. Half hour of labor, $56. Yeah, a shop that knows what it is doing and it still takes them a half hour. That’s much more than they charge for an oil change and full inspection. Which mean the owner’s manual and its, “Pull the bulb straight out. Install in reverse order,” is laughable.

I asked the service guy if the more recent models are designed so bulb replacement is easy (or at least easier). Short answer: a few models yes, many models no.

So perhaps I’ll get strange looks a couple years from now when I walk into the dealership and say, “Before I buy this car show me how easy it is to replace a headlight.”

Yes, they've been dealing with expensive gas too

My friend and debate partner wrote before Christmas about my discussion of the auto industry bailout as reported by Newsweek:

"Detroit has only this year had to deal with gasoline at $4 a gallon. Toyota and others have been dealing with gas more expensive than that for several years now."

Well, Newsweek may put that forward, but it isn't true. GM and Ford (and Chrysler until captured by Daimler) marketed vehicles globally for many decades. They got along pretty well in European markets with sky-high gas prices created by high govt fuel taxes. The Detroit 3 just never seriously believed they would face those gas prices here and weren't ready when it happened, even when forewarned by $3 a gallon gasoline in the U.S. in 2007.

Did Newsweek point out that those Southern senators were campaigning with McCain two months earlier behind his "Country First" signs? Those anti-Detroit-3 votes weren't Country First and won't be forgotten for a long time. The Macomb County "Reagan Democrats" surely understand now -- at long last -- what they really voted for when they voted Republican beginning in 1980.

I will only explain that Macomb County is immediately northeast of Detroit and contains the city of Warren, home of the General Motors Tech Center and several plants. You can read more about Reagan Democrats here.

What the UAW made

I wrote recently that as part of the auto industry bailout various GOP senators wanted to gut the UAW. I had forgotten a more basic reason: Union members reliably vote for Democrats. And GOP senators would rather commit economic treason than let a Democratic voting bloc pass unchallenged.

On to an article of what the UAW has brought to America. Before I mentioned that it had created the middle class. Here is the story in more detail (even so, this is only a summary).

After Pearl Harbor Detroit's Big Three drew up plans to convert their manufacturing power to the war effort. The UAW also drew up detailed plans -- that would accomplish the conversion even faster.

The UAW contract for 1950 is known as the Treaty of Detroit in which the union agreed to work with the auto companies (in contrast to the battles in the late 1930s) in exchange for lifting workers into the middle class. The workers got retirement and health security, and cost of living increases.

Marxism demands the workers rise up and take the means of production from the owners. The UAW specifically rejected that idea. Even so, and even killing off Marxism in America, 20 years later they were accused of creeping socialism and Communism by the GOP. But that "socialism" brought unprecedented prosperity for everyone and security for the workers. This social contract lasted 30 years.

The UAW provided the incubator for the Progressive Movement by supporting, among other things, the 1963 March on Washington, Cesar Chavez and the farm workers union, the National Organization for Women, the first Earth Day, and even proposed national health care. That last was particularly important because health insurance was seen as a perk of being a union member, not something available to just anybody.

That support of national health care is part of a sorry trend -- the UAW sounds a warning, they are ignored, they are proven right, then get blamed for the company's shortsightedness. Isn't that a measure of effectiveness and success?

Even though foreign auto companies built plants in states where it is hard to unionize, the UAW affects their pay and benefits. These companies have to pay better than other manufacturers both to keep the union out and to keep their workers from heading to unionized plants. Which means if the auto bailout forces a pay cut (to bring them in line with non-union plants) those plants will be able to cut pay too. Perhaps the GOP likes that idea.

The children of UAW members were able to afford college and get white-collar jobs and many even had enough money to see the world.

Personally, the UAW has benefited me. I was not a union member, but I worked for one of the Big 3 for 27 years. Whatever new benefits the union wrested for its members were also given to me. In the last decade or so of my work, the union idea of cafeteria benefits -- the company supplies a broad range of benefits and "flex-dollars" to pay for some of them and we select the ones that are useful to us -- meant that I could "buy" an extra week of vacation each year.

I was puzzled about the attitudes of my boss. He had worked in a factory one summer (long enough to convince him to get good grades in his last two years of college), yet was convinced the union was a leach on the workers. He didn't see what it did for him as a white-collar worker and a manager.

The benefits of economic growth go to everyone

About a month ago, when the auto industry was refused a bailout from Congress (I think for the first time), I wrote about possible politics behind the refusal. Senators in the South were hoping for the Big 3 to go out of business (at least get a lot smaller) so that their own factories of foreign owned automakers would grow to take up the slack. A Newsweek article is essentially saying the same thing. Here are some ideas from that article:

The Southern GOP senators don't like unions (Detroit has them, their auto plants don't) and are angry about the mess Bush has made of the financial bailout. They don't understand how Detroit works (legacy costs, union rules, less flexible factories), but they do understand how Southern plants work and wonder why Detroit can't do the same. They are quite happy that various states have given billions to foreign automakers (tax deals, subsidized power through Tennessee Valley Authority) to get the plants in their states but can't stand the idea of the feds doing the same for Detroit.

Detroit has only this year had to deal with gasoline at $4 a gallon. Toyota and others have been dealing with gas more expensive than that for several years now.

Here's another perspective from blogger Terence Heath. I used the phrase "downwardly mobile" just a few days ago in a posting about sundown suburbs who refuse to deal with those who can't maintain the lifestyle. But Terence suspects that downwardly mobile is one of the goals of conservatism. Get rid of unions and regulations and boost outsourcing until your American workers can compete in the global economy -- by being no more expensive than overseas labor. Get used to a lower standard of living.

The UAW, in a process well underway by the 1950s, created the American middle class. That spawned all the ideas that are at the center of American liberalism. Which is why the GOP hates the UAW. But why should a healthy middle class be considered unsustainable? Since the 1970s that myth has driven corporate-labor relations. Need increased profits? Take it out of labor's pay. The worker has been participating in the silent bailout since then. There are now so many unprotected workers they resent their unionized brethren.

And depressed wages meant those trying to maintain their middle class lifestyle had to do it on credit. High consumer debt is a big reason we're in the current mess. Alas, many are saying the way out of this mess is for the middle class to spend more. Without earning more. The only way out of this mess is for the benefits of economic growth go to everyone, not just the rich. Assuming conservatives want economic growth.

What do we have to do to be taken seriously?

Because I'm an auto industry retiree and still living in the Detroit area I hear a lot about the auto company's attempts at getting a government loan. The news sources say a lot about what will happen to Detroit, the state of Michigan, and the nation if the loans don't appear, what the companies have done to merit the loan, and how this downturn (unlike previous periods of losing money) is not their fault. Yet within days of congress refusing $25 billion to the car companies Paulson hands another $20 billion to AIG. It leaves a lot of commentators scratching their heads -- and worse. Columnist Mitch Albom would love to point out the hypocrisy in what congress did to their faces. This article is being passed around Detroit a lot. I'll let you read it for yourself.


Blogger Terrance Heath notes what might be behind the politics: If the Detroit companies fail, the foreign companies with plants in the USA will have to build more plants to make up the shortfall -- and those plants will likely be in the South, not Michigan. The new jobs in the South will also likely be non-union and the GOP, which controls the politics in much of the South, hates unions. And even though the new jobs won't make up for Detroit's disaster in number, pay, and benefits, at least the GOP can claim to bring some jobs to an eternally poor region, giving their constituents a bit more than culture wars and anti-gay marriage initiatives. The rest of Terrence's posting is something he's ranted about before: the GOP has no compassion for anyone but the rich. They have a "Drop Dead" conservatism -- you can drop dead for all we care. One would think they'd try not to be so blatant about it.