Don't fight with violence, but with love and humor

The nasty guy has said he needs to send National Guard troops into Portland because it is “war ravaged.” The local Immigration and Customs Enforcement office is under siege and needs protection from “coordinated assault by violent groups.” So a team from ProPublica reviewed the situation and wrote about what they found in an article posted on Daily Kos. They reviewed arrest records, reports by the Portland Police Bureau, sworn testimony from local and federal official, and 700 video clips posted by protesters and counter protesters. What they found: There was no coordinated assault. There were clashes between police and protesters. But after their peak in June they became more infrequent. Federal officers used force inappropriately, even aggressively, and were described as instigating chaos. They were sometimes violent without any violent provocations. Their conclusion comes down to this: If the nasty guy is using particular incidents to justify his invasion and claiming they are so violent he has to bring in the National Guard why were there so few arrests? The nasty guy’s order to send in the troops is tied up in court. Of course, the article has a lot more detail. Yeah, this is old news by now, so I’ll just briefly mention it. Former vice president Dick Cheney has died. He was 84. Oliver Willis of Kos gives some of the highlights, the big one was being the front man for pushing the weapons of mass destruction claim (ultimately shown false) that got America into the Iraq war.

The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 ultimately killed at least 200,000 Iraqi civilians and 4,492 American soldiers, with an additional 32,292 service members wounded. The war cost the American people at least $728 billion and further destabilized the Middle East in ways that still reverberate today.

Glad he’s gone. Seems appropriate to balance that with this: Alisa Chang of NPR spoke to Sean Ono Lennon about his documentary about his parents One to One: John and Yoko. I hope by now you’ve been able to thread all the names together, even though John was murdered 45 years ago. While the whole discussion is interesting there is one bit worth mentioning. A lot of what John and Yoko did was to promote peace. And one thing John said, his guiding principle, was that you can’t fight the man with violence because violence is his language, it’s what he understands. But what the man can’t deal with is love and humor. An Associated Press article on Kos reported the last penny has been struck at the US Mint in Philadelphia. They are still legal but no more will be made. The reason why no more will be made is that pennies cost nearly 4 cents to make. Besides, most of them are cast aside or collected. The nickel costs nearly 14 cents to make, so maybe it is next? The dime costs less than 6 cents to make and the quarter nearly 15 cents. The penny was first minted in 1793, when it could be used to buy a biscuit, a candle, or a piece of candy. It can’t do any of that now. In Thursday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman discussing he nasty guy’s lies.

Voters do sometimes believe lies, but not the kind of lies Trump is telling. Voters can sometimes be convinced, falsely, that bad things are happening to other people, even when they themselves are doing OK. Many Americans who don’t live in Chicago probably believe administration claims that the city, which just had its safest summer since the 1960s, is a war zone. But telling people that things are great when their personal experience says otherwise is different. Are violent mobs overrunning Portland? If you watch Fox News, you might believe that. Are groceries “way down,” as Trump keeps insisting? Anyone who does their own food shopping — even Republicans — knows that this isn’t true.

Victor Mather of the New York Times wrote an ode to the penny.

The final pennies were minted on Wednesday afternoon in Philadelphia. Top Treasury officials were on hand for its final journey. No last words were recorded. In its heyday, the penny had immense cultural impact. It was the going rate for thoughts. It was a symbol of frugality, saved and/or earned. It could sometimes be pretty and other times arrive from heaven. And how many ideas would never have come to light without a penny dropping? [...] The American penny was born in 1793 in Philadelphia. Its parent was Alexander Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury, who was the chief author of the Coinage Act, which birthed the penny and its siblings. [...] As the penny entered its long decline, it more and more frequently found itself casually tossed into a jar in someone’s home or ignominiously dropped in a “Take a Penny” tray at retailers. Calls grew for it to be euthanized, citing its obsolescence. In the end, President Trump signed its death warrant in February.

Bill Berkowitz of the Kos community wrote about Reverend Dr. Caleb J. Lines, the pastor at University Christian Church in San Diego, California, who is creating a series of videos called “MAGA vs. Jesus” which use Bible verses to rebuke MAGA talking points. The most popular video has over 5.5 million views. It discusses abortion, cancel culture, the need for manly men, and “fake news.” Berkowitz wrote:

Over the years, conservative Christian preachers and political activists have weaponized The Bible to enrage their followers, engage them in political campaigns and supporting candidates, while at the same time, building personal financial empires. They frequently use the Bible as a political tool, selectively highlighting verses that reinforce their cultural grievances or policy goals while ignoring the broader context of scripture. Immigration, LGBTQ rights, racial justice, and public education are recast not as policy debates but as spiritual warfare, with dissenters portrayed as enemies of God. As The Daily Dot’s Rachel Kiley noted “The Bible contains so much, with various translations and interpretations, that cherry-picking verses can bring people to just about any conclusion.”

An example of Lines’ arguments:

In one video, refuting the notion that “real Christians support Trump,” Rev. Lines cites 1 John 4:20: “Those who say they love God but hate their neighbor are lying.” “You cannot follow Jesus Christ while actively supporting politicians or policies that hurt your neighbor. You know, like cutting their food aid or their healthcare,” he says.

I followed a link to look at a couple of those videos, including the one with 5.5 million views. On manly men Lines quotes the verse that says in Jesus there is neither male nor female. On the MAGA claim of protecting Christian power the Bible says God’s power is made perfect in weakness. Christianity isn’t about power. Besides these claims of protecting power are about protecting the power of those already powerful. The Bible isn’t about winning or losing, it is about standing with those society is taking advantage of.

The Little Tramp goes to the circus

My Sunday watching wasn’t a movie, it was the broadcast of the Kennedy Center Honors. I like to watch the program every year, though sometime I miss it, because there’s usually a classical music star (though not this year) and I learn something new about the others. This year the honors went to: Bonnie Raitt. I hadn’t known about her disinterest in being a star. She wanted to present her music, not be told what to sing and how to sing it. I also hadn’t known about her activism and how much she supported other musicians. Arturo Sandoval, Cuban jazz trumpeter who came to America. He created the Sandoval Institute to teach jazz students. Sandoval also ventured into the classical world and composed a trumpet concerto. I’m pretty sure I have a recording of it, though I can’t find it right now. Apollo Theater. The first non-human honoree. It opened in 1934. One of its big draws was amateur night, which is how Ella Fitzgerald got her start. Aretha Franklin and James Brown also got their start at the Apollo. It is now a haven for black culture. It is also a community gathering place, conversation place, and political center. At the White House part of the celebration Biden said Black culture is American culture. Francis Ford Coppola. Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Lawrence Fishbourne, and Martin Scorsese told stories about working for the director. His granddaughter, a budding director, was there too. Grateful Dead. Of course, the tribute discussed Deadhead culture. Audience participation was encouraged and the band and audience felt like a big family. A couple of the members, Phil Lesh and Jerry Garcia, have passed. The rest were there, as was Garcia’s wife (or maybe daughter). Starting today and through the end of the year the Detroit Film Theater is presenting a series of silent era films with live musical accompaniment. Cost is only museum entrance (which is free to me because my taxes support the Detroit Institute of Arts and the DFT). Today I saw a Charlie Chaplin movie. Tomorrow is a series of animated shorts (which I’ll skip). Sunday is Robin Hood from 1922 starring Douglas Fairbanks. And on New Year’s Eve they’ll show the German movie The Last Laugh. Today’s Chaplin movie was The Circus from 1928. Chaplin, as the Little Tramp, gets caught up in a traveling circus. He upstages the clowns, but when asked to audition he isn’t funny. Unintentionally he upstages the magician. He falls in love with the owner’s daughter. She falls in love with the new guy who is hired for the tightrope act, so the tramp tries to do it too – with a man pulling on a safety harness. It all goes delightfully awry. Chaplin was quite the physical comedian. I enjoyed it very much, as did the kids sitting around me. The music was by David Drazin, who appears to be making a decent career providing live music for silent films. The DFT went with the live pianist even though the movie’s opening credits list a score by Chaplin. My Christmas Day was quiet. I visited Sister and Niece for the afternoon. We shared a meal and we talked. And that was enough. I wrote last time about Sen. Chris Murphy’s description about how democracy could end in America. My friend and debate partner was in full debate mode as he wrote that he disagreed with nearly everything in that previous post. I’ll summarize: Liz Cheney isn’t going to jail. The nasty guy is a bully and no one likes bullies. ABC didn’t fight the nasty guy’s libel suit because they really did inaccurately describe the crime against E Jean Carroll. Pushing liberal fantasies in the time of Republican control isn’t going to work. He says Ocasio-Cortez is too extreme for a leadership role. And:

These views do not imply that I in any way support Trump -- I will not forget the lies and intimidation and I will not forgive.

A couple cartoons from Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling posted on Daily Kos. The first one was inspired by the murder of a medical insurance CEO that produced a lot of cheering for the gunman. This cartoon begins:

In a brazen action in broad daylight, a 12-year-old girl was killed in New York City by health insurance denial of prior authorization for her cancer treatment. This shocking event has put the NYPD on a frenzied search for the person responsible.

It ends:

The killer CEO has distressingly become something of a folk hero to shareholders of NerrexHealthCo, eliciting message of support on social media and votes for a compensation bonus. Male executive: Run, CEO, Run! Female executive, Deny, Delay, Deflect!

The second cartoon is It’s a Wonderful Life, 2024. Instead of the angel reviewing the life of George Bailey to show what his town would have been like if he hadn’t lived, this version reviews what Pottersville would have been like if banker Henry Potter hadn’t lived – no global warming because he didn’t fight environmental regulations, middle class people able to afford a home, no for-profit health care.

Attacking him will land flat if we defend the existing system

I went to the Detroit Film Theater this afternoon for their annual showing of the British Arrows. These are the winners of the best in British commercials. Yes, I sat through 75 minutes of nothing but commercials and did it willingly (and paid money) because their sense of what is appropriate for commercials is so different from ours (then again, I watch very few American commercials). Some of my favorites: A boy who plants a seed, perhaps expecting a pine tree, and gets a huge Venus flytrap (a friendlier version of Little Shop of Horrors). I don’t know what the product was. A tennis tournament in which the players and audience are naked – except for the clothed “streaker” who interrupts the game. This is for Puma. A woman on a farm is ready to tell us about the glories of living there but the animals tell horror stories of being abused for our clothing – the shorn sheep is bloody, the cow and snake are dead because they gave of their skin. Put out by PETA. The woman who thanks us for our investments in oil companies through our pension funds. Pot Noodles has the tagline, “Nothing Fills a Hole Like Pot Noodles,” and we see all the types of holes it fills – the slot on a mailbox, a front-load clothes washer, an actual pothole, and many more. The Marie Curie hospice organization (I think that’s what they do) says death isn’t the opposite of life, just a part of it. Goats in hang gliders for Virgin Media. An ad for Greenpeace that shows people partying as the staff becomes more frazzled and disasters mount in the kitchen. They say petroleum companies are still partying because of record profits. Pregnant women eat marmite and do an ultrasound to see if their unborn baby will like the stuff. I see from the website that the program shown at the DFT was not all of the winners. While I don’t mind missing a few Coke and Burger King commercials some of the others did look interesting and I saw a few at home. Some of those I enjoyed: RNIB has a commercial about getting people with vision problems together video game companies to help create games even those with reduced vision can enjoy. National Art Pass has a commercial of people looking at art while their brain waves are recorded. That shows our minds become a great deal more active then. Personal Voice on iPhone allows a voiceless dad tell his daughter bedtime stories. Greg Sargent of The New Republic interviewed Sen. Chris Murphy. The topic was a thread Murphy wrote (on X so I don’t have access) about the nasty guy’s plan to cripple democracy. Those plans are going into effect before he takes office. The trigger for Murphy’s thread was a House report accusing Liz Cheney (of what doesn’t really matter because it was created out of thin air, but headlines don’t tell you that). Based on that report the nasty guy is saying Cheney is in a lot of trouble. A reminder, Cheney was the Republican head of the committee that investigated the nasty guy’s involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack. Kash Patel, nominated to head the FBI, believes anyone who has opposed the nasty guy should be prosecuted and go to jail. Pam Bondi as AG won’t interfere. A court with a judge appointed by the nasty guy won’t stand in the way. His political opponents, perhaps starting with Cheney, could go to jail in 2025. We need to emphasize how damaging this will be to democracy, perhaps fatally. That’s because people will look at Cheney and say I’ve got commitments at home, opposing the nasty guy isn’t worth it. And that has a chilling effect on speech. The nasty guy sued ABC News for libel. Instead of fighting the network settled for a $15 million. That is the first sign media companies are folding. Another example is Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post. When the media doesn’t tell the full story, when people are reluctant to engage in political opposition because of threats of jail, that’s not a democracy. We’re not two years or six months from that, all of that might begin in a month. If we don’t explain why the nasty guy’s nasty picks are nasty, if we don’t put up a fight, then we tell Americans they aren’t a big deal. And Democrats aren’t saying enough about how bad they are. If Democrats don’t say they’re bad, no one will and they’ll be seen as normal. Democrats may believe that the only way voters will pay attention to them is on economic issues. But Democrats need to have a loud and unified stand against the nasty guy and these nominees. Murphy is aware voters will only listen if they feel Democrats are serious about reforming government. But in the last campaign voters believed Democrats are serious only about the current version of democracy, which doesn’t work for anyone. That means no marginal steps. Get money out of politics. Stop the revolving door in and out of government. No one should be able to trade on their influence to make money. Big banks and big corporations, including big tech, need to be broken up. Raise minimum wage. Strengthen unions. Democrats’ attacks on the nasty guy will land flat if they defend the existing system. But Democrats could say that, could define a position that shows the nasty guy’s populism to be false and insincere. I add: The failure of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to get a high committee position means too many Democrats are too invested in the current version of Democracy. Democrats not saying much now is not a problem. There was a huge amount of work to get done by the end of the year. But Democrats remaining silent until January 20 is a problem. They may not be able to defeat the bad nominees, but the fight must happen anyway. If it doesn’t Democrats won’t be believed later. According to Murphy this is how democracy dies: A couple Democrats get thrown in jail. The number of people wanting to get into politics in the opposition – which is Democrats – drops. Donors stop donating. Volunteers stay home. The media stops criticizing the nasty guy. They don’t publish polls of tight races because they don’t want lawsuits or their FCC license pulled. They don’t discuss opposition opinions. By the time of the 2025 elections the opposition doesn’t have enough oxygen to breathe. Effectively there will be no opposition.

Tired of the meanness, bigotry, and recreational cruelty

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos discussed the 165 page court motion that special counsel Jack Smith filed in the case accusing the nasty guy with interfering in the 2020 election. The accusation needed to be rewritten because of the Supreme Court granting the president broad immunity. Smith countered that the nasty guy’s actions were taken not as official acts of a president, but as a private citizen and candidate. The document is long because Smith carefully detailed every step the nasty guy took to undermine the election. It also includes new evidence, such as the vice nasty trying to tell him, “Don’t concede, but recognize the process is over” and that the election is “just an intermission.” Smith explains the nasty guy, in trying to claim he was protecting election integrity, talked only to Republicans, though in Michigan it is the Secretary of State, a Democrat, who controls elections. The nasty guy claimed he was not allowed to present evidence. So Smith documented the many cases when evidence was promised and never delivered. A clue that the nasty guy and co-conspirators knew they were lying was their claim of the number of fraudulent votes in Arizona kept changing. Needham included the entire text of Smith’s document. I didn’t try to read it. Needham concluded:

Trump’s legal team has now proposed that he get an additional five weeks to file his response, pushing it out comfortably past the election to Nov. 21 instead of the required deadline of Oct. 17, along with a request to file an additional reply brief by Dec. 19. His only real plan is to drag this out past Election Day and hope he wins. That’s just another reason why Trump needs to lose.

Morgan Stephens of Kos described how the nasty guy could weaponize the Department of Justice to harass anyone he deems insufficiently loyal. She worked from an article posted in the New York Times. The steps: + Fill the DoJ with loyalists and family, who would be willing to ignore the department rules and precedents that don’t let a president meddle in what it does. + The nasty guy could pressure (well, “ask”) the DoJ to open investigations on particular people. + Steer cases to the 54 judges the nasty guy appointed the first time around. + Appeal losses to the Supreme Court, already viewed as highly partisan due to the three justice he appointed. + Wield the presidential pardon. If Democrats hold the Senate they could block his choices and force him to pick moderate candidates. If Republicans take the Senate there will be no pushback. The plan the NYT laid out is similar to the Project 2025 call to eliminate checks and balances within the executive branch.

The nation’s founding fathers created three separate and equal branches of government in an effort to instill checks and balances and prevent the misuse of power. These separations are inherent to our national interest and the people’s free will in this democracy.

I’ve written that Liz Cheney and her father former VP Dick Cheney have endorsed Harris. Liz Cheney co-chaired the House Jan 6 Committee and was beaten in her next election by a MAGA candidate. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reports that Cheney took part in a Harris campaign event in Wisconsin. This is part of Cheney’s pledge to do what she can to defeat the nasty guy. Oliver Willis of Kos added that the nasty guy rage-tweeted about Cheney speaking at a Harris event. Then Willis listed some other Republicans who have declared support for Harris. One of them is Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who was the only other Republican on the Jan 6 Committee. Ten days ago Stephens wrote about the origins of the group White Dudes for Harris. One of the organizers is Ross Morales Rocketto. They want to spread the word that not all white dudes are part of the problem. They’re also providing space for other white guys to give their vote and support to Harris. The group will use some of its funds for digital ads in swing states.

As The 19th reported in August, Democrats like Walz may be changing how men—and women—view traditional masculinity. Instead of brawn, shirt-ripping Hulk Hogans and brash Kid Rocks, Democrats offer a son filled with emotion and joy while supporting his father. And hunting-style camo hats, which were sold out for weeks. And second gentleman Doug Emhoff beaming with pride when speaking about his wife’s ambition. “In order to engage people, you need to make sure you can create a space for them where they can feel a sense of belonging, where they’re not going to feel judged,” Morales Rocketto said. “This isn’t anyone else's job to do. White men need to organize themselves to do this work. It’s not Black women’s jobs, not Black men’s jobs, not Latino women’s jobs. It’s our job.”

Another AP article, this one posted two weeks ago, discusses evangelicals who support Harris. Talking about that support is risky. But Rev. Lee Scott, of Butler, PA, can’t be quiet. He was was part of an Evangelicals for Harris call. He doesn’t accept the high level of violence that has been normalized in politics.

“I am tired of watching meanness, bigotry and recreational cruelty be the worldly witness of our faith,” Scott said on the call. “I want transformation, and transformation is risky business.”

While Scott doesn’t like everything in Harris’ policies – he’s against abortion – he does see that Harris is pro-family in her education and tax policies.

Vote Common Good, a similar group run by progressive evangelical pastor Doug Pagitt, has a simple message: Political identity and religious identity are not a package deal.

In August the Harris campaign hired Rev. Jen Butler, a Presbyterian minister, to lead religious outreach. She has reached towards Mormons, Catholics, black church groups, and interfaith groups. Supporting Harris also means if she’s elected evangelicals can “hold the party accountable by being involved.” That could mean push for her to do better on immigration and in Gaza. Alas, far right Evangelicals are quick to brand any who are considering a vote for a Democrat to be “Heretics for Harris.” But the white Evangelical vote isn’t the solid block it might have been. A third AP article, this one from last Tuesday (and now a bit out of date) discusses the devastation from Hurricane Helene. It also discusses the relief efforts underway. The article mentions why western North Carolina had so much damage.

Asheville and many surrounding mountain towns were built in valleys, leaving them especially vulnerable to devastating rain and flooding. Plus, the ground already was saturated before Helene arrived, said Christiaan Patterson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

There was a lot of rain there because the remnants of Helene hit the higher elevations and cooler air of the Appalachian Mountains. I mention that article partly because I haven’t seen another big article since Tuesday, though I have heard the death toll has topped 200 and that Biden and Harris have each visited the area with pledges of assistance. The nasty guy visited too, to accuse Biden and Harris of not helping Republican states (which is a lie). I also mention it because FishOutofWater of the Kos community looked at National Weather Service reports and saw tropical storm Milton has formed in the western Gulf of Mexico and is heading towards Tampa. Before hitting the Florida coast Milton will cross over warm Gulf waters and will perhaps be a category 5 by the time it gets there Tuesday or Wednesday. Before it arrives there will be rain to saturate the ground. That will be followed by the rain of the storm, the storm surge, and strong winds.

Sanewashing

I had a movie picked out for my Sunday viewing. But Fandango/Vudu didn’t like my password. I reset the password and it rejected what I had just successfully reset it to. And then I learned again resolving something through chat can take a really long time. Though in this case it wasn’t resolved. So to Netflix. I watched Hanna Gadsby’s Gender Agenda. This is a filmed stage show at a location in London. Gadsby was both comedian and host for the show with seven other gender queer standup comics. I hadn’t heard of any of them. Gadsby doesn’t like the term “nonbinary” and would rather be known as a gender surprise. Many men are uptight about protecting women’s sports. They’re afraid that a man would dress as a woman to have access to the perks of women’s sports. What are those perks? Jes Tom transitioned from female to male and also from lesbian to gay. That provided for lots of jokes about gay men contrasting with lesbian women. Chloe Petts is a masculine lesbian, which frequently gives her access to male privilege. She was very good. Asha Ward, is a lesbian. She focused more on drug use than on being lesbian. The audience loved her. I didn’t. Deanne Smith had top surgery and went no further. But they aren’t really nonbinary. Also good. Dahlia Belle is a transgender woman. She was very funny though her jokes were quite blue. Krishna Istha is a transgender man and nonbinary. And good. Alok, is transgender. They talked about how airline baggage weight limits are so unfair to transgender people needing to look fabulous. Overall, seven out of eight is pretty good odds. And with those seven I laughed a lot. This is a good one. I finished the book You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo. This is a science fiction story and the title is the name of a bioship, a spaceship that is grown, not built, and has a brain. How it got that name is not provided, though perhaps it is a whim of the rich person who owned it. Niko used to be a captain in the Holy Hive Mind in which an implanted chip allows her to communicate with her mixed species team telepathically. She got them all out of the Mind and the chip was turned off. They’re still her loyal crew and are very much a family. At the start of the story they’re running a high quality restaurant in a big space station. They need to evacuate and end up on the bioship with a few others, though the destination is not under their control. While in transit Dabry, the head chef teaches the ship how to cook, not just use the replicator. For the most part the story is fun and enjoyable. The part that isn’t is because of the cruelty of the leader of their forced destination. Early on I got the sense that, like many American stories, the ending will be pleasant one. The protagonists will thrive after the major conflict. The better the thriving the better we like the story. We Americans are annoyed when a story does not turn out that way and Hollywood has taken note. I’ve heard many times, and have said myself, that a story was great, but I hated the ending. Niece even says it about Romeo and Juliet. One example of a hated ending is The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason, which I read shortly after it came out in 2003. Another Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. Both had such a beautiful story I didn’t want them to end the way they did. Especially with Patchett’s book I wanted her to to come up with a different solution to the problem that was the core of the story. I was a bit surprised with the book Cloudstreet by Tim Winton. I had picked it up during one of my trips to Australia. It didn’t have the expected happy ending. And that got me wondering whether that expectation is an American thing. I also finished the book Our Colors, a graphic novel, by Gengoroh Tagame. I had read and enjoyed both volumes of Tagame’s My Brother’s Husband, so I wanted to read this one too. As was the previous books this one is set on Japan. It focuses on Sora, a sixteen year old boy who knows he is gay and knows he can’t ever tell anyone. Homophobia is stronger in Japan. There is also Nao, a girl his same age who has been his friend since elementary school. Sora is friends with another boy and secretly in love with him, but is afraid that proclaiming his love will disgust the other boy and he’ll lose a friend. Sora also watches the other boys talk of pursuing girls and watches couples hold hands and wishes he could do the same. A bit before summer break Sora encounters Mr. Amamiya and his cafe. The cafe is strange in that it seems to have very few customers, sometimes just Sora and Nao. Mr. Amamiya is gay and has regrets. He vows he will no longer live a closeted life. Through long discussions with the older man Sora begins to understand that being gay does not have to lead to a lonely life in the closet. I enjoyed this one, as I did Tagame’s other books. The story and the artwork are well done. Alas, because it is a graphic novel, it takes only a few days to read and seems over too soon. Last Friday Kos of Daily Kos discussed a term I hadn’t heard before and now I’m hearing a lot. The term is sanewashing, taking someone’s word salad and extracting bits to make the speaker sound more sane. Kos gave an example. The day before the nasty guy gave an economic address. In response to a question the nasty guy gave a long rambling answer that didn’t answer the question, which Kos included in full. It is too long for me to repeat. Then Kos included the sanewashed version given by Michael Gold of the New York Times.

After his speech, Donald Trump was asked how he might address rising child care costs. In a jumbled answer, he said he would prioritize legislation on the issue but offered no specifics and insisted that his other economic policies, including tariffs, would “take care” of child care. “As much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in.”

Saying the nasty guy gave “a jumbled answer” and not explaining what that means or what that says about his mental state? Sheesh. Also, the nasty guy said, in all that jumble, nothing about “prioritize legislation.” Said Kos:

Gold went out of his way to make Trump’s aside about tariffs sound semi-coherent, as opposed to the nonsensical pivot it really was. Or, to put it another way, Gold made it sound as if Trump gives a damn about child care when it’s clear from his answer here—as well as his current policy platform and his priorities during his administration—that he doesn’t give a rat’s ass about it.

Alas, the NYT is not the only media company doing this. On Monday Meteor Blades of Kos quoted some recent articles. Jon Alsop at the Columbia Journalism Review discussed sanewashing.

As applied to Trump, the idea is that major mainstream news outlets are routinely taking his incoherent, highly abnormal rants—be they on social media or at in-person events—and selectively quoting from them to emphasize lines that, in isolation, might sound coherent or normal, thus giving a misleading impression of the whole for people who didn’t read or watch the entire thing. ... If the word “sanewashing” is not new, neither is the idea that the media is masking Trump’s incoherence.

Blades quoted Jake Lahut, also of CJR who said that the decline of local news is a problem for campaigns. Elissa Slotkin, Michigan candidate for the US Senate, campaigned through northern Michigan. The crowd was decent, but there were no newspeople from the local television stations or the major paper of the area, the Traverse City Record-Eagle. There was a person from a public radio affiliate, the nonprofit startup Michigan Advance, and a New York journalist. And Blades quoted Jay Rosen, author of the 1999 book What Are Journalists For?, wrote in the Economist back in 2010:

My own view is that journalists should describe the world in a way that helps us participate in political life. That is what they are "for". But too often they position us as savvy analysts of a scene we are encouraged to view from a certain distance, as if we were spectators to our own democracy, or clever manipulators of our fellow citizens.

Rosen advocates for the “Citizen’s Agenda” in which the citizens, and not the politicians, party, or media, determine what topics the candidates should be talking about. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted John Stoehr of The Editorial Board discussing sanewashing:

I would say most of my students understood this. Others, however, were not prepared. They were not even willing to accept as theirs the responsibility of communicating. Some would even grow visibly upset at realizing I would not do the work for them. It was, after all, a shock. I was sometimes the first adult to hold them accountable not only for what they said, but for what they didn’t say. If they wanted to reach the highest standard, they had to take responsibility for themselves.

Then Stoehr quoted Parker Malloy of The New Republic:

This “sanewashing” of Trump’s statements isn’t just poor journalism; it’s a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy. By continually reframing Trump’s incoherent and often dangerous rhetoric as conventional political discourse, major news outlets are failing in their duty to inform the public and are instead providing cover for increasingly erratic behavior from a former — and potentially future — president.

In the comments is a tweet from Ian Sams quoting an article in Huffpost.

“Here, presented for the first time, is an exhaustive list of the previous GOP presidents, vice presidents and nominees to these posts who have publicly said they will be voting for Trump in November: 1. Sarah Palin. That’s it. That’s the whole list.”

Way down in the comments is a tweet by Odee showing a cartoon by Mark Parisi. It shows a teacher getting a banned books list and using it as the year’s reading list. In an article published in the Texas Tribune and posted on Kos Nic Garcia wrote about something that has appeared in several news sources and alluded to in the comment about Republicans not voting for the nasty guy. Yes, one is Dick Cheney, VP under Bush II, frequently seen an instigator of the Iraq war, and sometimes called Darth Cheney, has said he will vote for Harris. His daughter Liz Cheney, co-chair of the Jan 6 Investigation Committee and whose presence there was a big reason why Wyoming did not return her to the House soon after, has also endorsed Harris. Clay Bennett tweeted a cartoon of the front page of a newspaper that has a big headline, “Dick Cheney to vote for Kamala Harris.” Headlines on related articles are, “Hell freezes over,” and “Pig flies.” Yeah, there was a debate last night. I heard a little bit of the nasty guy saying something about his daddy left him no inheritance and he earned billions through his own wonderful talent before I was able to switch to some music. I haven’t yet read the commentary on Kos about the debate. If I find anything of interest (beyond “Harris won”) I’ll include it in a future post.

Rambling praise for criminals and serial killers

My Sunday movie was The Swimmer (don’t confuse it with The Swimmers). This is an Israeli drama from 2021 about Erez at the tryouts to be the swimming contestant for the Olympics. There are five guys at the camp, only one will go to the Games. We see what they go through to get into condition. For those that enjoy this sort of thing this movie has plenty of eye candy. The lads are quite fit – they are Olympic athletes – and much of the time they wear only a Speedo. Between that and hanging out with Nevo, another competitor, Eraz sees he is aroused by it all and begins to understand he is gay. At the same time Erez feels the pressure building. The coach sees him as a leading contender. His dad is a former swimming colleague of the coach. And the coach (and nearly everyone else) reminds him that swimming is a solo sport and at camp one must focus on the training. At the end there is, of course, a race to determine which one will go to the Olympics. Though some of the race is shown, much more of it is represented by the five guys doing a dance on the bottom of the empty pool to suggest the progress of the race. That was pretty cool. At a couple of movie sites I don’t think the movie is accurately described. On Fandango, where I watched it, the end of the description is, “However, their swimming coach does not believe in friendship between competitors.” But it isn’t their friendship that is the problem, it’s their being late for practice. And IMDb says, “Sees the discriminative tendencies in sports against LGBTQ people, and how a sportsman learns to accept and love himself despite that.” But discrimination against LGBTQ people in swimming or any other sport is never mentioned or shown – unless one counts Eraz dying his hair yellow and the coach telling him to cut it. Which I don’t count. Aldous Pennyfathing of Daily Kos wrote:

Florida Sen. Rick Scott has bitter complaints about the alleged persecution of Donald Trump, and he’s using his own trials and tribulations to illustrate his point. Trump himself loves to claim he’s been treated more unfairly than any politician ever... But instead of proving that Trump is being unfairly targeted, what Scott really demonstrated is how unnervingly easy it still is for rich white men to get away with egregious s--- in America.

Scott presided over one of the worst Medicare frauds in American history, yet was still able to get elected as Florida’s governor, then its junior senator. “In other words, criming is okay if you’re a Republican—especially if you’re a rich, white, male one.” Pennyfarthing has details on Scott’s scandal. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that Rep. Scott Perry of PA has been pushing the Great Replacement Theory, which claims that Democrats are letting in all these brown people so they can register to vote and drown out the white vote. Yeah, they can’t be registered that fast. Perry isn’t the only one and the word “invasion” is being used by lots of Republicans to scare people about the southern border. But that has consequences. The El Paso shooter in 2019 said he acted because of the “Hispanic Invasion.” And two years ago the Buffalo shooter mentioned invasion or invaders 39 times in his screed. Only a few Republicans will use the term “replacement theory.” But so many are using “invasion” it becomes a way to track the escalation of this theory. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that the nasty guy, in his election fraud case, can’t attack the judge, jury, or witnesses. He’s already been fined for contempt of court for violating the gag order. Though the nasty guy can’t, his surrogates can and are. One of those surrogates is Gov. Doug Bergum of ND. This may be part of his bid to be the new vice nasty. Don’t “be surprised if ‘who can craft the best social media attack’ becomes the new test for Trump's would-be VPs.” An Associated Press article posted on Kos lists the major events of the case, going all the way back to 2005 when the “Access Hollywood” tape was made. It didn’t become public until 2016, just before the election. The list goes up to the start of the trial. Joan McCarter of Kos reported Speaker Mike Johnson was the latest Republican to show up at the nasty guy’s trial and speak to the cameras outside to declare how terribly unfair the trial is. That news prompted a tweet from Liz Cheney:

Have to admit I’m surprised that @SpeakerJohnson wants to be in the “I cheated on my wife with a porn star” club. I guess he’s not that concerned with teaching morality to our young people after all.

McCarter concluded:

None of this is surprising, as Johnson was an architect of Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But his standing by Trump and declaring a court of law illegitimate is definitely taking it a step further. Johnson is doing all of this in an attempt to consolidate his support in the fractious House GOP conference—and he’s going to need it. After these antics, he can kiss goodbye to any help from Democrats to save his ass again.

Recently there was news that Biden awarded 19 Presidential Medals of Freedom. Congress can hand out awards too, the Congressional Gold Medal. These are awarded much less often. Sumner reported six Republicans want to award one to the nasty guy as a way to suck up to him. The award would be for “dedication to strengthening America’s diplomatic relations,” apparently as in abandoning allies, enabling Putin, verbally sparring with Canada, and insulting G20 leaders. Don’t worry, the nasty guy isn’t going to get this nugget anytime soon. It’s a rough route to the House floor and when it gets there, it must get a two-thirds vote. In a pundit roundup for Kos, Chitown Kev quoted Hannah Knowles and Marianne Levine of the Washington Post:

Ambitious Republicans are eagerly parachuting onto the sidelines of the first criminal trial of a former president, with a lineup that includes former Trump critics plunging themselves into the proceedings. The pilgrimages demonstrate the imperative in today’s GOP to show loyalty to Trump and his fervent base in the midst of a case that has become a showcase of salacious scandal. ... The visits show how the party has changed in some respects since 2016, when Republicans initially scrambled to distance themselves from Trump’s suggestion on the “Access Hollywood” tape that, as a celebrity, he could kiss and grope women whenever he wanted. Now, they have provided a small army of surrogates arguing that the charges are unfair and unusual, and amplifying his often exaggerated or baseless claims about the case and the legal system.

Notably missing from the court are the nasty guy’s wife and daughter. Down in the comments are a cartoon and a meme. The first is the editorial cartoon for the West Central Tribune. It shows a man talking to a woman wearing a “MAGA” hat and “Freedom” shirt.

Man: We are going to mandate that everyone wear a mask until this pandemic is over. Woman: What?! The government can’t tell me what to do with my body! Man: We’re going to force you to have a baby whether you want to or not. Woman: Okie-dokie!

The meme was posted by user exlrrp. It shows a photo of the nasty guy, his wife, and Stormy Daniels. The text says, “A Bible salesman, his pregnant wife, and the woman he never ever ever ever met, but paid her $130,000 for something they never ever ever ever did...” Eleveld reported the nasty guy’s campaign is trying to say they are focusing on quality over quantity. I’m not sure what that means. Quality of what? Votes? How does one get higher quality votes? What it probably means is quality of field offices. Lots of Republican state strategists are wondering why there are so few of them, especially in battleground states. Perhaps it is because so much of his and RNC campaign dollars are going to legal fees? Sumner wrote about the New York Times coverage of the nasty guy’s speech in Wildwood, New Jersey. Sumner wrote that few news outlets reported what the nasty guy actually said.

That was certainly true of The New York Times, which breezed through 99% of Trump’s speech: “Mr. Trump’s speech largely consisted of what has become his standard fare.” This oversimplification of Trump’s speech failed to mention Trump’s comparing himself to Al Capone, praise for fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, or his bizarre series of statements that an unidentified “they” were “emptying out their mental institutions into the United States.” Instead, The New York Times edited down Trump’s speech to create the candidate they want to exist: one who is romping to victory and threatening to win a solid blue state.

The parts left out included: Grade-school insults aimed at perceived enemies. His attacks on the trial judge. His tossing off a series of nonsensical statements. That thousands walked out as his rambling included praise for criminals and serial killers.

As Esquire points out, the Times coverage is a masterclass in how not to cover an event. “The only story to be written about this event is that a huge crowd gathered to see and hear the presumptive presidential candidate have some sort of episode in public,” wrote Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce.. Instead, the Times created such an object lesson in normalization that it “ought to be taught in journalism schools as an example of what never to do.”

I’ve heard that Biden challenged the nasty guy to a couple debates and the challenge was accepted. If the nasty guy is tossing off series of nonsensical statements I think Biden will have no trouble eating his lunch – and drawing a strong contrast between a competent and a senile mind. But I’d be torn between avoiding debates as I usually do and wanting to watch the takedown. Popcorn, anyone? Sumner used Colorado and Tennessee as examples of what a state controlled by Democrats can accomplish compared to one controlled by Republicans. Colorado: Two free years of college, making school funding less dependent on community property wealth, tax credits to reduce child poverty, zoning changes to increase affordable housing, and fees on oil and gas to promote transit, conservation, and renewable energy. Tennessee: A bill to arm teachers, another to fortify campuses, a third to require age appropriate firearms training starting in pre-kindergarten. And a law requiring teachers to out trans students. An article by Piper Hutchinson of the Louisiana Illuminator posted on Kos reported state Rep. Beau Beaullieu (R), on behalf of Gov. Jeff Landry (R), is preparing legislation to call for a constitutional convention. The primary purpose is to take things out of the state constitution and turn them into ordinary laws that are a lot easier for legislators to change. Since many things, especially rights, are put into constitutions to protect them from meddling legislators we know what this is all about. A big reason why this news is getting a lot of exposure is because of a piece that is reportedly to be left in the new constitution. That is the ban on same-sex marriage. That’s even though 62% of residents support same-sex marriage. Half of Republicans nationwide also support it. That piece is currently not operational because of the Supreme Court decision back in 2015 that declared such bans as unconstitutional. But Republicans want to leave it in the state constitution because of all the talk from various Supremes that they’re looking for a case to overturn the 2015 decision. Even if Beaullieu’s bill passes, convention delegates may decide on their own what to leave in and take out. And even if a new constitution is written it must be approved by voters. But this is Louisiana. I’ve written a few times about Project 2025, the 920 page Kos document of how to implement Christian Nationalism when the next Republican becomes president. Dartagnan of the Kos community reported Republican senators are laying groundwork by introducing ...

an Orwellian bill that would establish a federal website, Pregnancy.gov. The website would enable the Department of Health and Human Services to solicit and collect personal identifying information on pregnant women and others, ostensibly for the purpose of providing them with prenatal advice on how to proceed with their pregnancies... Innocently termed the MOMS Act, the explicit purpose of the legislation is to “support, encourage and assist” women in “carry[ing] their pregnancies to term,” by directing them to so-called pregnancy crisis centers whose purpose is to discourage—and often intimidate—women and others from terminating their pregnancies. The proposed law provides for direct, personal contact to be initiated by a cadre of newly installed, theocratic government employees toward pregnant patients who register their contact information with the site in order to pressure them in their reproductive decisions. It also implements a federalized regimen for child support payments that commences at the moment of pregnancy, laying the groundwork for governmental regulation that treats “fetal personhood” as a recognized status under U.S. law. This legislation is being touted by Republicans—stung by recent electoral defeats by voters who abhor their forced-birth policies—as an example of their compassion toward women and others who become pregnant. What it reveals, however, is not compassion, but coercion, harassment, and ultimately, control.

An authoritarian-style government might not be the best campaign theme

My Sunday movie (even after a Friday movie) was American Symphony on Netflix, a documentary about Jon Batiste. He’s a big deal pop star (which isn’t my musical world) and band leader for Stephen Colbert’s show. I’m pretty sure he started allowing a camera to follow him around because he was developing a symphony to be played at Carnegie Hall. The cameras caught a lot more than that. The previous time I was on Netflix this was proposed as a new movie I might be interested in. It has “Symphony” in the title, which was intriguing. So I found a Batiste video online. It was good, very pop, which isn’t my thing. But if this is about a modern symphony, maybe I’ll give it a try. Batiste grew up in New Orleans and trained in their jazz and popular music environment. He was good enough he spent time at Julliard. They were annoyed that he played a melodica (amongst other instruments), which most of them thought of as a child’s toy, though there is now a mural at Julliard with him playing his melodica. His time in Julliard, also before and after, included training in classical music. So, yeah, his symphony could be classical. Close to the start of the movie is Colbert announcing that Batiste had been nominated for 11 Grammy awards (announced in 2021, awarded in 2022). That same day his wife Suleika had her first chemotherapy for leukemia that had come back after being in remission for 10 years. So the movie was about him caring for his wife while working as a touring musician, being on Colbert’s show, preparing this symphony, and keeping up with his self care. When plans for the symphony were announced there was pushback that a pop star (particularly a black pop star) shouldn’t be attempting to write classical music. But Batiste is all about defying genre boundaries. He wanted his symphony to be a blend of all the different strands of American music, to be inclusive, to celebrate it all. We see his performance at the Grammys. We hear him talk about dealing with fame, which he doesn’t want much of because it draws him away from what is important – his wife and his music. And then we get to the symphony performance. Alas, we only get to hear about 12 minutes of a 40 minute work. I would like to hear it all. And, yes, it draws on all strands of American music. There are, of course, orchestra performers. There are also pop singers, guitarists, bass players, and a Hammond organ. There are Native drummers and singers. There are synthesizers. I think they got into the second movement when the power on stage went out. The lights were still on but the microphones, synthesizers, and electric guitars went silent. For a while they all look at each other, then Batiste improvises on the piano until there is word the power is back. I was pleased to see the credits say included in the producers were Barack and Michelle Obama. I enjoyed this one. I want to listen to the whole symphony. Alas, a search does not show it available online, even as a recording I might buy. I finished the book Wolfsong by TJ Klune. There were stacks of the book at my local bookstore and rave reader reviews online. They said it has a gay love story at its core. So I bought and read. Oxnard – Ox – is the narrator. He lives in the town of Green Creek, Oregon. At age 10 his father leaves and says Ox won’t amount to much. He works at the local auto body garage for Gordo, who makes sure the mortgage is paid. Ox and his mother live on a lane and the only other house on the lane is empty. When Ox is 16 people move into that house. Walking home from work he meets ten year old Joe who thinks Ox smells amazing and says he is the one. A few months later Ox finds out the neighbors are werewolves. Thankfully, they’re not the kind who prey on humans. Ox and his mother are welcomed as human members of the pack. When Ox is 23 he realizes that 17 year old Joe has matured and is now quite the hunk. It doesn’t take Joe long to notice Ox has noticed him and Joe begins to court Ox as his mate. Joe is to be the next pack Alpha, though why Joe and not his two older brothers is not explained. Before Joe turns 18 and the mating can be completed the pack is attacked by renegade werewolves. Joe becomes Alpha, and the pack is split. Much of the rest of the story is about the two parts finding their way back together. Along the way Ox does a great deal of maturing. Of course, there is one final attack. As that last attack begins I saw the attacker is doing things the same way he did before. Why didn’t Ox and Joe get training in how to avoid, or at least properly handle, this kind of attack? Thinking that way might be a bit of a stretch for a couple guys in their 20s. Beyond that quibble, this is a story of a family, a pack, caring for each other, celebrating their happy times and helping each other through the hard times. It is that part of the story I appreciated most. There are three more books in the series, at least 1500 more pages. There are also three novellas that can be downloaded from the author’s website. The sequels focus on other characters in the pack and each features a gay love story – yeah, it seems all the wolves in the pack are gay. I very much enjoyed this one. I’m not running out to buy the other three just yet because another 1500 pages feels daunting, especially if the pack might be facing similar types of attacks in each one. I haven’t been doing many Ukraine updates because there hasn’t been much change in the front lines. But there are a few things of importance not on the battlefront. Two weeks ago (a sign of how little I’ve been writing about Ukraine) Kos of Daily Kos wrote about General Storm – a winter storm with 20 foot waves (the strongest in 100 years) hit Crimea and the Ukraine port city of Odesa. In Crimea, all of the defenses Russia built against a coastal invasion are now all gone. We’ll revel in that as we note the chances of a Ukrainian amphibious landing are close to zero. Though sweeping those defenses away will make things easier for raiding parties. Last Friday Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about the use of drones in Ukraine. They’re so inexpensive (what’s $1K each when fighter jets are tens of millions?) and now so ever present they have changed the way war is fought. They’re like nightmare hornets and a reason why many sections of the front are frozen. The victor might be who figures out how to deal with the drones aimed at them from the other side. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that Putin has announced he will run for another six year term as president of Russia. He has an 80% approval rating and he can jail any opposition. So, yeah, there will be a formality of an election, though it will make little difference. On to the big news on Ukraine, which isn’t happening in Ukraine or Russia. A week ago Joan McCarter of Kos wrote Republicans stormed out of a classified briefing on Ukraine, in what was the first incident in their trying to tie aid to Ukraine to immigration policies on the US southern border.

Looks like Moscow Mitch is back in the saddle, putting Putin—and by extension Donald Trump—first again. This is, after all, about the ability of Russia to trample over a western neighbor. And while Republicans are fighting over an imagined U.S. border war, Russia is bombing Ukrainian civilians.

I’m pleased I’m not the only one who refers to him as Moscow Mitch. On Friday the Senate attempted to advance a bill for more funding for Ukraine. Every Republican blocked it. Democrats accused them of not negotiating in good faith over immigration issues. Russian state TV propagandists were delighted. Yesterday Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank deep into plans for a possible nasty guy dictatorship, invited several Republican members of Congress to a private meeting featuring allies of Hungary’s autocratic Prime Minister Victor Orbán. He’s one of the few Putin allies in Europe. The purpose of the meeting is to push for an end to US military support for Ukraine. This leads to a question. Has Putin’s influence on Republicans so complete that they now turn their backs on Ukraine? Campaign dollars can do amazing things. Or are Republicans so deep into fascism that they naturally celebrate and support despots, no matter who they are? McCarter reported that aid to Ukraine is in so much trouble Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Washington to explain to Republican members of Congress what US aid means for his country. Moscow Mitch, once the staunchest of supporters, wasn’t moved. Neither was Speaker Mike Johnson. Other Republicans asked Zelenskyy questions about the US southern border – which he would know nothing about. Those Republican demands for the southern border will, of course, be cruel and something Democrats would not approve. So are Republicans throwing up bogus reasons to explain their refusal to support Ukraine? Or do they expect Democrats – or Biden – will cave to their cruel demands? In some good news from that European neighborhood, Sumner reported that Poland’s Law and Justice Party had been making authoritarian moves over the last several years. They had turned away from EU policies, including freedom of the press, resulting in tens of billions in EU funds being put on hold. A recent election gave Law and Justice more seats than any other party, though not a majority. But none (or not enough) of the other parties would agree to form a coalition government with them and name a prime minister. On Monday the Civic Coalition put its leader, Donald Tusk, forward as PM. Tusk had been PM from 2007 to 2014. Tusk won the job and will quickly assemble a government and start the tasks of undoing all the mess his predecessor had created. It will be hard, partly because of the judges his predecessor installed. Poland’s move back into the European community seems assured. Zelenskyy is delighted. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that Liz Cheney was on ABC’s This Week as part of her book tour and talked to Jonathan Karl. He said that because of the possibility of several third-party candidates there is a higher chance that no candidate gets the 270 electoral votes. That tosses the election to the House. Liz Cheney responded:

I expressed my view that having Mike Johnson as speaker, and having this Republican majority in charge, you can't count on them to defend the Constitution at this moment.

And last week on CBS Cheney said:

We are facing a situation with respect to the 2024 election where it’s an existential crisis, and we have to ensure that we don’t have a situation where an election that might be thrown into the House of Representatives is overseen by a Republican majority.

Eleveld reviewed the nasty guy’s statement that he will be ready to be a dictator on day one. And a few days later:

The Trump campaign and some of its allies are starting to pick up on the fact that the broad and pervasive push toward an authoritarian-style government might not be the best campaign theme. While "Fascism for All" has a ring to it, it's likely not a winner in a country where people can still cast meaningful votes for their leadership.

Kurt Andersen tweeted a cartoon by Paul Noth that appeared in the New Yorker in 2016. Andersen now calls it the Cartoon of the Decade. It shows sheep on a hillside with a billboard of a wolf campaigning for office with a slogan, “I am going to eat you.” One sheep tells another, “He tells it like it is.” Sumner reported special prosecutor Jack Smith bypassed the Circuit Courts and went straight to the Supremes with an important question: Is the nasty guy entitled to immunity for crimes he committed while in office? Smith made that move because the nasty guy has been appealing cases with that claim. Since the nasty guy’s main legal tactic is delay this is a way to get the question settled while shutting down more delays. Some of the nasty guy’s friends in high places are furious that Smith won’t “follow the script.” They want the delays as much as their master does. McCarter reported the Supremes agreed to take the case. And that prompted Democrats to call for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from the case. They also called on John Roberts to prove his code of ethics actually means something and lean on Thomas. The reason for the recusal request is because Thomas’ wife Ginny was deeply involved in the coup effort, the crime for which the nasty guy is in court. Almost a month ago Bill in Portland, Maine quoted late night commentary in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos. From Leslie Jones:

Are you kidding me, [Clarence Thomas]? You're gonna pretend you didn’t know the stuff you did was wrong until now? Having good judgment is the entire point of being a judge! This is so embarrassing—the Supreme Court went without needing an ethics code until these corrupt bastards came along. Here's what really pisses me off, though: the ethics code isn’t even enforceable, so it's not gonna work. If you want to hold people accountable, you gotta be able to fire them.

I had written that the House Oversight Committee had subpoenaed Hunter Biden to testify at a closed door session. Hunter said I’ll come testify – but only if the session is open to the public. That scared off chair Rep. James Comer for a while. He wanted to release a “summary” of the session showing Hunter confirmed their lies and release a transcript a few days later when the media was no longer paying attention. Sumner reported on the next steps. Comer came back with: testify before our closed door panel or we’ll accuse you of contempt of Congress. That session was scheduled for today. Hunter showed up, but not in the hearing room. Instead he stepped in front of cameras with the Capitol as backdrop and explained to the press and public why he was not inside. Some of what he said:

For six years, MAGA Republicans, including members of the House committees who are in a closed-door session right now, have impugned my character, invaded my privacy, attacked my wife, my children, my family, and my friends. ... They’ve ridiculed my struggle with addiction, they’ve belittled my recovery, and they have tried to dehumanize me—all to embarrass and damage my father, who has devoted his entire public life to service. ... They have lied, over and over, about every aspect of my personal and professional life—so much so that their lies have become the false facts believed by too many people. ... They have taken the light of my dad’s love, the light of my dad’s love for me, and presented it as darkness. They have no shame.

Of course, Republicans were not pleased. They also jumped in front of cameras and threatened Hunter with with contempt proceedings anyway.

Sleepwalking into dictatorship

Interesting and good to hear: An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy is resigning from the House, just two months after being tossed from the Speaker’s job. Until a replacement is seated House Republicans now have only a two seat majority. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom will decide when to schedule the replacement election. Since the district is safely red he may not, letting it stay empty for the year. A few days ago I wrote that Republicans wanted to have Hunter Biden testify behind closed doors so they could issue a “summary” repeating their lies and releasing the transcript a few days later when media was no longer paying attention. Laura Clawson of Kos reported that Hunter’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote a letter to Oversight Chair James Comer to explain why Hunter insists on a public session, saying essentially the same thing:

Lowell did not mince words about why that is: "He is making this choice because the Committee has demonstrated time and again it uses closed-door sessions to manipulate, even distort, the facts and misinform the American public—a hearing would ensure transparency and truth in these proceedings."

An AP article from ten days ago has more about what the nasty guy intends to do in a second term. He will use the military to quell violence and do so in primarily Democratic cities and states. He’s preparing for the “necessity” by calling New York and Chicago “crime dens.” I don’t want the nasty guy to define what “violence” means. Other uses of the military could be along the southern border, helping with mass deportations. There is a law, the Posse Comitatus Act, that says the president cannot use the military for law enforcement. The biggest exception is the Insurrection Act, first passed in 1792 with the current version passed in the 1870s. And there aren’t many constraints, other than political – most presidents don’t want to be the bad guy who sent tanks down Main Street. – that prevent a president from using it. The article reviews some of the 40 times the Insurrection Act was invoked – Protecting black students integrating Central High School in Little Rock. Responding to unrest after the assassination of MLK. And responding to riots after the acquittal of the police officers who beat Rodney King. The military says an officer and a soldier have the obligation to disobey illegal orders. But there is a strong tradition to obey an order. And a soldier does not want to disobey an order and later learn the order was legal. That could put them in jail for a very long time. Mark Sumner of Kos reported a week ago that the nasty guy has again been threatening the media. That’s as they are willing to cut him infinite slack. Though see yesterday’s post about the media waking up. Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon on Kos. It shows a wolf labeled 2nd-Term Trump facing a house labeled US Democracy with three pigs inside. The wolf says, “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!” One of the pigs says, “Such a kidder...” Hunter of Kos reported that Robert Mercer and daughter Rebekah Mercer had supported the nasty guy in 2016, then became dissatisfied with him about the midpoint of his term. And now they’re ready to support him again. This is important news because the Mercers are quite rich and they have a long history of supporting white supremacists, insurrectionists, militia groups, and neo-Nazis. “The Mercers have earned their reputation as America's most prominent backers of fascism.” What is likely getting them to consider backing him is his promise of “full-on fascist rule.” Liz Cheney’s new book Oath and Honor: a Memoir and a Warning is out. Kerry Eleveld of Kos discussed what is in it. A great deal is documenting how much many her Republican colleagues in the House and Senate were supporting the nasty guy and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. This is as many of them said something quite different in public statements. An example is Kevin McCarthy, then Minority Leader, saying to Cheney the nasty guy knows he has lost and needs to go through the stages of grieving, then the same day telling Fox News the nasty guy won. This is one of several examples in Eleveld’s article which are just a tiny selection from the book. But it’s enough for Eleveld to say these Republicans, in spite of their claims, do not have virtue or honor, do not believe in the rule of law, and their oath to the Constitution is a sham. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community discussed Cheney’s appears on CBS News Sunday Morning to talk about the book. This post has a couple excerpts and their transcripts. She responded to host John Dickerson’s request to respond to her own comment that reelecting the nasty guy will be the end of the republic. Cheney said:

He's told us what he will do. It's very easy to see the steps that he will take. People who say, ‘Well, if he's elected, it's not that dangerous because we have all of these checks and balances’ don't fully understand the extent to which the Republicans in Congress today have been co-opted. One of the things that we see happening today is a sort of a sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States.

As for those Republican members of Congress:

If you look at what Donald Trump is trying to do, he can't do it by himself. He has to have collaborators. And the story of Mike Johnson is a story of, of a collaborator and of someone who knew then—and knows now—that what he's doing and saying is wrong, but he's willing to do it in an effort to please Donald Trump. And that's what makes it dangerous.

Johnson may be doing it to please the nasty guy. Johnson is also doing it because Johnson wants that dictatorship. Sumner reported that Special Counsel Jack Smith, the guy who brought the charges of insurrection against the nasty guy, has filed another nine pages with the court. They show when the case goes to trial he will present evidence the insurrection did not start after the 2020 election. The nasty guy had been frequently making claims of election fraud well before the 2016 election. That undercuts his claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent. An AP article noted the nasty guy has again started to use the phrase “guard the vote” and urging his supporters to do that. He had used it back in June and last weekend used it again in an Iowa campaign stop. But this isn’t a new phrase used by the far right. And once the nasty guy used it his minions have been pushing it. There is now a group in Florida with the name “Guard the Vote.” And some of his elected followers declare their job is to do just that.

“It suggests that the outcome of the election is foregone. It’s been decided,” said Susan Benesch, founder and executive director of the Dangerous Speech Project. “Is it actually guarding the election against fraud, or is it guarding the election against a result in which Trump is not declared the winner?” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said that by “guard the vote,” Trump meant “to stop any instance of voter fraud in areas where fraud happens.” He did not elaborate, and didn't answer questions about whether the term referred to efforts by Flynn or Mellor. “If he’s really talking about peaceful, normal, legitimate poll watching, then he should say that,” Benesch said.

Stop voter fraud in areas where it happens? As in nowhere? There were only tiny cases of fraud in the 2020 election. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included several good quotes. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post wrote that yes, the nasty guy has a path to authoritarian rule. His minions are developing elaborate plans for full autocracy. But this is not inevitable and don’t let that thought lead you to inactivity. Noah Smith, in his “Noahpinion” on Substack discussed the difference between the economy, which is doing quite good, and the negative national mood about the economy. This isn’t about economic indicators. It’s more about the “negative narrative” pumped out by many media sources. A bit further down Tom Nichols tweeted about a survey done by FocalData that asked people some economic questions and recorded whether they knew the right answer. Some of the questions (summarized) and the percent who got it wrong: What has increased faster, prices or wages? 90% incorrectly said prices. Has inflation gone up or down? 73% say it has gone up, but it has gone down. (I can understand the confusion on this one – inflation, the rate at which prices change, can go down while prices for individual things continue to go up, though more slowly.) Is the rate of poverty higher today than 30 years ago? 68% say poverty is higher today, but it is lower.

Capture the courts, then manufacture plaintiffs

I’ll start with a cartoon: Clay Jones has one posted Daily Kos that shows Matt Gaetz about to whack Kevin McCarthy with a bat while two black men walk by. One of them says, “Damn...I hate to see Republican-on-Republican crime...” Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported another aspect of McCarthy’s removal. The former Speaker was really good at fundraising. The money he raised tended to go to the most vulnerable seats. Now add that lack of fundraising to the apparent money mismanagement by Republican leadership, donors closing their wallets, and Democrats doing quite well at pulling in the money and the funding for next year’s campaign could be quite lopsided. Eleveld also reported that some media sites are catching on this isn’t a Congressional issue, it’s a Republican issue. I’ll let you read the specifics. Joan McCarter of Kos took a look at the two guys who have said they want to be the next speaker. Jim Jordan is described as a “legislative terrorist.” It looks like the phrase may mean he is really bad at legislating and really good at jumping in front of cameras and yelling. As for Steve Scalise the phrase “like David Duke without the baggage” is used again. Philip Bump of the Washington Post tweeted a chart showing how liberal and conservative each Speaker of the House was, along with the average for the members of each party in the chamber, and with the breadth of the member’s ideology. The chart goes all the way back to the 93rd Congress in 1972 (if I computed that right). Up to the 99th Congress in 1984 Democrats were just as conservative as Republicans, though Republicans crossed over the midway point only a bit and Democrats were much more liberal. Starting with the 108th Congress in 2002 there was no liberal/conservative overlap between the parties. And by the 112th Congress in 2010 neither party came close to the middle. Through the whole chart the party average has drifted further out from center. When Democrats held the Speakership that person was a bit to noticeably more liberal than the party average. Starting with gaining the Speakership in 1994 the Republican in the job was about as conservative as his members. McCarthy was a bit more liberal than the average. Then we get to the point of the chart (as fascinating as all the rest is): Scalise is a bit more conservative than the average, Jordan is significantly more conservative than the average and much more conservative than anyone else who’s had the job. So it is no surprise that, as McCarter reported, the nasty guy has endorsed Jordan. And it is good to see, as Walter Einenkel of Kos reported, that Liz Cheney, who lost reelection because of her participation in the January 6 Investigation Committee, said:

Jim Jordan knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for Jan. 6 than any other member of the House of Representatives. ... Somebody needs to ask Jim Jordan, “Why didn't you report to the Capitol Police what you knew Donald Trump had planned?”

Einenkel wrote:

Cheney told the audience that she doesn’t believe Jordan can secure the votes to become the next speaker. However, she said, if he somehow were able to get the votes, “there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution.”

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin has a few interesting quotes. First, from David Rothkopf of the Daily Beast. He says the MAGA crowd wanted the government shutdown, taking a House shutdown as a consolation prize.

In fact, the origins of the attacks on the government date back at least four decades to the Reagan administration, when the former president popularized the idea within his party that government was actually the enemy. His joke that the scariest words one could hear were, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help,” has metastasized from being a pitch for smaller government into a movement to blow the whole damn thing up.

Dworkin quoted Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Yet to a small but influential gaggle of so-called “thought leaders” on the edge of the stage — the pseudo-intellectuals of right-wing think tanks, and chaos-agent-in-chief Steve Bannon — the growing rot infecting another key U.S. institution is just more evidence for their stunning argument now flying at warp speed, yet under the radar of a clueless mainstream media. The D.C. dysfunction is more proof, they would argue, that the nation needs a “Red Caesar” who will cut through the what they call constitutional gridlock and impose order. If you’re not one of those dudes who thinks about Ancient Rome every day, let me translate. The alleged brain trust of an increasingly fascist MAGA movement wants an American dictatorship that would “suspend” democracy in January 2025 — just 15 months from now.

When I toured Germany with Brother and Niece in 2019 she talked quite a bit about what she saw as various leaders trying to mimic what they saw as the greatness of Imperial Rome. That quest is still here. And way down in the comments is a cartoon by David Hayward. It shows a white sheep and a rainbow sheep helping a badly beaten Jesus. The white sheep asks, “What happened to him?” The rainbow sheep replies, “He stood between me and the church.” Laura Clawson of Kos reported on the effort by Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL). His district includes parts of Palm Beach County, where Mar-a-Lago is located. He wrote a letter to the Palm Beach County property appraiser and said if the nasty guy claims his resort is worth $1.5 billion please tax it as if that were the true value. The Supreme Court started a new term this past week. McCarter reviewed the most important cases. They touch on such things as environment and consumer protections, a case that questions how various boards and agencies are funded; a case that questions whether courts should defer to how government agencies interpret ambiguous laws; a case on gerrymandering; a case about taking guns away from those under restraining orders for domestic abuse; whether the federal government can collect taxes; and maybe the case of whether judges can overrule the FDA on the appropriateness of abortion drug mifepristone. Nina Totenberg of NPR explained that first case. The Consumer Financial Protections Bureau has been cracking down on payday lenders because poor people can get sucked into paying significantly more than what the original small loan was for. Payday lenders are fighting back by challenging how the CFPB is funded. It isn’t funded through the Congressional budget so that it isn’t subject to the whims of Congress (though the person running it is subject to the whims of the president). The payday lenders say that funding it outside of the federal budget is unconstitutional. If the justices side with the lenders it could also pull down other agencies that are funded outside of the budget, like the Federal Reserve, the FDIC that protects bank deposits, the US Mint ... and Social Security and Medicare. The military is quite interested in this case because so many bases have payday lenders outside their gates looking to help young servicemembers. McCarter reported on Tuesday’s oral arguments for the CFPB case. Thankfully, the court appears highly skeptical of what the lenders were asking. A lot of that skepticism is because Thomas asked,

Mr. Francisco, just briefly, I'd like you to complete this sentence. Funding of the CFPB … violates the appropriations clause because?

And Fancisco had a hard time answering. Alito was the most receptive to the arguments. But he should have recused himself because his bestie and fishing buddy Paul Singer could richly benefit from the case. Many of the cases on this year’s docket come from the 5th Circuit, which has many judges nominated by the nasty guy and is the most conservative. They are sending attempts to give the conservative Supremes a chance to wreck more of the government and society and many cases are half-baked. Last June the Supremes ruled on a case where a wedding planner wanted to discriminate (on religious grounds) against same-sex couples. The conservatives on the Court allowed it. That case was set up by the Alliance Defending Freedom (whose freedom?), considered a hate group by the SPLC. McCarter discussed a WaPo investigation into ADF’s cases to fight marriage equality. The website planner turned out to be bogus – she was only thinking about going into the business and the guy in the “gay” couple who filed the complaint was actually straight and had filed nothing.

A new investigation from The Washington Post details how much work the ADF put into manufacturing this and other cases to fight marriage equality. The Post found that ADF had previously represented “a photographer from Kentucky, videographers from Minnesota and a pair of Arizona artists who created stationery” in successfully challenging local anti-discrimination laws, providing the legal precedent for the ADF’s eventual win before the Supreme Court. But the ADF didn’t just represent these businesses: They all but manufactured most of them in order to create these precedents to bring to the court. Once the cases were over, some of the businesses didn’t bother to operate. ... What the Post doesn’t get into is that the ADF is connected to a larger dark money network created by Leonard Leo, the man behind the far-right restructuring of the Supreme Court. Accountable.US dug into Leo and his involvement in a number of cases before the court last session and found multiple ties to the ADF. ... It’s a well-orchestrated and massively funded project with Leo at the center. The right has systematically captured the courts, using Republican presidents and senators to appoint friendly judges to the federal bench. Then they manufacture plaintiffs and cases to put in front of these sympathetic judges, where they know they have a good chance of winning. From there, it’s on to the Supreme Court, where Leo’s friends Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito—along with the three Donald Trump appointees who owe their seats to Leo—will finish the job.

The goal of Leo and ADF is to end marriage equality. That was the challenge and invitation that Thomas put into his concurrence of the overturn of the right to an abortion. As part of a Ukraine update from a week ago, Mark Sumner of Kos quoted a line from Ken Burn’s documentary on the American (I do have international readers) Civil War. The line refers to the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack, the first two ironclad ships. The line says, “From the moment the two ships opened fire that Sunday morning, every other navy in the world was obsolete.” From that Sumner wrote:

At the moment, Ukraine appears capable of successfully capturing areas it targets and holding them against multiple Russian assaults. However, Ukraine isn’t racing forward because its military, like Russia’s military, is obsolete. But then, so is China’s. And every military in Europe. And the U.S. military. That’s not to say that any of these militaries are useless. Obviously, they are not. But what’s happening in Ukraine right now is a kind of “punctuated equilibrium” in the evolution of military operations. In Ukraine, drones—both aerial and aquatic—have reached such numbers and demonstrated such widespread capabilities, that many traditional weapons systems have become limited in their roles.

They may have become limited, but may systems are still useful. RO37 of the Kos community wrote a very good explanation of the Black Sea Grain Deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain to feed Africa and Asia. He also explained why Putin ended it – Putin wants back into the SWIFT international banking system that transfers money as a way to lessen or bypass sanctions. In addition to ending the safe passage deal Russia has been attacking Ukrainian port infrastructure. The big reason why Putin declaring an end to the deal is so effective is ships going to and from Ukraine can’t get insurance. Russia is offering to replace the grain for free – but only to African countries friendly to Russia (as in allowing Wagner mercenaries control their mines). Through these various steps Russia is setting up a narrative:

* The war is causing disruptions to global food security, so only by ending the war can this famine be ended. * Russia cannot be blamed for the famine, as Russia is providing free grain and trying its best to help the developing world. * The Ukrainian grain deal meant shipping food mostly to Europe, and Russia’s cancellation of the grain deal isn’t to be blamed for the crisis. * America and Europe should be blamed for triggering the crisis because of their outrageous refusal to abide by the conditions of the Grain Deal (which, according to Russia, means reconnecting its banking system to SWIFT).

That third point is a lie – Ukraine isn’t shipping “mostly” to Europe. And the rest are only partly true. Ukraine’s allies need to start working on counteracting that propaganda and consider other ways to get the grain flowing again. In another post a few days later RO37 reported that Ukraine is working on getting the grain flowing again. The first part is loading grain at the Danube River ports of Izmail and Reni in the far southwest of Ukraine, then running the ships along the coast through the territorial waters of Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey where a Russian attack would widen the war. Alas, the largest ships can’t get to those ports. So some of the ships are braving the 140 km trip through Ukrainian waters up to Chornomorsk, near Odesa. That is made safer by the second part of Ukraine’s efforts, the Battle for the Black Sea, at least the part west of Crimea. The main component of that is to make Sevastopol too dangerous for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Steps in doing that included retaking oil rigs out in the sea. Then striking a sub and ship in the Sevastopol drydock, putting both the vessels and drydock out of commission. Those and other attacks convinced Russia earlier this week its primary fleet assets shouldn’t be in Sevastopol, but should be moved to the Russian mainland, where the drydock facilities aren’t as good. Russia’s ability to enforce the blockade is eroding. In the past two weeks ten freighters have passed through Ukrainian ports. One even docked at Chornomorsk. The risk isn’t completely gone. Russia still has some ways to attack. For now, Ukraine is winning the battle, enough to go on the offensive against the ports on Crimea. This might be my last post for a while. I do most of my writing for this blog in the evening. I tend to watch a movie on Sunday evenings (and plan to do so again tomorrow) and have rehearsals on Mondays and Tuesdays. And this Wednesday I leave for a short trip to Charlotte, NC. There I’ll visit Cousin and Aunt (she’s almost 94!), then attend attend the Reconciling Ministries Network convocation. This is the group urging the United Methodist Church to fully integrate LGBTQ people into the life of the denomination. I might post if tomorrow’s movie is short or I get some time during the convocation. If not, I may not post again until perhaps the 18th. And that means I may not comment on momentous events that happen in that time.