A man who has never healed from his childhood trauma

I finished the book This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. The book is very much a brain science book, written for the layman. It starts with how the brain processes the signals it gets from the ears and goes from there. Some of the things the author discusses: Air pressure fluctuations stimulate hairs in the inner ear with each hair triggering at a particular frequency. So the brain has to reconstruct all those frequency signals into the sound of a flute or trumpet or piano or drum. When both a flute and trumpet playing how does it decide these frequencies belong to the flute and those to the trumpet? By age five hearing kids have absorbed the structures of the music of their culture. They may not know the names musicians apply to these structures (keys, chords, phrases, and all the rest), but they understand when something fits the structure and when it does not. Kids a bit older are able to tell this piece of music fits these structures (hip hop), and that piece fits those structures (church hymns). A great deal of listening to music is creating expectations of what comes next according to the structures we’ve internalized. We are intrigued when a composer defies those expectations. Great composers balance expectation confirmation and defiance in interesting ways. People with “perfect pitch” are able to hear a pitch and identify the letter name associated with it. But a lot of people, maybe a large majority, have good pitch memory, just missing the piece of assigning the letter name. Levitin told of a study in which he asked non musicians to sing their favorite song. Most sang it close to the pitch of the original recorded singer and at the same tempo. The cerebellum is the old part of the brain, the “lizard brain.” It is the brain’s timekeeper – otherwise we wouldn’t be able to walk. It is also the place of emotions – if it wasn’t we wouldn’t react to fear fast enough. This is where music and emotions come together. Is music an evolutionary adaptation or an evolutionary byproduct of some other adaptation. The author says it is the first one. Otherwise it would have died out by now. What has kept music a part of human experience for well over 50 thousand years is its use in building community and in courtship. Only in the last 500 years have we turned music into something where people listen to experts. Before then practically everyone in the community was involved in creating music or dancing to it. As for courtship, teens are the ones most eager to form bands, and rock stars sure attract groupies. I found it fascinating. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported the conspiracy theories around Taylor Swift being a part of defense psyops (which I’ve written about) are getting so strong the Department of Defense issued a denial.

Department spokesperson Sabrina Singh told Politico, “We know all too well the dangers of conspiracy theories, so to set the record straight—Taylor Swift is not part of a DOD psychological operation. Period.”

I can imagine some of those believing that theory saying: Since Swift is part of a secret operation (so secret they claim even Swift isn’t aware of it) of course they’re going to deny it! Once some of these theories get going attempts to refute them will have zero effect. Rich Snowdon of the Kos community wrote a short post:

Whenever I hear MAGAs claim they love Trump, I want to say… If you really loved him, you’d gather a group and go do an intervention. Because this is a man who has never healed from his childhood trauma. And who brags compulsively but never feels worthy. And who sucks attention from the whole world but it’s never enough. And who will die without ever having one true friend. And… Are you okay with this?

Commenter niemann, who is a therapist, wrote that when people are strong narcissists they can’t be helped. Their narcissism won’t let them. I add: I don’t think MAGA people love the nasty guy. Instead, they love what he intends to do with his narcissism. Which means they won’t do an intervention. Commenter jds1978 suggests it is the nasty guy followers that need the intervention. Charles Jay of the Kos community wrote about the nasty guy’s claim that he has legal immunity for things he did while in the Oval Office. Jay noted Rolling Stone reported he and his allies are plotting to give presidents a legal shield for life. If he wins in 2024. Jay listed a few leaders of democratic countries that have been convicted of crimes, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi being one of them. There is also Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who tried to jigger the legal system to get immunity, which prompted massive protests. There are at least two world leaders who do have life immunity. One of them is Putin who got the Duma to legislate it back in 2020. That prompted opposition leader Alexey Navalny to tweet, “Why does Putin need an immunity law now?” The rationale for Putin’s immunity seems to be the same one the nasty guy has given. What if he does something his successor doesn’t like and prosecutes him for it? The other with lifetime immunity, as of last month, is President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. He’s been in power for almost 30 years. This law also gives immunity to his family and bans opposition leaders not living in Belarus from running in future elections. Do we want to be like Russia and Belarus? No need to answer – I’m well aware many Americans do want that. Mark Sumner of Kos reported another development in the case of the nasty guy storing classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago estate. There were two rooms the FBI did not search. Special Counsel Jack Smith knows about them because of testimony from witnesses. One is a closet. Workers at the estate were surprised when the nasty guy had the locks on the closet changed and that he, not the Secret Service, kept the key. The FBI decided it wasn’t worth breaking the door. The other is accessed through a door in his bedroom that is behind a dresser and TV. Not surprising the FBI missed it. It might be a wiring closet for the TV that has a lot more in it. Smith does not know what is in these rooms. And if the FBI goes back to search those rooms it is quite likely the contents have been moved. Jay reported on the travails of Rudy Giuliani, now in bankruptcy court. As part of bankruptcy proceedings Giuliani is required to list is assets and debts. In the assets column is “possible claim for unpaid legal fees against Donald J. Trump.”

Last summer, CNN reported that Giuliani and his then-attorney Robert Costello traveled to Mar-a-Lago “to make a personal and desperate appeal” to Trump to pay legal bills amounting to seven figures. And now it seems the student has become the master as Costello and his firm have since sued Giuliani for $1.4 million in unpaid legal bills.

All that Giuliani did for the nasty guy after the 2020 election and all he has to show for it is an unpaid bill and lawsuits. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community discussed an article in Politico saying the nasty guy’s campaign has spent more than $50 million on legal fees in 2023. Those legal fees don’t look to be incurred by what the campaign did, but by what the man did. Meaning his campaign donors are paying his legal expenses for his crimes. Which makes a bit of sense – his legal difficulties are his most reliable fundraiser. He had his biggest fundraising day the day after he was indicted in Atlanta and his mug shot was plastered over all sorts of campaign merch. However, it does explain why his campaign is not doing campaign rallies free to attendees. The rallies being done now are put on by Republican state parties and the audience must purchase tickets. The nasty guy is not the only one with cash problems. The entire Republican party does too. Kerry Eleveld of Kos has details of how much the money is not rolling in. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel is the reason:

But The Bulwark's Tim Miller broadened the lens on RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel's disastrous leadership of the organization. "It’s pretty astonishing that they have stuck with Ronna for over a half decade despite the fact that she has failed on every possible metric: electoral, moral, public relations, fundraising," Miller observed. McDaniel has failed by nearly every metric but one: Her Donald Trump sycophancy is on point, and that's all that really matters in today's Republican Party.

To finish off the story Eleveld discussed how well Biden’s fundraising is doing. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote about Republicans linking aid to Ukraine with reform at the southern border. But that border bill, now close to ready, seems to be put on hold because the nasty guy wants immigration as a campaign issue. So are Republicans using the holdup in the border bill as an excuse to deny aid to Ukraine? Some are beginning to talk about going back to approve the aid package. Though if Speaker Johnson does a few on the far right consider that a reason for triggering his ouster. Johnson could sidestep the issue and allow Democrats, with Johnson’s tacit permission for a few Republicans to join them, to present Ukrainian aid in a discharge petition that requires a floor vote, bypassing committees. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted several people discussing how good the economy is. He included a tweet by Mike Walker with a link to an article on Mediaite. A blurb from the article says:

Fox News commentator Dagen McDowell warned Republicans not to run on the economy in the upcoming election because “it’s good” right now.

Dworkin also quoted an article on CNN that reported that senior House Republicans are realizing their efforts to impeach Biden probably won’t go anywhere. Too many think impeaching in an election year to be too politically perilous. There are maybe 20 House Republicans who are not convinced there is evidence for impeachment. That’s in a House with a two-vote margin. How good is the economy? Sumner reported Fox News says it’s good.

Russian soldiers died to influence the American election

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I will save democracy by wearing a suit

Over the last couple decades I’ve learned of the music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a late 18th century French composer, yes about the time of Mozart. When my classical music radio stations began to play recordings of his music they would, of course, discuss that he was a black man and in addition to his abilities of composing and playing music, he was quite a good athlete, especially in fencing, and also a good soldier. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has now played one of his symphonies. I didn’t go because the music of Mozart and his contemporaries is music I appreciate in small doses. When these stations began to talk about a movie of his life. I was, of course, interested. The movie is Chevalier, and was my Sunday movie. As with all of Hollywood movies one must not assume the whole thing is historically accurate, even though the frame probably is. A featured user review on IMDB says the movie is so historically inaccurate one would do better reading Saint-Georges’s Wikipedia page. Sticking to the what is historically accurate would have made a fine movie, so why muck it up with a fictional overlay? Alas, Wikipedia pages tend towards the dry side. Well, fine. Don’t watch this movie for the history. Instead, consider it as a fictional story. Does it do well at that? I think so and I enjoyed it. The acting is quite good, the movie is quite well made, and the story is a good one. The movie opens as Mozart and his orchestra finishes a concert and asks the audience what should be played as an encore. Joseph approaches the stage and proposes one of Mozart’s violin concertos – with Joseph playing along. Mozart agrees, no harm in humoring the guy. And Joseph begins to add another line to the solo part with the cadenza (usually improvised at the time) turning into a musical duel (though some of those riffs sound too bluesy for the 18th century). The audience is impressed. Then we see young Joseph being brought to a French music academy. His father is a white plantation owner on Guadeloupe, part of the French West Indies, his mother a slave. But Joseph already has good violin skills. This part is basically true. Once grown a fencing duel introduces him to Queen Marie Antoinette and she anoints him as Chevalier, the French equivalent of a knight. This gives him access to the high society circles and soon he is her guest in her box at the opera – and we pass from the historically dubious and on into the historically false. He hears that the job of director of the Paris Opera is open and he proposes to the queen that the one to get the job should be the one who writes the best opera. And he’s off and running. Then racism happens. And he has to figure out who he is. At the death of his father his mother arrives in France. She warns him about living in a white man’s world. As this is going on we get closer to the French Revolution, which Joseph begins to take interest in the people’s point of view – especially that égalité thing. It all comes to a satisfying (though not historically accurate) climax. At the end of the movie it says that when Napoleon came to power he banned Saint-Georges’s music because he was a person of color. It said that much of his music was destroyed, though consider this movie’s relationship with historical accuracy (I don’t know how much was lost). Napoleon’s ban is a big reason why this music was ignored for 200 years. We begin to wonder... Saint-Georges was called the “Black Mozart.” Perhaps Mozart should have been called the “White Saint-Georges?” I finished the book The Body Scout by Lincoln Michel. It’s a science fiction murder mystery. Kobo comes from a family so poor they lived in underground burrows. His burrow collapsed, killing his parents and mangling his right arm. The arm is replaced with a bionic version. And soon he is obsessed with getting the latest bionic body upgrade. Kobo is taken in by the family of JJ Zunz. Zunz is just a few days different in age from Kobo and they consider each other to be brothers. Kobo had a short stint in a baseball league that featured players with bionic body parts, but that league was banned. So he now works as a scout for the latest sort of baseball team, heavy with corporate ownership. His prospects include medical and genetic scientists as well as players. That’s because while bionic parts are banned chemical and biological enhancements are not. Then Zunz, now the star batter on another baseball team, is murdered by a biological agent during his last at-bat in the last game before the World Series, a very public death. Kobo is asked by Zunz’ team to investigate the murder in exchange for the hope of paying off his considerable medical debt. But only if he solves the crime before the end of the World Series. The plot has a great number of twists and turns and the ending is not anywhere near where one expects, which is good. Along the way are discussions of bionic enhancements and cloning. There are also discussions of inequality – if only the rich are able to afford bodily upgrades and perhaps long-term youthful vigor, where does that leave the poor? I enjoyed this one, though I tend to avoid murder mysteries because they start with a murder. Hunter of Daily Kos reported that the loudest noise coming from the Senate this week was about Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania routinely showing up at the chamber wearing a hoodie and gym shorts instead of a suit. To accommodate him Schumer told the Senate sergeant-at-arms to no longer enforce the dress code. Republicans promptly needed a fainting couch and pearls to clutch. They are mighty upset the Senate has lowered the bar on dress code. Hunter and many others noted Republicans are not at all upset about the lowered bar on behavior by members of Congress. That low standard includes things like Rep. Lauren Boebert and her date being booted from a theater because of vaping, groping, and being disturbing nuisances to those around them. Or the Pandemic Prince being awarded with $2 billion by the Saudis after departing the White House. Or it seems a frequent parade of Republicans caught in a sex scandal. Could you guess that Fetterman is a Democrat? Joan McCarter of Kos reported on Senate Republicans going “DressCon 1” over the relaxation of the Senate dress code. 46 of them signed a letter to Schumer discussing how casual clothing disrespects the Senate. Wrote McCarter:

They even pulled the war card. The Senate floor, they wrote, “is where we must make the gravest decision imaginable – whether to send our fellow Americans into battle to defend the freedoms we all hold dear.” Meanwhile, every one of the senators who signed that letter is standing by while Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville symbolically spits on our armed forces with his monthslong hold on military promotions and confirmations.

Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Fetterman, who had no tolerance for BS and is quick with humorous counterjab had a proposal to all those who don’t like his hoodies:

If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week.

Fetterman’s campaign is now selling hoodies. Last June the Supreme Court handed down a decision that said colleges and universities could no long use race in the admissions process. That decision explicitly said it did not apply to the service academies – West Point and such. Nina Totenberg of NPR reported that the same organization that brought that suit against Harvard is now bringing a suit against West Point. Totenberg noted why the service academies are so invested in racial balance. During Vietnam black soldiers made up 25% of the enlisted men in the Army, but only 2% of officers of all branches. They determined lack of of minority officers “threatened the integrity and performance of the military.” So they consider race in admissions. The case will likely be before the Supreme Court some time next year. Sumner discussed the legacy of Rudy Giuliani. Once beloved for the way he seemed to handle the job of Mayor of New York after the 9/11 attacks (though Sumner reminds us that he was actually an awful mayor), Giuliani has fallen so far he was sued by his own attorney for about $1.3 million in unpaid legal fees. The more he associated with the nasty guy the worse things have gotten for him. And few people are shedding tears. McKay Coppins wrote a biography of Sen. Mitt Romney, to be published soon. Coinciding with Romney’s announcement that he will retire when his term is up next year Coppins published excerpts in The Atlantic. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed a few excerpts, mostly those that focused on Romney’s views of other Republicans. A big part of that was even though in public they toadied up to the nasty guy in private they ridiculed him, one declaring, “He has none of the qualities you would want in a president, and all of the qualities you wouldn’t.” Yet, they voted to acquit at the impeachment trials. Coppins gets to why.

But after January 6, a new, more existential brand of cowardice had emerged. One Republican congressman confided to Romney that he wanted to vote for Trump’s second impeachment, but chose not to out of fear for his family’s safety. The congressman reasoned that Trump would be impeached by House Democrats with or without him—why put his wife and children at risk if it wouldn’t change the outcome?

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Michael Tomasky of The New Republic discussing why Biden isn’t getting credit for his accomplishments.

There is no one reason. But there is one overwhelming factor in play: the media. Or rather, the two medias. It’s very important that people understand this: We reside in a media environment that promotes—whether it intends to or not—right-wing authoritarian spectacle. At the same time, as a culture, it’s consistently obsessed with who “won the day,” while placing far less value on the fact that the civic and democratic health of the country is nurtured through practices such as deliberation, compromise, and sober governance. The result is bad for Joe Biden. But it’s potentially tragic for democracy.

A few days ago – before I saw this quote – I got to thinking about the media obsession with the campaign as a horse race. I’ve talked many times about a social hierarchy and how many, perhaps most, people pay a great deal of attention to their position in the hierarchy, annoyed by those above them and pleased there is someone below them. I’ve seen the higher one is in the hierarchy the more one is obsessed with maintaining their position near the top. Most media companies are also obsessed with the hierarchy. That’s why they report on who “won the day” and who is ahead. That’s all about who is higher in the hierarchy, who is moving up, who is falling down. Policy issues, especially many of the ones pushed by Democrats, aren’t about the hierarchy, or rather about policies that help people to move up the hierarchy. In contrast, most – likely all – policies proposed by Republicans are about maintaining the hierarchy or pushing those low in the hierarchy to even lower positions, to make those at the top look better. Because of that to a media company obsessed with hierarchy policy is boring. In another roundup Dworkin had a few interesting quotes. One is a tweet by David Pepper:

More traditional/“moderate” Republicans: 1) engaged in egregious gerrymandering, and/or stopped efforts to reform it at the federal level 2) bemoan the state of their extremist party. Guys—1) led to 2)! You created the beast. A true self-own! Get on board & help fix it!

Dworkin quoted MatthewContinetti of Commentary

The first thing to say about the New Right is that it can get weird. Its ranks are composed almost entirely of men. They inhabit a social-media cocoon where they talk a lot about manhood, and strength, and manliness, and push-ups, and masculinity, and virility, and weight-lifting, and testosterone. “Wrestling should be mandated in middle schools,” write Arthur Milikh and Scott Yenor in the collection Up from Conservatism. “Students could learn to build and shoot guns as part of a normal course of action in schools and learn how to grow crops and prepare them for meals. Every male student could learn to skin an animal and every female to milk a cow.”

And the second thing is the “flirtation” (though I would use a much stronger word) with racism and anti-Semitiem. Yes, they’re obsessed with the hierarchy. Dworkin also included a tweet from Archaeo – Histories that has a couple photos of a 2200 year old mosaics recently uncovered in Turkey. Down in the comments Denise Oliver Velez included lots of cartoons. One is from Jesse Duquette of Harriet Tubman holding up the finger with the caption:

On this day in 1849: Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. Florida schools: Ungrateful helper rudely abandons her generous landlords.

And a cartoon by Paul Noth in honor of Constitution Day (Sept. 17th). The document is now 236 years old. The cartoon shows several founding fathers seated around a table working on our founding document and one of them says:

But what if a tyrant comes to power and no one’s able to stop him because the whole thing’s kind of funny?

And in a third roundup is a cartoon from Pat Byrnes. Two elephants are walking in the Capitol and one says to the other, “But won’t charging Biden with something only help his electability?”

Responsible prosecutors would never ignore so much evidence

I had to run my furnace today. The high was 59F. We should be back to 70F tomorrow. Over the last few days there has been news of the various options the vice nasty considered using to disrupt the Electoral College vote last January 6th. One of those bits of news was when vice nasty called former Vice President Dan Quayle and the former VP told him his job during the count was strictly ceremonial. The law didn’t allow him to do anything else. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reports on a scenario devised by John Eastman, an attorney who represented the nasty guy in some of those failed lawsuits in the states. Eastman also claimed Kamala Harris was not an American citizen and thus ineligible to run for vice president. Eastman’s plan: * When the vice nasty got to Arizona he was to claim the state had submitted multiple slates of electors (a lie) and their count would be deferred. * He would repeat that false claim for seven other states. * He would declare that only 454 of the 538 electors had been recognized. Of those the nasty guy got 232 and thus won. Of course, Democrats would howl. * In response he would declare no candidate won and turn to the 12th Amendment. That says each state delegation gets a vote, not each elector nor each member of Congress. Since more delegations – 26 – are Republican majority (though overall more members are Democrats) again he would declare the nasty guy won. That scenario ignores the Elector Count Act of 1887. Eastman had an answer for that – the law was unconstitutional because naming electors is a state duty, though there has been no court ruling on the law. The goal was, of course, to generate enough chaos (and there would have been chaos) that Republicans could claim the nasty guy won. And allowed to stay in the White House until the various cases were trotted through the courts, leaving us to wonder how democracy died. Thankfully the vice nasty didn’t try it. Sumner also reported that the New York Times obtained a memo from the nasty guy election communication team. A few days after the 2020 election the team discussed the claims that were circulating. These were claims about all aspects of the voting machines made by Dominion and Smartmatic, such as programmed in Venezuela, and connected to George Soros and antifa. The memo listed – and thoroughly debunked – every claim. Perhaps a week later, on November 19, 2020, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell held a press conference to claim the election was rigged and that they had proof. During that presser they repeated every claim the memo had debunked. They were repeating things they knew were lies. Dominion is suing Giuliani and the nasty guy campaign for defamation. The trial is ongoing. This memo is now a part of court papers for the trial. And that doesn’t look good for the defendants. Which is good for us. Chitown Kev, in his pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post. She wrote the Republican Party has no interest in actually governing. She added this:

But the constant stream of revelations makes it all the more difficult for the Justice Department to avoid prosecution of the former president or his cronies. Responsible prosecutors would never ignore so much evidence revealing an insurrectionist instigator’s intent (critical in proving serious crimes), nor would prosecutors upholding their oaths miss the seriousness of the plot to overthrow a government. Refusal to prosecute would amount to an invitation to repeat the coup in 2024 and beyond.

The nasty guy is still working to remove his perceived enemies. One of them is Moscow Mitch. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported the nasty is trying to depose the party’s leader in the Senate as that leader is trying to bring his party back into the majority. This is more than a party in “disarray” – a term frequently used against Democrats when the media sees even a glimmer of disagreement. This is more like the TV show Survivor. Mary Trump wrote a book about her uncle the nasty guy. She tweeted that we’re living on the edge and the current system is rigged against democracy. The prompted Leah McElrath to tweet:

If we were to compare our political system to a house, our house is teetering on the edge of a cliff with an eroded foundation. Many are expending tremendous effort trying to hold it up and keep it from falling while others are trying to push it off. But the foundation is gone. Assuming we aren’t right-wingers trying to push it off the cliff or accelerationists trying to do so from the left, we need to ask ourselves how best to allocate our resources in terms of reactivity (keeping the house from falling) and proactivity (rebuilding its foundation). Of course, there are also those of us who have reached a point of realizing the house is likely going to fall eventually and, as a result, are considering allocating our resources toward preparing for that eventuality.

A few days ago I said I would write about the “Justice for J6” rally held at the Capitol last Saturday. And now I am. Sumner posted a report on the rally that same afternoon. The rally was to demand justice for those who participated in the January 6 Capitol attack. By “justice” they mean release of the attackers from whatever prison they’re in. In preparation for the rally the Capitol Police put up fences and increased their presence. They even asked the National Guard to stand by. The rally organizers spread the word and expected about 700 people to come. They got maybe half that. Darrell Lucus of the Kos community reported that one reason for the low turnout was many on the right were claiming the event was a “false flag” or “honeypot.” Instead of a true rally by nasty guy loyalists the claim was it was really put on by antifa (the false flag) for the purpose of entrapping (the honeypot) attendees into committing violent acts. One of the things Martin Luther King said was the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. Professor Fleming, a critical race sociologist, tweeted a rebuttal.

Sometimes I wonder if the “moral arc of the universe” language is actually harmful Enlightenment dogma that encourages magical thinking and civic laziness. In reality, the universe has no moral arc. Gains can be forever lost. Rights can be undone. Progress can be crushed.. Everything around us, everywhere on this planet is showing that there is nothing inevitable about our survival, much less about progress. The belief that things will somehow “work out” despite all evidence to the contrary helps ensure that things will not, in fact, work out..

Yes, some white liberals do believe in that magical thinking and have used the phrase. Commenter Stephen Robinson added:

MLK also spoke of the “fierce urgency of now." He never shrugged off current day issues as something that would magically resolve themselves decades later.

I’ve been avoiding writing about the Haitian refugees living under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas. It is hard to deal with such abuse happening under the Biden administration. I’ll let you read about it elsewhere – there are plenty of sources. However, here is a good new story, a tweet from Nate Mook of the World Central Kitchen (of course, they would arrive):

Things I never imagined I’d be doing on a Tuesday morning: Buying 2,000 packets of baby food to make sure the most fragile Haitians living under the bridge in Del Rio, Texas have something to eat. Sorry for cleaning out your shelves today, HEB. See you again tomorrow.

HEB is a grocery chain in Texas with a reputation of giving back to the community. Commenters rightly note the WCK would do better working to get wholesale prices from a supplier and not disrupt the local HEB customers. But if they’re just getting started on the venture this may be what they have to do now. McElrath tweeted:

We need a new, specific word to describe the unique stress of watching as systems of power fail to act in proportion to urgency. Suggestions?

Some of the words proposed: ElMolino: Armagedimpotence VanessaSax2k: Exasperage Rabid Badger: Caligulabotomy Katz: Annihilanxiety Tobi: Thursday Jules: Electile Dysfunction StaceyCeeJay: Ostriching The book of Genesis in the Bible talks of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Yeah, Sodom is how we got the word sodomites to describe gay men, but a close read of chapter 19 shows the story was about rape, not about same-sex love. Because strangers in town were not treated well (as Genesis 19:24 puts it):

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven.

skralyx of the Kos community, working from a story published in Nature Scientific Reports, wrote that evidence is mounting it really happened. Perhaps it isn’t just an allegorical story. Maybe not by a vengeful deity, but by a meteor impact around 1650 BCE. The ruined city of Tall el-Hammam, which might have been Sodom, has some shocked quartz, which only shows up around meteor impact sites, even if the meteor explodes before it hits the ground. The Bible also says that Lot’s wife looked back on the destruction and was turned into a pillar of salt. An explosion of this magnitude near the Dead Sea would have thrown salt water over the surrounding countryside, rendering the usually fertile land unusable for a few hundred years – and archaeologists have noted the villages in the area were abandoned for about 600 years.

In court you can be punished for lying

The fun and games related to the Michigan election a month ago are not over, even though the election has been certified. Laina Stebbins of Michigan Advance reported that on Tuesday the Senate Oversight Committee held 7 hours of testimony from people who wanted to show up in person and declare any false, misleading, or conspiracy theory they wanted. Those wishing to speak waited in an enclosed room too close together, and many not wearing masks. I’m sure the only reason why these people were given this platform was because the state senate has a GOP majority. Stebbins wrote:

None of the claims were backed up with evidence showing fraudulent behavior or misconduct. After being pushed on why some speakers didn’t go to law enforcement with their claims, many stated their distrust in the government. In response, Attorney General Dana Nessel made it clear on Twitter that “any and all credible claims of election/voter fraud” are investigated by her department. Nessel questioned why none of the speakers alleging fraud went to the many law enforcement outlets available throughout the state.

Democrats on the committee showed their annoyance. Sen. Sylvia Santana of Detriot said:

The election is over. The voters have decided, and investigations have repeatedly revealed that we had a safe and secure voting process. … Just imagine how many lives could have been saved by now had this same amount of effort been put into a pandemic response. It is past time we move on and work to make sure our families get the care and support they need so that, together, we can tackle the alarming spike of COVID cases and casualties.

Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos also discussed the hearings. He added several tweets from TepidButterASMR that include a hefty amount of sarcasm. One of the speakers was Matt. I’ll explain later why I mentioned him specifically. Here’s the text of the tweet showing him.

Here's Matt, he loves FREEDOM. He was at the stop the steal rally. He wasn't a poll watcher. He is saying Obama’s reign of destruction was caused by dominion voting machines. His testimony is about signs he saw at a rally.

The circus, this time with a ringleader, reformed on Wednesday before a Michigan House panel. The ringleader was Rudy Giuliani, the nasty guy’s personal lawyer. Stebbins reported this circus included such things as: * Democrats on the panel insisted speakers must testify under oath (as Michigan law permits, especially when there are allegations of wrongdoing) and Republicans refused to do so and ruled Democrats out of order. * Democrats ruled out of order when they tried to question witnesses or cross examine. * Giuliani essentially became chair of the panel as he questioned witnesses with leading questions – such as: were you expecting “that much crookedness and dishonesty?” * Giuliani saying he was not there to tell lawmakers to choose their own slate of electors, followed by him pointing to a particular section and paragraph in the Constitution that gives legislators that specific power. While the Constitution says the legislature chooses the electors, Michigan law says they don’t have that power. Instead, state law says the Secretary of State and the Governor do. The hearing was scheduled for three hours and lasted nearly five. There’s a big reason why Giuliani was before a House panel and not a court. In court you can be punished for lying. Before a state legislature not only can one lie, one can be encouraged to do so. They may still be stirring up trouble for this year’s election. They are most definitely stirring up distrust for the 2022 and 2024 elections. I asked you to remember what Matt said above. In particular, he said: “Obama’s reign of destruction was caused by dominion voting machines.” Dominion voting machines? What’s with that? Jennifer Cohn, election security advocate, put it this way: ES&S voting machines are easier to hack and make black votes disappear. Thus, Dominion voting machines, by the understanding of the GOP, are bad. Kerry Eleveld of Kos expanded on that a bit.

Trump and Co. have been railing against Dominion Voting Systems machines for weeks, falsely claiming they allotted extra votes to Democrat Joe Biden. There continues to be zero evidence for this lie, and Trump's campaign has now logged an unprecedented string of 40 post-election legal losses to 1 win in the courts, where they've proven to be uniquely incompetent.

They’re railing against Dominion machines because they don’t make black votes disappear, so those votes are declared “extra” votes for Biden. The rest of Eleveld’s post is about the current state of Georgia Senate races. The GOP candidates appear to be insufficiently loyal to the nasty guy, which might boost the chances of Democrats getting elected. The nasty guy is handing out pardons to protect various of his minions from prosecution. As several pointed out, pardons aren’t needed unless they’re guilty. Eleveld discussed one group that is likely to get pardons – the nasty guy’s kids. They know where Daddy has buried the bodies (I’d like to say that expression is figurative, but we’ve passed a quarter million dead from COVID). And in pursuit of Daddy’s goals they’ve likely committed several crimes themselves. If prosecuted they could spill Daddy’s secrets to protect themselves. The White House is, of course, spinning pardons as a way to protect against “retribution” by Biden and the Democrats. “The kids have been through enough,” an advisor told ABC News. Yeah, investigation into their crimes is seen as victimization. One person who has gotten a pardon already is Michael Flynn. A feature of his pardon has raised a lot of legal eyebrows – it includes a blanket pardon for crimes not yet committed. And Flynn, now free from any legal consequences, is taking advantage of it. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Flynn is testing whether his pardon includes sedition. Flynn is publicly calling for a limited form of martial law, the suspension of the constitution, and civilian control of elections with the military in charge of a do-over. He declared rules for who is allowed to vote. To finish off he threatened violence if the nasty guy doesn’t come through with a coup. Flynn is no longer calling for somehow jiggering the election results so the nasty guy wins. Sumner wrote:

Flynn isn’t court shopping for someone who will ignore his nonsense long enough to issue a stay or at least provide another platform for pounding the podium. Flynn is calling for Trump and the military to overthrow the legitimate civilian government of the United States.

That’s sedition. And that’s what a blanket pardon allows you to say. Meteor Blades, in his Earth Matters column for Kos, wrote that 28 companies have joined to form the Zero Emission Transportation Association to get vehicle sales to 100% electric by 2030. This is all vehicles, not just cars. It is also much more ambitious than what Gavin Newsom, Governor of California is calling for. Good for them.

Or they resist him and are thrown to the wolves

Three days ago I forgot to mark the anniversary of this blog. I started it on November 17, 2007. I’ve now been at it 13 years. This is post 4481. It has been a way for me to refine my political thinking. Now I understand that to mean a great deal of what goes on in this country is in support of supremacy of one sort or another – supremacy of race, gender, religion, ability, sexuality, and many more. In the last nine months I have written about the coronavirus 123 times. That’s the fastest rise of any topic I’ve written about. It is now 22 in the most frequently discussed topics. A few months after I started using the coronavirus tag I saw that it was coming close to the tag for Rigged Elections. Then that tag rose steadily in the rankings as well. I’ve now written about it 132 times and it is 20th in the standings, though I don’t remember what the count was at the start of the year. I’m sure the most discussed topics this year are the nasty guy (5th most written about) and the GOP (top most written about at 697 times). In five years (including his campaign) I talked about the nasty guy 339 times. In nine years I discussed Barack Obama only 217 times. The second most written about issue is gay marriage – marriage equality at 689 times. About halfway through my writings I switched to the more inclusive tag. There was a press conference yesterday led by Rudy Giuliani. But the important bit was said by Sidney Powell. She spouted a conspiracy theory. Then said “The entire election, frankly, in all the swing states should be overturned and the legislatures should make sure that the electors are selected for Trump.” In reporting this Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed what several GOP leaders have been saying – let’s give the nasty guy a few days. One of them, interviewed by the Washington Post a week ago, said:

What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change. He went golfing this weekend. It’s not like he’s plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He’s tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he’ll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he’ll leave.

Mark Sumner responded:

What harm can “a little bit of time” do? That’s how long it’s taken to get from “no one seriously thinks the results will change” to Trump’s legal team openly calling for the election results to be overturned, regardless of courts, certifications, or evidence.

Jen Hayden of Kos brought up a detail of Giuliani’s performance at that press conference – he had streaks of hair dye running down his cheeks. Hayden showed a picture of Giuliani and three people behind him, then asked Twitter “What is the name of this band? Wrong answers only.” Twitter obliged. Some of the names they came up with “Rage Against the Voting Machine,” “Rudy and the Blowfish,” and “The Four Treasons.” Jeff Sharlet included a reference to Parler, the conservative alternative to Twitter when he tweeted:

On twitter right now Rudy clips are playing to laughter; on Parler, for the same clips, it's salutes and sieg heils.

Joan McCarter of Kos reviewed the status of the latest nasty guy’s legal challenges. Their lawsuits now stand at 2-31. And they lost the recount in Georgia. In another post McCarter reviewed that the nasty guy lawyers – including Giuliani – are now saying they are not trying to prove the election was stolen. McCarter wrote:

This isn't about the courts anymore. It's about riling up the deplorables and pressuring elected Republicans into participating in this coup. And it's starting to work.

In another post Sumner discussed the meeting of Michigan’s GOP legislature leaders at the White House today. This wasn’t news of how that meeting went (I haven’t heard), but what those leaders will be facing.

What Giuliani and Powell do in court doesn’t matter. It’s only their ability to stir up anger among Trump’s base and terrify Republican legislators into becoming participants. Trump doesn’t have to persuade Republican legislators in Michigan that he won. They know he didn’t. He only has to convince them that they will suffer more for not joining his coup than they will from signing over the soul of the nation. Republican legislators in several states have been doing their best to hide. They’ve given vague statements that could be read as either supporting Trump or simply supporting the process, and attempted to hunker down until the vote certifications are done. Trump is not going to allow them to hide. He’s going to make it clear in Michigan, and in Pennsylvania, and in Wisconsin, and in Arizona, and in Georgia, that any Republican who is not for overturning democracy and seating Trump electors will become the target of the Trump-supporting mob. And in Michigan, the real nature of that threat is blindingly clear. … Republicans may have thought that all they had to do was sit back, wait out Trump’s ego-storm, and carry on as if they had been good little agents of democracy all along. It’s not working out that way. Trump is going to bring them in, one group at a time, and show them a future where they help him and get to enjoy the spoils of a victorious coup, or they resist him and are thrown to the wolves. What happens today with Lee Chatfield and Mike Shirkey won’t be the end of it … but it will be critical. If they say no to Trump, his coup is in serious trouble. If they fold, the slope from there to president-for-life is going to be extremely slippery.

Chatfield and Shirkey are the GOP leaders in the Michigan legislature. As for the wolves … David Neiwert of Kos reported that according to documents filed with the Michigan Attorney General’s office, the plan to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (thankfully foiled) wasn’t the first plan considered. I think that was somewhere around Plan C. Plan A was to storm the Capitol with 200 “patriots” while it was in session and hold the legislature hostage, then televise the execution of each legislator. Plan B was to storm the Capitol, block all the exits, and burn the place to the ground. The settled on kidnapping the governor after they had doubts about the logistics of plans A and B. But those people are in custody and the threat has passed! Right? In several close states the people who are to certify the election are receiving death threats. This is being driven by the nasty guy and by conservative media. Kos of Kos thinks there is a split between Fox News and other conservative outlets. I’ll let you read his reasoning. What caught my attention is at the top of his post. It is the election map as perpetrated by “news” site OANN. It shows the nasty guy with 333 electoral votes on his way to 410 with Biden getting only 128. We know it is fiction because it even has California as solidly red while Indiana is merely dark pink. But this is what these sites are feeding their viewers. It is what these viewers believe is the truth. It is what these people, willing to commit violence, want to defend. That effect on viewers can be measured. Leah McElrath tweeted a poll from the Economist/YouGov. Those that say Biden legitimately won the election: All voters: 57%, Biden voters 98%, Trump voters 12% Those that say Biden did not legitimately win: All voters 43%, Biden voters 2%, Trump voters 88%. Though mainstream media will report an accurate election map, they still aren’t honest with their readers and viewers, according to Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii. He tweeted:

Media, the word you are avoiding is “coup.” I’m not saying they will succeed - they will not. But they are trying to overturn a free, fair election and this deserves at least as much attention as the full week you devoted to Sarah Sanders being refused service at a restaurant.

Nick Cohen of the Observer included a video of Sidney Powell’s words (mentioned above) in his tweet:

It's only the memory of what the USA once was that stops the rest of the world saying that an attempt at a coup is underway. If this were Africa or the Balkans we would have no hesitation in saying that the ruling clique was using electoral fraud to maintain its power.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos discussed one strange effect of this effort to reverse the election. Joe Biden’s agenda – who he is picking for his cabinet, his plans once he takes office – cannot be critiqued by conservative media. There can be no counter-message. Any mentions of anything Joe Biden is doing gets attacked. Greg Dworkin, in his pundit roundup for Kos, wrote:

However unlikely, Trump is attempting a coup. That’s the point, not that he’ll fail. You need to carry two thoughts in your head at once 1. Trump is actually trying to steal the election, however ineptly. 2. He'll fail. But that doesn't make 1. any better or less bad.

Dworkin quoted Erick Erickson’s tweet:

I feel very sorry for the people who believe the bulls--- we just heard. There are a lot of broken people who are being lied to and many of them want to believe the lie because their religion has become politics and they cannot believe their god is abandoning them.

The ability to tickle the darkest recesses of the white American’s lizard brain

Kos of Daily Kos explored two aspects of this month’s election:

1) Impeached sore loser Donald Trump got 10 million more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. Given some losses among suburban college-educated white women and other never-Trumpers, that means that over 10 million new people took a look at Trump’s last four years and thought, “Yeah, that’s the guy that’s getting me out to cast my first vote.” 2) The polls once again undercounted Republican support, like in 2016. Yet in 2018 and 2019, the polls were fine. So what gives?

Kos has a theory about the Hidden Deplorable. That’s quite different from the “shy Trump voter” who lied about their preferred candidates to pollsters. They’re not “shy.” But they didn’t turn out when the nasty guy wasn’t on the ballot, not even when the nasty guy begged. That allowed Democrats to be elected governor of Kentucky and Louisiana. Kos describes these people as not Republican, not even conservative. They live in an area with dim job prospects. Corporations abandoned them for cheap overseas labor. Government is not improving their lives. Cities seem like walled gardens – unaffordable, yet where the jobs are. They’ve been left behind. They have an attitude of F--- everybody. Then the nasty guy showed up in 2016 speaking their language – that their lives suck because all that gov’t money is going to “illegals” and “thugs” in the cities.

He puts uppity Black and brown people and women in their place. He offers them hope that, if he can’t improve their lives, that at least he’ll hurt all those others.

One person lamented of the nasty guy, “I thought he was going to do good things. He’s not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.” Wrote Kos:

Their lives suck, but Trump was supposed to be bringing everyone else down to their level. … And then he did. He put brown kids in cages. He sent federal troops against the Black Lives Matter “mobs.” He nominated judges hostile to a woman’s right to have agency over her body. And above else? He destroyed. He tore s--- down. Norms, traditions, entire agencies.

And in 2020 he didn’t even offer hope of economic revival. “Instead, he was the personification of their rage made real, in the Oval Office itself.” What does that mean for the Senate runoff elections in Georgia? The nasty guy won’t be on the ballot. Because he isn’t there will these people not vote? Kos won’t hazard a prediction.

Hillary Clinton didn’t lose because she was a terrible candidate, she lost because she faced a political prodigy, someone whose ability to tickle the darkest recesses of the white American’s lizard brain is unparalleled.

As for why they don’t show up on the polls, it’s not that they lie to pollsters. More likely they refuse to participate. Mark Sumner of Kos reported the latest from Scott Atlas, the current head of the nasty guy’s coronavirus task force. He seems intent on making sure the virus spreads more widely. Atlas suggested families should hold big, festive Thanksgiving meals, because “for many people this is their last Thanksgiving.” Is that a prediction or a threat? Yeah, in this time of rocketing cases it’s a way to get more people infected. Sumner wrote:

Don’t think of it as a holiday. Think of it as a culling of the weak. And pass the cranberries, please.

Patrick Murray, in Alberta, Canada, tweeted a graph of the dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases after the Canadian Thanksgiving about five weeks ago. Ed Yong of The Atlantic tweeted:

Here's a thing I want everyone to understand. There is a roughly 12-day lag between rising cases and rising hospitalizations. So the 1.5 million (!!!) confirmed cases from the last 2 weeks have not yet factored into stories about packed emergency rooms.

Sumner has been writing about the virus since at least January, before it came ashore here. Though he’s not a doctor, he understands well what the virus has been doing, what it means, and how we can protect ourselves. He strongly recommends not traveling for Thanksgiving. There is a vaccine on the way. But it’s not here yet. Thanksgiving for me this year will be really quiet. And lonely. Beth Malicki, anchor and managing editor for KCRG TV in Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, Iowa, tweeted:

I get a LOT of tips about "hospital X is full... why aren't you reporting that?" It's not for lack of trying. I reach out to the hospitals and their PR people, very nicely, refuse to give details about how many beds there are, how many are occupied, etc. Now we know why. There's literally a document called a "Regional Hospital Survey." It's a snapshot of hospital capacity, with DETAILS I WANT. Hospitals update it DAILY and send it to the county public health department. The state also has access to this document. But the public can't see it. So what are we doing @KCRG? We're reaching out to as many hospitals as we can, frequently, asking the questions we could get from this single document. We are annoying as heck- so be it. Occasionally they share info at a presser. But remember, Linn Co hasn't held one since Oct.

Joe Biden is doing a great deal to be ready to be president on January 20. He’s planning around what the nasty guy administration isn’t giving him. Even so, as Sumner reported, Biden is getting annoyed. He’s now talking about what he needs from the nasty guy, what he isn’t getting, and why it is vitally important. Good that Biden is doing it this way. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the latest action in the nasty guy’s court cases trying to reverse the election. The tally is now 1-24. The nasty guy is getting annoyed with his lawyers. Yeah, about the losses, but also because they’re not getting themselves on various TV programs to talk about their baseless claims. So he’s putting Rudy Giuliani in charge. He’ll focus more on getting on TV while telling his boss there’s still a chance.

So rather than trying to win in court with valid cases, the plan now seems to be riling up the base by blanketing right-wing media with allies. If they can't win in the courts, they'll try to win by intimidation, like the campaign led by Sen. Lindsey Graham to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to throw out legal ballots. Raffensperger reports not just pressure from Graham, but death threats against him and his wife. In other words, Trump's reverting to form, going to what's been working for him so far: enraging his army of deplorables. The good news is that it's not a winning strategy to get to the Supreme Court, or to get the court on his side. The bad news is that it's very dangerous for the country.

Leah McElrath quoted a couple tweets. The first is from Ben Jacobs:

Trump's Nevada electors, including the chair of the Nevada Republican Party, are suing to either have Trump declared the winner of Nevada or to have the presidential election in the state annulled entirely.

The second is from Annie Grayer of CNN.

Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit and is the largest county in the state, did not certify its election results by the deadline tonight bc it is locked in a 2-2 vote. Now the State Board of Canvassers has to step in. Each board is made up of 2 Dems and 2 GOP.

I live in Wayne County. Davide Neiwert of Kos reported on the FBI statistics on bias motivated crimes in 2019. They up by about 3% from 2018 levels that are already elevated since the nasty guy’s election. It’s the deadliest year on record for hate crimes. But there is another disturbing aspect. Reporting these crimes to the FBI is voluntary. And the participation rate in reporting is down. Only about 14%, 2,000 out of 15,000, law enforcement agencies reported hate crimes. Instead of the reported numbers of 6,000 to 8,000, experts estimate the actual number of hate crimes is more likely 50,000. One reason for the lack of reporting is that police, already conservative, are also becoming partisan. They show open hostility to groups such as Black Lives Matter. Also, in about ¾ of the states police academies do not have to train how to identify and investigate hate crimes. Most police agencies don’t provide such training to their officers. Charles Koch, who, with his brother, used their oil billions to create a huge and powerfully influential conservative network, wants a do-over. He told the Wall Street Journal his partisanship was a mistake. PvtJarHead of the Kos community is not impressed. It must be he’s trying to sell his new book and this shtick is a make him more palatable to TV shows where he can spout his usual dogma.

Corruption in plain sight

I read the transcript for another episode of the Gaslit Nation podcast. This one is titled The GOP is an Unregistered Foreign Agent: Part I. The hosts are Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior. The audio for it is 54 minutes.

This episode seems to have a slow start, talking of a few other things before getting to the GOP. This is the first episode with Chalupa back from maternity leave (episodes for August and September were recorded in July) and she talks about why she didn’t disclose the pregnancy until after the baby was born. One reason is her sister Alexandra Chalupa blew the whistle on Paul Manafort and there was (perhaps still is) an effort to say Alexandra had colluded in Ukraine in 2016 on behalf of Hillary Clinton. All lies. Andrea goes into this in more detail at the end of the episode. Yeah, an attempt at a distraction and to investigate the investigators.

They talk about Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker and dissident, how he was thrown into prison by the Russians, and how defiant he was. He sang the Ukrainian national anthem in a Russian courtroom. He’s been freed. Ukraine has been giving our hosts a lot of hope.

About investigating the investigators, Chalupa said:

So the overall trend we’re seeing is that people are being punished by Trump and Putin for simply following the law. That’s it. It’s like a letter, for instance, by Democratic senators asking the Ukrainian government why they halted cooperating with Robert Mueller and what information they have on Paul Manafort in regards to Mueller’s investigation, that is suddenly framed, even though those Senators are acting according to the Constitutional duty and obligations they have to the American people, that letter is suddenly framed as, Oh, look at these Democrats trying to frame Trump and trying to undermine our President. They’re traitors. So what we’re seeing is a continued pattern, whether it’s in the United States or Russia, and in Russia’s case you have people being arrested and in many cases sadistically beaten by riot police, for just exercising their Constitutional right to protest, to assemble. And to run for office. And they’re being arrested for just trying to carry out the law. That’s at the heart of all of this, is those who are trying to carry out the law are being arrested. Those who are just following proper protocol are being targeted. The checks and balances have never been more strained but we just have to remind ourselves that we are on the right side of the law. We are following the law.

We need to learn how autocracies work, because our country is beginning to work that way.

The talk turns to Rudy Giuliani. I covered his protection of the Russian Mafia while Mayor of NYC in a previous post, based on a previous Gaslit Nation episode. Kendzior and Chalupa had predicted the current Ukraine mess because they’ve been studying Giuliani.

Giuliani was carrying out acts of corruption in plain sight. You know, Giuliani was an object of a Senate investigation spearheaded by among others Elizabeth Warren to decide whether he’s a foreign agent. They officially declared that. They wrote letters about that. This has all been happening. It’s just that the media, generally speaking, has not been covering it and certainly not covering it with the urgency that it warranted.

Ukraine has been a laboratory for the Kremlin’s aggression. Things Russia might try on the West to destabilize they try on Ukraine first, things like cyberattacks on Ukraine’s electrical grid and hacking Ukraine’s election (which they caught and stopped). Ukraine is quite good at resisting Putin’s aggression. They have to be. And if America had been as observant and as resisting as Ukraine Hillary Clinton would be president now. So it’s in our interest to have a healthy and independent Ukraine.

Not worth comment

I’ve regularly written about the nasty guy and the vice nasty guy over the last 500 days (yes, we’ve crossed that milestone) and my meaning has been clear. Now Rudy Giuliani, the nasty guy’s lawyer, is also being continually despicable and horrible. So perhaps it is time for a tag for him too. Many progressives have been calling him the ghoul. Maybe that will do.

The ghoul has now said that a president can not be subpoenaed or indicted while in office. That includes if he commits murder. He has to be impeached first (surely the ghoul knows how likely the GOP will do that no matter what the nasty guys does).

Should we start referring to him as King Nasty the First? Kings don’t get indicted either.

The nasty guy added to the claims by tweeting that he can pardon himself. More kingly behavior.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville points out that this kind of talk, especially since the nasty guy repeats such claims so often, gets the public used to an idea and begins to accept it as appropriate or true. If the ghoul is floating the idea the prez. can’t be indicted for murder, is he getting the idea out there because the nasty guy may soon commit murder? Others point out that his wife Melania hasn’t been seen in public for about 3 weeks and are wondering why.

McEwan has written about the press failures, which I mentioned yesterday. Now that the nasty guy has been there for 500 days his office has released a list of his “successes” which sound like markers on the way to authoritarianism, McEwan is sure the press will not understand or take it all out of context or certainly not explain how important and critical it is. And fail us again. Which prompted:

Here's what I find increasingly concerning about this press failure: It's not just that the collapse of democracy itself precipitously accelerating and somehow isn't front page news, but the fact that THE ENTIRE POLITICAL PRESS has somehow decided simultaneously and unanimously that it isn't worth comment? WHAT THE FUCK.

Seriously, how did that happen? The collective silence is devastating. And terrifying.

Manipulating the media

Last week Rudy Giuliani, just hired as the nasty guy’s personal lawyer, gave a big interview – on Fox no less – saying the nasty guy had indeed reimbursed that other personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the $130K given to porn star Stormy Daniels. This seemed like an incredible statement, especially since the nasty guy denied knowing about any such payment – and later claimed Giuliani didn’t yet know all the facts.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, long skeptical of the antics of both the administration and Giuliani (who has accumulated his own reasons to be called a nasty guy), thought this didn’t smell right.

Confirmation of her suspicions didn’t take long in coming. First, was the series of tweets supporting Giuliani from the nasty guy that were obviously (even I could tell) not written by the nasty guy. Then came a confirmation from Giuliani himself.

McEwan thinks that Giuliani suspects (or knows about) something in the files taken from Cohen’s office. Giuliani is spinning an interpretation of what might be revealed to get his version out there and shape public opinion. And to give the press a chance to say “both sides” have done it. Which they did. McEwan wrote:

So here's where we are: Once again, the Trump administration is manipulating the media, and delivering talking points to their base ahead of a disclosure that would be scandalous under normal circumstances.

Here, however, many members of the media spent the entirety of last night and much of the morning publicly laughing at what a dipshit Rudy Giuliani is. So now they have a strong incentive to pretend it's not a strategy, even when it becomes obvious that it is, because to backtrack and take it seriously would necessitate admitting that they were totally fucking wrong, missed the strategy, and got played.

And they certainly won’t admit to that. So they will abet the nasty guy again. And again.

One more question: Why isn’t a president’s lawyer paying off a porn star a scandal?

Sin v. Sinful

If you very carefully parse the words Huckabee and Giuliani use to describe gays you encounter an interesting split. It all comes down to the difference between the words "sin" and "sinful." The first refers to failing to live up to God's expectations and no matter how severe the offense (such as murder) it can be forgiven and forgotten. In contrast, "sinful" means rejecting God's guidance and rejecting what is right. So, according to Huckabee, adultery is a sin, but homosexuality is sinful because no matter how far the first is outside God's laws (and it made the Top Ten), the second is also "unnatural" and "aberrant." He may sin (no, I'm not accusing him of adultery), but he is never sinful. But Giuliani doesn't describe gays as sinful and makes no distinctions between his own sins and those of a gay person. That would make a big difference in policy, though I'll take any Democratic nominee over either one of these guys. This commentary includes full transcripts of both candidates remarks.

Flip-flopper? or paying attention and learning more?

The completeness with which Neocons have equated changing one's mind with the heinous crime of flip-flopping has, of course, affected the prez. campaign. Example 1: Giuliani, who has been saying both, "I believe in a woman's right to choose," and, "I will nominate only strict constructionist judges." The latter is a code-word for nominating judges who would overturn Roe V. Wade. So Giuliani didn't change his mind, he is of two minds (or maybe there are two Giulianis out there). But Americans change their minds all the time, from 23% who opposed the war when it started to 58% now. We just prefer to describe the process as "concerned citizens who paid attention, learned more, had second thoughts." This is from a commentary by Anna Quindlen in Newsweek.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/73348

Neocon reference here