The ease and comfort in which he spouts his racism

My Sunday movie was Love & Vodka. I attended the premier of the movie as the closing film of the Cinetopia Film Festival in Ann Arbor. Yeah, I actually sat in a movie theater, something I’ve done little of in the last four year. The movie is so new that perhaps it isn’t quite done, or maybe it’s just that the post production team, who scrambled to get it done, haven’t been fully paid yet. This is the story of Bobby and Katya and is based on real life. The two meet when he nearly bumps into her. They like each other right off, but Katya is going home to Ukraine the next day. They message each other over the next year. Katya then challenges Bobby if you want to take this further come visit me. And he takes the gamble. A good chunk of the movie is Bobby in Ukraine visiting the family at their dacha and making one cultural gaffe after another, yet falling in love with Katya. The vodka comes in at a pivotal scene where various toasts prompt Bobby to drink too much of it. This story of a lover making a mess in a foreign culture has been told many times. I enjoyed the movie but I don’t think any of the actors will be getting Oscars. I heard about this movie only last Friday (I hadn’t heard Cinetopia was in progress) in an episode of Stateside on Michigan Public (the last twenty minutes or so here). Host April Bear talked to director Heidi Philipsen-Meissner, associate producer Amber Galkin, and Zach Bradley, the actor who played Bobby. After the movie was shown those same people and several more came on stage to talk of the experience and answer questions. The original Bobby Fox is known as RJ Fox and teaches film at a high school in Ann Arbor. His experience in Ukraine was in 2001. He published a book with the same name in 2015. Heidi Philipsen-Meissner’s son was in Fox’s class and the teacher knew the mother was a movie producer. He had written a screenplay based on the events of the book and asked her to look at it. She was intrigued. First, there were lots of rewrites. Then a pandemic. Then a war. Then an actor’s strike. So a lot had to change, including more rewrites to take the war into account. Bradley talked about joining the cast about four days before shooting started. The Ukraine part of the story could not be shot there. So the pine forests of northern Michigan were substituted for the forest around the family dacha. And the Midland – Bay City – Saginaw airport got Bobby from Michigan to Kyiv (the outside for the departing scene, the inside for the arrival). Associate producer Amber Galkin was got the job because she was a link to the Ukrainian community in Michigan. She was able to verify the cultural details, supply actors from her community who still spoke Ukrainian, and to go through the script and replace all the Russian words with Ukrainian – when Fox visited in 2001 the region he was in did speak Russian, but would not do so now. They even debated whether the word “vodka” was too Russian, but decided it now had international use. I knew before watching that the movie was shot in Michigan, not Ukraine. When Bobby and Katya are sitting in the forest and we hear the birds singing I thought of a bird specialist. He had said that a movie set in the Black Forest of Germany was ruined when he heard the birdcall of an American bird that is not seen in Europe. So as I heard the birds in this movie was I hearing Ukrainian birds added to the soundtrack or was I hearing Michigan birds? I doubt they went through the effort of recording Ukrainian birds. Adrian Florido of NPR talked to Jill Lepore, professor of US History at Harvard about the US Constitution. It was adopted on June 21, 1788 when New Hampshire was the ninth state to ratify it. So it is 236 years old. As the document that governs the government it had a lot of tremendously important innovations for the time. But even a document that important needs to be able to change, to be amended. The last meaningful amendment was 50 years ago. It hasn’t been amended since then because of polarization. It must get two-thirds approval in both houses of Congress. Then three-quarters of the states must ratify it. In a Congress known for doing nothing getting enough votes is not going to happen. When the amendment procedure was written that wasn’t considered a high bar. There are three ways to change fundamental law. First, we can amend the Constitution. Second, we can convince the Supreme Court to interpret the Constitution differently. Third, revolution. Option 1 is impossible. Option 2 isn’t working because this particular Supreme Court is working to restore the original document, shed all the interpretations that have made life better. And option 3: “The danger of having an unamendable Constitution is that the risk of insurrection rises. ... Amendment was meant to be the remedy against insurrection.” A way to look at America’s Constitutional problems is to study all the proposed amendments that didn’t pass, even ideas that were proposed that didn’t get as far as actual amendment language. Constitutional scholars rarely look at all that. If the Constitution is going to be adapted only through the Supreme Court, “we really need a richer, fuller past.” Also on NPR Hawaii Public Radio's Savannah Harriman-Pote talked about the lawsuit a dozen young plaintiffs brought against the state over climate change. A while back I wrote about a similar case in Montana which, like other states fought against the suit as hard as it could. Last summer a Montana judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, saying the state must consider climate impacts when issuing permits for fossil fuel projects. The government appealed. In Hawaii the outcome is different – Governor Josh Green agreed with the plaintiffs. Harriman-Pote said:

Under the settlement, the state has agreed to develop a comprehensive plan to reduce carbon emissions from transportation, which is the largest source of climate pollution in Hawaii. It also agreed to create a special council of young people to advise on the process, including some of the plaintiffs.

Alas, there are only two or three other states that have environmental rights in their state constitution, making this sort of suit possible. A few days ago I wrote about the silly claim that America needed to abandon clean energy initiatives because the power needs of computers to run AI is so high. Mark Sumner, in this week’s 7 Stories for Daily Kos, wrote about why the claim is so silly – solar power and corresponding battery storage is getting so cheap and expanding so fast we can cover the power needs of AI. The amount of electricity generated by solar passed nuclear and oil about 2017. This year it passed the capacity of hydro. Within a year it will pass the capacity of gas and coal. Back at the beginning of June Jennifer Gerson, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, wrote that a few mass shootings prompted state changes in law. The shootings were in East Lansing and Oxford, Michigan; Buffalo, New York; Lewiston, Maine; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. The common piece in those five shootings is that their governors are all women and they made gun safety a priority. They are Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Kathy Hochul of New York, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, and Janet Mills of Maine. Gun laws used to be the third-rail of politics. They aren’t so much anymore. Yeah, the laws they passed – secure storage, background checks, removing guns from dangerous people, banning guns from parks and playgrounds – are a big help, but not enough to end the menace. Much more needs to be done. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Tyler Austin Harper of The Atlantic who wrote about vandals at Stonehenge who protested the lack of movement on environmental issues. The paint was easily removed, so there was no harm. The videos of the act got more than 30 million views and lots of outrage. A bit of what Harper said:

But the protest left me frustrated: yet another example of environmental activism that produces more rancor over its means than focus on its message.

Much better, wrote Harper, was sneaking onto Stanstead Airport outside London and spray-painting two private jets. The owners were rich people whose use of private jets mean they are much more responsible for climate change than the rest of us. Down in the comments are several interesting cartoons and memes. Jesse Duquette posted a cartoon with the caption “Louisiana.” It shows Jesus in a red cap saying to his disciples, “Forty-seventh in education? Just put my Dad’s weird rules up all over the place and pretend you’re helping.” Hil.i.am suggests the large, legible display of the commandments required for every classroom be shown in the original Hebrew. Make it Stop has a meme with the words:

Posting the Ten Commandments in Louisiana Public Schools should open the doors for also posting the Five Pillars of Islam, the Five Precepts of Buddhism, the 613 Jewish Mitzvot, the Rastafarian Commandments, the Dharma of Hinduism, the Five Principles of Shinto, and the Disasporic Religion of Haitian Vodou, to mention but a few of the over 6,000 estimated religions practiced on earth.

Rambler797 include a couple videos about Project 2025. The first was posted by TrumpFile, who wrote,

Here's Trump alluding to the fact that Project 2025 will end free and fair elections. “In four years you don't have to vote, ok. In four years don't vote, I don't care... We'll have it all straightened out so it'll be much different.”

The second one was posted by TrumpsTaxes:

Project 2025, straight from the horse’s mouth (President of the Heritage Foundation). Note the ease and comfort in which he spouts the racism, misogyny and conspiracy theories that will be central to policy in a 2nd Trump term. Wake up, folks.

Drew Sheneman posted a cartoon of a man looking at his basement’s damage because... “There’s three feet of climate change hoax in my basement!” And way down in the comments in among the artwork Onomastic I recently discovered is posting every day is this:

I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight. – Malcolm X

In another pundit roundup are more good cartoons and memes. Bill Bramhall showed a classroom where the Ten Commandments are posted beside the ten points of an active shooter drill. exlrrp posted a couple memes. The first shows Jesus comforting the nasty guy: “Don’t worry, you’ll enjoy Hell. There’s people just like you there.” The second says, “Republicans want to impose the Ten Commandments on schoolchildren, but not on their candidate.” Way down in the comments is a post by Billy Goat Tavern on June 23:

On this date in 1944, the Republican Convention began at the Chicago Stadium. Billy “Goat” Sianis put up his famous “No Republican’s Allowed” sign, causing his bar to be filled with Republicans demanding to be served and leading to Billy’s most profitable day ever.

It’s time to brand environmental awareness as masculine

Because of news people saying COVID cases on the rise I downloaded Michigan’s data. I hadn’t done that in the last seven weeks. Yes, cases are up, a small but steady rise since the beginning of July (about the last time I checked the data). Over that time the weekly peaks in new cases per day have been 131, 132, 128, 146, 195, 279, 282, 332, and 364. This is much below last December when there were peaks above 2000 and a year ago when there were peaks close to 3000 (and above 23300 just after New Year in 2022). The deaths per day has been in the single digits since about mid May and has been 2 or fewer deaths in the last four weeks. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported that though the state of Georgia passed a law to make it easier to ban books out of school libraries, the rate they’re doing so is well below other states with such laws. The reason is that while the process is simpler, it is restricted to actual parents with children in the district. Yeah, parents who join groups such as Mama Bears do challenge books and get them removed. But activist citizens who don’t have children can’t badger schools and libraries. And that makes a big difference. Yesterday I wrote about a CBS poll about nasty guy voters and who they feel is telling them the truth. Today I include another piece of that poll, reported by Kerry Eleveld of Kos. This question asked voters who say honesty is very important who they support. 61%, almost two-thirds, of those who say honesty is important support the nasty guy. In a distant second place is the 17% who support DeathSantis. Yeah, I’m struggling with those who say they value honesty are supporting the guy known for how constantly he lies. The rest of Eleveld’s post is about how convinced the MAGA crowd is that the nasty guy will beat Biden in 2024. And if he’s not the nominee, any Republican will beat Biden.

Only a legitimate cult could believe a guy who twice lost the popular vote, was defeated in 2020, doomed an entire slate of handpicked MAGA candidates in 2022, and is now haunted by four criminal indictments is a shoo-in for 2024.

That may not be such a strange belief when they’re fed a steady diet of videos of Biden stumbling over words and sandbags. If the MAGA crowd is fed a steady diet of a frail and bumbling Biden they could very easily believe that Biden stole the 2024 election too. Joe and Jill Biden went to Hawaii to look over the Lahaina devastation and offer comfort and support. While there he did what Republicans are trying to turn into a scandal. His crime: he petted a dog. Specifically a dog helping to find missing people who might still be under the ashes. That moment, and the Republican reaction to it, prompted Hunter of Kos to review the protocols when a dog presents itself to you. You complement the dog, then you pet it (if the dog is willing). If the dog is accompanied by a human handler you then then acknowledge the handler by complementing the dog. Hunter goes from there. Can’t wait for Republicans to try to broaden the scandal by showing Biden petting dogs. Jen Sorensen of Kos comics noted that conservatives have tried to declare fossil fuels are manly and renewable energy are effeminate. It’s time to flip that script and brand environmental awareness as masculine. One frame says, “Trucks are for wimps. Real men use real muscles.” It shows a man on a bicycle saying to a man in a truck, “Outta my way, softie!” In another pundit roundup for Kos a cartoon by Dennis Goris was posted in the comments. On either side of a child wearing a vest are two women. The kid’s mother tells the other, “I usually don’t like to splurge on back-to-school stuff but it is kevlar.”

Will cut the deal just to keep the legal expenses down

Yeah, there’s still a few things to mention related to the nasty guy’s fourth indictment. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed the current silly argument that what the nasty guy did really isn’t a crime. They do that by “breaking it down into its smallest components. And then trying to argue that if you dice them up small enough, none of the pieces are really a crime on their own.” After listing the individual indictments of Mark Meadows and Jenna Ellis Sumner wrote:

That Republicans are singling out tiny fragments of these actions and trying to make it seem as if that makes the whole indictment invalid is absurd in the extreme. Not only are these acts just a fraction of the total picture, but even the smallest, normal, everyday action can be illegal when it is done in furtherance of a crime. Just ask any getaway driver.

Kos of Kos wrote:

Trump has fashioned himself after a mob boss, but those guys are generally smart—they make sure to keep anyone who might testify against them either happy or dead. We can stipulate that Trump hasn’t resorted to murdering his enemies, but he could at the very least take care of those with access to his damning secrets. For example, he could pay the legal bills of all his indicted co-conspirators, making sure they remain dependent on him for their freedom. ... It’s simple self-preservation: If they can’t afford to pay their bills, their likelihood of turning into the state’s witness is exponentially higher. But of course Trump won’t do that.

Kos reported that the nasty guy has refused to pay the legal bills for Giuliani (who I see cartoonists are calling “Ghouliani”) and Jenna Ellis. He may refuse to pay Giuliani’s bills because they are so high. The bills for Ellis aren’t high (yet), but Ellis, though she has given him years of service, has stated her support for DeathSantis. None of these people are the good guys. Based on this sort of treatment several of them will cut a deal against their former boss. And some of them will cut the deal just to keep the legal expenses down. In a pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted Jonathan Last of The Atlantic. Last describes a couple hypothetical scenarios, which he can’t prove, about the vice nasty, but are also about the two political parties. If the vice nasty walked through a crowd at a nasty guy rally he would not be safe even with a security detail. His Secret Service team would probably prevent it. But the vice nasty could walk through a Biden crowd without security and the worst that would happen would be snide comments. Some might shake his hand for saving the Republic on Jan 6. And down in the comments connief57 posted a quote from Bruce Springsteen:

You are not alone. Decent Americans outnumber Trump supporters 3 to 1.

In the comments of another pundit roundup exlrrp posted a meme that says:

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Kos told the story of a conservative woman who goes by Reformed-Her 007. She won’t be voting this year (and her husband approves). Her reasoning isn’t that she’s disgusted with the nasty guy and a party that won’t challenge him. It’s because she thinks “things like voting and law enforcement should be reserved for MEN ONLY.” Kos then surveyed the conservative media and found many instances of people calling for a repeal of a woman’s right to vote. That included John Gibbs, a MAGA Republican House candidate last year. He gave the tired reason that women shouldn’t vote because the Founding Father’s didn’t put it in the constitution and they “understood liberty and democracy better than anyone.” They understood 18th century democracy and our understanding has matured. Other women decried the sentiment of the conservative woman – at least while women can vote. They say by not voting she cuts her husband’s voting power in half. An Associated Press article posted on Kos showed one cause of the Lahaina fire was live power lines downed by high winds. That left many people wondering why the electric company didn’t shut the power off. There was also a lot of complaining that with some power off (downed lines) people weren’t able to get notifications about the severity of the situation. So do you want notifications or the power off? Yeah, this is just one aspect of a lot of coming investigations. Hunter of Kos reported the conspiracy cranks are in action after the Lahaina fire. One claim was suspicious that the Obama estate wasn’t touched by the blaze (it’s on a different island).

The Maui fires would either have to charter a private boat to travel the 100 miles of Pacific Ocean that separate the two, or purchase a commercial plane ticket to Honolulu like the rest of us. Most wildfires do not have that kind of money.

There was also the claim that Bill Gates’ estate wasn’t touched either (it’s near Seattle with 2600 miles of Pacific Ocean in between).

Oh, and the proliferation of these especially ridiculous claims probably has at least something to do with a billionaire named Elon Musk now making it known he's willing to hand out cash prizes to the wankers whose conspiracy theories can drive the most traffic.

You don't get to acquire new wealthy friends

Kos of Daily Kos wrote about Russell Moore, formerly a top official at the Southern Baptist Convention. He’s former because the denomination’s support of the nasty guy did not match his own religious beliefs. His own congregation considers Jesus as too liberal. As Moore explained on the show Main Character of the Day on NPR, which Kos quoted:

It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "turn the other cheek" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.

Yeah, we’re to the point where a whole Christian denomination is rejecting the teachings of Jesus Christ, the supposed reason why they exist. They’re more interested in power and domination. Kos also commented on Moore’s discussion of why many, perhaps most, people go to church. It’s for the community. A generation ago the structure of the week was defined by the community. COVID made a big mess of that. And so is a church worshiping the nasty guy, dismissing climate change, and dumping on LGBTQ people. The membership of the SBC is down about 20% since their peak in 2006, from 16.3 million to 13.2 million today. Scott Detrow of NPR spoke with Russell Moore about his new book Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call For Evangelical America. Some of it repeats the NPR article quoted above. It also adds a few more points. To change the Evangelical church one can’t fight the national institution. One mus start small and local, do something different, show a different way. All movements begin this way. Moore uses the example of C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia. He was an atheist and antagonistic to Christianity, then he converted and became a strong voice for the faith. The next leader of the church may not be Christian yet. Moore appreciated Lewis wasn’t trying to market Moore or to mobilize Moore. He was only saying this is the truth I found. With all the warring tribes in America there are many who feel they don’t fit in. They feel homeless. Moore thinks this tribalism is not sustainable. Moore paraphrased a passage of the Bible: “Beware, if you bite and scratch at one another, that you do not devour one another.” And America is realizing we’re devouring one another. But the church should not be that way. The church should be about reconciling with each other. Since it isn’t we must rethink what church is. In a ProPublica article posted on Kos Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski discussed more research done into the corruption of Clarence Thomas. This is a long article and I’ll try for the highlights. I had written before that Harlan Crow was a sugar daddy to Thomas, providing luxury vacations. But Crow wasn’t the only one providing them. There was also Tony Novelly, Wayne Huitenga, and David Sokol. All four of them met Thomas after he was confirmed to the Supremes.

Don Fox, the former general counsel of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and the senior ethics official in the executive branch, said, “It’s just the height of hypocrisy to wear the robes and live the lifestyle of a billionaire.” Taxpayers, he added, have the right to expect that Supreme Court justices are not living on the dime of others. Fox, who worked under both Democrat and Republican administrations, said he advised every new political appointee the same thing: Your wealthy friends are the ones you had before you were appointed. “You don’t get to acquire any new ones,” he told them. ... Thomas, however, is apparently an extreme outlier for the volume and frequency of all the undisclosed vacations he’s received. He once complained that he sacrificed wealth to sit on the court, though he depicted the choice as a matter of conscience. “The job is not worth doing for what they pay,” he told the bar association in Savannah, Georgia, in 2001, “but it is worth doing for the principle.” To track Thomas’ relationships and travel, ProPublica examined flight data, emails from airport and university officials, security detail records, tax court filings, meeting minutes and a trove of photographs from personal albums, including cards that Thomas’ wife, Ginni, sent to friends. In addition, reporters interviewed more than 100 eyewitnesses and other sources: jet and helicopter pilots, flight attendants, airport workers, yacht crew members, security guards, photographers, waitresses, caterers, chefs, drivers, river rafting guides and C-suite executives. ProPublica has not identified any legal cases that Huizenga, Sokol or Novelly had at the Supreme Court during their documented relationships with Thomas, although they all work in industries significantly impacted by the court’s decisions.

The article then described a trip that Sokol gave to Thomas and his wife Ginni. There were skybox seats at a University of Nebraska football game. Then to his private ranch with wonderful views of the Tetons. Novelly took them to fishing trips through the Caribbean on one of his yachts. Huizinga made his fleet of aircraft available to Thomas, plus parties at his private hangar and golf course – the kind of course that has a helipad. In all these trips Thomas has plenty of opportunity to get to know other rich people. Thomas met Huizinga through the Horatio Alger Society. Thomas did his part by hosting society events within the Supreme Court Great Hall. Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer, called that an abuse of power. Wealthy donors shouldn’t be able to pay big bucks to visit a justice inside the courthouse walls. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Daniel McGraw of The Bulwark. He talked to Ohio voters on why they voted no on the Republican attempt to raise the threshold to approve constitutional amendments.

“It’s not that I expect them to act all nice and friendly while they are attempting to stab people in the back,” she told me. “But in this case, the feeling I am getting is that they thought most people were too dumb to figure out anything and that they could just walk all over all of us as if that is just how this world of politics works.” ... Hardly anyone said they were mainly there to vote because of abortion rights or being anti-Trump. Almost all indicated they felt that Issue 1 was an overreach of the highest order. One guy told me that “this is one of the lowest below-the-belt actions I’ve seen in politics ever.”

Dworkin also included a tweet by Philip Bump. It includes a chart showing that nearly every county in states that had votes to protect abortion rights in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and now Ohio, the support for abortion outpaces support for Biden in 2020. In the comments are a couple good cartoons. Jack Ohman of Tribune Content Agency has one showing the Thomas’s RV – yes, they really have one and frequently use it (when they’re not out on a yacht). Ohman pointed out some unusual features: A political baggage rack, a red carpet, civil rights brakes, a 1950s rearview mirror, and more. Separate from the roundup Clay Jones posted a cartoon in Kos comics that shows Thomas in his RV with a bunch of cigar smokers in the back. He pulls up along side another RV and says, “I’m a common man of the people too... How many billionaire sugar daddies can your RV hold?” In a second roundup Jesse Duquette has a cartoon with Thomas in a fur coat and briefcases full of cash saying, “Ginny, Where’d you park the dark money yacht?” Duquette added the caption, “Clarence Thomas doesn’t have a price, Clarence Thomas is the price.” Back to the first pundit roundup. Way down in the comments is one by Christopher Weyant. A little girl holding a stuffed bear comes into hear parent’s bedroom. Father says, “The planet is on fire, the oceans are boiling, democracy is hanging by a thread, and Trump is still running for president. What kind of scary monsters do you have under your bed?” A couple days ago Walter Einenkel of Kos posted photos of the wildfire devastation of Lahaina, Hawaii. The historic town has burnt to the ground. Reports today, such as this one from the Associated Press posted on Kos say at least 80 people have died. The winds were so strong (a hurricane passing to the south) and the fire spread so quickly many people didn’t have time to evacuate. Biden has declared it a major disaster.

The children will save us!

Brian Schatz, senator from Hawaii, tweeted:

Young people are going to have to vote in record numbers in order to put this madness to an end.

To which Shannon replied:

In the last couple years these tweets have gone from good-naturedly encouraging deeper engagement with politics to straight up abdicating all responsibility for the Senate to do its job and put the burden back on the relatively powerless people.

And Sarah Kendzior added:

Yes. This "The children will save us!" racket from grown elected officials is irresponsible and cowardly. It's *their job* to protect children, not the other way around. They're putting the burden on a generation born on a dying planet who now may be forced to fight WWIII.

Sixty years in space

Goodness, the browser tabs have accumulated. Time to go through (some of) them.

The vice nasty guy has announced an aggressive campaign strategy. He will fly around the country to raise money for House and Senate GOP and to praise GOP accomplishments (which are, hmm, that thing that gives our taxes to the rich and, um, oh yeah, a slew of conservative judges).

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville interprets:

Setting fundraising aside, Pence will be accomplishing two things with this cross-country hobnobbing: 1. He will effectively be mounting a campaign that he's ready to be president, just in case. 2. He is laying the groundwork for the explanation when Republicans mysteriously have totally unexpected electoral success in the midterms. It won't be because Mike Pompeo rigged it with the Russians, but because Pence worked so gosh darn hard and visited all those places Washington doesn't care about blah blah fart.

A while ago I looked at the false alerts of incoming ballistic missiles that were issued in Hawaii and Japan. I shared the fear that the warning systems in those two places may have been hacked. Sarah Kendzior, who studies authoritarian states, reviews those incidents. She then discusses where the nasty guy gets his news and that he’s been duped by impostor tweets. She then shares another fear:

If a false alert goes out, and Trump hears about it through Fox News, a Fox News imposter account, or another dishonest social media account, will he launch a retaliatory nuclear strike without further verifying the information with NORAD or consulting advisers? False nuclear strike alerts are terrifying for the population in their own right–the Hawaii alert caused one man to have a heart attack–but the greatest danger may be the combined effect of the president’s gullibility, impetuousness, and enthusiasm for war.

I mentioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found the various district maps in that state to be highly gerrymandered. The Court ordered lawmakers to redraw the maps and do so promptly, or it would.

Senator Scarnati president pro tem of the PA Senate essentially replied: Nope! The Court usurped legislative authority and so he won’t cooperate. It looks like the Court also asked for the data used to draw the current maps. Scarnati responded with too bad, I don’t have it.

Commenters speculate Scarnati is right on one part. The Court may say the maps were unconstitutional, but they shouldn’t have said if you don’t draw the maps we will. Which leads to the question if the Senate doesn’t how does the Court enforce its ruling?

The state GOP contacted the US Supremes and asked for a stay in the ruling, because they are working on the Wisconsin gerrymandering case. Since the PA court based their ruling on only the state constitution the US Supremes should have said it isn’t up to us. But, instead, they asked the League of Women Voters, who brought the suit, for more info. That suggests a stay might be granted.



Several corporations have been proclaiming how that big tax shift law is benefiting their workers. I’ve written before the story usually isn’t what these companies proclaim it to be. Here’s another piece of the story. Only 9% of Fortune 500 companies have shared their tax cut windfalls with workers. That means for over 90% of these companies the tax cut windfall is being used to boost the pay of executives or benefit the shareholders by either giving dividends or boosting the stock price. And the workers get nothing.

Want a favor from the nasty guy? This worked: Give your employees a small bonus (and $1000 is rather small compared to corporate cash on hand), then announce it and link it to the tax shift law in a way that the nasty guy will see it. He’ll praise you, declare you an ally, and smooth the regulatory way. Disney did this as its proposed merger with the Murdoch empire comes before the Department of Justice.



Another story from More Perfect, stories from the Supreme Court, this episode is about a half hour. This one isn’t about a particular case, rather it’s about women on the Court. A law student analyzed a huge number of oral arguments at the Supremes over the last decade or so. What he found is that the male justices routinely interrupt the female justices. One effect of that is the women stopped using polite language, such as, “May I ask a question?” Alas, that reduced, but didn’t stop, the interruptions. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was asked, “What is the ideal number of women on the court?” Her answer: “Nine.”



Josh Weed is a Mormon and that church doesn’t like LGBTQ people. Something about their doctrine is built around the family, so a person had better have one and of the right kind. So Josh married Lolly. They have been used as an example of how a gay man and a straight women can have a successful Mormon marriage. It was so successful that their marriage was cited in the Supreme Court same-sex marriage case in 2015 as a reason why marriage should be denied to same-sex couples.

Josh and Lolly have announced their divorce. They said their deep platonic love was no substitute for romantic love. They offered an apology to LGBTQ people.



To explain Net Neutrality Burger King created a commercial about Whopper Neutrality. If you don’t pay the hefty premium you have to wait for your meal.



Sixty years ago the American Space program began. On January 31, 1958 we launched our first satellite, Explorer 1. In the four months that its battery lasted its sensors showed the existence of the Van Allen belts, which protect earth life from solar and cosmic radiation. Explorer 1 actually stayed aloft for 12 years and 58,000 orbits.

Multiple fires

My social calendar for the rest of January is light. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is doing Pops concerts and other things I’m not interested in (that will change in February with their French festival where I’ll attend 5 concerts in 3 weeks at the same time the Olympics are on). So I’ve got a list of movies to see and I’m aiming for two a week. Last week was Coco (when the story is about a boy wanting to be a musician what’s not to like?) and Bombshell (which I discussed here).

Today I saw Wonder, about a boy with a disfigured face. I enjoyed it very much. It is more than the boy overcoming adversity. I thought it filled in all the main characters pretty well. And the boy, when he is among people who know him, is a pretty cool kid.

As for the second movie this week – check back in a couple days.



Last week residents of Hawaii were given a big scare when the emergency alert system said a ballistic missile was headed to the islands and they had 15 minutes to seek shelter. An agonizing 38 minutes later they were told the announcement was false. News reports said someone had pushed the wrong button.

The American news hasn’t said much about a similar false alert in Japan. Two such incidents in one week in places with a common enemy? People, including Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, are now saying this probably isn’t a coincidence. Someone (and a good guess who) is meddling with the warning systems. The claims that a worker pushed the wrong button may be a cover for something much more dire.



Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, thinking about budget authorization needed by tomorrow, tweeted:

Quick timeline: Last year POTUS actually says “we need a good shutdown.” Then, DACA is revoked. Then, CHIP expires. Then, no deal on budget. Republicans set multiple fires that they cannot put out. We are willing to work with them, but it’s impossible when they act this crazy.

Michigan’s LGBT newspaper Between the Lines, by way of the Washington Blade, has a good story about Danica Roem, the first openly transgender legislator, in her first day as a member of Virginia’s House of Delegates.

Twists and turns

The nasty guy is touring Asia. Air Force 1 stopped in Hawaii along the way. A protester held a sign, “Aloha POTUS! Welcome to Kenya.”



I’ve written many times about gerrymandering and I’m active in a campaign in Michigan to end it (I’m doing a presentation on it tomorrow). But how to draw attention to the issue without eyes glazing over? Jeremy Loeb of Blue Ridge Public Radio in a report for NPR reported on one idea.

North Carolina is highly gerrymandered. The state is nominally a swing state, but the GOP got 10 of 13 congressional seats. One way they did it is to carve up the Democratic stronghold of Asheville so both pieces are overwhelmed by the GOP leaning voters around it.

The local League of Women Voters organized the Gerrymander 5K, a run (or walk) through the city on the line that divides the two districts. One of the runners said afterward, “I’ve never gone on a race with so many twists and turns.”

Hawaii, challenge denied

Hawaii did slip in front of Illinois in providing marriage equality. Hawaii's governor signed the bill yesterday. The gov. of Illinois will have his ceremony next week. So Hawaii gets to be #15.

Hawaii has also fended off a legal challenge of the new marriage equality law. About 24 hours after the law was signed a judge (I don't know at what level) tossed out the challenge. The challengers claimed the 1998 constitutional amendment banned same-sex marriage, because that's what voters thought they were voting for. The judge (and Attorney General) replied the amendment said the legislature gets to decide if same-sex couples may marry. In 1996 (before the amendment) the legislature decided they could not. And this year the legislature decided we could.

Ari Ezra Waldman provides a bit of history of marriage equality in Hawaii. Twenty years ago several same-sex couples asked for marriage licenses. Their case went to the Hawaii Supremes, who told the lower court to explain more completely why same-sex couple should be excluded from marriage. That case scared the socks off Congress and in 1996 the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was enacted. And now a big chunk of DOMA is gone -- and Hawaii has marriage equality.

I'll take three

The governor of Illinois, in trying to have a suitable signing ceremony for the state's new marriage equality law, might delay things enough for the governor of Hawaii to squeeze in ahead.

In amongst all the nasty testimony against marriage equality in Hawaii there were a few gems. Here's one of them. This one by Rep. Kaniela Ing. He responds to the perhaps rhetorical question would you wish homosexuality on your own kids?

So I really thought about this. If the gay lifestyle they speak of pertains to the highly successful physicians, attorneys, economists, a world-renowned microbiologist and psychologist that we've seen testify, if this gay lifestyle pertains to the inspiringly committed couples who have been together for decades but are still viewed as strangers in the eyes of their government, if this gay lifestyle that they're referring to pertains to these brave people boldly standing in the face of hate to fight for equal rights for all -- if that's what the gay agenda will bring -- if that's how my gay children will be... then hey, sign me up. I'll take three.

Hawaii!

The Hawaii House did indeed pass a marriage equality bill on a vote of 30-19. Yeah, that was after all that nasty "testimony" I mentioned before.

Illinois!

The Illinois House approved marriage equality in a 61-54 vote. The bill needed 60. The governor won't sign it immediately because he has to plan an appropriate party. No rush, gay marriages won't begin until June 1.

The Illinois Senate had passed the bill last February. Laurel Ramseyer notes that in those 9 months, legislatures in Rhode Island, Delaware, and Minnesota approved marriage equality, the Supremes reinstated marriage equality in California, and the New Jersey Supremes made equality happen there.

It looks like Illinois just squeaked in front of Hawaii. Their final vote is tomorrow. The "citizen filibuster" went on for 55 hours and 5,182 citizens spoke. Some of the testimony was so nasty that one observer equated Hawaii with Alabama. Even so, the bill is out of the various House committees and ready for the full House. Alas, the bill now has provisions so that religious bigots can refuse to offer services to gay couples without legal consequence (but our allies will take business elsewhere).

The question is do we count marriage equality states in order of approval or of implementation. Hawaii (if approved) will start marrying gay couples on December 2. Illinois couples will have to wait until June 1. Either way the total will be 16 states plus DC.

Citizen's filibuster

Governor Abercrombie of Hawaii has called his state's legislature into a special session to work on a marriage equality bill. It looks like that means the legislature normally doesn't meet at this time (some state legislatures are part time or meet only a few months a year) and has a limited duration to consider a single issue.

The Hawaii Senate has already passed the bill with a 20-4 vote (there is only one Republican in the Senate). The House has started hearings to allow citizens (and leaders of the National Organization for Marriage [the bad guys]) to have their say. It looks like the Fundies are turning the hearings into a "citizen's filibuster" -- get so many of their side to testify (even if only once each and only a minute each) that they run out the clock on the special session. Nearly 5000 people signed up to testify, though many people didn't step up when their turn was called. Some observers think the hearings will run out of steam Monday evening. Oh, to have to listen to that drivel over many hours for several days.



Billionaire Paul Singer has a gay son so was instrumental in pushing Republicans to approve marriage equality in New York. Now Singer, joined by Daniel Loeb, is funding the Human Rights Campaign to increase rights for sexual minorities around the world. Along the way they will challenge the American Fundies who have been pushing for anti-gay laws in countries such as Uganda and Russia.

A commenter adds that this is great news -- but he still heavily supports the GOP.

Next?

Erin McClam of MSNBC gives predictions of which states will be the next ten to get marriage equality.

Illinois, through the legislature this fall.

New Jersey, by overriding Christie's veto or showing the state Supremes that civil unions are not equal because there are no federal benefits. That case heats up this week.

Hawaii, through the legislature. Perhaps by the end of the year.

Oregon, by voter referendum in 2014.

Arizona, Michigan, Colorado, Ohio, by voter referendum in 2014 or 2016.

Nevada, by voter referendum in 2016 (it can't come any earlier).

New Mexico, could be through the legislature or courts, and maybe next year.



Andrew Sullivan notes the Catholic Church has no trouble existing in a society that permits divorce (though divorce within its membership is another matter). So the Catholic Church should have no trouble existing in a society that permits gay marriage, even if they don't approve of it for their own members.



David Boies, one of the wonderful lawyers on our side the Calif. gay marriage case, talks about the implications. He notes the pro-gay side did have standing before the Supremes, the anti-gay side did not. That implies that all gay marriage bans are unconstitutional. Is it a state's rights issue? Nope. The Supremes didn't allow Calif. to decide for itself. "The 14th Amendment was passed for the specific reason of saying states have rights but one of those rights is not to discriminate against its own citizens."

Lighting a fire

I wrote last week about Hawaii approving a civil union bill. Here's a bit of history why that is important. Only 20 years ago (1991) three same-sex couples sued for marriage licenses. Early court decisions were in our favor.

This lit a fire in gay minds. We hadn't thought such a thing was remotely possible. We hadn't considered our relationships could ever be equal in law to our straight counterparts. We were conditioned to our own inferiority. But the marriage equality movement was born.

Alas, it also lit the fire in the anti-gay activists. Catholics and Mormons were out front to get voter approval on the first state constitution amendment. This one said the legislature could define marriage. The anti-gay forces soon saw the loophole in that law and by the time of the big push against us in 2004 the ban was written into the amendment itself.

Hawaii!

Governor Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii has signed the civil union bill! I think it is one of these everything but the name marriage bills, but I'm not sure. The gov. said some nice things in the signing ceremony, but blew it when he said, "The legalization of civil unions in Hawaii represents in my mind equal rights for all people." Sorry, gov., separate but equal is not equal. Even so, this is much better than what the state had before and, in contrast to their last governor, Abercrombie signed it.

Insisting on heterosexual privilege

Here's a bit more on the veto of the Domestic Partner bill in Hawaii. Timothy Kincaid noted that Linda Lingle, the governor wielding the veto pen, gave two examples of stories that touched her as she was deciding what to do.
* The struggle of a young man telling his parents he is gay.
* The anguish of a mother at the thought that schools will tell her children a gay relationship is as good as the parents' marriage.

The coming out story was the only one that moved her? Not the stories of gay couples facing discrimination that the bill would help alleviate?

Ah, but she is ultimately swayed by the story of a mother who insists on heterosexual privilege.


Back in 1996 Congress signed the Defense of Marriage Act, commonly referred to as DOMA. It has two parts. One part says that no state must recognize a gay marriage from another state, in contrast to straight marriages that if one state says a couple is married then all other states must honor that marriage. The other part says that the federal government cannot acknowledge any marriage except those with one man and one woman. This law went into effect even before Vermont began Civil Unions (which was 10 years ago and the sky hasn't fallen!).

Yesterday, a federal judge said the second part was unconstitutional on equal protection grounds. There were actually two cases involved. One was brought by gay couples in Massachusetts who said the federal government treats married gays differently than married straights. The other case was brought by the state, saying the federal government requires it to discriminate against its citizens to qualify for federal funding. Part of the ruling hinges on saying it is the states who define marriage, so the feds shouldn’t. But with that statement the judge didn't rule on the first part of DOMA -- if you can't get married in Michigan, the feds still won't honor your relationship.

It is theoretically up to Obama's Department of Justice to appeal. He would make up for a lot of previous anger from gays if he simply decided he didn't want to (as Arnold did in Calif.). I'm sure an anti-gay group would be glad to push the case on to Circuit Court and the Supremes.
Analysis here.


Ireland!
The country, which is 95% Catholic, has instituted Civil Unions. This link has a nice map showing the current state of Europe.

Contemplating equal protection

That sweet Attorney General of Virginia -- the one who demanded state universities remove protections for gays from their anti-discrimination policies because such protections weren't in the state law -- elaborated on his reasoning. Ken Cuccinelli was asked if his policy conflicts with the 14th Amendment, the one about equal protection for all. He responded: "Frankly, the category of sexual orientation would never have been contemplated by the people who wrote and voted for and passed the 14th Amendment." True -- sexual orientation wasn't even defined until about a decade after the amendment was passed. However, the people who wrote and voted for it never contemplated it being used to benefit women (or the 2nd Amendment applies to automatic weapons). And the Supremes have already said the 14th Amendment applies to gays (in the 1996 case that overturned a Colorado amendment banning gay protections).



Alas, Linda Lingle, Governor of Hawaii, vetoed the bill that would have allowed domestic partnerships in that state. She said something like the issue is too important for her and the legislature to decide. It must be decided by all citizens. Let's hear it for the tyranny of the majority!



A new movie being released looks interesting. The Kids are All Right is about a lesbian couple and their teenage kids. The youngsters search for and find their sperm donor and things get a bit strange. Commentators of the movie say how much they enjoy seeing the two women in a loving relationship that simply portrayed as a given. I'd love to say it's coming to a theater near you, but that's not a sure thing. It hasn't yet shown up on the art-house schedule in Detroit.

The rights of a person vs. the rights of a belief

Yet another response to my postings on nuclear and non-carbon forms of energy. This one is from my niece and, alas, it got tossed in the spam folder where it remained hidden for a few days.

She sent me a link to an article of a wind turbine that sidesteps the NIMBY issue. It is a horizontal cylindrical turbine that is installed along the ridge of a roof. I like innovative solutions like this. Alas, the disadvantages are that it won't be all that high and can't turn into the wind.


The NPR program The Story did an episode today about wind. It featured Pete Ferrell, who put a wind farm on his Kansas ranch, and Mike Cianchette, who worked for a wind company in Maine.


A judge in Britain ruled on a gay discrimination case in a manner that I hope gets attention around here. A sexual therapist refused to take gay couples as patients because it went against his religious beliefs. A couple sued under Britain's anti-discrimination laws. Once you get through the legal language the judge said fine, you are entitled to your religious beliefs, but secular law can't be based on them because religious beliefs are so varied. That means discrimination of a person is more important than discrimination of beliefs. The right of a gay person to be treated fairly in all manner of public accommodation trumps the religious belief of the person providing the public service.


Back in January the Hawaii state House refused to consider a civil union bill already passed by the Senate and did it in such a way to make the whole chamber look like a bunch of wimps.

They redeemed themselves today by considering the bill on the last day of the legislative session -- and passing it! The governor likely won't approve it, so the question is whether she will veto it or allow it to become law without her signature. If vetoed, it passed by wide enough margins in both chambers to override a veto.

Anyone with a spine out there?

Yes, I know it has been a week since I last posted. I tend to do my blogging in the evening and there were a couple evenings when I didn't feel like writing anything followed by a slew of evenings when I was out -- and a few more of those to follow, which is why I'm writing during the day. Even so I've been accumulating stuff to write about. A bunch of these topics might be a bit old and several won't get my usual full treatment and will be lumped together.

First, news on the mouse front. It has been 11 days since I plugged yet another hole between outside and the basement and put steel wool where pipes come in and out of the cabinet beneath the sink. Since then the traps have not been triggered and I've seen no evidence of mice. Glad that episode is over with. I had escorted 11 mice out of the house (though I can't tell if it was 11 different mice).


The Westboro Baptist Church -- that virulently homophobic church that protests soldier funerals saying the deaths are justice from God because America doesn't condemn gays strongly enough -- decided to protest the headquarters of Twitter in San Francisco because that company isn't using their enormous reach to condemn gays. The church's representatives were outnumbered by a counterprotest group holding nonsensical signs: "I was promised donuts." "I have a sign." "Silly hats only." "Build prisons on the moon." Passersby gave the nonsense signs a lot of attention, ignoring the Westboro gang. Mission accomplished.


A sweet video about how it is becoming difficult for corruption to hide in secrecy. This one's about banning video from the Calif. marriage trial but the idea will mean more as corporations open the floodgates to money.


We've long known the GOP is a known enemy of gays (though, thankfully, that is lessening). But, as I say again, the Dems are not necessarily our friends. The prime example (at the moment) is the Hawaii House. They can't claim this incident is the result of GOP maneuvering because the GOP has such a tiny presence. Here's what happened.

Last February the House voted for civil unions with a margin so wide it was one vote shy of veto-proof (with one pro-gay representative missing).

The Senate sat on the bill, then killed it, then brought it back. The House leadership declared the bill would not be worth their attention unless the Senate passed it with a veto-proof majority. You never know what the governor will do so lets not waste effort. Towards the end of January the Senate *did* overwhelmingly pass the civil unions bill.

What to do when your bluff has been called? The House Dems met behind closed doors to talk it out. They decided that they didn't want to go on record in an election year, so through an untraceable voice vote they chose to postpone voting on civil unions. Let me repeat that -- none of them wanted to go on record for supporting gay civil unions, in sharp contrast of their vote a year ago. One protestor summed it up saying something like, "Oh, sorry that my civil rights stepped on the toes of your reelection campaign."


Nepal -- Nepal! -- will be offering same-sex marriage soon. It is trying to make itself the gay destination of choice that Hawaii is working hard not to be.


Jon Stewart has a few things to say about bumbling Dems. This was from the show just before the Dems lost that senate seat in Mass. Stewart's histrionics quite accurately show my annoyance with the party that needs a collective spine transplant.


Stewart is at it again, this time praising Admiral Mike Mullen for his stand on repealing the ban on gays in the military. McCain is caught in a flip-flop on the issue, and not for the better. Stewart and a colleague explore the issue that too many senators are old, not only that, they're openly old. Well worth the 8 minutes.

The text of Mullen's testimony, in case anyone needs to know what a spine looks like.


There is a very good reason not to waste the year studying the military ban (and it would be a waste because it should only take 2-3 months to implement). If the whole thing is delayed after the election the increase in the number of GOP legislators will make passing the repeal that much harder, or impossible. Yeah, I know you don't want to go into the election with that vote on your record. But see my comments about spines.