The big divide isn’t left v right, it’s top v bottom

There is a thing called the Streisand effect. Photographer Kenneth Adelman photographed the coastline of California from a helicopter and posted them online. One of the photos was of Barbra Streisand’s home. She sued to have it taken down. Before she filed the suit the photo had been viewed six times and two of those were her own lawyers. After the suit, which was highly publicized, the photo was viewed more than 400,000 times and can still be found online. This follows a Chinese saying that translates to, “Trying to cover things up only makes them more evident.” The same effect happened when, last week at the Olympics, the Committee demanded a Ukrainian skeleton athlete remove photos of Ukrainian soldiers from his helmet. He refused. They blocked him from competing. The story got a lot more exposure than if they had let the guy wear the helmet without comment. And another example. Emily Singer of Daily Kos wrote about CBS telling Stephen Colbert he could not interview Democratic Texas state Rep. James Talarico who is running for US Senate. The claim is that the interview would violate the Federal Communications Commission’s “Equal-time” rule, though the rule has an exception for talks shows and comedy shows. Colbert discussed the situation on the show (even though CBS didn’t want him to). Then after the regular show ended, he recorded an interview with Talarico and posted it to the show’s YouTube channel. Where it quickly got more than 2.6 million views. Google searches for Talarico from across the US jumped up 20 times and from just Texas they jumped about 7 times. Singer included both Colbert’s rant on why he couldn’t interview Talarico during the regular show (about 8 minutes) and the actual interview (about 15 minutes). FCC chair Brendan Carr pressured CBS because Republicans want their Senate candidate to face Talarico’s primary rival Jasmine Crockett. This interview happened after early voting had already started. Which means Republicans just boosted interest in the guy they want to lose in the primary. In that second video I see that Talarico is definitely a candidate I could vote for. I can’t say whether I would prefer him to Crockett, who is in the US House and quite fierce in calling out the nonsense from the nasty guy and Republicans. But I don’t live in Texas. Talarico is a student at a seminary of the Baptist Church, though he doesn’t sound like the Southern Baptist Convention. He and Colbert talked about Christian Nationalism, which he described as wanting to take over the government in the name of Jesus, though Jesus never would have approved of using his name that way. Talarico also referred to Matthew chapter 25 in the Bible, which includes the criteria for separating the sheep from the goats, a way of saying the criteria for who gets to heaven and who doesn’t. The criteria includes such things as feed others, welcome strangers, and visit the sick and those in prison. He also noted the things not in the list – something I’ve also been talking about lately – things that have nothing to do with getting to heaven. Something not in the list is how you vote. Talarico was very much opposed to a bill in the Texas Legislature that would require schools to display the Ten Commandments. He said Jesus commands us to love and shoving your religion down other people’s throats is not love. The separation of Church and State is also important to the Church because one of the things they should do is to speak truth to power, difficult to do if the Church is the power. Also, as Colbert pointed out, if you say that Jesus is aligned with one political party and that party loses, what does that say about Jesus? Talarico closed by saying the culture wars are a smokescreen. The big divide isn’t left v. right, it’s top v. bottom. Kos community member A Bleeding God wrote that when the right began screaming about trans women in sports, trans folk tried to sound the alarm. Trans folk were told they were overreacting. The same thing happened when the right screamed about bathrooms and then banned care for trans minors. Now that the right is moving to block all trans care, even for adults – which is trans genocide – will the rest of the liberals now listen?

We are not overreacting, we never were, what we have been, what we have always been, is the canary in the coal mine. They come for our rights first because we're a tiny minority that most folks don't understand and many, even those on the left, find "icky".

In the comments was a mention of the famous Martin Niemöller poem that has a refrain, “I did not speak out because I was not a ___.” A Bleeding God replied:

Funny thing about that poem, it did the same s--- They didn't come for the communists first. They came for the trans people first. Germany in the 30s went after trans people as their very first target.

Another commenter noted one of the first Nazi attacks was on the Institute for Sexual Science. Its books were burned in the street. One thing that Institute did was trans health care. Nathaniel Rakich, in an article for Votebeat posted on Kos discussed the SAVE America Act, which passed the US House. It now goes before the Senate where a filibuster will likely prevent its passage. The act gives the federal government more oversight in voting with the goal to prevent illegal voting, which is already quite rare. This act would require people to provide proof of US citizenship and a photo ID when they register to vote. Its provisions would go into effect immediately on the nasty guy’s signature. It is essentially a way to stop people from voting. Perhaps 9% of citizens can’t produce their birth certificate and only about half have a passport. Also, remember when TSA rolled out Real ID requirements? They had to keep postponing the date where such an ID would be required to fly because handling the paperwork took so long to work out, both by citizens and the driver’s license offices. Proof of citizenship requirements were tried in Kansas back in 2013. 12% of those who tried to register couldn’t prove their citizenship. The state could identify only 39 noncitizens who voted in the previous 14 years. A court struck down the law in 2018. Secretary of State offices say implementing citizenship verification simply can’t be done by the midterms. They are already doing a lot (such as protecting against election interference) and would get no additional money to make it happen. Verifying documents would take about ten minutes for each person. Doing so for hundreds of thousands people means a lot more staff would be needed.

Ultimately, as long as the filibuster remains in place in the Senate, the SAVE America Act has little chance of becoming law before the midterms. But that may be the point: The bill wasn’t introduced with the goal of making elections run more smoothly; it was introduced to make the point that elections aren’t as secure as they could be. If, as expected, the bill fails and voters don’t have to prove their citizenship or show photo ID in 2026, it could make it easier for Trump and his allies to claim that the results are tainted by fraud. That could be a different type of nightmare scenario.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Blue Georgia discussing the FCC and Colbert.

David Frum: One of the ways that authoritarian regimes get themselves in trouble is they cut themselves off from knowing bad news in time because they demand endless flattery of the leader. The leader does not know that there aren't sausages in the shops. That what Brendan Carr is doing here.

In the comments Bill Bramhall posted a cartoon of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor being hauled away by police. King Charles says, “No one is above the law.” The nasty guy retorts, “Some king you are.”

They feel like they should control the world

Kos of Daily Kos reported the nasty guy was asked how he would lower food prices. He replied he would not allow so much food to be imported from other countries. First of all, supply and demand. I learned about this in high school. Restrict the supply and the price goes up, not down. Second, a lot of our fruits and vegetables would become seasonal rather than year-round – such as blueberries, avocados, and grapes. Over half of our fruits and vegetables are imported. Also, very little coffee is grown in the US. Same with chocolate. Say goodbye to bananas and a lot of ethnic foods. The nasty guy has also talked about mass deportations of immigrants. We can ask Florida what that’s like since DeathSantis has passed a strict anti-immigrant law. Farm workers fled. Crops don’t get picked so they rot in the fields.

If Trump wants to run on “you won’t be able to find bananas,” then all the power to him. If he wants to cancel Halloween, as very little chocolate is grown in the U.S., that’s weird, but okay. At the very least, the media should cover it, not ignore it.

I mentioned yesterday that there was a second assassination attempt on the nasty guy. If you’re still interested, a pair of Associated Press articles posted on Kos (here and here) have a lot of the details. James Tees posted a cartoon by Marlette showing to boys walking home from school.

White boy: Dude, my parents are outraged that gunmen have been able to keep targeting Trump! It’s all they’ve been talking about! Black boy: Interesting... Do they get that passionate about gunmen who keep targeting us in schools?”

Daria Solovieva, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos discussed Silicon Valley tech leaders, cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists and who they support for president. Many support Harris and many refuse to support the nasty guy. However, there are a few who do support him. Those who do support him the reasons tend to want to continue his tax cuts for the wealthy and his promise of less regulation. As billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban said the tech elite have, “gotten to the point now where they feel like they should control the world.” This week Kos put out a series of articles on how Harris could win big, though polls currently show a tight race. I won’t bother with the first article, which was about the numbers – poll numbers and energized voter numbers. I’ll also skip the second article, which was about how Harris has a significant get out the vote effort and the nasty guy barely has one at all. The third article (which has links to the other two) is about the nasty guy’s deficiencies. He has a lack of focus – the first debate showed how old Biden is, the second showed how old the nasty guy is. He is lying to his supporters – he keeps flipping his position on Project 2025 and abortion and IVF. His supporters can no longer trust him to do what they want done. He is falling further into conspiracies. One bit of evidence is how much he has been hanging out with conspiracy spreader Laura Loomer, which is turning off other Republicans. These are a part of the signals that could turn into a strong win for Harris as well as downballot Democrats. But it will take work. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary. One of them:

“For 11 years, I had the tremendous privilege of playing the lead in a comedy series called Murphy Brown. I was surrounded by brilliant and funny actors, had the best scripts to work with and, in one classic moment, my character was attacked by Vice President Dan Quayle when Murphy became pregnant and decided to raise the baby as a single mother. Oh, how far we’ve come. Today a Republican candidate for vice president would never attack a woman for having kids. So as they say, my work here is done. Meow.” —Candice Bergen, at the Emmy Awards

In the comments of a pundit roundup from Tuesday Captain Frogbert riffed on the famous poem by Martin Niemöller. He says something I concluded a few years ago.

First they came for the poll workers Then they came for the opposing candidates Then they came for the civil service workers Then they came for the judges They WILL come for the journalists They WILL come for the Democrats The stupid reality is, they WILL ALSO come for the “insufficiently loyal” Trump voters They will also come for the tech bros (just as Putin did for the oligarchs and their money) They will also come for EVERYONE, eventually Because that’s what fascists ALWAYS DO. Fascists cannot exist without an existential enemy and, as they winnow down the initially most obvious enemies, they will always, ALWAYS, eventually, COME FOR YOU.

Each slice of that poison pie gave them a few more votes

I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data, updated yesterday. The main page from which I get this data says that Michigan has topped 3 million COVID cases (in a population of ten million) and 41 thousand deaths. Last week I didn’t report the data because I thought the Christmas and New Year holidays prevented the data from being properly updated. I didn’t want to give hope when it wasn’t deserved. I don’t think I have that excuse this week, so I will assume the trend is good news. The peaks in new cases per day for the last few weeks is 2055, 1161, 920, and 867. Yes, the peaks in the last two weeks are below 1000. The weekly peak in new cases per day hasn’t been below 1000 since the first couple weeks of the pandemic back in March 2020. But the pandemic is not over and many of the government programs to warn and protect us are quietly going away. So we’re on our own to protect ourselves. That mask in public places is still a good idea as is keeping up to date on vaccines and boosters. In the last three weeks the deaths per day has dropped to the 8-14 range. I didn’t have time today to talk about the insurrection in Brazil and the dangerous first few days of the new Speaker of the House. As important as I think they are and as much as I want to discuss them, today’s priority is a couple posts from the middle of December that I finally read a few days ago. The first is by Thom Hartmann of the Daily Kos community. Brother recommended this post and I’m glad he did. Hartmann discussed the final stages of Reaganism, which is what we’re living through. I knew some of the history Hartmann discussed and I wrote about it in previous posts. Hartmann explains it well, pulls in a couple more threads, and explains what it has to do with today. This thread of history begins back in 1971. Corporations were annoyed that for the previous 40 years government had been controlled by labor unions and other lefty types. The middle class had swelled to two-thirds of the population. Ralph Nader kicked off the consumer movement with his 1965 book Unsafe At Any Speed. Rachel Carson started the environmental movement with her 1962 book Silent Spring. The Federal Elections Campaign Act of 1971 put strict regulations on campaign fundraising and spending. And corporations felt nobody in government was listening to them. So Lewis Powell, a tobacco lawyer, wrote what is known as the Powell Memorandum. He urged corporations and the wealthy to seek and cultivate political influence so they could reclaim the nation from the clutches of the lefty types. Nixon was so impressed with the Memo that he put Powell on the Supreme Court the following year. In 1976 Powell helped end the Elections Campaign Act, blunt the power of the recently created Federal Elections Commission, and struck down campaign finance legislation going back to the start of the century. Another ruling came in 1978 which gave corporations the right to bribe politicians. Those bribed politicians – Reagan at the front of the line – lead to the massive Reagan tax cuts. America didn’t get its first billionaire until after those cuts. Before then college was free or affordable. Public schools were the finest in the world. Hospitals were non-profit. Our infrastructure was top rate. Since then, not so much. Hartmann lists several other things Reagan did for corporations. One of those is allowing businesses to buy up radio stations, creating a network of corporate owned conservative talk radio. By 2015 the middle class had shrunk to only 49% of the country. By 2022 the 1% held more wealth than the whole middle class. In only 41 years the Reagan Revolution has profoundly changed the country for the benefit of the wealthy.

As the GOP’s game of shilling for corporations and the morbidly rich became obvious, support for the party slipped. Needing more votes to gain and hold political office, Republicans reached out to bigots, racists, misogynists, antisemites, and open fascists. Each slice of that poison pie gave them a few percent more votes. When working class white men realized they’d been screwed by 40 years of Reaganism, they were unsure where to focus their rage. Republican politicians and rightwing media were happy to supply the villains: women in the workplace when they should be home barefoot and pregnant; racial minorities who “want your job” or to “rape your daughter”; and queer people who are “after your children.”

And that has given us the nasty guy, DeathSantis, and Abbott. In just 41 years we’re at the end stage of Reaganism with an unrelenting barrage of corruption and hate from Republican media and politicians. Will we continue down this path towards a fascist strongman and the collapse of American democracy, or will we turn back to the New Deal and Great Society? That led me to a question I’ve pondered several times now: Is any society safe from rich people who feel they need to control society and its government? In America’s case it started with a guy who urged rich people to do just that. Soon rich people had the legal ability to bribe politicians. What went on behind the scenes to prompt Nixon to put Powell on the Supreme Court? Or was Nixon already on the side of the rich? Are there modern democracies that have escaped this problem? Britain hasn’t. Neither has Italy and Hungary. France struggles to balance corporations and workers. Australia has had problems. Germany appears to be good for now, after arresting a network of coup plotters. Are there others? The second important post is by Sean Kelly. What had been a series of tweets was unrolled into the Thread Reader. Kelly discussed the Martin Niemöller poem that begins “First they came for...” Most people think that poem means by the time they come for you there is nobody to speak on your behalf – so perhaps you should speak on behalf of those currently being targeted. Yes, that is a valid and important understanding. But Kelly sees something more important.

The poem starts off with "first they came for the trade unionists" and yes, the speaker is not a trade unionist but more importantly, the way it really works, is that the person HATES unions and is GLAD that "they" are coming for them. Each line of that poem is the fascists working their way up through marginalized groups that a lot of people agree are "going too far" or "a problem," and at each line they are accumulating the power necessary to get to the next rung of the ladder. This poem is directed at the sort of people who will aid the fascists even though they're part of one of the categories the fascists hate, because they think that this will spare them. It never does. ... These naive numbskulls think they're building a newer, more modern fascism, an inclusive fascism that will allow for whatever type of thing they are to be on the winning side of it. But fascism needs an enemy to perpetuate and thrive, and they'll get to you eventually.

What that means is don’t empower fascism. Don’t allow injustices for one group – right now it is trans people – slide to preserve a seat at the table. Don’t focus on the economy because that allows conservatives to maintain the narrative that trans people are a threat. Don’t sacrifice “sick days for railroad workers” to avoid looking bad.

This is why you have to speak up about everything. No matter how trivial, no matter how irritating it makes you think you sound. When fascism shows up, you can never let it have a comfortable seat.

For something completely different... The Cultural Tutor explores the idea the cinema will be the definitive art form of the 20th and 21st centuries. We’ll still have painting, sculpture, even opera. But cinema – at least the best parts of cinema – will surpass the others. Opera was the top of the artistic mountain in the 19th century. It unified storytelling, acting, music, theater, sets, and costumes into one total work of art (what Richard Wagner, opera composer, called Gesamtkunstwerk). Cinema has incorporated all that too. Cinema has also borrowed from painting how to depict heroes, how to show spectacles, how to frame a shot, how to depict something that doesn’t actually exist, and how to use color and lighting. And, like other forms of art, cinema can question, challenge, and provoke.

The moms are here

There are a couple developments in the situation in Portland where federal police are acting mafia goons. First, various lawsuits are being filed. One by the Oregon Attorney General, another by the ACLU, and likely more.

Second, the fed actions are being protested by the Wall of Moms. Women, most wearing yellow, have linked arms around the federal building in Portland to protect the crowds of protesters behind them. They chant “Feds stay clear, the moms are here.” They were teargassed Saturday night and were back even stronger Sunday night. They’ll be back tonight.

Gassing moms is not a good public relations look. Dangerous, radical, left wing terrorists? Heh.

This is a great way to resist the nasty guy.



The nasty guy has issued an executive order about American monuments and statues. Leah McElrath tweeted that the order says that protests that involve statues or federal property now fall under the definition of terrorism.

The order also has wording that sounds retroactive.

In other words, I would not be surprised if they used this to try to round up people based on past acts.
...
Basically, this order reads to me like Barr’s best effort to give Trump what he really wants:

A prohibition against protesting.

But only applicable to those who are not his supporters.

It’s a very dangerous document—even though I doubt it will ultimately hold up in court.

The problem is that it takes a while to get through the courts. Until it does the nasty guy can do considerable damage.



Greg Dworkin’s pundit roundup on Daily Kos quoted Jim Galloway of AJC:

John Lewis served 33 years in Congress, often serving as its conscience. There is a way to keep him there, even in death.

Remove the figure of Alexander Stephens, the first and only vice president of the Confederacy, from National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.

Replace him with Lewis.

Dworkin added:

And restore the Voting Rights Act. That’s more important that statuary or renaming a bridge, excellent ideas though they are.

David Shimer, author of the book Rigged, tweeted a thread about the book saying “Russian hackers had the ability to alter vote data & vote tallies of U.S. citizens on Election Day 2016.” Shimer then describes secret crisis teams run by Obama’s White House and Department of Homeland Security on election day that year offering assistance to states if they needed it. They saw no evidence of tampering of actual votes that year. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Did the Russian hack fail? No. Russian hacked emails had dominated news for months and Russian propaganda reached tens of millions of Americans on social media.

And in this year, the Russians will do all they can to keep the nasty guy in office.



The nasty guy said to Chris Wallace that he’s done more than any POTUS in history. While not conceding the point about more than any other president, Will Stancil tweeted:

You know what? I actually think Trump HAS done quite a lot in his 3.5 years. He's politicized the judiciary, shredded our international standing, co-opted the executive agencies, totally stopped immigration, eliminated apolitical federal law enforcement.

He's managed to destroy far, far more than most people in politics predicted in 2016. Lots of you said that Trump would flail and the rest of the government would go on as usual. He's flailed - with 100k dead to prove it - but the rest of the government was thoroughly Trumpified.

With painfully little resistance, Trump has turned the US federal government into a machine for persecuting his enemies, enriching himself, and carrying out his irrational, reactionary whims - everything from "let the deadly disease destroy America" to "purchase Greenland."

Trump also completely pacified Congress in 4 years:
-in 2017, when Trump fired Comey, the GOP Senate held a dramatic hearing watched nationwide
-in 2020, when Trump illegally fired IGs and had DOJ undermine prosecutions of his own accomplices, the Democratic House barely reacted.

Yup, that’s a lot. And none of it benefits the American people.



Bree Newsome Bass tweeted:

Based on what I’ve seen so far— even going back as far as the 2000 election—if Trump refuses to leave office, I’m not convinced that Biden or the Democrats will mount much of an opposition. I really think folks are underestimating the precariousness of this situation.

Like, we need actual anti-fascist resistance leaders right now. I’m not seeing that represented in what Biden or the Democrats are doing. I’m just saying be prepared to be abandoned by them in November & the aftermath because not preparing for that scenario is dangerously unwise.

A.R. Moxon tweeted in response to the federal police in Portland:

2016
Leftist Larry: Trump's a fascist. If he wins, expect secret police
Reasonable Rick: Don't be so hysterical. Our system's strong

2020
Larry: There literally are secret police now
Rick: Oh I assume there's a reasonable explanation

2024

Rick: Larry? I never knew any Larry

Being an aware American means every day interacting with people who are familiar with the famous poem about nobody being left when at last they come for you, but who clearly seem to think that it means, as the last unabducted person, the poet won the game.

First they came for the immigrants, and I did not speak out—Because you don't win hearts by calling people racist

Then they came for Black Lives, and I did not speak out—Because speaking out is "cancel culture."

I don’t speak much anymore. They call it "freedom to agree."

There have been in the past countries with secret police who abduct undesirable elements. In most cases, there came a tipping point, where a great mass of people became aware of the disappearances and made themselves unconcerned.

Stigs tweeted a missing step in Moxon’s timeline:

2022: Yes sir I'd like to call in a loyalty report on one Larry, Leftist.

David Moisan added:

I've hated Neimoller's essay: Not because it isn't true on the face of it, but because there is a corollary: The Nazis didn't come for most people. Such people were "neutral", "polite" and "moderate", and tell you "You're overreacting, why do you need to get so angry?"

Benji Backer tweeted an idea that seems to undergird a great deal of modern news reporting:

The truth always resides somewhere in between where both sides say it does.

Mike Young objected:

This is seldom true, and is known as the Golden Mean Fallacy. In reality, the positions of either side in a political debate has no bearing on what’s true. Some examples include masks vs no masks, early childhood education, or slavery in 1865.

To assault the whole concept of impartial justice

Sheesh, it’s been almost a week since I last posted. No wonder I’ve got so many open browser tabs.

A report on the state of our democracy:

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reports a federal court has been considering the sentence appropriate for the crimes for which Roger Stone has been convicted. Stone is a nasty guy crony. He was convicted on lying to Congress and threatening a judge with death. When the US attorneys announced their recommended a sentence of 7-9 years (20 is max), the nasty guy tweeted his displeasure and threatened to pardon Stone. Attorney General William Barr instructed the Department of Justice to overrule the attorneys and ask for a lighter sentence.

Three of the four attorneys withdrew from the case in protest. One of those resigned from the DoJ. The nasty guy mocked and threatened them. Sumner wrote:

In a matter of just a few hours, every possible flare had been launched to reveal that the Department of Justice wasn’t just being politicized—it was being corrupted, turned into an instrument of Trump’s will.

And then Barr doubled down. As NBC News reports, Barr has taken “control of legal matters of personal interest to President Donald Trump.” That includes persecution of Trump’s enemies.
…
And now the attorney general of the United States has officially made himself Donald Trump’s personal attorney—except that this personal attorney has the ability to protect Trump’s friends, persecute his enemies, and bring an end to the idea of apolitical justice in America.
…
When the Republicans in the Senate voted to allow Trump to get away with abuse of power and obstruction, he did learn a lesson. But it was the same lesson he’d learned before—that he can do anything. There are no laws except the laws that Trump declares. No justice except that which he permits. No republic remaining except what he deigns to allow.

A day later the nasty guy went after the judge in the case. In a second post Sumner explained what is going on. The nasty guy could easily just pardon Stone and be done with it. But he is using the opportunity to assault the whole concept of impartial justice. He is putting the jury, judge, and prosecutors on trial.

After reminding us how many federal judges Moscow Mitch has installed (192) Sumner wrote:

Trump and company will use his case for those two all-important purposes: destroying the republic and fundraising.
...
But the level of assault that Trump and Barr are staging on the remainder of the judicial system at this point demonstrates vividly that this is an endgame for democracy. Republicans didn’t do anything about Trump’s extorting a U.S. ally to cheat in the 2020 election. They’re not doing anything now about his abusing a judge, intimidating a juror, and tilting the scale of justice to favor his friends. They’re not going to do anything.

Except, perhaps, think about how nice elections will be when only Trump-approved candidates are allowed on the ballot.

Along the way Sumner reminded us of Masha Gessen’s Autocracy: Rules for Survival. I’ll list them and let you read her article for the details. The article was written the day after the 2016 election.

1. Believe the autocrat. Others will say he is exaggerating.
2. Do not be taken in by small signs of normalcy.
3. Institutions will not save you.
4. Be outraged. Prepare yourself for being the only “hysterical” person in the room.
5. Don’t make compromises.
6. Remember the future. Nothing lasts forever, including autocrats.

Sumner highlights rule 3. Gessen wrote:

It took Putin a year to take over the Russian media and four years to dismantle its electoral system; the judiciary collapsed unnoticed.

Sumner adds:

Trump didn’t have to take over American media. Fox News came prepackaged before he even stepped onto the golden escalator. All Trump had to do was scream, “Fake news!” at every fact that squeezed onto a screen. The Republican Senate just upheld Trump’s right to disassemble the electoral system at his leisure. So now it’s time for collapsing that judiciary—and Trump isn’t even trying to do it without notice.

Sumner mentioned that the GOP senators aren’t going to do anything. Laura Clawson of Kos describes the non-action of individual senators, noting they are “barely even pausing to furrow a brow.” But this isn’t a little bit of bad weather that gets commented on and passes. This is serious.

Tami Burages describes herself as Aisle Treason Cleanup Crew. She tweeted a thread about what the Democratic and media response should have been and wasn’t.

* News networks stop covering the Dem primary in a tiny state and switch to how this is a rule of law crisis.

* Speaker Nancy Pelosi is covered on all stations as she announces how grave it is and that the Dems will have a response the next morning.

* Every single Dem calls on Barr to resign with the same gusto they did for Al Franken.

* The next morning the Judiciary Committee subpoenas Barr, saying this is not a request. Since they already found Barr in contempt they say a jail cell is ready for him, giving him a choice between resigning and jail.

* The Judiciary Committee also subpoenas the prosecutors to hear why they withdrew and resigned.

* By noon on the second day every Dem governor and state AG calls for Barr’s resignation.

* By that evening all TV networks apologize for not covering the Dem primaries because this is so much bigger.

* Dem candidates urge people to call their GOP senators saying their next vote depends on stopping Barr.

And what did happen? The House Judiciary Committee asked Barr to appear on March 31 – six weeks from now. That gives the illusion of doing something while not doing anything at all.



The nasty guy’s ranting about judge, jury, and prosecutors made Benjamin Wittes tweeted thread important. It is a variation of a well known poem. I hope you recognize the connection. Here’s the start and end of it:

First he came for @comey, and I said nothing because I was mad at @comey because of the Clinton email investigation and I blamed him for Trump’s election.

Then he came for Andy McCabe and I said nothing because there was this inspector general report that said McCabe lacked candor.

Then he came for Jim Baker and I said nothing because I had never heard of Jim Baker and the FBI director is entitled to his own leadership team anyway.

Then he came for @NatSecLisa and @petestrzok and I said nothing because they sent text messages and the president and Fox News kept reminding me that they had an affair.
…
And then he came for Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his brother, Evgeny Vindman, and I said nothing—because I was used to it.

Don’t deserve your job

Rep. Bill Pascrell, Democrat from New Jersey, sponsored a bill to force the Treasury Department to provide 10 years of the nasty guy’s tax returns. At a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee several GOP members agreed with Pascrell’s idea. Yet all of them voted against the bill.



There is an article on *Slate* saying many, maybe most, of the Republicans in Congress don’t like the nasty guy and recognize he is both dangerous and incompetent. They are in various degrees of “shock, horror, and disgust” at what he is doing. Yet, “None of them want to be decapitated by a primary challenge. Nobody wants the social media fanaticism of the alt-right turned on them.”

I didn’t read the article. Instead, I read Melissa McEwan’s response on Shakesville. Which begins:

You f**** cowards.

Though McEwan didn’t bother with asterisks.

Your primary job is to protect this country. You don't *deserve* your jobs if you're unwilling to do that.

And would happen if you lost your job? Probably end up with a sweet gig as a CNN contributor. Not much of a risk.

As for being on the receiving end of social media fanaticism… McEwan has been pushing back against misogyny and its like for 13 years and has had a great deal of social media fanaticism thrown at her. She documents a long list of gruesome messages and acts. These attacks are a routine part of her work.

Get your heads out of your asses. There are millions upon millions of people in this country with a hell of a lot more to lose than you will ever have.

You are supposed to protect them. You're cowering in silence to keep a job you're not even willing to do.

Shame on you. Shame on you.

That prompted Fannie Wolf to respond in the comments:

First they came for my country, but I didn't say anything, because I didn't want to be harassed on Twitter, unlike the thousands of women and people of color who are harassed, bullied, and abused online every day, which I enable and do absolutely nothing to stop.

Measuring curtains for the captains quarters

Essayist Terrence Heath compares the current debt ceiling battle to the Titanic on which the GOP as eager First Mate rams the ship into an iceberg so that when the captain goes down with the ship they can take over. They either don't remember or care that if the ship goes down they go down too. Pulling away from the analogy a bit, if the GOP succeeds in grabbing the reins of government the country may be so chaotic as to be ungovernable.

So, if the Prez. is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, why is the GOP measuring for curtains in the captain's quarters? When did the GOP go crazy?

Perhaps one of the first signs was back in 2002 when an unnamed Bush admin. official dismissed his opponents on the grounds they were "reality based." The explanation was that phrase meant "people who believe solutions emerge from study of discernible reality. That’s not the way the world works anymore. We’re an empire, and when we act, we create our own reality." Pull that idea into the present day it means the Right wants to believe its desires can reshape financial markets to avoid problems with a default, simply because it says so.

I wrote a while back about a comment by Michael Moore that the GOP is holding the economy hostage. This appears to be another incident of that -- give us what we want, now, or we blow the whole thing up. And if people suffer, well, they deserve to.

So why is the GOP doing it? Why are they even proposing constitutional amendments to require balanced budgets (and expect them to get through Congress in five days) as part of their solution? Why are they putting the gov't in a straightjacket?

Because they have the power now to do so. Their demographic is declining. They have little appeal with young voters and ethnic minorities whose percentage of the population is growing. The white elite at the party's base see themselves as the source of the nation's wealth and values. The poor and all those minorities want to steal all that wealth through taxes (conveniently forgetting the rich stole it from us) and want to lock in low tax rates while they can, and perhaps lock in their power while they can. Perhaps they know they can't keep the helm through elections and are willing to send the ship to the bottom if they can't.

This sounds like part of the recipe for fascism that Sara Robinson wrote almost two years ago.

This essay by Heath and my mention of the Koch brothers yesterday got me to thinking. What does an ordinary citizen do about this? The GOP isn't listening to me. As the battle in Wisconsin showed last winter, the GOP isn't even listening to a capitol building full of protesters. The GOP is only listening to the Koch brothers and their colleagues.

And the Dems? They're not listening to me or the common people either. They're too busy caving to the GOP. Or the GOP had reduced them to spectators (as has happened in Michigan).

So what's a concerned citizen to do? I'm to the point where I simply want to turn off my radio when the debt ceiling discussion comes on the news and have turned it off when anyone is interviewing Bachmann or any GOP representative or senator. If something happens by Tuesday I'm sure I'll hear about it.

Another thought is that poem from the Nazi era (and please forgive me for dragging them into the debate) that I've discussed before under the topic of fascism. Here's the poem.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I said nothing;
I was, of course, no communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing;
I was, of course, no Social Democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I said nothing;
I was, of course, no trade unionist.
When they came for me, there was no one left who could protest.
-- Martin Niemoeller

My feeling at the moment is what good would it do to say something? At the moment the GOP isn't listening. In the future it may be that if I say something they don't save me for last.

Back in June I caught part of the On Point program produced by NPR. It was a discussion with author Paul Gilding and his book The Great Disruption. The GOP's desire to trash the economy made me think of this and it took a while for me to remember which program I heard discussing it.

Gilding's core idea is that simply in terms of physics and biology, the earth can no longer support all of us. Global warming has begun. It's going to get nasty out there with the weather severely reducing food production. Somalia's famine is only the start.

But Gilding says once our backs are to the wall we as a species will respond to the crisis. We usually handle crises well (though usually wait until a situation becomes a crisis before we act). It is after that great disruption that humanity will reprioritize the way we live and society around the world will become much better. Alas, we'll have to go through hell to get there.

Back to why I'm including that reference now. Society is going to get rather nasty for a while, no matter what the GOP does. They may even get us to that crisis sooner, when we'll start acting responsibly. So why do something?

Yeah, I'm feeling grumpy about the whole mess just now. Please talk me out of it. Simply doing nothing doesn't sound very responsible.

No one left who could protest

Last week I referred to a poem that I said included the phrase, "They came for the Jew. I didn't speak up because I'm not a Jew." Two people have now responded (one as a blog comment, the other through email) citing the full text and author of the poem. Thanks to both of you.

The author is Martin Niemoeller. He was a minister of religion (I take that to be a government post) and a high profile opponent of the Nazis as they came to power. Nieloeller lived through the first few lines of the poem before speaking out. At Hitler's command he spent the war years in a concentration camp.

There are several versions of the poem. The one I'll repeat here is, according to a German, a better translation from German into English than the version more widely known. It is translated from an earlier version of the poem that doesn't include the Jews. The poem gives the actual order of groups attacked by the Nazis.

When the Nazis came for the communists, I said nothing;
I was, of course, no communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing;
I was, of course, no Social Democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I said nothing;
I was, of course, no trade unionist.
When they came for me, there was no one left who could protest.