America has grown too comfortable with violence and cruelty

The national handbell seminar begins tomorrow. I’m not attending in person. Even so, it will be livestreaming three concerts a day starting with one tomorrow evening. The concerts will feature a selection of the best handbell performers. I don’t know how much this will affect my blogging time. I may post regularly or I may not post again until Sunday or Monday. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that 144 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to administrator Lee Zeldin objecting to new agency policies. Another letter in March complained of the illegal dismantling of core agency functions. In response to the latest letter Zeldin put all who signed (some were anonymous) on leave. This is a violation of First Amendment rights of free speech. Needham spent much of the rest of the article explaining in what cases employees do and don’t have free speech rights. In this case they clearly do. What caught my attention in this article is the last few paragraphs:

Trump treats the presidency like an extension of his person, and his Cabinet has adopted that same framing: People voted for Trump, which means they preapproved anything he chooses to do. Any disagreement, therefore, means you are not respecting the will of the voters. It isn’t surprising, with that mindset, that the administration is coming for the free speech rights of public employees. After all, how dare they speak out against Dear Leader? Just because the GOP has signed on to Trump’s cult of personality doesn’t mean that federal workers have to do so as well.

Brett Kelman, in an article for KFF Health News posted on Kos a month ago, reported many American doctors are moving to Canada. One big reason is because, as Kelman paraphrased one of the doctors, “Too much of America has simply grown too comfortable with violence and cruelty.” There are a lot of reasons inside the big one. The nasty guy becoming more authoritarian. The deep cuts to Medicaid. Appointing Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead and dismantle federal health agencies. On the other side of the border, applications to be licensed in Canada has increased more than 750% in the last seven months compared to a year ago. Some are saying they are moving specifically because of the nasty guy. Also, Canadian provinces have relaxed some licensing regulations in recent years to allow easier migration. A Canadian physician recruiting company said they saw a 65% increase in inquiries from January to April and is now contacted by up to 15 American doctors a day. Another company helps doctors to get licensed in other foreign nations. They had previously worked with doctors with wanderlust, seeking adventure. Now it is more intentional about getting out of the US. Doctors who have made the move feel less stress, do less paperwork, and have no fear of burying patients in medical debt. And in the US we already don’t have enough doctors. When Musk slashed his way through federal agency personnel some of the talk was we’ll just replace all those workers with AI. Some of the most vocal people, like Musk, have shown they are anti-human and would rather deal with technology. So a month ago Needham reported that two AI tools have been installed at the Food and Drug Administration. And both of them suck. FDA Commissioner Martin Makary gushed over the new tools, as did Jin Liu, deputy director for Drug Evaluation Sciences. One of the tools isn’t connected to anything – like medical journals or even other computers – so it can’t manage basic tasks. The other was asked questions about publicly available information and answered incorrectly. We may get half-baked AI anyway. Also from a month ago Needham discussed another way the nasty guy is threatening universities. It is telling the organizations that do the accrediting that universities are in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws. In Needhan’s example the nasty guy claims Columbia doesn’t meet the standards for accreditation because of the way it treated Jewish students. The threat – the Notice of Violation – includes no information on what Columbia needs to do to comply. There are only the threats if it doesn’t. Columbia is finding out that although it bent the knee to the nasty guy it will still be attacked. It can’t do enough to stop the attacks (except maybe cease operations).

The government doesn’t accredit any school and therefore can’t yank any accreditation. The federal government does certify accreditors, but while it's likely that the leftover remains of the Department of Education could approve new accreditors, getting rid of the existing ones isn’t that easy. These are vague, meaningless attacks that don’t have a lot to do with the actual requirements for certification of accreditors. As the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions explained in a statement about Trump’s executive order, the Higher Education Act establishes due process requirements for recognition of accreditors, including reviews from multiple offices within the Department of Education. And it included a pointed reminder that “concerns about accreditor recognition can be escalated to federal court.”

There’s another reason why the nasty guy is attacking the accreditors. They were a big part of the demise of Trump University. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos Paul Fell posted a cartoon shows a waiter has delivered a dead bird, type unknown but definitely not appetizing. The customer says, “Waiter! This isn’t what I ordered!” The waiter holds up a sign saying “2024 election” and says, “Wanna bet?” Fell added:

As Americans keep finding out all the disastrous, cruel, & frankly anti-American things Trump & Republicans are doing, even MAGAts are saying this isn't what they voted for. Don't believe them. This is *exactly* what they voted for.

A meme related to the devastating Texas flood posted by exlrrp shows a photo of the president of Mexico. Below it is the text:

Mexico’s president just sent rescue teams to Texas. After all the hate. After all the anti-immigrant policies. After all the racism towards brown people. She still helped. She still showed up. She still did the right thing. To a red state that wouldn’t do the same for her. That’s leadership. That’s power. That’s a woman.

I’ve written about Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming that Democrats can control the weather and that it must stop. Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Lalo Alcaraz titled “Weather Control Machine” and showing a truck labeled “Big Oil” that is spewing a lot of pollution.

Top advisers became worried about the political fallout

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A cartoon by Toonerman shows this exchange:

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

Your government has chosen to do this to you

A win for the good guys from this conservative Supreme Court. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported that in a 5-4 order the high court let stand a ruling from a lower court saying the administration must pay the nearly $2 billion for work done by USAID. Yeah, that means there were four justices who thought the government should not pay for work apparently already done. The only one identified was Alito. Alas, this order says nothing about whether DOGE is allowed to close USAID. Under this squatter in the Oval Office news can change quickly. For example, on Tuesday Oliver Willis of Kos reported that tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico were a go. On Wednesday Walter Einenkel of Kos reported those tariffs had been paused. Maybe tumbling stocks prompted the nasty guy to rethink things. Or maybe not – the tariffs are only paused for a month. Then there was that big speech on Tuesday. I didn’t listen. On Tuesday before the speech Morgan Stephens of Kos wrote about what some Democrats will be doing instead of attending. Several said they would sit with constituents as they provided real-time commentary. Others planned to attend so they could make a show of walking out. If you really need it (and why would you?) Einenkel gathered together the worst moments of the speech. Willis discussed mainstream media saying everything is normal, the nasty guy (not their words) was great. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted a tweet by Catherine Rampell:

This is exactly what Trump did last month too, on the same tariff issue. But to be clear we're actually worse off than the prior status quo -- tariffs are off again, but we've now alienated important allies.

A quote from Sarah Longwell of The Atlantic:

In his first term, a significant number of voters felt that Trump was a bad person who was good at managing the economy, which gave them a mixed view of him. But the past decade has functioned like exposure therapy for Trump: Many people have become desensitized to his character defects, so that what remains is the vague sense that “Trump = good economy.” These voters no longer look at his social-media posts, and they don’t read past headlines as they scroll. So his bad character—which hasn’t gone away—no longer registers. But voters in this group are noticing that the job they elected him to do—fix the economy—is not getting done.

I could say that fixing the economy can take a while. But I’m sure these voters see the nasty guy isn’t even trying. A tweet by Andy Craig:

One of the reasons to have laws and taxes set by a legislature is it provides relative stability and predictability, rather than the economically destructive regime uncertainty of switches being flipped on and off day to day based on one man's erratic whim. Nobody can plan anything like this.

And from Charlie Sykes of To The Contrary:

Let’s not pretend that the speech was presidential. Despite the trappings, Trump did not give a speech that any other president would have given to an anxious nation. What we got instead was the MAGA id, a fetid stew of culture war, name calling, cock-splaining, Fox News cliches, insults, threats, and… oh for chrissakes you’ve heard all this before… It was, quipped Anne Applebaum, “90-plus minutes of bad moments — a typical Trump medley of fabrications, provocations and insults.” And we are all dumber for it.

In a second roundup Chitown Kev quoted Mike Masonic of Techdirt

One of the craziest bits about covering the systematic dismantling of democracy is this: the people doing the dismantling frequently tell you exactly what they’re going to do. They’re almost proud of it. They just wrap it in language that makes it sound like the opposite. (Remember when Musk said he was buying Twitter to protect free speech? And then banned journalists and sued researchers for calling out his nonsense? Same playbook.) Good reporters can parse that. Bad reporters fail at it time and time again. But what’s happening now is even more extreme and more terrifying. Something that even experts in democratic collapse didn’t see coming. Normally when democracies fall apart, there’s also a playbook. A series of predictable steps involving the military, or the courts, or sometimes both. [...] The destruction is far more systematic and dangerous than many seem to realize. Even Steven Levitsky, the author of How Democracies Die — who has literally written the book on how democracies collapse — admits the speed and scope of America’s institutional collapse has exceeded his worst predictions. And his analysis points to something we’ve been specifically warning about: the unprecedented concentration of political, economic, and technological power in the hands of Elon Musk and his circle of loyal hatchet men as they dismantle democratic guardrails.

Way down in the comments exlrrp posted a meme of Musk holding a sign that says:

My businesses have received $40 billion in government subsidies, but I’m gutting the Veteran’s Suicide Hotline at the VA because we can’t afford it.

In a third roundup Dworkin included a tweet by Thomas Zimmer:

We need to trust our eyes. Nazi salutes, racist purges, an ambush on the Ukrainian president by a far-right regime. If what we see aligns with what we know and is also in line with an established track record, our default assumption should be that what is happening is actually what it looks like.

And a thread by Cliston Brown:

2026: Voters, upset by the Trump recession, vote blue in the midterms. 2028: Angry at the economic collapse, voters give Democrats the White House and Congress and swear they’ll never vote GOP again. 2030: Voters put Republicans back in charge in Congress. Wash, rinse, repeat. This, if you’re wondering, is why Republicans never course-correct. They don’t have to. They pull the same s--- every time, voters punish them for a midterm and maybe the next presidential election. Then, like an amnesiac, they hand the keys right back to them two years later.

Politico writing about and quoting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

“Canadians are reasonable and we are polite, but we will not back down from a fight, not when our country and the well being of everyone in it is at stake.” Trudeau pledged relief to Canadian workers caught in the trade war’s crosshairs, and told the American people that his quarrel was not with them. “We don’t want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally, and we don’t want to see you hurt either, but your government has chosen to do this to you,” he said.

In the comments Rambler797 included a tweet from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene with a response from Kareen Rifai. First, Greene:

Have you ever noticed how for decades now Hollywood always made Russia the bad guy in their movies? It’s like Americans have been programmed to believe Russia must be the enemy at all times.

And Rifai:

I think it’s because Russia has been the actual bad guy in real life for several centuries, Marge.

A meme by Sen. Chris Murphy posted by exlrrp:

Donald Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine and affection for Russia is part of the bigger story. Trump is trying to end the rule of law in America so that the billionaire ruling class can get away with stealing from us. And normalizing dictatorships like Russia helps him get there.

Singer reported:

President Donald Trump on Monday once again came to the aid of murderous Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, cutting off over $1 billion in military aid the United States was set to provide Ukraine to help the country beat back Russia's violent invasion. Trump halted the aid even though the money had been appropriated by Congress—adding to the trend of him ignoring Congress' power of the purse.

I also heard the nasty guy has stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine. Kos of Kos wrote that CEOs are getting a bad return on investment for their donations to the nasty guy. He has damaged relations with trading partners and appears he will send the American economy into recession. I’ve seen several articles similar to the next two. A week ago Singer reported that because of the angry voters showing up at constituent meetings of Republican members of Congress Republican leadership is now advising their caucus to not hold such meetings. Meaning: hide. A few days later Singer reported another Republican tactic is to spin (lie) about who those angry constituents are. Some of the claims: Democrats came early and filled the seats. They’re paid agitators. They’re people happy with bloated government. In a fourth roundup, Dworkin quoted a tweet from Tom Malinowski:

Whoops, I accidentally cancelled Ebola prevention! Doh, I fired the bird flu experts! Oops-a-daisy, I stopped the Lutheran Charities foster care and adoption services! My bad, I sacked the nuclear weapons workers! Now can I have access to your tax returns?

Down in the comments Fiona Webster posted a cartoon by Ann Telnaes, who had left the Washington Post because it refused to run one one of her cartoons. This cartoon is from 2019.

So if you see a country without editorial cartoonists or one where they are not creating tough, pointed satire against politicians and policies, be aware. A silenced cartoonist is an indicator of an unhealthy environment for freedom of expression. Editorial cartoonists are democracy’s canary in a coal mine.

Would your state like to become Canada's 11th province?

Yesterday I wrote that the House ban on transgender people (meaning Rep. Sarah McBride) using single-sex bathrooms didn’t make it into the rules for this Congress. Alix Breeden of Daily Kos has an update. As was done after the election Speaker Johnson announced the ban, using his authority as Speaker to just do it. So the ban is back. A staffer says Johnson did it on his own so that House members didn’t have to vote on it (and have that vote on record). Over the last couple days I’ve had in a browser tab the Incidents page from CalFire zoomed in to Los Angeles and on to the north to see the extent of the Palisades Fire (over 21.3K acres or 33 square miles), the Eaton fire (over 13.7K acres, 21 square miles), and the smaller Kenneth, Hurst, and Lidia fires. The fires ignited in hurricane strength dry Santa Ana winds and have destroyed more than twelve thousand buildings, most of them homes. Thankfully, only ten deaths reported so far. Reports say this will be the most expensive disaster in the history of Los Angeles. This huge loss of housing will make the housing crisis much worse. Rebuilding will take years. Emily Singer of Kos discussed that this disaster will be the first test of the new Congress and the nasty guy. The test will be simple: Will they help through supplying disaster relief and recovery money, or not? Speaker Johnson was noncommittal. The nasty guy spread lies and hurled insults at Gov. Gavin Newsom. So... probably not. Biden already triggered federal emergency response and said he’ll be there “as long as it takes” (or until he leaves office in ten days). That link and the ones below include photos of the fire, which you may want to look at or avoid. Morgan Stephens of Kos has more about the lies Musk and the nasty guy have been saying about the fires. They’re more interested in the politics they can squeeze out of the damage than they are in the lives of the people who are now homeless. Oliver Willis of Kos reported that far right media is blaming the fires on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs. The claim is such programs undermine the effectiveness of business and government response. Supporters of DEI say that the programs make government more effective and please stop saying that white men are the only ones who are capable. Following the lead of the nasty guy far right media has “prioritized bigotry and politics over the lives of tens of thousands Americans.” I’ve written that the nasty guy wants to annex the Panama Canal, Canada, and Greenland. With force, if necessary. He’s also talked about renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Breeden reports that officials in both Canada and Mexico are trolling. Elizabeth May, leader of Canada’s Green Party has an offer. Would California, or maybe Oregon or Washington be interested in becoming Canada’s 11th province? From a press conference on Wednesday:

No more one-year-olds who suddenly fall off the Medicaid list and their parents are in the news because they’re trying to do a GoFundMe to get their daughter to a doctor. And guess what? Those gun laws that your Congress is too afraid to pass because of the National Gun lobby? We already got our strict gun laws. That’s why we have the safest streets around the world.

She added Canada still offers the right to abortion. She has an offer for the nasty guy. He could get rid of all the states that always vote for Democrats. They’d even take Bernie Sanders off his hands. Drat. Michigan doesn’t always vote Democratic. Yet I think we have closer ties to Canada than California does. Off the Southern border Claudia Scheinbaum stood in front of a map of North America of 1607 with a big chunk of the center of the continent labeled Mexican America. “It sounds pretty, no?” As for the Gulf of Mexico, it was named 170 years before the US was founded. Stephens reported:

GOP senators were left bewildered after President-elect Donald Trump delivered a bizarre hour-long rant on Tuesday about annexing Greenland and the Panama Canal. Two top Senate Republicans voiced their confusion and uncertainty as to what Trump meant when he said he wanted to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal during his press conference.

Bill from Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included late night commentary. A good one:

“Canada can’t become part of America. That’s the country I pretend to be from when I’m traveling abroad.” —The Daily Show host Desi Lydic

In the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos is a cartoon by Michael de Adder. It is labeled “Canada invading the USA” and shows planes helping put out the Los Angeles fires. I had heard on Canadian news that planes had been sent and that one had already been damaged by striking a drone. There is also a cartoon by Max Espinoza and posted by BabylonBros. He added the trash talking would happen soon, but saw it is already happening. The cartoon shows an elephant watching a woman read her crystal ball. She says, “I see you blaming the L.A. fires on a water restoration declaration that doesn’t exist! Then, when that doesn’t work, you’re going to blame DEI, gay kids and illegal immigrants!” Singer reported:

Donald Trump's co-president, Elon Musk, admitted on Wednesday that he probably can't cut $2 trillion from the federal budget as he had promised, running into the political reality everyone told him existed but that he refused to accept because he’s a billionaire who thinks he knows better than everyone else. In an interview with Mark Penn, the contemptible political strategist who once backed Democrats but now has become a Trump defender, Musk said that his toothless Department of Government Efficiency advisory committee can probably cut only half of the original $2 billion he promised to slash.

When they talk about freedom, they mean freedom from empathy

A couple weeks ago I listened to an episode of Gaslit Nation hosted by Andrea Chalupa. It was sufficiently worth discussing that instead of trying to take notes from the audio I decided to wait until the transcript was available, which it was a few days later (as in a couple weeks ago). Some of the main points: Merrick Garland is the worst choice for Attorney General, head of the Department of Justice. He let two years go by before getting serious about bringing cases against the nasty guy and this accomplices. In the meantime coup plotters are free, enriching themselves and working how to complete the coup that started with the Kremlin’s help in 2016. That the nasty guy still walks free and maybe getting only probation is an absurdity that has disillusioned America. It erodes faith in our institutions, which are crumbling and complicit. Paul Manafort, a Kremlin asset, had worked to destabilize Ukraine as he had done here in America as part of the nasty guy campaign and administration. The difference is that Ukraine removed the traitors from power and in America we gave them power. Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon (who will soon be spending four months in jail) are getting the storm troopers ready should the nasty guy go to prison. These troops will intimidate and terrorize poll workers in close precincts. The precincts important only because of the Electoral College,which is a major national security vulnerability that makes election stealing too easy.

So what do we do? Round up all the traitors and throw them in prison as Ukraine did? Ban all disinformation TV networks and media, like Fox News, like Ukraine did. I wish. That's one of the many reasons MAGA hates Ukraine because Ukraine forces accountability. Ukraine stands up to the Kremlin and exposes it for the terrorist state that it is, and has the moral courage to stand up to their traitors. Whereas we're continuously getting steamrolled by ours. And I've been saying for years now, what's long hurt Biden's approval ratings is worthless Merrick Garland and the impotent DOJ enabling all this.

President Ford pardoned Nixon to keep the national tranquility that had developed. But that tranquility was there because people knew the wannabe dictator Nixon had been indicted and faced trial. Proceeding with the trial would have kept that tranquility, not broken it. Ford established the precedent that criminals that threaten our democracy could go free.

So the warning is loud and clear. Trump must go to prison. No accountability leads to larger and more dangerous crimes. Trump and his crime machine are worse than Nixon because Nixon escaped prison. Nixon crawled so Trump could run. That is why Trump must go to prison, for the safety of our future of every American, the world. This isn't complicated.

There’s a question: Is America better off to avoid the violence that will happen if the nasty guy is put in jail with the certainty that if he regains the Oval Office, with violence to help him get there, he’ll become a dictator? Or is it better to put him in jail and be ready for the violence?

The thing Trump fears most is accountability. Getting away with crimes is a literally Trump's brand. That's what he's campaigning off of. His supporters throw money at him, even to pay his legal bills because they all get off on seeing him live above the law because that's what they want to do. That's why they support him. It was the same with Hitler. They got a surge of pride and power, feeling invincible, feeling free of societal norms. That's the appeal. When they talk about freedom, they mean freedom from empathy, freedom from the collective good freedom from having to care about others. ... That is the entire appeal of Trump and that is why he must go to prison to show consequences for trying to live above the law.

No, house arrest isn’t good enough. Manafort committed crimes under house arrest. Also, Mar-a-Lago is a pretty big house with a lot of visitors, including foreign adversaries. Once in prison the nasty guy should not get the big suite. He needs to be treated like everyone else. “You don't coddle criminals or you end up with more criminals in the White House.” Perhaps the nasty guy will flee? Great. Make sure the ticket is one way. And goes to Russia. All that grievance the nasty guy spews is being fed by the Kremlin. Prison is the only option. It also tells Putin the Hague is waiting. The talk turned to a third member of the transnational crime syndicate (Putin and the nasty guy being first and second), Israel’s Netanyahu. Protests in Israel are demanding he accept Biden’s cease fire deal. But if he does the far-right members of his governing coalition threaten to leave, bringing down his government. Netanyahu would rather cling to power than end the war. And yet Netanyahu may soon be speaking to the American Congress. That leaves many Democrats with a dilemma. Boycott the speech or use it as a time to confront Netanyahu? One way to confront is to stand with their back to the podium. Bernie Sanders issued a statement explaining why he won’t go. While Israel does have the right to defend itself against Hamas, it does not have the right to go to war against the entire Palestinian people, killing huge numbers and destroying massive amounts of housing and infrastructure. Netanyahu’s speech was scheduled for a week ago and hasn’t happened yet. Towards the end Chalupa said:

Congratulations to Mexico for electing your first female president as well as the first Jewish president, climate scientist Claudia Scheinbaum, a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors who was part of the intergovernmental panel on climate change that won the 2007 Nobel Prize for its research into the climate crisis. Scheinbaum brings with her a master's degree from UC Berkeley, a progressive agenda and a mandate to stand up against the brutal corruption across Mexico where a female mayor, Yolanda Sanchez was just gunned down after facing death threats and kidnapping.

That’s good news! In the comments of a pundit roundup on Daily Kos are a few good cartoons. One by Ted Littleford shows Justices Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito with Thomas saying, “I don’t see why Trump shouldn't have total immunity. After all, we do.” Below Thomas are bags representing four million dollars in gifts and three million behind Alito. The comments include a tweet my Rev. Benjamin Cremer in response to a new law in Louisiana.

“When I was hungry” you put up posters of the Ten Commandments in my classroom while making sure I didn’t get lunch at school. “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do unto me.” –Jesus

Just below it is a tweet of a new ad by the Lincoln Project showing that the nasty guy has broken five of the Ten Commandments. This is the guy the Christian Nationalists, the ones putting up posters of the Ten Commandments, are supporting.

They create crisis and spectacle!

I finished the book Mexico by James Michener. It is similar to many of his other books that use fictional characters, usually in long family lines, to tell the history of a place. I had previously read a few of his books. First was The Source about the entire history of what became modern Israel. I read this one back in high school when I thought it looked cool to carry around a book of about a thousand pages. I’ve also read Hawaii (turned into a movie featuring Julie Andrews), Centennial (about the settlement of Colorado), Tales of the South Pacific (from which the musical South Pacific was created), Alaska, and Poland (which I read while living in Germany). There are many more that look interesting. This novel, at almost 650 pages, is narrated by Norman Clay, born in the fictional town of Toledo, Mexico. He is descended from a native group that built a pyramid north of town in 600 AD, from Spaniards who invaded in the 1520s and supplied the town’s Catholic bishops for several generations (you say Catholic clergy cannot marry? There are ways...), and from a disaffected Southern gentleman who can’t tolerate that the North won the American Civil War). Overall I enjoyed the book. Michener is a fine writer and storyteller. He adds wonderful detail to the story he’s telling. This book would be a great recommendation to his other books. Except... all that history is wrapped up in a story of bullfighting. I had heard about this book many years ago and heard it was about bullfighting. Though I wanted to know more about Mexican history I made a mental note to stay away from this one. Of course, by the time I saw this book in my local library’s used book sale I had forgotten that mental note. I bought it for 50 cents (or maybe 25), which is a good deal when paperbacks are going for $16. That bullfighting story is about Victoriano of Spanish descent and his rival Juan of native descent. Clay is dispatched to the town by his American magazine because there is rumor that one of them will do something during the final fight of the Toledo festival to cause the death of the other. While there are descriptions of bullfights, there are also descriptions of how the bulls are bred and raised, how the matadors are trained (please leave the ugly term “toreador” with the opera Carmen), how frequently they get a timid bull, how they strategize during the fight, how they can corrupt a fight, and how death is central to a Spaniard’s worldview. At times I wondered if Michener understood genetics. The fictional Spanish line that came to Mexico in the 1520s was two brothers. The sons of one always married Spanish women, the sons of the other – the line of bishops – always married native women. So after five generations the offspring would be only 3% Spanish. But they’re not described that way. Clay is about 25% European, yet he is depicted as if he is white – he lives in Alabama for a time and doesn’t describe encountering racism. Yesterday I quoted a couple things from a pundit roundup by Greg Dworkin of Daily Kos. But the last couple of things of interest were too interesting and too long for the time I had. So I’ll delve into them now. Dworkin quoted b-boy bouiebaisse who quoted a tweet from House Judiciary GOP: “If they can do it to a former President, imagine what they can do to you.” To which bouiebaisse responded:

really interesting how the republican line on this is “some people should be above the law” “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

I had heard that quote before, though don’t remember where. The quote was followed by a link to a post on Crooked Timber. I didn’t quite follow the original 2018 post (strange characters for apostrophes didn’t help). So I searched the page for the quote and that got me to a lengthy comment by Frank Wilhoit (comment 26). Wilhoit wrote there is no such thing as liberalism, progressivism, or most of the other political philosophies one hears about. There is only conservatism, as defined by the quote above. Wilhoit doesn’t give a source for the quote. Even conservatism didn’t have a name or definition for millennia. When there is a king or dictator no other political philosophy is needed. But even then there is an in group of the ruler and his cronies and an out group of everyone else. There is an opposite to conservatism, called anti-conservatism, and can expressed simply, with no need for commentary:

The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone, and cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.

Not sure what all that binding and protecting mean? Think of it this way: The law protects the rich guy and his property – his land, his business, ... his slaves. Damage the property of a rich person and you’ll be in a heap of trouble. The law does not restrict what a rich person is allowed to do. As for the poor person the law places a great deal of restriction on what he is allowed to do, yet does not protect him or his property. Dworkin also quoted a tweet, the start of a thread, by Teri Kanenfield. She is a former appellate defender and her analysis has appeared in the Washington Post, NBC, and other outlets. Kanenfield is interested the social hierarchy, as I am, and her thoughts are very similar to mine.

For some people (like us) purpose of government is to help people. We think fairness is possible, and that the government's job is to try to create fairness. ... Hierarchy people, in contrast, think there’s a natural order: Some people belong on top. Others are at the bottom. They think that people with money and power have that money and power because they deserve it. An example: The white supremacy theories that informed the Confederacy. Hierarchy people don’t believe equality is possible because they don’t think people are equal. They think the purpose of government is to allocate power and maintain the hierarchy. When a government helps people, they think the government is taking away from the “makers” and giving to the undeserving. When people lower than them on the hierarchy demand equality, they think those people want to “replace” them.

Kanenfield said that 19th century law was to protect and reinforce the hierarchy. Rape laws were to protect the white man from false accusations. Rapes were evaluated on where the attacker and victim were on the hierarchy (see black man raping a white woman). Kanenfield wrote that the Civil Rights movement “smashed” the hierarchy and we’re now riding the backlash. I wouldn’t use the word “smashed” because white men never lost their position at the top. However, the gains – reductions in oppression – that women, blacks, atheists, and LGBTQ people made plus the falling percentage of white people in the country did scare them. The backlash is real and has been building since just after the Civil Rights laws were passed (see the Powell Memorandum of the 1970s and Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich and his union busting in 1981 – I see those tax cuts as giving the rich the ability to buy Congress). Back to Kanenfield. She next discussed people who supported the hierarchy, even though they were not the ones with power. That reminds me of a quote attributed to Lyndon Johnson, which is paraphrased: Give a person someone to look down on and he’ll empty his pockets for you. Those who support the hierarchy aren’t and never will be anywhere near the top. But they’re not at the bottom, either. They will give up a lot to be able to say: My life may be hard, but it is much better than the poor soul below me.

When fairness leaders are in power, they try to create fairness, they do things like try to make sure everyone has healthcare and inexpensive medications. OK, so if leaders don’t govern in the usual sense (devising policy to better the lives of the citizens) what do they do all day? They create crisis and spectacle! GOP members have said that if they come to power, they will impeach Biden and Garland. (Spectacle) They identify enemies and promise to “neutralize” the enemies. The play on people's fears.

How do we move forward? There is always a push and pull. Progressives push forward, try to create fairness. Conservatives pull back. It’s constant work.

One bit of advice not on my to-do list: Hold on to your ideals. The hierarchal worldview is deeply cynical. The fairness view is idealistic. We can never have perfect fairness, so fairness people run the danger of becoming cynical. Positive change requires ideals.

Those ideals need to be rooted in reality. Change won’t happen all at once. It will be slow because there is always pushback.

The founders rejected monarchy and created a rule of law society that rejected autocracy but nonetheless embraced a hierarchy. ... They created a rule of law government. The laws favored a certain group of people, which is different from a monarchy.

Kanenfield concluded by saying hierarchy people see law enforcement as protecting their power. They don’t believe in equality. Fairness people want law enforcement to create justice. Yesterday I discussed far right militia types saying the FBI search of the nasty guy’s estate meant they had crossed the Rubicon towards Civil War. I knew what the phrase meant but not its origin. My first memory of the phrase was during the musical 1776, about the passing of the Declaration of Independence. It came out in the early 1970s and I saw the movie version while in college. During that show the John Adams character is alone on stage and wonders why no one sees the future he does. He sings “Is Anybody There?” which includes the lines:

For I have crossed the Rubicon Let the bridge be burned behind me Come what may, come what may

ThoughtCo provides a pretty good explanation of the phrase. In 49 BCE, when Rome was still a republic, Julius Caesar was at the head of an army that had broadened the influence of Rome. That year he was at the northern border of direct Roman territory, which was the Rubicon River. He faced a choice. Roman law said a military general could not enter Italy, the territory around Rome, with his army. ThoughtCo put it this way:

If Caesar brought his troops from Gaul into Italy, he would be violating his role as a provincial authority and would essentially be declaring himself an enemy of the state and the Senate, fomenting civil war. But if he didn't bring his troops into Italy, Caesar would be forced to relinquish his command and likely be forced into exile, giving up his military glory and ending his political future.

Caesar deliberated for a while, then crossed the Rubicon with his army. As he did so he said, “Let the die be cast.” And soon the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire. Die is singular for dice. As soon as a die is cast or thrown, the fate it represents is decided.

Who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle

Back in 2019 progressives, centrists, and traditionalist of the United Methodist Church met with a professional negotiator to come up with a proposal for splitting the denomination. The main reason for splitting was how LGBTQ people, including LGBTQ pastors, were to be treated. The negotiating team did a pretty good job of creating a plan they all agreed to. Towards the end February 2020 I attended a program put on by the Reconciling Ministries Network, the main group pushing for LGBTQ inclusion, that explained the plan and talked about how it would be presented in May of that year to General Conference, the denomination’s worldwide legislative session that happens every four years. Yeah, GC didn’t happen in 2020. It was postponed to 2022 – and won’t happen. It has been postponed again, essentially combining with the regularly scheduled 2024 GC. Of course, life doesn’t stand still, even in a pandemic. The plan was to allow the progressive side to keep the United Methodist name and the traditional side to create a Global Methodist Church. Individual congregations could decide whether to stay with the UMC or go with the GMC through a defined process. I got word today that RMN said they are withdrawing their support for the separation plan. Their reason is the plan offered a way for the GMC to get started and a particular path for congregations to leave. However, the GMC has already started and congregations are already leaving. That prompted me to review recent articles from the blog Hacking Christianity, hosted and mostly written by Rev. Jeremy Smith. That blog had been quiet for a while, though several articles were written as the starting date of the GMC came close and has now passed. Here is one written by Smith discussing the history of how what became the GMC got started. One bit of this history caught my attention. Back in the 1939 various branches of Methodism reunited. They had split by the Civil War and the question of whether the church should or should not approve of owning slaves. In 1940 the segregationists split to from the Southern Methodist Church. That new denomination didn’t fare so well. So in the 1960s Rev. Charles Keysor started pushing to make the Methodist Church, which became the United Methodist Church in 1968, more conservative. Smith wrote:

Keysor found that rather than separate like the Southern Methodist Church, claiming “minority status” and staying inside the larger organization was a much stronger organizing principle for white people feeling vulnerable after the racial justice efforts of the 1960s. This call for minority empowerment of white men, however, required constant criticism of actual minorities: those of other races and genders.

Keysor decried minority mania in which various minorities understood and proclaimed their faith from the perspective of their minority identity. Smith described the traditionalists creating parallel denominational resources, such as its own publishing house, which siphoned the evangelical spirit from the UMC. Even with their parallel network, the traditionalists pushed the denomination to the right. As in the traditional wing of the UMC, which is becoming the GMC, those on the political right have claimed persecuted minority status. They see white people will commit themselves and their money to any organization that allows them to scapegoat other minorities. An anonymous commenter added that the conservative African congregations will quite likely jump to the GMC. And the GMC, created to draw racist white people, will be dominated by Africans. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported something Republicans don’t want mentioned, that urban areas aren’t the hellholes of gun violence they’re made out to be, that they’re safer than rural areas. When talking about regulating guns, someone will say, “What about Chicago?” This is a claim made because Illinois has gun regulations yet Chicago has this reputation for being awash in guns. A lot of the guns in Chicago come from Indiana – just across the border. Even so, Chicago has a firearm mortality of 13 per 100K. Yeah, that’s higher than the Illinois average of 10.8, but it is lower than St. Clair County, IL which is near 20. And the rates for Louisiana and Mississippi are over 25. New York state just enacted more gun regulations and its mortality rate is 5.3.

Why would that be? Because the rate of gun ownership in New York is 20%, while in both Louisiana and Mississippi, the number is greater than 50%. Illinois is in the middle with 28%. More guns, more deaths by gun.

So why are big cities, like Chicago, thought of as deadly? Cop shows. When talking about Chicago there is usually a reference to “black on black” crime. But gun deaths are more of a white on white crime – a resident of Caspar, Wyoming is more likely to die by gun than a resident of Chicago. The gun violence in cities tends to be more homicides, but in rural areas more die from suicide. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos also looked at the stats for rates of death by guns. He noted the six states most affected by gun violence – Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming, Missouri, Alabama, and Alaska are also high in the percentage of adults who live in a household with at least one gun. At the other end of the list: Hawaii with 3.4 gun deaths per 100K and with 8% of adults living in a house with at least one gun. Also, Hawaii has strict gun control laws. Hawaii has a big advantage that Chicago doesn’t have – it’s out by itself in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And a long way from Indiana. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that, surprising no one except maybe Senate Democrats, Republicans are making sure the negotiations on stricter gun laws are going nowhere. It seems Republicans aren’t even talking about guns anymore, they’re talking about mental health. Thomas Lecaque, a historian who studies the nexus of apocalyptic religion and political violence, tweeted a gun company has made a gun named the Crusader and has Psalm 144:1 stamped on it. In case you don’t remember your 12th and 13th century history, a crusade is a call to a holy war, and thus a call to murder. And I looked up Psalm 144:1, which says “Blessed be the LORD, my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.” I would think it is really strange for a gun company to do that, but they must know their customers. There is a 12-18 month waiting period for this gun. Lecaque added:

But sure the problem isn't the guns it's the lack of Christianity in society... wait. Anyway we should be really worried about how weird people are getting about AR-15 like weapons in this country and the creepy religious language used with them. ... It's the little things too. A company deciding to choose the name "Templar Rifle Company." A black powder manufacturer whose website says everything they do is for God's glory. It's the bullet rosaries sold on Etsy and the comments on them. This stuff is everywhere. ... Once you have decided that guns are the appropriate solution for Christian Nationalism's views on the nation's problems... This is radicalization. And for every "lone wolf" narrative that gets word vomited out every time there is a politically and religiously motivated mass shooting by a white far right Christian in this country, we know better. There is an entire apparatus pushing hate and violence.

He wonders why aren’t we treating this as a call for religious terrorism? Steve Inskeep of NPR discussed the view that Texans need their guns to protect against the drugs and guns being smuggled in from Mexico and carried by refugees. Inskeep talked to Ioan Grillo, a journalist based in Mexico City. Yes, drugs are coming into the US from Mexico. But not guns. The guns are being smuggled from the US into Mexico. And the numbers on both sides are huge. The number of guns may be 200,000 a year or two million in ten years. This quantity of guns fuels the violence in Mexico. A flood of guns into Latin America means the weaker governments can’t handle the violence. That increases the number of refugees. So while guns may not defend against refugees, the guns are causing the refugees. The US has all these guns counterbalanced by a too aggressive law enforcement system. Lalo Alcaraz of the Kos community created a cartoon of a police officer in full gear with several guns in a backpack talking to a frightened teacher gingerly holding a gun. The police officer says “Active shooter is over there. Good luck, teacher!” Sumner has been reporting on COVID ever since it appeared and long before it hit America. In that first deadly wave of the pandemic black communities were hit hardest. That’s because of the usual reasons of health care being less available and of lower quality. Also hit hard were native and immigrant communities for the same reasons. Then the vaccine came out. Black communities struggled to get their members protected. Native communities did too. And it was a struggle. And many white communities rejected the vaccine. Now a New York Times article reports that over the last year the death rate for white Americans has been 14% higher than the black rate and 72% higher than the Latino rate. Sumner concluded:

White Republicans have been worrying about some kind of conspiracy to replace them with Black people or immigrants. It turns out there is such a conspiracy. And white Republicans are running it.

Governing while Democrat

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed a report from the New York Times about the taxes the rich are not paying. Yeah, we know they’re not paying. So here are some new stats. Like this one. Over the last ten years the amount of money the 1% didn’t pay and should have is $7 trillion. That’s 18 months of the federal budget. When one gets money through a job their pay is automatically withheld and sent to the government. Which means working and middle class people are quite good at filing tax returns, many in hopes of getting some of it back. The rich don’t get paid that way so their income is not withheld. So they underreport and underpay. The way to fix this: Properly fund the IRS. Right now it can afford to go after only the middle and working class folks – people who don’t have complicated returns. Sumner wrote:

What’s being left on the table each year is enough to cover all unemployment payments, SNAP and other child nutrition programs, have a few billion left on the side for all foster care programs and children’s health programs—every one of which Republicans are sure to claim is too costly. What it would take to recover those funds is a tiny fraction of the benefits that would result. But somehow, Republicans—or specifically, Republican donors—don’t want the IRS to spend more time looking at the wealthiest 1%. And there are 7 trillion reasons why.

Joan McCarter of Kos wrote:

The insanity of governing while Democrat was on full display Wednesday as numerous political figures fought over how much money is okay to spend on helping people have better lives. In a rational world, policymakers would look at a problem—say, nearly half of senior and disabled people not having dental care—and determine how much it would cost to fix that, then find that money. Like from raising taxes on rich people. Or maybe just enforcing the tax laws already on the books and getting the money from fat-cat tax dodgers [see above]. It's how it works for defense spending. "Look—there's a shiny new plane which may or may not work and costs $100 million per pop! Let's get it!" Then the nation sinks $1.62 trillion into a black hole over three decades even though the damn thing doesn’t work, and has to spend billions more on yet another plane. That just keeps happening. But making sure a senior citizen has teeth with which they can eat? Allowing them to age in their own homes with adequate, paid assistance? That we have to pinch pennies on. ... The point is, we are the richest country in the goddamned world. We can afford all of these things. We don't have to treat policies—and the people whose lives they would change—as game pieces to be traded.

Some of that reluctance to spend money comes from ideas pushed by conservatives who don’t want the government to spend money on those people. A federal balanced budget amendment has been a conservative dream for a long time. The main idea is that a family budget must balance. A small business budget must balance. A city budget must balance. A state budget must balance. But the federal budget is not any of these. McCarter reported that Rep. John Yarmuth, chair of the House Budget Committee is now saying out loud, “We can spend whatever we need to spend in the interest of serving the American people.” That’s progress. Stephanie Kelton, former chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee for the Democrats, wrote a literal book on that myth. She’s also been posting about it. Short version: treating the federal budget like a family budget does not serve the public interest. We as a country can have nice things. Leah McElrath tweeted: “I think ‘rural’ is an attempt to invoke the romanticized mythology of the family farm.” Which prompted Jessica Huseman, editorial director of VoteBeatUSA which helps small newsrooms survive, to tweet:

Yes! And I cannot tell you how many people say s--- to me about farm subsidies. Who do you think gets those subsidies? There are no mom and pop farms anymore. They work on big farms to get those subsidies and then still have to drive half an hour to a f---ing grocery store. ... Increasingly, small family farms are being bought up by gigantic corporations who get the farm subsidies that so many people who live in suburbs and urban areas think are the equivalent of providing appropriate services to these communities. They are not.

Lauren Floyd of Kos discussed the difficulty of people of color have when buying a house. She included a report from The Wall Street Journal that the buyer of roughly one in five houses isn’t going to move in. They buyer is a pension fund or a corporation wanting to collect the rent. This is making housing more expensive for everyone and owning a home more out of reach for black people. There is an election next week in California about recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom. Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported that Fox News is already saying that if Newsom is not recalled it’s because Democrats cheated, there must have been vast election fraud. I’m sure we’re going to hear that leading up to every election from now on. Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed an article in The Washington Post, which begins:

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s supreme court voted unanimously on Tuesday to decriminalize abortion, a striking step in a country with one of the world’s largest Catholic populations and a move that contrasts sharply with tighter restrictions introduced across the border in Texas.

That happened even though Mexico is 82% Catholic. It happened because there is a strong women’s movement and women make up half of Mexico’s Congress. This might also influence the rest of Latin America. And maybe the US? Cheryl Rofer, who writes on women’s issues, tweeted a thread refuting the phrase “life begins at conception.” It’s a phrase used by the forced pregnancy crowd in a misleading way.

The celery and carrots in your vegetable drawer are alive. So is the mold on the cheese. Being alive by itself doesn't require a particular ethical stand. Before conception, the egg and sperm are alive. Nobody is insisting that men be prosecuted for killing all those alive sperm. Where does "life begin" for the celery and carrots? The seeds that made that plant are alive, as was the plant that made them. Or, for that matter, for the egg and sperm? Everything living owes its life to its parent. What are the forced birthers saying when they say that "life begins" at conception? And by "conception" do they mean fertilization or implantation? What they are trying to do is to impose a value on the conceptus, not to make a biological statement. And that is, of course, a matter of belief. Religious belief, even, as that quote tweet refers to Catholic doctrine. Laws against abortion impose religious restrictions on all. Roe v. Wade attempted a practical definition, in terms of viability of the fetus.

Ferrel Bruce showed an image that explains the concept.

Picnic at the border

I leave on Thursday for extended travel. I may not be able to post again before I go.

I am going to Germany with a side trip to England. My brother currently lives in Munich and he has gotten as interested in genealogy as I am. So he, his daughter, and I will travel for two weeks with the goal of visiting several of the small villages my mother’s ancestors are from. And that little jaunt into England will include a cluster of villages where one branch of my dad’s ancestors are from. Of course, there will be lots of other things to see in Germany and England. And I shouldn't forget France – our first stop out of Munich will be Strasbourg because the first village to visit is across the Rhine River from there.

For the duration of the trip this blog (as I’ve done before) will become a travelogue, perhaps even with pictures.



Some bits of news (something I hope to ignore for a few weeks). First the bad:

Last Thursday I wrote about how the nasty guy and his minion Attorney General William Barr needed a distraction, so announced the resumption of criminal executions at the federal level, something that hadn’t been done since 2003.

Twitter user Jaded Vet thinks there is a much more chilling reason for resuming the death penalty:

Anyone else think that Barr's reinstatement of the #DeathPenalty is a precursor to Trump accusing his political opponents, criminal investigators, critical journalists, human rights activists, etc. of treason?

A response from user Malcolm Nance’s Woodchipper of Justice:

That was my *first thought*. They'll start with people everyone hates – murderous rapists and pedophiles – then gradually move along the path to drug dealers, et al. and eventually end up at political opponents.

Now the good:

Last week, in the same post I referenced above, I wrote that after Special Counsel Robert Mueller talked about Russia continuing to meddle in American politics Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a hand in preventing yet another attempt to have the Senate vote on bills to protect our elections.

That prompted conservative pundit Joe Scarborough to coin a new nickname: Moscow Mitch. That’s a lot easier to type than “democracy gravedigger,” which I’ve used a few times now. This new nickname has been gaining a lot of usage, even trending on Twitter. Even better, the word “treason” is used along with it. As in: MoscowMitchMcTreason. A few tweets exploiting that are here.



California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that says for a candidate to appear in a state primary election they must disclose at least five years of tax returns. The reason for the bill is to force the nasty guy to release his taxes.

Commenters debate what might happen. Some think this will achieve nothing because the nasty guy doesn’t need California to win, and certainly won’t get it. So what if he doesn’t appear on the ballot at all? Though the GOP state legislators might not agree with that. Others note that in California the primary rules say the two who get the most votes, even if they’re from the same party, go on to the general, so the nasty guy may not get on the ballot anyway.

Even so, I appreciate the California legislature’s efforts and wish other states would do the same.



And the wonderful!

Resistance comes in many forms. Mauricio Martinez tweeted a short video of an art exhibit designed by Ronald Rael. The art is three bright pink seesaws that go through the border fence. This allows a child on one side of the border to play with a child on the other side.

A comment to the Martinez tweet took me to another bit of border resistance. Artist JR created a piece of art showing two eyes, one on either side of the border. On the last day it was on display JR turned it into a giant picnic table so guests in Mexico and the US could share a meal together. People shared food between the slats of the fence and a band accompanied the meal with half the players on each side.

Samantha Schmidt wrote about the picnic for the Washington Post. Her article included a couple more photos that show another nearby bit of work also by JR, one that I had written about before (though I haven’t found that previous post). This art is of a huge photo of a little boy who, from the American side, appears to be peering over the border fence. We see the picnic table was placed in front of the huge photo.

Mister, can you spare a taco?

The nasty guy has announced a 5% tariff on all goods imported from Mexico. The tariff is to rise by another 5% a month until it reaches 25%. The tariff is to be imposed until Mexico stops the flow of Mexican and Central American refugees reaching the US southern border.

NPR explored such questions as whether it is illegal. Yes, under USA law (Congress ceded tariffs to the Prez. a while back). No, under NAFTA or its not yet ratified replacement. No, under World Trade Organization rules. NPR also explored whether Mexico can halt the flow of refugees – no, because their own security forces are already spread too thin. In other words, the nasty guy is asking for a nearly impossible result.

A lot of the news coverage has been about what the tariff will do to cars. Because of NAFTA, various parts that go into cars might currently cross the border up to seven times.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville points out a much bigger concern: food. A significant portion of the US food supply comes from Mexico. McEwan asks:

How many people can afford for their grocery bills to go up by 25%?
…
If Trump follows through on this malicious threat, people will starve. And … only the most brutal dictators starve their own people.

Commenter carovee added:

Aaaand, Lindsay Graham has already folded. So I guess Republicans are cool with their constituents starving. Sadly, their base seems pretty cool with suffering as long as those people are suffering more. Deplorables, all of 'em.

Becca Stareyes wrote:

Somehow, I ended up following a few agriculture scientists on Twitter, and they note that when considering the impact of 'exactly how much food we import from Mexico', we also need to consider that we have a record low on planting corn and soybeans in the Midwest thanks to the cold, wet weather, and the Southeast is in a drought.

So basically exactly the conditions where we might need to import more food, and this guy is threatening tariffs on a country we get lots of food from?

eyeballsmccat added:

I have never claimed to be any sort of political prognosticator, and I'm certainly not going to start now, especially on behalf of the GOP, but...why in the WORLD would you mess with FOOD prices during an election cycle?

This is mostly a rhetorical question. I don't like any of the answers I can come up with, personally.

Protections in a trade deal

The nasty guy, along with Prime Minister of Canada Trudeau and President of Mexico Peña Nieto, signed the USMCA (also known as NAFTA 2.0) trade deal. The nasty guy is, of course, crowing that it is the best trade deal in the history of the world, even though it isn’t much different than the original NAFTA.

But a few GOP members of Congress are pissed over the deal. One of the changes is LGBT employment protections. Trudeau insisted that the agreement redefines the word “sex” to include “sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Rep. Doug Lamborn complained that the nasty guy administration has been doing such good work unifying policy around excluding sexual orientation and gender identity and this trade deal is ruining that work. “A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy.”

I think a trade agreement is a fine place to adopt social policy, especially this one, though also including worker rights and environmental protections.

Rinse and repeat

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville noted back in July that the nasty guy tweeted that Russia is interfering in the midterm elections to the benefit of Democrats. Yeah, we know how much he cares about the truth. However, the claim made now is a way to “prove” that the midterm elections will be illegitimate. A couple weeks ago the nasty guy was at the United Nations and claimed that China is also interfering in our elections to benefit the Democrats. No evidence is offered, but many news outlets will repeat his claim without vetting it. McEwan explains:

It may even now seem implausible that Trump would or could reject out of hand the results of the midterm elections.

But electoral challenges end up before the Supreme Court, which, you may have heard, he's currently in the process of stacking with flunkies who will reflexively rule in his favor.

So this is no joke. This is a(nother) constitutional crisis in the making, care of our authoritarian president.

McEwan discusses a new policy from the State Department. Diplomats, both American and those coming to America, who are in same-sex relationships must be married to get family benefits and, for partners of those coming here, to get a diplomatic visa.

For a while the auto industry (where I used to work) offered domestic partner benefits. Those ended when same-sex marriage became legal. Want benefits? You can now marry in the same way your heterosexual colleagues can.

So same deal here, right? Diplomats coming here can get married here. No problem!

Big problem. That marriage is likely not recognized in their home country. Only 12% of United Nations countries recognize same-sex marriage. And in a great many other countries (I think I heard over 70%) homosexuality is still a crime and sometimes punished by death.

McEwan adds the nasty guy would be totally uninterested in this sort of policy. It has the “filthy, homophobic fingerprints” of the vice nasty guy all over it.



You may have heard that Canada, Mexico, and America signed a deal for an update of NAFTA, the North America Free Trade Act (except we can’t call it that anymore). This is McEwan’s take on it:

It's a truly remarkable encapsulation of Trump's presidency: He invented a crisis, centered it within a network of lies, screamed endlessly about it, made impossible promises to his base, threw international agreements into chaos, risked our global alliances, struck a deal that was barely significant except that it's worse, rebranded the policy, then bragged that it was the greatest thing that's ever happened.

Rinse and repeat.

In 2014 the National Rifle Association spent $16 on the election. In 2016 it was $31 million on just the presidential campaign.

In 2018 it is $1.6 million.

Why such the huge drop?

They were condemned as the force behind lax gun laws that played a part in the Parkland and Las Vegas mass shootings. They’re also under investigation as the recipient of foreign, especially Russian, money, as well as the general question of where did that $31 million come from. And a Russian gun advocate cozied up to the NRA leadership and is now accused of being a spy.

Their money is drying up. Which is good news.

Trade: What the …?

If I remember right the whole thing about US tariffs on steel and aluminum was because because China was overproducing and dumping the rest on the world market. In trade, dumping has a particular meaning of intentionally selling a commodity below cost to drive competitors in other countries out of business.

So the nasty guy announce tariffs and invited companies and countries to apply for exceptions. Canada, Mexico, and the European Union got those exemptions, but only temporarily. I haven’t been able to keep track of what happened to the tariffs on China steel – the country at the center of this mess. Since this has been missing from the news about China I wonder if the whole thing got quietly fixed (a Chinese donation to a nasty guy real estate deal in southeast Asia probably worked wonders).

But the exemptions on tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and the EU expired. And the nasty guy decided to not renew them.

Welcome to an inside out world. China is one that Europe also says is the bad actor. The US, Canada, Mexico, and the EU could team up and really get China to do something about steel dumping. But the tariffs have been applied against allies and not the bad actor.

Canada and America share a 5,000 mile border with no military installations anywhere along the length. Our economies are closely interconnected (something we feel quite a bit here in Detroit). We’ve been great friends and allies for a long time.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville put together a few tweets on the subject and added some commentary. In a couple tweets Jasmin Mujanovic wrote:

Much of the post-1945 liberal international order, and especially after 1989, was based on two principles: collective security (i.e. NATO) and free trade (i.e. the EU, GATT, NAFTA, the WTO etc). Trump is systematically undermining both. This is a tectonic shift in world history. I fear even people who really should know better are in denial about the damage that is being done. Even if Trump & everyone else steps back from the brink of a global trade war, these are massive body blows to the integrity of what remains of liberal internationalism.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been saying the diplomatic equivalent of What the …? Mujanovic again:

… it is a clear signal of how fundamentally Ottawa feels betrayed. And that's a sentiment largely shared by the EU states. So, beyond the economic impact, it's the political fallout that will burn us all.

As I listened to this on All Things Considered on NPR I wondered: Why? Why is the nasty guy doing this? Who benefits?

McEwan has a good guess who benefits: Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Who has the strength to counter any aggression from Putin? About the only organization that can is NATO. Today’s action drove a wedge into NATO. McEwan suggests another reason: The two countries with the longest coastline in the Arctic are Russia and Canada. As the ice melts Russia is making moves to claim Arctic resources. Canada – without US backing – would have a hard time countering Russia’s moves. McEwan also suggests that Putin may make moves on Canada, not just the Arctic.

Skeptical? Here’s another piece of the puzzle. Zev Shalev summarizes and links to a New York Magazine article:

Trump’s 10% tariff increase on Canadian aluminum (among other metal tariffs on US allies) comes weeks after he saved Russia’s aluminum giant, Rusal, from disaster by granting a sanctions reprieve to its oligarch owner, Oleg Deripaska.

Commenter Fannie Wolfe gets the final word:

Especially as of late (and in light of news like this), I fear that the things this regime are breaking are not going to be able to be unbroken, even as a large portion of the political left might be pinning hopes on impeachment.

Peering over the wall

NPR did an interview between their own Colin Dwyer and French street artist JR. The artist had a mental image that he wanted to make real. He traveled to an area of the border wall that separates Tecata, California from Tecata, Mexico. There he photographed a little boy, hugely enlarged the image, and erected in on the Mexican side of the wall. Seen from the American side it looks like the little boy is peering over the wall in the same manner he might peer over the railing of his crib. See the art here.

The photo and support structure took a bit of planning and happened to go up the same week the nasty guy canceled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), affecting 800,000 immigrants that came here illegally as children (creating a mess he then demands Congress must fix). This public art represents many such little boys.

JR’s art is doing one thing he hoped it would do – it is generating discussion.

Itching for an excuse to be violent

There are two articles of interest from the May 1 edition of The Washington Spectator.

The first is Guns, Extremism, and the Threats of Escalation by Rick Perlstein. He talks about the recent Battle in Berkeley where those for the nasty guy clashed with those against. The demonstrations started peacefully, then turned violent. Some try to claim it was hard to tell who threw the first punch. Others say it was clearly someone in the Alt-Right movement.
https://washingtonspectator.org/trump-guns-extremism-perlstein/

Perlstein’s larger point is there are those in the Alt-Right (euphemism for militantly conservative) movement itching for an excuse to be violent, to take out those who oppose them their Dear Leader. As part of their excuse is the belief they are merely fighting back in self defense – though more accurately in defense of their rank in society. Along the way Perlstein wrote:

Students of fascism will recognize the fantastical confusion of tropes: the enemy as a terrifying horde, raising the stakes ruthlessly beyond all civil bounds; but also the enemy as pitiful (“glass jawed”) weaklings—sometimes both within the same utterance. Such language is how students of fascism know that they are in its presence.

The second article is Letter from Mexico by Belén Fernández (not online yet). She explains why the immigration policy is the way it is (at least prior to the nasty guy) and has been that way since the last reform 30 years ago. Her summary is short:

The point of a punitive immigration policy has never been to put a stop to undocumented immigration in the first place, but rather to perpetuate its lucrative exploitability.

It worked like this:

* NAFTA eliminated the livelihoods of millions of Mexican farmers when subsidized American farm products flooded the Mexican market. The workers fled north.

* Because they are seen as inferior humans they are paid less. They produce wealth for the employers but keep less of it for themselves. That wage difference is a subsidy for the employers.

* These employers take no responsibility, pay none of the social costs, for the communities the workers came from or live in.

* Branding the workers as “illegal” means they are always deportable. That keeps the workers from demanding too many rights or a decent wage. Americans in the area are also kept in submission by the presence of folks willing to work for less.

* The migrant worker provides a convenient scapegoat for gov’t misdeed and general societal discontent.

The nasty guy is trying to upend this logic, but doing so only through white supremacy, not business. That implies he probably won’t succeed, but those who aren’t deported are in a more precarious position and thus more exploitable.

I hate that people hate

From our point of view Mexico has a strange legal system. A same-sex couple must petition the court to be allowed to marry. If a court in a state grants five such petitions then such marriages are legal in the state. The federal court has ruled in favor of same-sex marriage, but that doesn't make them legal, it only means when lower courts are petitioned they must grant the same-sex couple the request to marry.

Which means Mexico will get there – when five brave couples in each state take the time and money to force the issue.

President Peña Nieto began talking about speeding up the process by legalizing same-sex marriage across the country. The National Front for the Family called for protests. There are reports that in the city of Celaya around 11,000 joined the march through the city.

One 12-year-old boy decided he needed to do something. He said, "I have an uncle who is gay. And I hate that people hate." And then he tried to stop the march.

He didn't succeed. But he won hearts around the world.

The next day the pro-LGBT forces held their marches.

Mars by 2044?

Can you guess why this was done? Alabama is having budget difficulties and one solution is to close 45 of 49 driver's license bureaus. Yup, by March of next year there will only be four places in the state to get a driver's license – Huntsville, Montgomery, Mobile, and Birmingham. The other half of the story: Alabama has a voter ID law that requires a driver's license or state ID (and we know where one must go for those). The poor get a double hit. They usually can't afford to take a day off work and don't have the money to travel halfway across the state for an ID. They can't vote and they can't drive a car to a job, confining them to jobs accessible by public transportation.

Commenters suggest a few gov't officials will lose the next election over this mess. The poor may not be able to vote, but even the middle class folks won't want to be so inconvenienced.



Back in 1986 Ron Jones put some serious thought into how humans could become a spacefaring race. He created the Integrated Space Plan, showing the various interlocking milestones required to create a base on the moon and a full scale colony on Mars before 2100. The plan has been updated and is much easier to understand. It also takes into account billionaires who have their own space programs. Hmm, humans on Mars around 2044. I just might live to see that.



Earlier this month the Supreme Court of Mexico ruled that a state law that bans same-sex couples from adopting is unconstitutional.



Over the last six years the GOP has been declaring Obama's policies will end in disaster. But recently the GOP hasn't been saying that very loudly. The reason, as Paul Krugman puts it, Obama is failing to fail. Those disasters just aren't appearing.

Guam! Mexico! Costa Rica!

Guam is a US territory that falls under the 9th Circuit Court. So after the 9th Circuit ruled in favor of same-sex marriage and the Supremes allowed the ruling to stand, a lesbian couple filed suit to overturn Guam's ban. Though Guam is conservative the Attorney General refused to defend the ban. The Republican governor said he would not allow marriage licenses for same-sex couples without legislative action or court order. It seems, though, he went to the local Federal Court saying please rule in favor of this couple. The judge did. Applications for marriage licenses will be accepted starting Tuesday.



Mexico has a rather confusing legal system. If there are five successful suits over an issue in a state than the issue becomes law. Suits are no longer necessary. That has now happened for same-sex marriage in five Mexican states. It also seems the rule of five applies at the national level – once five states grant the ruling then it applies nationally. However, that appears to mean the first five couples in any state still must sue to get married, though now we know what the result of those cases must be. After those five then legal challenges are no longer necessary.



In Costa Rica a couple that has been together for five years and is approved by a judge is granted the rights of marriage. A judge has now done that for a gay couple.