If you try to stop us we will use our violence against you

Some of these posts are old, some are recent. Together they tell a developing story. Back on November 19 Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that ICE was about to hire bounty hunters to track down immigrants for them. The hunters would get $300 for each person and address they verify and pass to ICE. Yeah, there are professional bounty hunters, though the field doesn’t have oversight and is full of abuse. But a big problem is this offer could be expanded to anyone who wanted to surveil and betray neighbors. There don’t seem to be safeguards on whether the address is for an actual undocumented person. This seems modeled on the Texas law that allowed citizens to sue someone for getting an abortion and collect the fee. But this is a paltry sum for selling your soul. Needham has more details in a report from November 13. Bounty hunters are not government employees and do not have restrictions that ICE agents have. Nevada Department of Insurance has 459 pages of complains about bounty hunters for harassment, stalking, and excessive force – yeah, what ICE agents are already doing – today ICE doesn’t seem to have restrictions. Kos of Kos wrote on November 22 that ICE went into Charlotte, North Carolina and over a week managed only 250 arrests, or 35 a day. The cost of this is large. Charlotte is deliberate in impeding ICE’s operations.

Which gets to the heart of the whole project: Trump isn’t crafting a coherent immigration policy. He’s staging a political stunt—punishing the immigrants his base hates while quietly protecting the ones corporate America finds useful.

On November 25 Needham reported that so many Department of Homeland Security personnel have been reassigned to the immigrant crackdown that investigations of actual crimes aren’t getting much attention. These are such crimes as “drug and weapons smuggling, cyber and financial crime, illegal technology exports and intellectual property crime” as listed on the Homeland Security Investigation website. Feel safer? Also, most of those detained by ICE do not have a criminal background (as has been mentioned before). I didn’t save articles about ICE for a while after that. I think there was one about using facial recognition software to identify people. Yeah, that will only lead to problems. On January 13 Kos wrote that Americans are turning towards the idea of defunding ICE. A few years ago there were calls to “defund the police.” But that caused more problems and didn’t provide much help. What is causing the big change in opinion is Americans used to assume that ICE was going after serious criminals, not ordinary immigrants and not citizens. But we now see ICE as a real, visible, and brutal presence. An important reason for that change is the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis. Now 40% of Americans have a favorable view of ICE and 51% view it unfavorably, according to a YouGov survey. Also, nearly 70% say agents must wear uniforms and 55% oppose agents hiding their identities behind masks. Support for protests against ICE is at 49% with opposition to protests at 41%. 45% don’t want to abolish ICE while 42% do. But trend lines show support for abolishing ICE may soon reach a majority. This morning A Martínez of NPR spoke to Liza Goitein of the Brennan Center for Justice about what’s involved if the nasty guy invokes the Insurrection Act against Minnesota as he’s been saying he has a right to do. The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits federal armed forces from being used against citizens. The Insurrection Act is the exception. It also means the president can take over the state National Guard without permission of the governor. There are restrictions to when the Act can be used. But this was a law passed in the early 1800s so now the language seems vague and archaic. Other restrictions have been there by tradition, which the nasty guy is very good at ignoring. There is also precedent that invoking the Insurrection Act cannot be reviewed by a court. So, of course, if it is invoked there will be court cases. Also this morning Michel Martin of NPR spoke to reporter Ximena Bustillo about the training ICE agents are getting. I’ll just say there are plenty of reasons to believe agents are not getting all the necessary training. This afternoon Sergio Martinez-Beltrán of NPR reported on how Minneapolis residents are working together to thwart what ICE is trying to do. Alas, at the time of this writing they have not posted a transcript. Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit analyzed the situation in Minneapolis. He first contrasted what ICE is doing compared to how deportations were done under Obama, where the rules were followed:

Nobody showed up to kick in the front door of their home. Nobody from the government was wearing a mask. No swearing, no threats, no guns, no tear gas, no pepper spray, no hitting his car with theirs or beating either of them to the ground. They merely told him he had to leave and served him with the appropriate paperwork, just like they do in most other democratic countries.

Immigration enforcement has been happening since the 1920s and we didn’t need a budget larger than for the Marine Corps to do it. Obama managed 3.1 deportations in 8 years, or an average of 387,500 a year, with 407,000 in 2012. The nasty guy did about 290,000 last year with a previous peak of 269,000 in 2019. Which means the nasty guy’s methods of deporting people are a lot less effective than Obama’s. But the nasty guy’s methods aren’t just about deportations. They aren’t about investigating fraud (Somali immigrants in Minnesota are accused of that). They’re about terrorizing a community. The nasty guy, vice nasty, and Stephen Miller have been clear their goal is not to run the country with “the consent of the governed” but with raw power, “authority without restrictions.” When autocrats want to seize power they begin by telling the people who they need to fear. And for the nasty guy that is brown and black people, particularly those born elsewhere.

Once the populace is sufficiently terrified of the “other,” they’ll accept increasing levels of repression in the name of stemming the danger to themselves and their families. Armed agents of the state begin to show up in public places to “enforce law and order,” but their real goal is to terrify people into submission. This is why Noem and Bondi are refusing to investigate Renee Good’s murder and instead demanding their federal prosecutors go after her grieving wife. They want not only ICE thugs but everybody in America who may think of challenging them to know that smashing windows, dragging people out of their cars, kicking in their doors, beating them to the ground, and even killing them — all without any legal basis, without a single warrant — are what we can all expect to happen to us if we defy their power.

Hartmann quoted the National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 the nasty guy signed two months ago. It defines domestic terrorism.

“[A]nti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, … extremism on migration, extremism on race, extremism on gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.”

We can guess his definition of “extremism” and “hostility” which means just about everyone but MAGA fits the description of domestic terrorist. And ICE is reminding us of the awesome power the nasty guy has in enforcing it. Do something against us and we’ll turn the full force of our violence on you. Hartmann quoted Stephen Miller’s instructions to ICE agents, that they have full immunity. Anyone who obstructs their work will face our justice. Yeah, that’s full of lies. But Hartmann says the message is clear: We have the power. We will use the power. There is nothing you can do about it. If you try to stop us we will use our power against you. The threat of the Insurrection Act is a threat to override state and local government, suppress dissent, and put federal violence above the rule of law. This is not a democracy. It is state sponsored terror. That got me thinking. Considering how involved Minneapolis residents are in protecting the vulnerable among them and how much the nasty guy wants to use violence to thwart that protection. I think the next few weeks in the city will be critical to democracy in the US. There will be significant bloodshed. I knew that would be coming sometime somewhere. Then we’ll see how willing the US military is to shooting fellow citizens or whether Congress or state level Republicans will grow a spine. I have no idea so won’t guess on whether democracy or the nasty guy wins. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary:

"Right now there are over two-thousand federal immigration agents in Minnesota, and Trump is planning to send around a thousand more. So he's clearly invading Minnesota. Has anyone told him they don’t have oil? Because the best he's gonna get is 50-million barrels of cream of mushroom soup." —Stephen Colbert

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted the New York Times. Here’s a bit of it:

Rather than encourage agents to de-escalate combustible encounters, as the agency guidelines emphasize, Mr. Trump and his lieutenants have provided tacit approval for more aggressive tactics.

Acyn tweeted a message from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

My position has always been clear that ICE funding should be cut. We’re seeing what they’re doing with this reckless explosion in funding, and I want everybody to understand that the cuts to your health care are what’s paying for this

David Shor added:

We recently tested ~ a dozen public statements from a diverse set of Democratic elected officials on the murder of Renee Good and this was the top testing one.

A tweet from Jonathan Cohn quoted @EggerDC:

"Minneapolis is overheating right now, not because protesters are running amok, but because federal immigration enforcement and its political leadership ... are comporting themselves with astonishing, outrageous deception and malice."

That came with a link to an article on The Bulwark, presumably written by @EggerDC, with this title and subtitle:

ICE started the fire Rather than trying to calm things down, the government is fanning the flames.

David Schuster of Blue Amp

But the real jewel in this crown of Trump administration insanity belongs to Vice President J. D. Vance. He announced with great solemnity that federal law-enforcement officers enjoy “absolute immunity.” Vance’s declaration is not merely wrong; it is ludicrous. There is no such doctrine in American law. None. It exists only in the fever dreams of fascist wannabes who mistake their own wishes for jurisprudence.

A tweet from the Omaha World-Herald:

Rep. Don Bacon tells The World-Herald that there would be GOP support for an impeachment of Donald Trump if the U.S. invaded Greenland.

Bacon added:

Bottom line: the WH talk of invading Greenland is WRONG & will backfire in worst way. America stands by our Allies. This is not the 1890s… today we lead free nations against totalitarian & imperialistic governments. We are better & won’t cave to outdated old thinking.

In the comments are a more cartoons about Greenland including a couple showing it defended by a Lego fortress. Medusa posted a cartoon by Rob Rogers showing two Iranian clerics wearing ICE vests. One says, “Wait... Why are we wearing these?” The other: “So we can engage in violent, bloody crackdowns with Trump’s full support!” PX Molina posted a meme showing a hand stopping a fist. The words say:

They want your silence. Don't give it to them. They want your fear. Don't give it to them. They want your violence. Don't give it to them. They want your misinformation. Don't give it to them. Deny them everything that feeds them.

Not the land of the free, but the home of the caged

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos reported that the Department of Justice has issued a memo saying DOJ attorneys were to strip the citizenship of immigrants that have committed certain crimes. Yeah, this is a historical thing, though rarely used. It’s usually reserved for literal Nazis who hid their past when they became citizens. The memo lists the usual crimes that can trigger denaturalization – torture, espionage, trafficking – but they added a really bad one: any other case determined sufficiently important to pursue. Yep, that can be anything. To make all that worse denaturalization cases will be done in civil court where the burden of proof is lower and the victim doesn’t have the right to an attorney.

Of course, the Trump administration was never going to stop at deporting undocumented immigrants who’ve committed violent crimes. And it was never going to stop at deporting undocumented immigrants with no criminal records or immigrants with temporary legal status. The inevitable next step was to strip citizenship from those who already have it. And after that, who knows? But rest assured Trump will figure out another way to hurt people.

Thom Harumann of the Kos community and an independent pundit posted an essay comparing Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, to Alligator Alcatraz. This comparison further pushes my belief that “Alligator Auschwitz” fits better. Dachau opened just three months after Hitler took power. It was described as a place for political prisoners. From the beginning it was known for its brutality. The first people sent there were not criminals or traitors. They were people the regime considered a threat or a convenient enemy.

The Nazis didn’t hide Dachau. They advertised it. It was a warning. A message. Step out of line, and this is where you go.

Only much later did they add extermination facilities. Alligator Alcatraz isn’t just a deportation facility. It is a political prison to humiliate, dehumanize, and broadcast terror. It is a symbol that American democracy is being publicly dissected, cruelly, and with calculation. It is also proof-of-concept. If it succeeds – as political spectacle – there will be more. Another similarity is the ongoing state of emergency. Florida declared an immigration state of emergency in 2023. It allows the governor to act without oversight. The Nazis used the 1933 Reichstag Fire to give themselves emergency power, which removed democratic guardrails. A third similarity is location. Both are in isolated places. Escape is close to impossible. Oversight is nonexistent. Rights lawyers and journalists will find it hard to access.

The most dangerous thing about Alligator Alcatraz isn’t the alligators. It’s the message. The message that some people are less than human. That caging them is acceptable. That they deserve no rights, no hearing, no compassion. Just mud and barbed wire. That was the logic behind Dachau. And it’s becoming the logic behind Trump’s America. This facility is being built not to solve a problem, but to create one. To manufacture outrage. To train the public to see brown-skinned immigrants not as workers or families or survivors but as invaders. Intruders. Animals. And that’s when the door opens for something far worse.

There are ways to engage: Lawsuits to challenge it, using any statute possible. Journalists to document construction, conditions, and policies. Peaceful protests. Using proper words – not “detention center” but “political prison” or “migrant concentration camp” and people were not sent there “for their own protection.” Learn how Dachau started and what happened there. Teach your neighbors. Democracy ends with a shrug. We need to commit to human dignity, due process, and liberty.

If we wait too long, we may wake up one day and discover we are no longer the land of the free, but only the home of the caged.

Today’s pundit roundup for Kos has a couple good cartoons. One posted by Jon Cooper and created by Bagley shows handcuffed men in suits boarding an ICE bus. The caption:

Something you will never see: ICE rounding up the CEOs who illegally exploited undocumented workers...

Cooper added, “I wonder why we aren’t seeing this? A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Geoff Coats shows the nasty guy handing a sack of cash to a rich dude while beside them is a MAGA hospital patient with a high bill. The nasty guy says, “Don’t worry, little buddy. We can still hate trans people together.” Needham also reported Republicans of North Carolina introduced a state bill to replace over a third of state election staff jobs with political appointees.

The new state elections director, Sam Hayes, had a very Trump-ish explanation for why he needs to eliminate experienced nonpartisan staff, NC Newsline reported: “These positions would just allow me the flexibility that I need to conduct that reorganization and make sure that folks that are surrounding me, certainly my direct reports and I, are aligned on the vision for the agency as I set forward.” That’s just code for “I want a bunch of stooges who will help continue the GOP project of undermining elections in the state.” But somehow, according to Hayes, this will also be nonpartisan. Yes, replacing nonpartisan staff with political appointees is totally nonpartisan indeed. It’s not surprising that Hayes only knows how to operate like a hardcore partisan, as his previous gig was as counsel for the GOP House speaker.

Any guesses to his “vision for the agency”? Dan K of the Kos community started a post with:

Lots of stories both here and elsewhere have been written in the past few days about how Republicans are committing political suicide by pushing the One Hugely Ugly Bill, how it will not only cost them the House but also the Senate. Very few if any have asked the obvious questions: Don’t you think they know this? And if they do, why are voting for it anyway? That’s because they may have come to the conclusion that they will not have to pay a political price because the next election is being rigged for them.

We don’t have one election system, we have fifty. And many of them are run by honest people dedicated to an accurate count no matter who wins (though see above). But Republicans have been tampering with elections since at least Nixon. Republicans may not be counting on this. There has been a lot of talk about cuts to Medicaid but no talk that the main cuts take place after the midterms. Three weeks ago Jeremy Kohler, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos wrote that Republicans are getting annoyed with citizens undoing their work. The citizens have been passing state constitutional amendments and voter initiatives. So Republican led legislatures are trying to make citizen initiatives harder to pass. Missouri citizens led efforts on two big measures, one of them restoring abortion rights. Abortion was also the issue in Arizona. The other Missouri initiative was sick leave benefits, which also passed in Alaska and Nebraska. In those states the effort is to undo what citizens did. Republicans in Florida, Utah, Montana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Ohio, North Dakota and South Dakota are trying to restrict initiatives, making changing laws outside of legislatures harder.

Republican elected officials across these states make strikingly similar arguments: They say the initiative process is susceptible to fraud and unduly influenced by out-of-state money. What’s more, they say that they, as elected officials, represent the true will of the people more than ballot initiatives do.

I’ve worked on a couple citizen initiatives in Michigan and likely gearing up for two more. The only ones associated with fraud were Republican efforts, such as in 2004 getting a same-sex marriage ban into the state constitution. Signature gatherers said they were working for one initiative while the actual forms were for the harmful one. As for out-of-state money, Republicans are good at collecting cash for a cause from across the country. As for elected officials representing the true will of the voters, I’ll believe that when gerrymandering is outlawed and every state draws district lines through citizen commissions, as is now done in Michigan. Needham reported that California is in a tough spot – it’s regular fire season started swiftly over the weekend. And a good chunk of its National Guard, who normally serve as fire fighters, are being used by the nasty guy as his personal police force. Which means California is asking the Department of Defense if, pretty please, the state could have the use of its own National Guard. The original request was for 200 guardsmen. The DOD was magnanimous in offering 150. How can a state have enough guardsmen for state-level challenges if the president can yank them away at any time? Back in 2018 the nasty guy punished Washington state by deliberately delaying wildfire aid. This year he isn’t punishing through money, but by yanking personnel. He’s got lots of ways to punish blue states. Last week Wednesday Alix Breeden of Kos reported that Jeff Bezos planned to marry Lauren Sanchez at the 14th-century Grande Scuola Misericordia in Venice. But locals planned to form a blockade in the canals around the venue, in addition to other protesting. Protesters won and the venue was changed to Tese 91 of the Arsenale, which is described as a shipyard. Part of the protest was a huge banner laid out in St. Mark’s Square saying, “If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax.” Though protesters got the wedding venue switched, Bezos’ visit still caused havoc. He kicked out all the other paying guests at his chosen hotel so that he wouldn’t be disturbed. Breeden then listed several ways Bezos has been bending a knee to the nasty guy.

Media isn't reporting Helene hit Tennessee too

My Sunday movie was Heartstopper season 3, episodes 4-6. I’ll write about the plot, which could be a spoiler. Then I’ll write about my thoughts on what I saw. At the end of episode 3 Charlie admitted he needed help with an eating disorder. So episode 4 is about the start of treatment. But there are delays and his mood gets worse. Charlie does get into a residential program for two months. We see that time first through Nick’s eyes. He’s lonely without his boyfriend, especially at Halloween. Then we see the two months through Charlie’s eyes, working with a therapist, getting a care package from friends, and a visit from family and Nick. In episode 5 Charlie is home in time for Christmas. And it is his first big test. His extended family is there – including the people that are invited out of obligation. And some of them pull out the mental illness stereotypes. After a while Charlie escapes to Nick’s house because Nick doesn’t treat him as mentally ill. Nick is doing a good job incorporating all that his aunt taught him about how to be supportive. In episode 6 it is now spring. Charlie’s therapy is progressing well and his relationship with Nick deepens. Part of that is Charlie has more mental space to devote to his love. Ellie is doing well in art school and her art is getting noticed. She is offered a radio interview. The host wants to draw her into the controversies of being trans. Then the story shifts to Charlie’s 16th birthday party. Now my thoughts: This circle of friends is quite supportive in all the right ways. When I was a teen I didn’t know how to be supportive like that. Perhaps the author used the stories as a guide to teens in how to be supportive. Through the first two seasons most of the emotions were pretty happy. The actors had it rather easy. In season three we see much more difficult situations. And I can see the actors are quite good. The characters are supposed to be 15 and 16 but act more like they’re older than 18, and I’m sure the actors are well into their 20s. There is way too much alcohol for kids who are 16 (probably too much for kids who are 18). And it wasn’t just Charlie’s birthday party – there was too much alcohol at the Halloween party, which Nick attended alone, and at the New Year’s Eve party when Charlie was 15. For characters and intended audience this young I wish the book author and show writers had come up with a different way for them to party. Observers have noticed that over the last few months people have been leaving the nasty guy’s rallies before they were over. Kos of Daily Kos reported his campaign has found a way to make them stay. And, of course, it didn’t turn out well. The nasty guy held a rally in the desert in Coachella, California. This is the town of the famous music festival that draws a quarter million fans. But the nasty guy didn’t use that venue. He held it at a private ranch. A question I won’t bother answering: With California absolutely going for Harris why is the nasty guy wasting campaign time there? But onward. For this rally attendees parked in three designated locations and shuttled to the venue by bus. Some started showing up at 6am. The rally ended at 7pm, meaning the crowd, limited to 15K, had spent the day in the hot sun. Well after 10pm thousands of people were still waiting for buses to take them back to their cars. At the venue there is no longer food or water or restroom facilities. A walk to the parking lot would take two hours and many elderly can’t walk that far. Some said the busses ran out of fuel. Even if they did Kos showed several gas stations just a couple miles from the site. Kos said the crowd response got weird. Some posting about the situation blamed the mayor, who had nothing to do with the event. Others posted and felt they had to delete the posts because they were “causing drama” – they were making the nasty guy look bad and devotees objected. Kos wrote:

Having stranded thousands in the hot desert, Trump and his campaign can’t even be bothered to issue an apology to their own people. They were used, abused, and tossed aside.

But they didn’t leave the rally early. Oliver Willis of Kos reported:

On Saturday, federal agencies were forced to move employees assisting with hurricane recovery efforts in North Carolina following reports of a militia threat against the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The incident follows days of Donald Trump and his allies in conservative media promoting lies about Hurricane Helene and the federal response. ... “FEMA has advised all federal responders Rutherford County, NC, to stand down and evacuate the county immediately,” the Post quoted from the email, adding that recipients were advised that the National Guard “had come across x2 trucks of armed militia saying there were out hunting FEMA” and that the agency was “coordinating the evacuation of all assigned personnel in that county.”

Willis also reported Jake Tapper, host of The Lead on CNN, did a segment on the definition of fascism and that the nasty guy fit that description. Tapper quoted Merriam-Webster:

a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition

Tapper’s evidence included: + Declaring there is “the enemy from within” and that he said he would consider using the US military or National Guard to go after opponents. + Gen. Mark Milley, who had been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for the nasty guy, was quoted in Bob Woodward’s interview of saying the nasty guy was “fascist to the core.” + The Capitol attack. + His verbal attacks on FEMA leading to threats of physical attacks. In the comments of a pundit roundup is a meme posted by Ridin’ With Kamala: “All I want for Christmas is to never hear his voice again.” In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted David Faris of Slate, who would like to get rid of the Electoral College. The EC is bad in more than distorting democracy, but also the distribution of federal aid and even distorting news.

While it appears the Biden administration is treating the impact of this season’s hurricanes as it should, the media’s focus on the almost unfathomable catastrophe in the western mountains of swing state North Carolina is a stark contrast to the near-total absence of attention to what’s going on just over the state line in deep-red Tennessee—complete with the obligatory analyses of how the hurricane’s aftermath might impact the outcome in the Tar Heel State. As for the electoral impact of Helene in Tennessee, no one is asking and no one cares. That kind of coverage disparity is an almost inevitable consequence of swing-state mania, and we shouldn’t be surprised when it seeps into policy decisions.

Down in the comments are several cartoons noting Columbus Day. In the comments of another pundit roundup are several cartoons making the repurposing of Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day. Mark Fiore posted one of his cartoons from two years ago. It shows a girl writing a poem for class:

In 1492 Columbus Sailed the ocean blue. He tortured & killed the people he found, Brought slavery & genocide all the world around. An inept explorer who left thousands dead, it’s why we celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day instead.

A meme posted by Hugh Jim Bissell shows a native chief saying, “Let me get this straight. You’re afraid of refugees coming to America, killing you, and taking your property?” Bissel also posted a meme showing the Capitol attack and saying, “Catching people sneaking across the border won’t make us safer when these people are already here.” Sharon Lerner and Andy Kroll, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, reported:

Three investigators for the Heritage Foundation have deluged federal agencies with thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests over the past year, requesting a wide range of information on government employees, including communications that could be seen as a political liability by conservatives. Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, “climate equity,” “voting” or “SOGIE,” an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression. The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.

There may be as many as 50,000 requests submitted over the past two years. They are asking for calendar dumps, team messages that include the designated phrases, and communications with civil rights and voting rights groups. The requests, which sometimes “come in at a rate of one a second,” do indeed interfere with the ability to do the regular job. Gumming up government functions may be a secondary goal. The primary goal is to identify the government employees that should be purged if the nasty guy gets back in the Oval Office and begins to implement Project 2025, giving him space to install loyalists throughout the government. Michael Harriot, in a thread now in Threadreader, wrote about the importance of black barbershops. They’re a combination of church, political headquarters, secret hideout, and gathering spot. They are one of “the most important, most revolutionary institutions in Black history.” Their history is as old as America. When a slave was about to be sold they needed cleaning up. A white barber wouldn’t do it, so they hired a black “barber boy.” They could earn enough to buy their freedom and open their own business. The barbershop was one of the few places where black people could talk freely without white people around. Black barbers were held in high esteem, which meant they could fund and be a part of the Underground Railroad. Having a barber in the effort meant a slave’s appearance could be altered before they were passed along the route. Black barbers also taught black people how to read. They could also become quite rich and important to a community. In the early 1880s Philadelphia was at the center of the Abolition movement. Black people built schools and the first HBCUs. The AME church was founded there. There was also an abolitionist newspaper. When a delegate was chosen fot the first National Negro Convention they didn’t send a leader of any of those institutions, they sent a black barber, Joseph Cassey, who was also the second richest man in the city. He had funded some of those institutions. Also during that time a black man was the barber to the president (which one is not named). He is reported to have influence over his customer. A network of barbers organized a National Slave Revolt. By 1860 they had 42,000 people trained and ready. The revolt didn’t happen because the Civil War happened instead. Barbers were instrumental during the Civil Rights era. If you are trying to influence the black community or want to get elected you need to visit a black barbershop.

He isn’t preparing to win, he’s preparing to lose

No movie on Sunday because it was a performance day. I finished the book Priddy’s Tale by Harper Fox. According to the Forward (which is as fictional as the rest of the book) “Priddy” is Cornish slang for a man one never sees working, implying he has a job but does very little. There is a second possibility, that the economy in Cornwall is so slow that many men can’t find work. In this story the main character is Jem Priddy and he doesn’t have a job. I’d like to say this is the gay version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. But they’re more different than alike. They both have a merperson falling in love with a human. Instead of Ariel falling in love with Prince Eric we have merman Merou falling in love with Priddy. And that’s the end of the similarities. The rules on how a merperson can become human are completely different – Merou does not need a sea witch for the transformation and doesn’t lose his voice in the process. There is no three day deadline, though the core story is only about four days long. Priddy is recovering from using party drugs that were stronger than they should have been. Useless for any other job he is offered the job of lighthouse keeper, which includes a room where he can live and recover. It’s not a hard job – most of the lighthouse functions are automated. During storms Priddy does have to use binoculars to check the rocks near the base of the lighthouse in case a boat hits them. If he does see a problem he should alert the professional Search and Rescue team and attempt a rescue. During one storm he sees a boat on the rocks and a guy in the water who smiles and waves. Of course, it is Merou. From that meeting they fall in love. In comes researcher Geoff Blades. He’s heard Cornish tales of merpeople and he deduces that creatures that can change form have something that humans could use to heal diseases, so he wants to capture one. He also isn’t concerned with the destruction his efforts may cause. At times I got a bit tired of all the wonderful talents the merpeople in this story have. The worst was their ability to “swim through time” – to time travel. Thankfully, that actually had very little to do with the story (so why include it?). As for the other talents, such as the way the merpeople can rescue drowning humans, I wonder how much the author conjured up and how much of it comes from Cornish tales told over pints at the pub. I enjoyed the story. But it isn’t a recommendation. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos wrote the nasty guy “isn’t preparing to win, he’s preparing to lose.” Here are the reasons for that observation: All of his apparent VP choices have avoided committing to accepting the results of the election. Nasty guy allies, such as Steve Bannon are pushing rigged election fears early and often. They declare Biden can’t possibly win fairly. The only way to defeat the nasty guy is steal the election. Congressional Republicans are pushing voting conspiracy theories. The claim pushed the most is that immigrants are brought across the border to vote for Democrats. Of course, no evidence. There are also laws that ban non-citizens from voting. But it lets racist Americans believe “their vote is being nullified by someone who isn’t a citizen.” The nasty guy is telling the Republican National Committee, the group co-chaired by his daughter-in-law, don’t worry about get out the vote efforts, concentrate on poll monitoring. He believes adoration of himself is enough to drive voting. The RNC is planning a “massive” election integrity program to “focus on the cheating.”

Trump doesn't seem nearly as concerned with resourcing the front end of his campaign because he likely believes he has less control over the election’s outcome than he does over how his supporters respond to those results. Instead, Trump is pouring time and energy into cultivating an insurance policy for losing—a way to agitate and animate his most loyal followers in the event things don’t go his way. In Trump's view, if he wins, great. But if he loses, he is laying the groundwork for months of mayhem, protests, and election denialism that could easily surpass the scope of the violent 2021 insurrection he incited the last time he lost a presidential election.

I had mentioned VP candidates refusing to commit to accepting election results. Walter Einenkel of Kos reports Sen. Marco Rubio is the latest. He joins Doug Burgum, Kristi Noem, Elise Stefanik, and Tim Scott. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed that Burgum could be what the nasty guy wants in a VP candidate. First qualification: he’s rich, though maybe not in the billionaire category. And...

In the end, Trump’s favorite thing about Burgum might not be his money. It could be his utter lack of charisma and memorability. As The New York Times reported, the No. 1 rule for Trump’s vice president pick is to never hog the spotlight. Burgum is a guy who will never threaten to replace Trump or challenge him for the hearts of the MAGA faithful. His utter blandness just might be his selling point. Doug Burgum is like Mike Pence 2.0: unthreatening and uninspiring, only this time with $100 million and 100% less concern about upholding the Constitution.

Last week I wrote that the nasty guy asked for a bribe from Big Oil, by saying if they gave him a billion dollars he would overturn oil regulations (what the rest of us would call human and environment protections). Pakalolo of the Kos community reported the request has been accepted. And that acceptance is happening in Houston, which had a heat wave followed by record-breaking rainfall. That crippled the city and left 800K without power. Jeremy Schwartz, in an article for the Texas Tribune posted on Kos, told the story of Courtney Gore. Back in 2021 she ran for the school board of Granbury Independent School District, southwest of Fort Worth. She pledged to inspect every bit of curriculum for messages inappropriate for “small town, conservative Christian values.” Yeah, we know what that means – messages of sexuality and race, or more accurately messages that said anything other than man-woman sex and also anything discussing an alternative to white supremacy. The result of all her searching...

The pervasive indoctrination she had railed against simply did not exist. Children were not being sexualized, and she could find no examples of critical race theory, an advanced academic concept that examines systemic racism. She’d examined curriculum related to social-emotional learning, which has come under attack by Christian conservatives who say it encourages children to question gender roles and prioritizes feelings over biblical teachings. Instead, Gore found the materials taught children “how to be a good friend, a good human.” Gore rushed to share the news with the hard-liners who had encouraged her to run for the seat. She expected them to be as relieved and excited as she had been. But she said they were indifferent, even dismissive, because “it didn’t fit the narrative that they were trying to push.” So, in the spring of 2022, Gore went public with a series of Facebook posts. She told residents that her backers were using divisive rhetoric to manipulate the community’s emotions. They were interested not in improving public education but rather in sowing distrust, Gore said.

She had been a part of accusing others of not being conservative enough. She is now accused of the same thing by the people who backed her race. After board meetings school marshals escort board members to their cars. She’s received threats to her home.

Gore said she feels that she was unwittingly part of a statewide effort to weaken local support of public schools and lay the groundwork for a voucher system.

Gov. Greg Abbott is pushing hard for a voucher system. Gore is speaking out so that she isn’t complicit in damaging public schools. Since then two conservative board candidates lost by wide margins. And Nancy Alana, the woman Gore defeated to get on the board, is back. Alana and Gore are now friends and allies. Now the effort is to get the community to trust the board again. A big step towards that was Gore saying “I was wrong.” An Associated Press article posted on Kos discussed the state of school integration as we pass the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. That case, decided in 1954, found that in education separate but equal was a lie. “Students who attend high-poverty schools, regardless of their family’s finances, have worse educational outcomes.” And high-poverty schools strongly correlated to high percentages of non-white students. The ruling was followed by a decade of delay and avoidance. Only in 1964 did court rulings, monitoring, and enforcement lead to improved integration. Starting in 1974 a series of rulings by the Supremes weakened Brown. And by 2007 the last of the tools of integration were taken away. Some of those rulings came from white parents who sued because a black student got something better than their white child.

At its peak, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools was considered such a success at integrating classrooms and closing the gap between Black and white students that educators around the country came to tour the district. Today, more than 20 years after a court ruling overturned busing students on the basis of race, CMS is the most segregated district in North Carolina. ... Efforts to integrate schools can take two paths, Stefan Lallinger, executive director of Next100, a public policy think tank, says. They either fight around the margins, creating slightly less segregated spaces, or they address the problem head on, which in many parts of the country would mean tackling boundaries deliberately drawn to separate rich from poor.

What seems to work towards more integration is more litigation. This time from parents of color trying to place their children in better schools and facing long waitlists. In this week’s edition of “7 stories to know” Sumner included a few that are of interest to me. Both major parties are reaching out to new voters. But the youngest voters are strongly Democratic. The young ones are also the ones most likely reached by voter registration drives. So Republicans have shifted tactics a bit. Rather than (or maybe in addition to) putting up barriers to individuals registering to vote, they are putting up barriers to registration drives. The penalties are strong enough that many groups that run drives have shut down that work. To justify it they spread unfounded claims about registering undocumented immigrants. The Los Angeles Times reports that because of the overturning of Roe more young men are seeking vasectomies. It is a lot easier and more dependable than other forms of birth control. In North Carolina Republicans passed a bill to restrict wearing masks in public. The stated reason was because of masks being worn by pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses. But the bit that exempted wearing masks for health and safety reasons was removed. Yeah, that means it is illegal in North Carolina to wear a mask to protect yourself from COVID or any other pandemic virus. And down at the bottom is a video by British linguist Rob Watts, who uses the name Rob Words when he explains interesting things about English. This 15 minute video talks about why English spelling is such a mess – two words spelled similarly (foot and boot) are pronounced differently and two words spelled differently are pronounced the same (break and brake). The reason is over a few hundred years in the middle of the last millennium there was a Great Vowel Shift, which affected many words but left many untouched. There are a few possible reasons for the shift. At the same time the printing press was came into use, which standardized spelling as vowel sounds were changing.

Social media is turning local book bans into national stories

There was a debate among the Republican candidate for president last night. Of course, I avoided that waste of time and brain cells. Instead, I relied on Kos of Daily Kos for a (thankfully brief) summary of the winners and losers. A winner (only in terms of the debate) was the nasty guy. This time his decision to skip the debate was a good one. Another winner was Ukraine. Four of the candidates strongly supported Ukraine. Only Ramaswamy clung to pro-Putin talking points. Moderators won by actually asking decent questions and decent follow-up. It’s not their fault the candidates didn’t answer them. Losers: All the candidates. None of them looked presidential. Also, to get the job they have to pile on against the nasty guy. Instead, they attacked each other. And, though this was seen as a debate for the job of vice nasty, the nasty guy declared none of the current crop will be his running mate. Individually, DeathSantis was too easily ignored and what he did say gave Biden an easy score. Last time Haley did enough things to get noticed. The second debate canceled that notice. Also losers were the audience. They were bored. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed how to interview the nasty guy. He did this because Kristen Welker of NBC’s Meet the Press interviewed him and she allowed him to “release a Niagara of unchecked lies. It was a masterclass in handing a sharp knife to someone who wants nothing more than to murder you.” So how to interview him? First of all: Don’t.

Bringing Trump on and allowing him to speak is nothing short of a campaign contribution. By now, everyone in the news business should be well aware that inviting Trump onto a program is inviting him to spread lies and attack democracy for the length of his appearance. Anyone who doesn’t know this shouldn’t be in the news business.

But if your bosses say you must...

How many lies should journalists attempt to correct when confronting not just Trump, but any politician or candidate for public office? All of them. And especially the first of them, because letting that first one go is simply giving permission for an unlimited number to come.

Orion Rummler of The 19th, posted on Kos, reported that the American Community Survey, put out by the Census Bureau and done next year may ask about LGBTQ+ people. In 2020 (or was it in 2010?) the census asked about same-sex couples living together, but that misses a lot of LGBTQ people. This is important because a lot of government funding is based on data and without asking about LGBTQ people a lot of this funding can’t happen. Unlike the census, this survey does not go to every household. It will be sent to roughly 271K houses. The questions are to be asked about every member of the household older than 15. Other LGBTQ organizations see a problem in the way this is set up. A head of household typically fills out the survey for the whole house. And if that person doesn’t approve of a teen being LGBTQ it won’t be noted on the survey. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Kate Sosin of The 19th. She discussed a Franklin & Marshall Global Barometers Report which gave a letter grade for LGBTQ human rights that looks at a country’s climate of tolerance and their policies.

Uruguay, Luxembourg, Brazil, Norway, Colombia, Malta and Chile are the countries that best uphold the human rights of their LGBTQ+ citizens, according to a report released last week. Conspicuously off that list? The United States, which scored a C or “persecuting” grade when it comes to LGBTQ+ human rights... The report ranked the United States 31 out of 136 countries, based on the lived realities of more than 167,000 queer people surveyed worldwide, trailing behind France, Vietnam and Hong Kong. But the United States is also headed toward a failing grade, said Susan Dicklitch-Nelson, professor of government at Franklin & Marshall College and the study’s founder.

There is plenty of evidence why the US got only a C. Such as... Dartagnan of the Kos community reported that the Charlotte County school district went way beyond current Florida law, though maybe not the desires of Gov. DeathSantis. All libraries in the district removed all books that have any LGBTQ character or theme. Not just the ones that others have claimed are obscene. All of them. Students are not allowed to bring the books to school for the time they sit at their desks and silently read. Even And Tango Makes Three was removed. This is the book about two male penguins who adopt and raise a chick. There is no sexual content, just parenting. The Florida Department of Education has refused to clarify what is to be removed to comply with the law and what isn’t. So the only way to stop overzealous (or even confused) librarians is a lawsuit. Laura Clawson of Kos reported the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina has banned the children’s picture book Red: a Crayon’s Story. They’re banning a story about crayons?

”Red: A Crayon’s Story” is about a crayon that is blue but has a red label. Everyone tells the crayon that it’s red, and tries to help it be better at redness, until a friend helps it see that being blue is what it’s good at. Yes, that can absolutely be read as a parable about trans identity—but that’s not the only way it can be read. As is the case with so many apparently simple children’s books, it can be about lots of things: being true to your inner self, as the publisher explains the message of the book, or finding out that what you’re best at is not what you’ve been told you should be good at, or, in an example taken from the author's life, being told that you’re lazy or stupid when really you’re dyslexic.

Yeah, this is part of the freakout over trans people. But it is also part of the assault on social-emotional learning.

“Let's say a student is working on a really difficult algebra problem and they get so frustrated because they can't remember what the next step is," Aaliyah Samuel, president and CEO of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, explained to NPR. "They have to be self-aware enough to say, ‘You know what? I'm feeling frustrated. How do I handle this?’”

And why do Republicans say that is bad? Because in addition to simply getting in touch with one’s feelings, which toxic masculinity roundly rejects, another aspect of SEL is learning how to disagree respectfully. They don’t want to do the respect thing either. Clawson also reported how social media is turning local book bans into national stories. A tweet or post about a book ban or ban prevention in one town is pounced on by the leaders of the movement – Christopher Rufo and Corey DeAngelis – who amplify it through their large social media followings while adding their praise or condemnation – and lies. So the removals in Charlotte County, Florida don’t stay there.

Right-wing book-banning efforts have money and power behind them these days. Objections to specific books that just a decade ago might have been brought up by one person in one town and laughed out of that town are now taken up by prominent right-wing operatives and pundits and nationalized—which in turn means that local school districts have to take the individual complaints more seriously, lest they become a target for the likes of Rufo or Moms for Liberty.

Not all LGBTQ news is bleak. In another pundit roundup Kev quoted Rebeca Queimaliños of El País in English who is demonstrating Put Yourself in My Skin, virtual reality scenarios to allow people to “experience” LGBTQ+ discrimination for themselves. They show three scenarios: a gay couple being beaten, a lesbian teen, and a transgender person (the actual scenarios of the last two aren’t mentioned).

Once you put on the virtual reality glasses, it is impossible not to feel the panic of a lesbian teenager or the helplessness when witnessing a couple being beaten for being gay. Those feelings are universal. However, after months of touring, Porteiro believes that the capacity for empathy among people between the ages of 60 and 80 is greater than among young people. “I don’t know how to explain it. Without sounding pessimistic, I think there is a regression.”

Alas, the quote doesn’t explain that last bit. Alejandro Serrano and William Melhado of the Texas Tribune in a story posted on Kos report that a federal judge has declared the Texas law banning public drag shows that might be seen by children is unconstitutional because it impermissibly infringes on Free Speech.

"Drag shows express a litany of emotions and purposes, from humor and pure entertainment to social commentary on gender roles," the ruling reads. "There is no doubt that at the bare minimum these performances are meant to be a form of art that is meant to entertain, alone this would warrant some level of First Amendment protection."

A similar case in another federal court in Texas came to the opposite conclusion. And this case addresses that one. That one was a suit brought again West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler because he canceled a campus drag show. This ruling includes:

"The president's sentiment reinforces this Court's opinion that while some people may find a performance offensive or morally objectionable, it does not mean the performance is not expressive or given First Amendment protection," he wrote. "Not all people will like or condone certain performances. This is no different than a person's opinion on certain comedy or genres of music, but that alone does not strip First Amendment protection."

State Sen. Bryan Hughes wrote the bill and pledged to challenge the ruling. He said:

Surely we can agree that children should be protected from sexually explicit performances. That’s what Senate Bill 12 is about.

And the rebuttal:

Critics of the bill, though, say that Republican lawmakers and officials this year have incorrectly — and unfairly — portrayed all drag performances as inherently sexual or obscene.

In yet another pundit roundup Greg Dworkin quoted John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times. In a tweet Burn-Murdoch wrote:

People are becoming more zero-sum in their thinking, and weaker economic growth may explain why Older generations grew up with high growth and formed aspirational attitudes; younger ones have faced low growth and are more zero-sum.

In a quote from the accompanying article Burn-Murdoch wrote:

You wouldn’t typically think of affirmative action advocates and anti-immigration nativists as being bedfellows. The former group skews young and is composed overwhelmingly of progressives, and the latter skews old and conservative. But according to a fascinating new study out of Harvard University, they have one significant thing in common: a predilection for zero-sum thinking, or the belief that for one group to gain, another must lose. The same way of thinking crops up on all manner of issues that cut across traditional political divides. Roughly equal numbers of US Democrats and Republicans agree that “in trade, if one country makes more money, then another country makes less money”. And while Democrats are more likely to say “if one income group becomes wealthier, this comes at the expense of other groups”, a third of Republicans agree.

To me that last bit is important. Over the last 40 years one group – billionaires – has become wealthier at the expense of the working class. I’d love to live in a society in which we can all become wealthier together. But billionaires define their worth by the difference between their wealth and that of others. They are practicing their own zero-sum thinking – I take more money to myself to make sure others make less money. This is a good time to include a couple cartoons. Both cartoons are about the auto strike that is at the end of its second week. A cartoon by David Horsey of the Seattle Times shows a worker on an assembly line and behind him are a member of the board of directors and the CEO, who is wearing a huge golden parachute, not yet deployed. The CEO says, “...And you know why we’re going bankrupt? That guy thinks he needs health care and a middle class wage!” The other cartoon is by Christopher Weyant of the Boston Globe. It shows a guy in a small rowboat with an “On Strike” sign. Looming above him from the prow of “SS Obscene Profits” a man shouts down, “Livable wages? Benefits? How dare you complain! Do you know how hard it is to squeak by on only $35 million a year?”

But that phrase is in the Constitution

A pundit roundup on Daily Kos includes several Labor Day cartoons. Here’s one by McLeod Cartoons with a historic text:

Labor is prior to, and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. – Abraham Lincoln, 1861

Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse filed a formal complaint against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. It was a seven page letter sent to Chief Justice John Roberts. The letter has several points: 1. Alito said there is nothing in the Constitution that allows Congress to regulate the Court. Whitehouse responded that is an “Improper Opining on a Legal Issue that May Come Before the Court.” 2. Alito essentially invited allies to challenge any ethics legislation that Congress might pass. 3. Whitehouse says Alito is doing it “at the Behest of Counsel in that Matter.” That counsel is David Rivkin of the Federalist Society that got the current conservatives onto the court. 4. All that opining and intruding is on behalf of a “longstanding personal and political relationship” with a person that’s a party of the dispute. In this case it is Leonard Leo, Federalist Society co-chair and companion on that luxurious Alaskan fishing trip. 5. Alito is using the office for personal benefit.

Right now, Roberts is the only one who can do anything about it. The Supreme Court is exempt from all of the rules the rest of the federal judiciary is bound by. Roberts is the only and final authority on justices’ conduct. He has refused to engage with the Senate on the issue and has insisted that the court—meaning him—can and will handle it without any interference from what he clearly believes is a lesser branch. This official complaint from Whitehouse is a challenge to Roberts to do just that.

I’ve talked about the idea that the 14th Amendment’s clause about insurrectionists not being allowed to hold public office. Daniel Estrin of NPR talked about that with Kin Wehle, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Baltimore, and with David Frum, senior editor at The Atlantic. I’ll start with Frum’s comments. He said if the nasty guy is kept off the ballot and Biden wins will the election be accepted? We’ll have “civil disorder” on a grand scale. Part of the country supports these undemocratic measures and that needs to be confronted. We need to drive our friends to the polls to save our country from a threat to democracy. I add that yeah, those undemocratic measures do need to be confronted. So, Mr. Frum, are you? I’m already tired of conservatives saying do it our way or there will be this huge wave of violence. That’s a threat from a mafia don. I’ll let Wehle give a proper rebuttal: Yes, the nasty guy qualifies for being kept off the ballot. This part of the Constitution doesn’t specify how it is to be invoked. A trial or criminal conviction? No court has weighed it yet. But that phrase is in the Constitution because the electoral process can fail. We can’t count on the voters to reject an insurrectionist. If a Democrat wins the election – even if the nasty guy isn’t removed and all measures show the election was legitimate – there will be millions who won’t accept it. We should be committed to the text of the Constitution. It exists. We should reckon with it now because if the nasty guy gets back in the White House we know he will undo democracy. Even so, America’s problems are much larger than whether we pursue this clause or don’t. Also on NPR is the story of Anderson Clayton. She is now the chair of the Democratic Party in North Carolina. And she’s 25. She doesn’t believe the mantra that people living in dying rural areas deserve what they get. Also, Democrats have been ignoring rural areas and have been ignoring young people like herself. Her job for the next 14 months is to spread the word that Bidenomics will improve rural areas too. She says, “Joe Biden is the first president in 50 frickin' years that said, if you live in a rural area, [you] deserve to have a future.” She knows she has a tough job selling her message. Though rural voters are strongly Republican, young rural voters are more evenly split. But she believes the way forward is to do outreach outside the traditional Democratic strongholds. One way to do that is make sure there is a Democratic candidate for every state House and Senate race. In 2022 forty of those races were uncontested. So she has a daunting tasks. Young people are told they need to leave small towns to succeed. But Clayton says there should be opportunity no matter the zip code. Hunter of Kos discussed the Republican obsession with Hunter Biden. He noticed at the first Republican debate none of the candidates mentioned Hunter Biden. The reason is simple. Beyond those actively trying to dig up dirt on the president’s son, nobody cares. In addition, the story Republicans have concocted to declare there really is a story here is so convoluted that eyes glaze over before places like Fox News can get through an explanation. There’s another aspect of the story to ponder. Why are the only ones pushing the Hunter Biden investigation are nasty guy supporters or backers of sedition? Derek Cai and Martin Yip of the BBC report that the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal has ruled that while same-sex couples don’t have a right to marriage they do have a right to a legal framework for their relationships. The lack of legal framework is a violation of their rights.

"The absence of legal recognition of (same-sex partners') relationship is apt to disrupt and demean their private lives together in ways that constitute arbitrary interference," said Justice Patrick Keane.

The ruling gives the government two years to create that legal framework. Support of same-sex couples is growing in Hong Kong. 60% now favor marriage equality compared to 38% a decade ago. Hong Kong will host the 11th Gay Games later this year. Even so, there is backlash.

The water’s not here yet, but the sharks are already at the door

My Sunday evening was spent watching the Oscars ceremony. I enjoyed it and was pleased to see so many Asians win awards and that the best song went to one from India. Last Friday Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and was taken over by the Feds. Biden said depositors will get all of their money, even though only $250K of it is insured by the government. Others have said that sets a dangerous precedent of putting money into an unstable bank knowing the Feds will protect them. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote about the Republican response to the takeover. It’s the response they’re using for everything these days: The bank was too “woke.” The failure wasn’t because of their requests to weaken bank regulations, they say. Nor was it improper (or at least inattentive) actions by the board. It’s because the bank had a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy. Which means “woke” has become an all-purpose attack. Republicans certainly don’t want us looking at this little detail from unusual_whales, that tweets market news, as retweeted by Leah McElrath:

Meet Joseph Gentile. He was the Chief Administrative Officer at Silicon Valley Bank. Prior to joining the firm in 2007, he served as the CFO for Lehman Brothers’ Global Investment Bank.

Lehman Brothers was one of those banks that collapsed at the start of the Great Recession. It seems he jumped just before that ship sunk and led another bank that just sank. Marlon Wayans hosted the Daily Show last week (before SVB collapsed) and he wondered where is the woke vaccine:

Nikki Haley said wokeness is more dangerous than any pandemic. I never had to miss two weeks of work for wokeness. And I’m dam sure Herman Cain didn’t die because he walked into a gender-neutral bathroom.

David From of The Atlantic tweeted:

If you're worried about what happens when one midsized regional bank doesn't repay its depositors, wait till you find out what happens if House Republicans force the government of the United States to default on its massive worldwide multi-trillion dollar obligations.

I had observed (elsewhere) that the national deficit has gone up under Republicans and down under Democrats. In reply to a response to Frum Ursula tweeted a chart that shows exactly that. Bill Clinton had managed the federal budget well enough that in his last three years the deficit had become a surplus, reducing the debt. SemDem of the Kos community wrote about the Little Haiti district of Miami (different from Little Havana) and the term “climate gentrification.” The people who settled in Little Haiti did so for racist reasons – due to redlining they weren’t allowed in white districts and this land was undesirable because it was between two railroad tracks. But there are a few things working against Little Haiti right now. (1) Miami is booming with a massive influx of people and a skyscraper boom, even though (2) Miami is being hit hard by climate change. Those high price areas on the coast are flooding more frequently. And (3) Little Haiti is ten feet above sea level – the high ground in the area. Add to that (4) 80% of Little Haiti residents couldn’t afford to buy, even here, and are renters. That means Little Haiti is highly desirable land (in spite of those two railroads) and residents are easily pushed out – just raise their rent. Home rental prices have already doubled, new condos and apartments are triple in rent. Local businesses are also being pushed out. Developers are already buying up the area. That prompted Valencia Gudner, Community Organizer in Little Haiti, to say:

The water’s not here yet, but the sharks are already at the door.

SemDem wrote there is another way this could have been done:

Too often, developers look at these communities they are invading as a problem that needs to be solved, as opposed to working with the community to make it mutually beneficial. Little Haiti residents are not under any illusion that they will be able to keep developers out, but it’s not binary. There are mega-projects and shopping districts all over the nation, but the reason people want to visit Miami is to experience the unique cultures and communities that you can’t find anywhere else. By embracing the community instead of pushing it out, by building affordable housing so local residents can actually live and work there instead of forcing them into another area pre-Jim Crow can be mutually beneficial and profitable. If the real estate moguls would work with the community to make it a place everyone would want to (and be able to) live, work, and visit, they will have a profitable development venture while being a good community steward at the same time.

Another area being hit by climate gentrification is Flagstaff, Arizona. Temperatures in Phoenix can now average 110F in the summer, so many in Phoenix are buying second homes in Flagstaff, which is at a much higher elevation and is much cooler. And long-term Flagstaff residents can no longer afford housing. Meteor Blades of Kos reported that Biden has approved the Willow oil and gas project on the North Slope of Alaska. Climate activists have been fighting this project for a long time and say approving it is both dangerous and stupid. Blades explains how stupid:

Since the 1960s, Alaska has warmed more than twice as fast as the rest of the United States. Scientists predict that the region will warm by an average of 2.2 degrees C (4 degrees F) over the next 30 years, thawing the Arctic ice and permafrost faster than is now occurring and undermining infrastructure on the tundra, including around heavy drilling rigs. To deal with this, ConocoPhillips plans eventually to install chillers—thermosiphons—to keep the ground frozen hard enough to support the rigs that extract the oil whose burning releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which adds to global warming, which is melting the permafrost. That is not exactly what you would call a virtuous circle. Dyani Chapman, state director of the Alaska Environment Research and Policy Center, told The New York Times last month that "it's absurd that as our tundra is melting because of climate change, ConocoPhillips plans to use 'chillers' to re-freeze tundra so it can drill for oil that will, in turn, make climate change even worse."

Joan McCarter of Kos reported the Supreme Court decided not to rule on another case that could have killed democracy. The case is about gerrymandering in North Carolina. Republicans in the state redrew the maps and the state Supreme Court said nope. So Republicans took the case to the federal Supremes with the kooky idea that when it comes to elections there is an “independent state legislature” theory that says the stat legislature – unencumbered by state laws, constitution, or state courts – can do whatever they want with election laws and results (including saying the voters got it wrong). So the Supremes heard the case with Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh indicating that kooky theory was a fine idea. Then there was an election and the NC Supremes shifted from Democratic to Republican majority. And the court agreed to hear the case again, though that shouldn’t happen unless the court “overlooked or misapprehended” points of law or fact. That rule is rarely used, maybe 1% of the time. And, gosh! – here’s some overlooked facts. Since the NC Supremes said they will rehear the case the federal Supremes gladly said great, we don’t have to. That’s great for the country. Not for North Carolina. How bad for NC? When the case is reheard, justices have refused to let Democrats in the room.

A basket of gripes and grudges

I wrote yesterday about Ukraine aiming towards Kupyansk, a Russian held city that is a major railway crossing critical to supplying northern Donbas. In a Thursday morning update Mark Sumner of Daily Kos wrote that in the last few days Ukrainain forces have covered 50Km and is within 10Km of Kupiansk. Several villages and towns along the way have been liberated. Russian sources discuss their panic. In a Thursday evening update Kos of Kos compared that day’s map to the one for the day before. There is quite a difference. Kos also discussed his puzzlement of Russia attacking Dibrovne south of Izyum, which Ukraine defended. Why is Russia attacking this meaningless village when Kupyansk – the source of all of Izyum’s supplies – is being attacked by Ukraine. Is it just another stupid Russian move? Kos offered an explanation:

Well, Russia explicitly prohibits personal initiative. Too dangerous, someone might get into their head the idea of overthrowing the tsar, in this case, Vladimir Putin. So some local commander has orders to march south toward Sloviansk, and he’ll keep doing it until told otherwise. Except that his superiors are up around Kupiansk and have either fled or are dead. So he’ll keep expending men, supplies, and ammunition on attacks with zero chance of success, just because that’s what he was last told. It boggles the mind!

Another thing Kos noted was the Ukrainians in that drive towards Kupyansk. When they take rest breaks there is no effort of secrecy. They’re out in the open. They know there are no Russian artillery positions or overhead aircraft. It seems Russian soldiers are fleeing, and leaving a great deal of equipment behind for Ukraine. The haul includes tanks, armored personnel carriers, anti-aircraft guns, trucks, and lots of other stuff. Kos included videos showing that it is safe for Russians to surrender to Ukraine. It is a best-case scenario. When Ukraine moves through Donbas they don’t want the locals to resist. They also want Russian soldiers to say Russia lied to us. We have nothing to fear from Ukraine. Donbas residents forced to fight are also seeing Russians loot the homes around them. So let’s win those Donbas residents over. Hunter of Kos reported on the rulings by the Michigan Supreme Court that ordered two proposals onto the November ballot. I mentioned this yesterday. The Michigan news today was that the Board of State Canvassers did meet and did approve both proposals. One of the dissenting justices was Brian Zahra. Democrat Justice Richard Bernstein had a rebuttal to Zahra’s reasoning:

Justice Zahra notes that, as a wordsmith and member of this Court, he finds it "an unremarkable proposition that spaces between words matter." As a blind person who is also a wordsmith and a member of this Court, I find it unremarkable to note that the lack of visual spacing has never mattered much to me.

One of the cases on the US Supreme Court docket for the coming year is from North Carolina and tries to argue that the Constitution says a state legislature has the only say in their slate of Electoral College electors – without regard to the actual vote of the citizens, the state’s laws, or the state’s constitution. This would lead to some drastic abuse of democracy. Will Doran, who writes about NC politics, tweeted:

In a rare move, the group of all 50 states' Supreme Court chief justices wrote to SCOTUS, urging them to shoot down the argument NC Republican lawmakers are making--that there should be no checks and balances for election laws--in their "Independent State Legislature" case.

That includes the chief justice of NC. Laura Clawson of Kos reported:

According to a new poll from Reuters/Ipsos, 58% of respondents, “including one in four Republicans—said Trump's ‘Make America Great Again’ movement is threatening America's democratic foundations.” A majority of the Republicans surveyed said they don’t think Trump and his MAGA movement represent their party. They’re going to need to start acting on that, then, because right now it’s not really showing. More than half of Republican gubernatorial nominees have sought to undermine the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Same goes for secretary of state nominees in six states, attorney general nominees in four states, Senate nominees in seven states, and House nominees in 20 states. At least 60% of voters will see an election-denier on their ballot this November.

That includes Republican candidates for governor, secretary of state, and attorney general in Michigan. Rebekah Sager of Kos reported that US District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that the Affordable Care Act mandate to cover HIV prevention drugs violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and is unlawful. These are drugs that keep gay men safe from HIV. The law was challenged by Braidwood Management who doesn’t want its employees to have those drugs covered because it encourages homosexual behavior and prostitution. My reaction is please no, not this again. O’Connor was appointed by Bush II and back in 2018 ruled the whole ACA was invalid. That was overturned. But we have a different Supreme Court. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Sen. Ted Cruz is looking to overturn Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan. Cruz and the Heritage Foundation are looking for plaintiffs, those (presumably banks) who feel they’ve been wronged by Biden’s decision. McCarter goes on to explain why Biden has the authority to forgive that debt. But with this Supreme Court that may not matter. As with overturning the provision in the ACA we see Republicans don’t want those lower in the hierarchy to have nice things. They want them oppressed. Qasim Rashid, a human rights lawyer with a show on Sirius XM, tweeted:

MAGA: Canceling student loans is immoral. This is why we need a Govt based on the Bible. Deuteronomy 15: “At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts. This is how: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made.” MAGA: Not that part of the Bible.

Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Tom Nichols of The Atlantic. Nichols included a bit of Biden’s recent speech calling out the violence of the MAGA Republicans:

They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice, to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country ... MAGA Republicans have made their choice. They embrace anger. They thrive on chaos. They live not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.

Then Nichols added:

This, as Biden pointed out, is what makes the MAGA movement so dangerous. It has no functional compass and no set of actual preferences beyond a generalized resentment, a basket of gripes and grudges against others who the Trumpists think are looking down upon them or living better lives than they are. It is a movement composed of people who are economically comfortable and middle-class, who enjoy a relatively high standard of living, and yet who seethe with a sense that they have been done dirt, screwed over, betrayed—and they are determined to get revenge. Biden broke with tradition by saying what presidents are never supposed to say: He admitted that he was finally giving up on trying to accommodate a group of Americans, because he understands that they do not want to be accommodated. ... These citizens do not want a discussion or a compromise. They don’t even want to “win,” in any traditional political sense of that word. They want to vent anger over their lives—their personal problems, their haunted sense of inferiority, and their fears about social status—on other Americans, as vehemently as possible, even to the point of violence.

The quoted excerpt names the grievance. I’ll expand: They are white people who are told they should be at the top of the social hierarchy. And even with a comfortable middle-class life they see people above them – some way above them – and they see people who they believe should be below them are catching up to them. Their position in the social hierarchy is more important to them than their comfortable lives. Karen Attiah, a columnist at the Washington Post who describes herself as Ghanian, Nigerian, Texan, tweeted:

Black and brown people around the world who were subject to horrendous cruelties and economic deprivation under British colonialism are allowed to have feelings about Queen Elizabeth. After all, they were her "subjects" too.

Someone needs a warm fuzzy. Or maybe a good air conditioner. April Siese of Kos reported that researchers used computers to cross check four billion tweets against the UN’s definition of hate speech and against temperature. They found there is a window of 54F to 70F in which people stayed friendly on Twitter. Below and especially above that window hate speech increased. Previous studies had found extreme weather makes mood and mental health worse. Karin Kirk, a geologist and science writer for NASA Climate, tweeted:

Someone wrote to NASA and asked how such a small amount of CO2 can make such a big difference. I did some math and came up with this fun comparison.

Kirk included the tweet from NASA Climate:

Can you tell the difference between caffeinated coffee and decaf? If so, you have detected a concentration of 400 parts per million (ppm). There’s more than 400 ppm of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. Small amounts of powerful substances have big effects.

I had written about the Patmos Library in Jamestown, Michigan in which some agitators made a lot of noise about the LGBTQ books in the library. They campaigned to defeat a millage that funds the library and won. I had mentioned a GoFundMe drive that covered the cost of keeping the library open. Marissa Higgins of Kos wrote that Nora Roberts has donated $50,000 to keep the Patmos Library open. She has offered to donate more. The Stateside program at Michigan Radio did a segment on the library. Host April Bear talked to Larry Walton, president, Board of Trustees for Patmos Library and John Chrastka, founder, executive director of EveryLibrary Institute. This segment begins at minute 12 of the audio and is about 20 minutes long. One of the points Chrastka makes is defunding a library isn’t just an attack on LGBTQ people and on this particular library. It is an attack on democracy. Walton said GoFundMe and other donations are great in the short term. But they can’t fund the library in the long term. Only a millage can do that. The millage will be on the ballot again in November. This time the library board and friends of the library will be campaigning much harder than they did in the summer. The presidential portrait of Barack Obama was recently revealed at the White House. Somehow that didn’t happen during the nasty guy years. Here’s a link to White House History that shows all of the presidential portraits. For Obama and before they are paintings. The last two are photographs. I imagine Biden will eventually get a painting. There is an interesting difference with Obama’s painting. Up through Bush II the background depicts some sort of setting. The background in Obama’s painting is plain white. Scroll down from the images of the presidents for a link at portraits of the first ladies and other women who had the role of White House Hostess.

Debt relief is good

Brother was here from Tuesday evening to Friday morning. We had a good time together. He likes to do home improvement projects. So I let him, though the big one he chose isn’t quite done. I created a lot of tabs in my browser for interesting articles that I found while Brother was working and I wasn’t. I’ve already deleted a few of them. Many of the others will get a brief mention. I listened to one of the bonus episodes of Gaslit Nation on Monday (access to subscribers). Hosts Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa answered subscriber questions. I don’t remember the question, though one of the answers was something like this: Those who could fix democracy aren’t. Then they blame citizens – I’ve written about the call to vote harder. And these calls come as the thing they are telling us to do is being taken away. See the new voter suppression and vote meddling laws being passed. Yes, Democrats are calling us to vote harder and Republicans are passing voter suppression laws, but Democrats had a chance to stop voter suppression and didn’t take it. They could have passed anti-gerrymandering laws. Failure to do so means laws passed now may not have effect until 2032. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos wrote on Wednesday Biden made a big announcement about canceling up to $10,000 of debt per student borrower and up to $20,000 if the student had a Pell Grant. There’s a reason for that Pell Grant distinction. If all student borrowers saw same amount of debt canceled the whole program would primarily affect white people. That’s because people of color have more student debt. Since Pell Grants went mostly to people of color helping them more evens out the program. Clawson reported that a parade of people, including Republican members of Congress, were quick to complain that it’s just wrong to borrow money and not pay it back. And equally quick were those saying most of the complainers, including those same members of Congress, had gotten PPP loans at the start of the pandemic that were forgiven. And the record of whose PPP loans were forgiven is conveniently public. Leah McElrath summed it up rather well:

• Debt relief is good. • Elected Republican representatives who themselves enjoyed debt relief criticizing debt relief for others is bad. • The bad part of PPP loans was manipulative RECIPIENT behavior. • The bad part of student loans was manipulative LENDER behavior.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included several good quotes about student debt forgiveness. First from Charlotte Alter of Time:

GenX/millennials/GenZ are carrying the financial burden for educational costs that the state carried for earlier generations. In Colorado, state funding for education dropped 70% btwn 1980-2011. In SC: 66%. In AZ: 62%. Students picked up the tab. By the way, when Mitch McConnell graduated from the U of Louisville in 1964, tuition cost $330 (about $2,800 in today's dollars.) Today, it's up 300%, even when adjusted for inflation. In 1987, a student could pay her tuition at the U of Kansas working a minimum wage, part time job and still have $ left over. Today, that same job would cover only half her tuition, and leave her more than $38k short. In 1987, more than 1/2 of Michigan State's revenue came from state funding-- by 2012, just 18% did. The U of California saw their funding halved over the same period. Meanwhile, schools kept adding new programs, gyms, dorms to attract students. The kids picked up the tab.

Dworkin quoted Anexandra Petri of the Washington Post who mimicked those who declare relieving student debt is unfair to those who struggled to pay it off.

Every time anyone’s life improves at all, I personally am insulted. Any time anyone devises a labor-saving device, or passes some kind of weak, soft-hearted law that forecloses the opportunity for a new generation of children to lose fingers in dangerous machinery, I gnash my teeth. This is an affront to everyone who struggled so mightily. To avoid affronting them, we must keep everything just as bad as ever. Put those fingers back into the machines, or our suffering will have been in vain.

Dworkin quoted Prof. Paul Musgrave, who included a chart that covers part of what he is saying.

please stop saying that student loan burden is the result of a conspiracy led by a future supreme court justice 50 years ago and not the result of broad-based (and often popular) reductions in state support over generations

From a tweet by Joshua Holland:

It is the height of elitism to think working people don’t hold student debt. Many “blue collar” workers do. 87% of the relief is going to people earning less than $75k.

Finally, Dworkin quoted Jeffrey Lazarus, a political science professor:

If you're worried Biden is buying votes with student loan forgiveness I've got news for you about the mortgage interest deduction, SALT, 401(k) contributions deduction, the earned income tax credit, lifetime learning credits, farm subsidies, IRA contributions, not to mention... If you're worried Biden is buying votes with student loan forgiveness boy do I have some news for you about how politics has worked since the beginning of time everywhere in the world.

Clay Jones tweeted a cartoon tackling that fairness issue, in which a doctor says to a patient:

We discovered a cure for cancer... but giving it to you wouldn’t be fair to everyone who’s died from cancer.

And Joe Heller drew a cartoon of a man getting a small live preserver labeled “Student debt help” while others in much bigger live preservers labeled “PPP Loan Forgiveness”, “Billionaire tax breaks”, and “Corporate subsidies” complain “That’s not fair!” Mark Sumner of Kos reported that on Thursday evening Biden gave a speech and came out swinging against Republicans. Biden said:

The MAGA Republicans don’t just threaten our personal rights and economic security. They’re a threat to our very democracy. They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace—embrace—political violence. They don’t believe in democracy.

Later Biden gave a bit of his vision of what Democrats will do if they keep the House and get another couple senators:

We’ll codify Roe v. Wade. We’ll ban assault weapons. We’ll protect Social Security and Medicare. We’ll pass universal Pre-K. We’ll restore the child care tax credit. We’ll protect voting rights, pass election reform, and make sure no one ever has the opportunity to steal an election again.

Kos of Kos wrote about the results of last Tuesday’s primary. The big news is Pat Ryan, D-NY, won a race to fill a US House seat through December. It was a race he wasn’t supposed to win. So the general message of this primary and several others since the Supremes overturned Roe is the Red Wave that usually happens during the first midterm of a Democratic president is fizzling. Wrote Kos:

How can you have a referendum on a sitting president, when the old one won’t go away? No one motivates the progressive base like Donald Trump. (All the crime-ing is just a bonus.) But more importantly, we knew the Supreme Court was slated to axe Roe v. Wade. Had Chief Justice John Roberts had his way and merely half-killed it, perhaps things might still be looking up for Republicans. But the High Court’s conservative wing went full reactionary with Dobbs, and the results was a devastating loss of rights.

And that is having a big influence on this election. Stephen Wolf of Kos Elections reported that the North Carolina Supreme Court had a lot to say about a couple recent additions to the state constitution. They ruled 4-3 along party lines that since the legislature was unconstitutionally gerrymandered Republicans may have lacked the power to approve the amendments and put them before voters. The amendments are still in place while the case returns to a lower court. In a Ukraine update, Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote:

Two weeks ago, a Russian paratrooper named Pavel Filatyev published a scathing 141-page memoir of his experiences on VKontakte (Russian Facebook), castigating what he saw as the appalling condition and ineptitude of the Russian military. Filatyev had been involved in Russia’s capture of Kherson. He composed this devastating missive while recuperating from an eye injury sustained during the Ukrainian bombardment near the town of Mykolaiv.

Some of what Filatyev wrote was about destroying towns and not actually liberating anyone. It’s all a lie. Morale is bad. The troops disillusioned with what the government is saying about the invasion. Filatyev was interrogated by Russian Special Ops in Moscow. After 16 hours he was released, and fled the country. Sumner wrote about what Putin has accomplished in six months of trying to invade and subjugate Ukraine. 1. They haven’t gotten very far. 2. They suffered heavy losses. 3. The respect for the Russian army has vanished. 4. NATO has been strengthened and new members applied. Russia’s hold on Europe is significantly less. 5. And their economy is much worse than they proclaim. Their intervention to prop up the ruble is unsustainable. They are selling natural gas to Asia at a steep discount. Foreign companies, that were 40% of GDP, have left, erasing three decades of foreign investment. 6. There is a significant brain drain. They won’t be able to recover from their problems. In another post Sumner said that Putin has increased the number of positions in the Russian army to 2 million. It’s a symbolic gesture because the army is currently well below 1 million. The next day Putin said he would add 137,000 actual soldiers to the army. But from where? Those actually in uniform are refusing to fight – which is why it looks like Russia is gaining centimeters a day. Their current method of shelling a town into rubble, then sending in troops to see if any opposition remains, shows an incredible disregard for the lives of the soldiers. Russia is forcing the men of Donbas to fight against Ukraine, which has prompted many men to go into hiding. And what else can Russia do? A draft? The possible response to that is unclear. Joan McCarter of Kos reported:

Some of the states with the greatest potential for wind and solar energy production are red states, some of which are already exploiting it to the benefit of their citizens. The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the biggest federal investment made yet in green energy, will only increase that production, and with it will come more clean energy jobs and lower costs for ratepayers. But every single Republican in Congress voted against that bill, and Republican governors in those states opposed it as well.

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that California is expected to release a proposal that by 2035 will require all cars sold in the state to be emissions free. Since California is the largest car market in the US (and 11th largest in the world) it will put a lot more pressure on the auto industry to switch to electric. Arezou Rezvani of NPR listed four things that are still in the way of California’s goal: (1) Electric vehicles are still really expensive, still priced beyond what a lot of people can pay. (2) There are rare earth minerals that are required for batteries. A lot of companies are in competition for those minerals and China currently dominates the market. (3) EV infrastructure – charging stations – is still limited. (4) Auto manufacturers are adjusting their workforces, laying off gas engine and transmission engineers while hiring electric motor engineers. During the summer my church does a family movie night. We sit outside with the movie projected on a sheet hung on the side of the building. The movie last night was Soul by Pixar-Disney. I enjoyed it. Joe is a middle school music teacher and gets a dream gig as a jazz pianist. Just after clinching it he falls down a manhole and ends up between earth and heaven. He tries to convince the authorities he wasn’t supposed to die yet and tries to get back to earth. Of course, uplifting life lessons are learned along the way. One thing I appreciated is that it looks like Joe actually hits the right notes on the piano. He doesn’t look like a live actor trying to hit somewhere close (or the piano and camera are positioned so hands aren’t seen at all). I learned through IMDB trivia that when the live musicians were recorded for the soundtrack the pianist played on a MIDI keyboard so the animators knew what actual keys were played.