The October Surprise: Media agrees he's racist

My Sunday viewing was a couple of videos about Leonard Bernstein. The first was his 19 minute segment at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1980. As is done of each honoree they do a 10 minute summary of his life, then performances by people he inspired. In this case it was conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and his daughter Jamie Bernstein, who did a touching song thanking her father. The narrator was Lauren Bacall and in part of her introduction call him a “generous volcano.” The second was a 50 minute interview with Bernstein. I think the Kennedy Center does an extended interview with each honoree (which I didn’t know they did). In this one Bernstein talks about his influences. The woman he studied piano with at the Curtis Institute. Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood who became like a father. Arturo Toscanini. And from there he talked about his experiences with many of the great conductors of the mid 20th century when he was still quite young and they were getting old. He said about several of them, “He was my greatest friend.” And that he was friends with all of them, even those that hated each other. He played piano duets with this one. He made an appointment with that one over a trivial question so they could spend hours together. I am familiar with most of the names and enjoyed the stories. If you aren’t a classical music fan or a Bernstein fan this video may not mean much. Kos of Daily Kos described the rally the nasty guy held at Madison Square Garden last Sunday. A way to summarize it: “He let out his MAGA movement’s ugly all-out bigotry.” Yeah, the news has been full of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe and his comments of the “floating island of garbage” saying it is Puerto Rico. The nasty guy campaign has tried to say that’s not us, but the campaign loaded that joke into the teleprompter and refused to include another. Lots of artists and politicians of Puerto Rican ancestry are condemning the comment and the general racist tone of the event. The tone was so bad even newspaper headlines were using the term “racist” which they usually avoid.

This is the October surprise: everyone, including the media, finally realizing what the MAGA movement truly is and being unafraid to state it. The “comedian” himself sure as heck sees nothing wrong with his racism and bigotry. And Gimenez, despite criticizing Hinchcliffe, sure went out of his way to praise Trump, the guy whose operation hired Hinchcliffe for the act. This is who they are.

Oliver Willis of Kos reported that Fox News is annoyed with all the other media outlets using the term “racist.” Willis pointed out that Hinchcliffe was not the only speaker to use racist language. Emily Singer of Kos listed thirteen news outlets that used the word “racist” or “racism” in the headlines for their stories describing the event. The conservative Wall Street Journal settled for described the event as having a “dark tone.” Again, Singer’s point is the media is finally calling the nasty guy’s campaign what it is and always has been. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev posted quotes discussing a variety of topics, including the Madison Square Garden event. The first is from Greg Sargent of the New Republic saying the event was the nasty guy’s actual closing argument. He has clearly told you who he is.

For many months, Trump and his top allies have been engaged in a two-step. Trump has been running on an explicit platform of ramped-up racism, vows of a mass purging of the nation’s internal enemies, and open threats of cleansing retribution and authoritarian violence. Again and again, as Trump has laid all this bare, his spinners and advisers have insisted that he doesn’t really mean what he’s saying, he’s being taken out of context, he’s not actually threatening to do what he’s telling us he’ll do in his own words. The rally at Madison Square Garden is best understood as the final coming-out party, the ultimate declaration that, yes, he has indeed meant every word of it all along.

Darrell West of Brookings Institute warned that in Pennsylvania mail in ballots can’t be tabulated until after the polls close. Since Democrats tend to vote by mail and Republicans in person it will appear the nasty guy will be in the lead early, then perhaps overtaken by Harris. And in 2020 the nasty guy declared that meant ballot fraud and a stolen election. Pennsylvania is the most important, but not the only, state that may have a slow count. And slow counts will be interpreted as suspicious. And there will be an avalanche of fake claims. The time to start debunking those claims is now. I suggest Republican legislatures passed laws to slow down the count (as was done with mail ballots in PA) to allow conspiracy theories to have time to flourish. Daniel Nichanian of Bolts discussed a proposed constitution amendment in Ohio that would ban gerrymandering by turning redistricting over to citizens and away from politicians. Good to see Ohio try to do what Michigan did six years ago. One problem: A Republican got to write the ballot description. Proposition proponents immediately complained it was misleading. Dhruv Khullar of The New Yorker discussed a study by Thomas Bollyky, published in The Lancet that correlates the health of a country’s citizens with the strength of its democracy. Within a decade of throwing off a dictator the life expectancy can increase by more than two years.

Democratic governments are accountable to people, and people like to be healthy. Health care is what economists call a superior good, meaning that as societies get richer they want more of it. Democracies, accordingly, spend more on health than autocracies do, and are likely to preserve access to care even when the economy tanks. Meanwhile, a free press keeps people informed; the rule of law fuels innovation, by curbing corruption and protecting intellectual property; and independent agencies check power and implement regulations to promote clean water, breathable air, and safe food.

So don’t entrust your health to the nasty guy. Josh Clinton of Good Authority discussed how polls are conducted. A big part of a poll is “weighting” the raw data. Those willing to respond to polls will rarely “match the electorate demographically in terms of sex, age, education, race, etc.” this was why 2016 polls didn’t match the actual vote. After that first weighting, pollsters then ask do the respondents match the politics of the electorate? That was the problem in 2020. And the third question is whether the respondents will actually vote. In another pundit roundup Greg Dworkin of Kos also quoted Clinton’s study and included an example. He presents data from 1,718 respondents (where they’re from is not stated) and weighted the data according to different demographics:

Raw data +6.0 Harris Weighted to 2016 demographics +7.3 Weighted to 2020 demographics +9.0 Weighted to 2022 demographics +8.8

No one knows the right weighting for 2024. Down in the comments are a few cartoons showing the nasty guy as the Pied Piper. Kos wrote according to Pew Research there is a big difference in how married and unmarried women vote. The married women are more Republican. “That suggests men might have something to do with women’s voting patterns.”

Now, up front, Pew doesn’t draw a causal link between marriage and changes in a woman’s politics. We don't know whether marriage makes women more Republican or whether Republican women are more likely to get and stay married. On top of that, age matters. Older people are more Republican and more likely to be married. Geography also matters, with people in the conservative states marrying younger than people in liberal states.

There is a campaign in conservative areas, including an ad voiced by Julia Roberts, of women leaving notes to other women in women’s spaces that are variations on “Your vote is secret. Your husband doesn’t have to know.” Commenters disputed the last statement. If a woman votes by mail her husband may demand she fill out the ballot in his presence. And even while voting in person a woman may say she needs “help” to fill out the ballot and the husband may then “help” her. And a husband my threaten her if she doesn’t ask for that “help.” I learned about this through a post on Kos by Walter Einenkel. However, I think a better description is in a post by Andi Ortiz for The Wrap. I’ll work from both. For quite a while now naturalization ceremonies for US immigrants end with the song “God Bless the USA” by Lee Greenwood. When Greenwood found the USCIS is using his song he forced them into paying him $700 a year. Because Greenwood created the Bible the nasty guy sells and because he allowed the same song, with minimal tweaking, be used in Canadian naturalization ceremonies, John Oliver, also an immigrant, decided the USCIS needed a new song. And he got Will Farrell to sing it. Oliver says the USCIS should never use Greenwood’s song and instead use his. He’ll even pay the USCIS $701 a year for the privilege. The song begins:

You studied hard. You did your best. Filled out the forms, and passed the test. Now you’re part of a land that’s so God blessed, and starting today, you’re American.

Since this is Farrell and Oliver the song veers into unexpected directions. Now that you’re an American we’ve got some really big problems we could use your help to solve. Like student debt, metal detectors in schools, private prisons, the war on drugs, fossil fuels, and Ted Cruz. And now they’re your problems too. You did volunteer to join us. Of course, the video of Farrell singing is delightfully over the top. Both articles include the video.

Real people in a real city become props in a lie

An Associated Press article from last Saturday posted on Daily Kos discussed the situation in Springfield, Ohio after the nasty guy claimed Haitian immigrants there were eating pets. A lot of cities have been reshaped by immigrants without attracting notice. But Springfield is now in the spotlight. In a city of about 60,000, the roughly 15,000 Haitian immigrants now make up a quarter of the town. Yes, there have been tensions about newcomers taking jobs (which weren’t being filled), driving up housing costs (though they filled many vacant houses), making traffic worse, and straining city services. Also, the presence of the new residents has led to the downtown being revitalized. Many Haitian residents are now living in fear. Some now consider leaving, which could lower the town’s newfound prosperity. Local officials continue to try to tamp down misinformation. Even Republican Gov. Mike DeWine is helping by offering more law enforcement. A second AP article on Tuesday featured a photo of DeWine in Springfield at a news conference to do his part to denounce the rumors of pet eating. He was also there because the Springfield City Hall, several schools, and the state motor vehicle offices in town were forced to evacuate after receiving bomb threats. So state police will sweep every school building every morning before staff and students arrive. The town canceled its CultureFest that was supposed to start next week. The reason was safety. This past Sunday, Sept. 15, Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press discussed the situation. Alas, the article is for subscribers only. He wrote about how fast a lie can travel. As part of his story he talked about the woman who started the rumor. Seeing how far her rumor spread, how it is being used, and how much pain it is causing, she now deeply regrets starting it. Vance is unrepentant and vowing to continue his lies. Mark Sumner of Kos reported that Vance appeared on CNN’s State of the Union with host Dana Bash. As part of that he said,

If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do.

I ask: Suffering of which American people? Right now the Haitian residents and the town of Springfield as a whole – his constituents because he is one of Ohio’s senators – are suffering. He appears to have no interest in them. Also, this is Vance admitting he’s lying, making stuff up to suit his political narrative, regardless of the pain he’s causing and how well his narrative matches reality (as in not at all). In Sumner’s words Vance said, “he wasn’t going to stop repeating his false narrative just because his words were putting people in danger.” To make the whole situation worse, the nasty guy is planning to visit Springfield “soon.” Mayor Rob Rue said it “could be difficult, a very difficult visit.” Don’t expect honesty. Sumner concluded:

Meanwhile, threats of violence in Springfield continue. That’s what happens when real people in a real city become props in a lie created specifically to stir up hate.

Oliver Willis of Kos wrote:

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance knew that stories about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, stealing and eating domestic pets were untrue before he and his running mate Donald Trump repeatedly amplified the claims, new reporting from The Wall Street Journal has revealed. Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck told the Journal that a staffer for the Ohio senator reached out to him on Sept. 9 and asked if there was any truth to the stories. “I told him no,” Heck said. “There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.” Despite this, Vance did not delete or correct a social media post from that same day...

Kaili Joy Gray of Kos wrote:

Ohio Sen. JD Vance doesn’t care that his racist lies about Haitian immigrants are endangering his own constituents—he’s going to keep telling them anyway. That was his message to supporters at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday when he complained about the media describing the Haitian immigrants in Springfield as legal—which they are.

Part of his logic of branding the Haitians as illegal is that Harris waved a wand to make them legal and that wand is illegal. But Harris isn’t president and could not have waved any wand. Also, that “wand” is legal. It is a part of immigration law known as temporary protected status in which a person won’t be sent home because their home country is in turmoil and thus dangerous. Yesterday Juana Summers of NPR spoke to Garry Pierre-Pierre, founder of the Haitian Times about what Haitians are dealing with in Springfield. Yes, there were tensions in town before the lies began. Some of that was because the most recent immigrants did not understand how to function in America. He and his crew were to hold a town hall meeting with residents and had to cancel because security could not be guaranteed because the town is so tense. There were death threats and bomb threats. Pierre-Pierre described the Haitians:

Well, life for the Haitians in Springfield is that of a newly arrived immigrant. They are building their community. They have stores, you have restaurants, sending their kids to school. They're struggling economically, but they're doing much better if they were in Haiti. And so that's essentially Springfield. That is also Indianapolis, where I now live. That's Columbus, Ohio, with a large community, parts of Alabama - just all across the Midwest and the Deep South, that's what Springfield, Ohio, is.

On Tuesday Sumner posted, in response to a second assassination attempt on the nasty guy, but also about Springfield:

In a social media post on Monday, Trump made it clear that while he wants everyone else to shut up, he intends to only ramp up his own vitriol. In that statement, Trump blamed “the Rhetoric, Lies, as exemplified by the false statements made by Comrade Kamala Harris during the rigged and highly partisan ABC Debate,” along with the court cases he is facing, for taking the country to “a whole new level of Hatred, Abuse, and Distrust.” “Because of this Communist Left Rhetoric, the bullets are flying, and it will only get worse!” he added. If this seems like the ultimate exercise in hypocrisy, it is. If it seems like an effort to muffle his opponents while he ramps up attacks … yes.

Morgan Stephens of Kos listed seven times the nasty guy’s rhetoric supported or led to political violence. The most recent one is his repeated lying about Springfield. He also mocked the attack on Paul Pelosi. He encouraged the Capitol attack. He villainizes Mexicans. He declared there were “very fine people, on both sides” of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville. He has called for violence against counterprotesters at his rallies. Back in 1989 he called for the death penalty for the Central Park Five. Not surprisingly political violence is on the rise. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted a couple good articles. The first quote is by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, discussing the opinion that since the Springfield story is about immigration it will help the nasty guy. Marshall disagrees this story is helping.

More specifically, is this really about the border and immigration? Sort of. But the story we’re seeing is more one of a small community being terrorized by a campaign that looks desperate and in which the Republican town and county leaders have been begging the Trump campaign to stop and now saying that they’re not even sure they’re going to vote for Trump because they’re so mad about the situation. I think there’s at least as much argument that the story people are seeing is about the chaos and destructiveness of Trump, which most people don’t like.

The second quote is from Adam Serwer of The Atlantic:

The reward that the Haitian community in Springfield has received for doing exactly what Republicans demand of legal immigrants—work, provide for themselves, contribute to their community—is a campaign of slander and intimidation. Contrary to Vance’s insistence that he is creating “stories” about a community to alleviate the suffering of Ohioans, what the Trump campaign is actually doing is invoking that suffering as license to justify violence and harm. This is the most employed rhetorical device of the Trump campaign: point to someone’s suffering and then offer as a solution the application of state violence against a disfavored group, using Americans’ problems as a pretext to harm people they have chosen to hate.

Down in the comments Denise Oliver Velez posted a four minute video by Jason Kravits with many helpers that uses animation and song to explain Project 2025. And does a pretty good job of it. Further down in the comments Hugh Jim Bissell posted something he found (author not named) related to the second assassination attempt.

I don’t think the Secret Service is up for the task at hand. It’s time to switch over to thoughts and prayers. And just in case, I think we should also post a copy of the Ten Commandments at all the golf courses and rally events.

How can Republicans oppress people if their citizens thwart plans?

I finished the book Magic Season, a Son’s Story, by Wade Rouse. This is a memoir about Rouse trying to understand his father as he is dying. I had read a previous memoir by Rouse, At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life. This was about Rouse and his husband moving from the city to a rural area of southwest Michigan. It was funny and I found it quite entertaining. Rouse was born in the Ozarks of southwest Missouri. As a gay boy he did not fit in. His father tried to teach him to play baseball, which was a disaster. All the other things country boys are expected to do – hunt and fish (and handle what they kill), do farm chores – were also a disaster. His father didn’t know what to do with him. Even though Rouse was terrible at baseball and any other sport he fell in love with listening to the St. Louis Cardinals games on the radio with his father, then the two of them soon made the trip to St. Louis to attend games. The book is structured around the innings of a playoff game between the Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs in October of 2015. Rouse was with his father as caregiver. Not being able to play sports was just one way Rouse disappointed his father. Rouse went off to college to major in journalism, which Dad didn’t consider a real job. Rouse applied to Northwestern for his Master’s. When the acceptance call came Dad said he had decided to go elsewhere, without telling his son. I thought that was the worst of the meddling. When Rouse told his dad he is gay Dad didn’t speak to him for two years (Mom was fine with a gay son). When Dad called at the end of those two years all he did was talk about the Cardinals. Rouse’s boyfriend (later husband) Gary was annoyed that no apology was given. Rouse said the call itself, Dad being the one to break the silence, was the apology. Rouse said he didn’t want to blame his father (though there was plenty of reason to do so). He wanted to understand and honor his father. And by the end I think he managed that. He saw his father as the product of his time and place. Men were not taught how to handle their emotions or to deal with change, such as producing a gay son. All the old man knew how to do was rage at the world and drink another beer. By the end of the book I think Rouse did understand his father and through recognizing the good traits he had learned he figured out how to honor his nemesis. I highly recommend this one. Dartagnan of Daily Kos reported on the hostage taking by Republicans and Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio. Republicans say that since the Democratic Convention is after the deadline to put candidates on the state ballot they won’t let Biden be on the ballot unless they get abortion restrictions. There are a couple more things as part of the hostage ransom. This attempt at abortion restrictions comes after Ohio voters approved an amendment to the state constitution to protect abortion rights. There is a bill approving Biden for the ballot – this type of bill passed the Ohio legislature in 2012 and 2020 – but Republicans refuse to advance it. One of those other things is a measure to keep money from “foreign nationals” out of citizen sponsored initiatives. Sounds good, no? The problem is that the new rules for verifying and enforcing whether there is foreign money would so difficult and expensive to navigate that it would end citizen initiatives – which is the point. How can Republicans oppress their people if their citizens keep coming up with ways to thwart them? The other thing is a measure that would immediately funnel challenges to new abortion laws directly to the highly anti-abortion Ohio Supreme Court. One of the justices on that court is Pat DeWine – the governor’s son. Neither of these poison pills, are things the average voter is going to understand. One of them has convoluted reasoning and neither spell out the intended consequences.

What’s transpiring now in Ohio is a textbook example of how Republicans simply do not care about what the majority of their citizens want, and the lengths they’ll go to force their agenda down their voters’ throats.

Silence of the Kos community wrote that the Democratic Party is going to thwart the hostage-taking by doing virtual roll call (like they did in 2020 in the pandemic era) of the delegates well before the Ohio deadline. So Biden’s actual nomination as the Democratic candidate will come well before the convention. Robert Downen and Renzo Downey, in an article for the Texas Tribune posted on Kos, discussed the Texas Republican Party platform recently voted on by delegates. It has such things as: The Bible must be taught in public schools. Statewide leaders (such as secretary of state) must get a majority of votes in a majority of counties, not just overall – with 254 counties, most of them sparsely populated and rural, that would mean a Democrat could never again win statewide office (That would violate the Voting Rights Act? Well, call for repealing the VRA). Abortion is homicide. Gender transition treatment is child abuse. Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice. Biden was not legitimately elected. Immigration is the “greatest threat to American security and sovereignty.” And many more. Yeah, many of those were in the 2022 platform. And, yeah, the party is moving further right each time it writes a platform.

During a speech on the convention stage on Saturday, former gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Don Huffines carried a printed version of the platform with him. He noted that Republicans have controlled the Legislature and the governor’s mansion for two decades, but the party still struggles to secure its priorities. “We could get any piece of legislation done anytime we want, but, every session, we struggle to get our platform into law,” Huffines said.

Many of us are glad that turning the platform into law is so hard. In another post from last Friday Downen wrote about the chaos in the Texas Republican Party (though not so much chaos as to stop voting on the platform). It’s a long article that I think is summarized as this: There was a lot of effort to purge Republican members who weren’t conservative enough. That prompted a shrinking of the donor base to there are two major donors left. They are...

Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who have for years funded attacks by the far right on fellow Republicans, pushed for hardline restrictions on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights, and faced recent scandals over avowed white supremacists and antisemites working for their political network. In the decade before Rinaldi became chair, the party received $310,000 in donations from Dunn, Wilks or their political action committees. Since then, they have given more than $1.2 million to the party — and last year, as Rinaldi increasingly used his position to attack their political enemies, the billionaires made up a quarter of the party’s total donations.

The Texas Republican Party is beholden to only two super wealthy far right dudes. No wonder their platform reads as it does. In an Earth Matters report for Kos Meteor Blades had a few interesting segments. Blades looked at the nasty guy’s request for a bribe from the oil industry, saying he’ll undo all the Biden oil regulations. Thankfully, Rep. Jamie Raskin is asking the Department of Justice to investigate. But since there are so many legal ways to make big donations, being able to document the cash that is part of the bribe will be mighty difficult. To get to net zero carbon by mid century we must triple our investment in renewable energy by the end of this decade. And the chance to get to net zero is “rapidly closing.” The researchers who determined that predict that we’ll hit “peak oil” next year with sharp declines after that. Some industries are fairly easy to decarbonize. Others, such as avation and steelmaking, will be much harder. Millennials and Gen Z are anxious about the planet. As an action they can take they are quitting jobs that aren’t eco-friendly. The State of the World’s Human Rights report now includes the status of the right to a healthy environment. It shows climate impacts people in every country and causes more harm to marginalized groups. Cities are buying EVs in bulk for their government needs. That will speed up acceptance of EVs for personal use. It also gives cities a good way to reduce pollution. They’re also cheaper to run and maintain. Half the pasture lands on earth has been degraded by climate change. That threatens food supply. Two weeks ago Mitch Perry, in an article for the Florida Phoenix posted on Kos, reported that DeathSantis has signed a bill that will erase the phrase “climate change” from state laws. The bill was to be signed in Clearwater Beach, but 15 minutes before the ceremony the Gov’s appearance was canceled because the area was under a severe thunderstorm watch. The next day a poll showed that 68% of respondents say the state government should do more to address climate change.

Capitalism has always come into conflict with freedom and equality

Now that the nasty guy is blocked from the ballot in two states, an Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos discusses the question: Can he run? Some of the points: Several states have ruled on whether the nasty guy violated the 14th amendment and should be barred from being on the presidential ballot. And these rulings have been all over: Yes he should be banned, not he shouldn’t, we aren’t the ones to say.

Until the high court rules, any state could adopt its own standard on whether Trump, or anyone else, can be on the ballot. That's the sort of legal chaos the court is supposed to prevent.

The nasty guy’s lawyers have reasons why he should be on the ballot. The prosecuting lawyers have reasons why he shouldn’t. The insurrection was almost three years ago. This is an issue only now because until the nasty guy filed papers to be on the ballot it wasn’t a question courts could take up. Is this a partisan issue?

Well, of course it is. Bellows is a Democrat, and all the justices on the Colorado Supreme Court were appointed by Democrats. Six of the 9 U.S. Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republicans, three by Trump himself. But courts don't always split on predictable partisan lines. The Colorado ruling was 4-3 — so three Democratic appointees disagreed with barring Trump. Several prominent legal conservatives have championed the use of Section 3 against the former president.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Perry Bacon of the Washington Post who says we should use the 14th Amendment to keep the nasty guy off the ballot.

The argument that doing so would be undemocratic is nonsense. Democracy is not just elections; it’s also a broader system of rules, laws and norms. Even if you think democracy is mostly about elections, you can’t support having Trump as president again, because he only supports elections if he is declared the winner. It cannot be a requirement of democracy that you allow the election of leaders who will then end free and fair elections — and therefore democracy itself.

When Nikki Haley was asked about the cause of the Civil War and did not mention slavery she accused the person asking the question of being a Democratic plant. Monte Wolverton posted a cartoon of Dark Brandon exhorting actual potted plants to, “Go Now!... To town hall meetings everywhere and ask GOP candidates hard questions!” Another AP article reported that the very Republican legislature in Ohio approved two anti-trans bills. Very Republican Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed them. Yeah, he defied his caucus. They’re contemplating an override. On the law banning treatment for gender transitioning DeWine said:

Now, while there are rare times in the law in other circumstances where the state overrules the medical decisions made by the parents, I can think of no examples where this is done where it is not only against the decision of the parent, but also against the medical judgement of the treating physician and against the judgement of the treating team of medical experts. Therefore, I cannot sign this bill as it currently written.

As I read that I kept thinking isn’t the same true for laws banning abortion? Didn’t Ohioans just vote to put abortion protections in the state constitution? Since abortion is protected in Ohio that might be why DeWine didn’t think of it. DeWine did announce three actions his administration will take. First is direct agencies (which ones isn’t reported) to ban transitioning surgery on those under 18. This is to combat the fallacy that gender transitioning goes straight to surgery – which doesn’t happen anyway. Second, he agrees with the legislature there isn’t sufficient data on those who receive gender affirming care. So he is directing appropriate agencies to gather the data. Third, he and his team will draft rules to prevent “pop up clinics” to make sure families get accurate counseling on care. The legislature passed one bill banning puberty blockers and hormone therapies, treatments available for more than a decade and long endorsed by major medical associations. Another bill would have banned transgender women from girls sports, for the bad reasons claimed in other states. These were vetoed. Here’s an article that’s been sitting in my browser tabs since early October. I accumulated a bunch of other articles to discuss along with it and since then I wrote about more important (or shorter) topics. This article is by John Patrick Leary for Economic Hardship Reporting Project and was posted on Kos. The article discusses neoliberalism, which Leary defines.

Neoliberalism is an economic philosophy and a political system devoted to enforcing economic competition, protecting the power of businesses, and celebrating the “free market”—that is, the capitalist market—as the wisest and best judge of people, institutions, and ideas. ... Capitalism, which relies on the productive power of hierarchy—many people working under the authority of a smaller group of bosses—has always come into conflict with political systems based on freedom and equality. Neoliberalism, [Wellesley College history professor Quinn] Slobodian argues, is a response by politicians and capitalists to protect the market from interference by democratic representatives of the people. So, for example, when international free-trade agreements, like NAFTA, require national governments to privatize public utilities and adjust their labor laws to encourage economic growth, they allow corporations and private businesses to overrule government demands for social justice.

Some examples. There is the Lyft driver that is classified as an independent contractor and must maintain their car at their own expense. There is the Detroit student who must navigate the “archipelago” of charter schools, some operated at a profit where they and their parents don’t have much time to research options, leading to anxiety. There are social media corporations mining teenagers’ social lives for advertising dollars. What used to be free or low cost public college now force massive education debt. In Britain public housing was privatized and those who could not afford maintenance sold to investors, who increased rents and made Britain’s affordable housing crisis worse.

This is neoliberalism in a nutshell: The state uses its muscle to break up a public asset, turning what had once been a public, democratic obligation (providing and maintaining affordable housing for the people) into an individual’s personal obligation, subject to the power of the private market. In the process, an asset built and maintained by a democratic government—public housing—became, in the end, just another engine to create private fortunes. ... None of this is exactly new, even if the problems are getting worse. Defining neoliberalism can seem unnecessarily complicated if we concentrate too much on that prefix—what’s so “neo” about low wages and expensive housing? So, to keep it simple: Neoliberalism is the newest stage of a very old conflict between capitalism and democracy.

On to those other articles. One is even older than the Leary article. It is by Aldous Pennyfathing of Kos, though the useful quote is by Greg Sargent of WaPo:

New data on tax avoidance by the ultrarich badly undermines GOP claims to being an anti-elite, pro-worker party. It shows that if Republicans get their way with regard to the IRS, a nontrivial number of very rich Americans would continue to underpay taxes they owe, effectively making out like bandits — some literally so. Nearly 1,000 tax filers who earn more than $1 million per year have still not filed federal tax returns for at least one year from 2017 to 2020, according to IRS data provided to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

So, yeah, Republicans are the party of the rich and rich tax cheats. Remember the news about the high price of eggs in the fall of 2022? In a story from late November Mark Sumner wrote:

As Bloomberg Law reports, food companies began complaining about the price-fixing scheme all the way back in 2011. What’s more, the scheme was seemingly put in place in the 1990s, if not sooner. The story about the price-fixing of eggs turns out to not be so much about how food producers conspired to drive up prices at a time when the nation was struggling from the lingering effects of a pandemic. It’s a story about how food industry groups and corporate producers are always looking for ways to cheat the system. ... When it’s all put together, what it shows is an industry that has been manipulating the market for seemingly three decades or more, and that took advantage of both a real disease [bird flu] and media hype about inflation to disguise a naked grab for record profits. ... Inflation caused by corporate greed can’t be addressed by raising interest rates that harm consumers. Solving the underlying problem can’t be done until the public is fully aware of the real cause of rising prices. But corporate media is failing them on this issue, as it is on so many others.

In early December Meteor Blades of Kos wrote:

A new report from progressive UK.-based think-tanks IPPR and Common Wealth says profiteering played a major role in jacking up prices far above the rise in costs, reinforcing a previous but narrower study showing such an impact. Among other things, the researchers called for a global corporation tax to curtail unrestrained profits.

In early 2022 energy, mining, monopolistic food, technology, telecommunications, and banking all saw “profits leap ahead of inflation.” Some of these companies tripled their profits. Because energy and food prices feed into costs across all sectors of the economy the profit grabs made inflation run higher and last longer. Food production got particular attention because the largest four food companies – Archer-Daniels-Midland, Cargill, Bunge, and Dreyfus – control about 70-90 percent of the world grain market. The profits for the four rose 255% in 2021. In mid-November, Sen. Bob Casey, chairman of the Subcommittee on Children and Families released a report —“Stuffing Their Pockets: How Big Food and Agriculture Businesses Are Making Your Holiday Meals More Expensive.” From the report:

This report examines how the agribusiness companies that process Americans’ food have increased prices for everyday staple foods and raises questions about why those price increases are necessary. These same companies have a history of engaging in price-fixing, colluding to raise prices, anti-competitive conduct, and touting their ability to raise prices without limit. [...] Finally, the Department of Justice recently initiated a lawsuit that suggests almost the entire chicken, turkey, and pork industry are engaged in price-fixing practices.

Some secret sauce to allow them to ban abortion without a backlash

I finished the book Delusions of Gender, How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference, by Cordelia Fine. I bought it because of a favorable review. After buying and before reading the book I thought it was about being transgender. It is only in passing. It’s about all the bad science that tries to declare there is a big difference between male brains and female brains. The book debunks it all. If you disagree with or don’t understand what I wrote here please read the book before arguing with me. There are a lot of articles and books written about how different male brains are from female brains. Some of these are from a century and a half ago. They try to justify why women can’t and shouldn’t be allowed to do certain things. Isn’t it nice when one can get science to confirm their prejudices? This justification runs deep and is far ranging. So Fine must tackle it from many angles, which she does with wit. Here are some of those angle. Other people’s opinions of make a great deal of difference on how we think of ourselves. Women perform noticeably worse than men when reminded of their gender just before a math test. That difference goes away when instead women are told that men and women perform equally well on the test. Worrying about how well one does on a test can suck up enough mental energy that one doesn’t do well on it. There’s a big difference on people describing how good they are at certain things, such as decoding a facial expression, and how good they actually are at a task. No, women can’t routinely grasp a man’s emotions before he can. Women are repeatedly told “You don’t belong here.” Without a female role model they can succumb to that belief. Some women handle it by becoming less feminine. The feeling of not belonging is reinforced in the hiring process when the employer may claim she just doesn’t fit into the corporate culture. It is also reinforced when many key events, like hosting a client before closing a big deal, are held at strip clubs. No matter how the salaries of a husband and wife compare she’s much more likely to do most of the housework and childcare. And kids notice who does what. There is a big idea that fetal brains are or are not awash testosterone during pregnancy. That’s a potent hormone and that’s got to make a difference in a developing brain. Right? Except no difference has been found. Girls that had a high level of testosterone in the womb act no different than other girls. Also, male macaque monkeys in one region of Japan are the primary caretakers of infants and in another region of Japan they do little to care for infants. There’s a big fascination with teasing out gender differences through the use of the fMRI, the magnetic resonance imaging that highlights what part of the brain is functioning at a particular moment. But... Because these machines are so expensive study sizes are too small to be meaningful. So claims are made on too little data. The machines are too imprecise to show anything meaningful. Also, studies that show no gender difference tend to not be published. Finally, differences in brain structure have shown little differences in behavior. So all that noise about girls and boys need to be educated separately (so that girls can be taught in a manner similar to their “nature”) is a lot of bunk. If studies using fMRI machines are so problematic, why pay attention to them? Because studies using the term makes the bunk sound more “scientific.” So say goodbye to the concept that male brains are “hardwired” differently than female brains. Then what should be said to the parents who insist they’re raising their daughter in a gender-neutral manner, yet the child insists on frilly pink outfits? The child wants them because in this culture there is no such thing as gender-neutral, even by the parents. As soon as parents find out the gender of their child they treat it differently. At birth parents of boys are “proud” and have dreams of sports and parents of girls are “happy” and have dreams of dance class. Now try to buy the newborn a gender-neutral onesie. And after that the child encounters a world where the gender of a person appears to be the most important attribute. That is so pervasive that by age 3 or 4 children become very good gender police, good at dishing out “jeer pressure” to other children violating the norms. And while girls may now get approval for playing with boy toys, boys are still discouraged from playing with girl toys. Even so, try to treat people without regard to gender. While children learn about gender at a very young age the concepts – and the brain holding them – can change. And every time a man announces it is his turn to pick up the kids from school the concept of which tasks are male and which are female are adjusted a tiny bit. I had reported that Ohio Republicans were looking for ways to overturn the abortion rights amendment voters just approved. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos has more details of what they’re looking at. Some Republicans are complaining the election was stolen and voters were influenced by foreign billionaires (George Soros was naturalized back in 1961). Another group says the amendment didn’t specify what laws it overturns, so it overturns none. Others say the language is vague so needs us to pass supporting (redefining) legislation. Yeah, there will be a lot to litigate over what all this means. So the last idea is to pass legislation that says the judiciary is not allowed to rule on this amendment. Only the legislature could decide what modifications to existing laws need to be made. And, yeah, that’s a power grab. Should Republicans be so anxious for a power grab? In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Mary Ziegler of Slate who wrote that abortion rights might be overcome by state supreme courts – and Ohio’s has a 4-3 conservative majority. So any ambiguity will be resolved in favor of abortion opponents. This roundup also includes, down in the comments, a cartoon by Bill Branhall of the New York Daily News. It shows an elephant on the ground with lumps on its head from being battered by a “Ban Abortion” sign. A woman stands over him, saying, “It’s the autonomy, stupid.” Clawson reported:

In the wake of another bad Election Day, Republicans are once again lamenting that they just haven’t found the right message on abortion while they continue to push unpopular policies on abortion. They remain convinced there’s some secret sauce that will allow them to ban abortion without a public backlash, perhaps by talking up how they’re going to add some exceptions to their abortion bans.

But voters understand a 15 week ban becomes a 12 week ban, which becomes a 6 week ban. Clawson looked at some of what Republicans are saying and does a good job of showing the flaws in their strange reasoning. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported that in the wake of the Virginia legislature flipping to Democrat because of the abortion ban Gov. Glenn Youngkin promised to pass, Rep. Bob Good declared the flip was because the proposed abortion ban wasn’t stringent enough. Red voters didn’t turn out. Never mind that polling shows that only 24% of Virginia voters want a more restrictive ban and that any sort off abortion ban is great for turning out Democrats. Eleveld also noticed how panicked Republicans are over the abortion issue and how much they’re flailing in trying to form a winning message. Some candidates are saying better to be silent on the issue. Others are saying they don’t want Democrats to define them on this issue so better to be clear on exactly where they stand – such as wanting a national 15 week ban, the one that made Youngkin’s life much harder. In contrast, Eleveld reported Democrats are pushing abortion protections in more states, knowing how much the issue turns out voters and how that is an advantage for themselves – and Biden. Aiming for abortion rights votes in 2024 are Arizona and Nevada (both swing states), Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Greg Sargent of the Washington Post writing about Youngkin:

But the GOP governor’s comeuppance isn’t just about the durability of abortion rights as a political winner for Democrats. It also shows that right-wing culture-warring on education — built around a “parents’ rights” agenda limiting school discussion of race and gender — has utterly lost its political potency, allowing Democrats to respond with their own affirmative liberal cultural agenda.

Dworkin also quoted Amanda Marcotte of Salon who wrote that Moms for Liberty is now a toxic brand and that they lost all five open seats on the board of the Pennridge School District near Philadelphia. Clawson looked at Moms for Liberty’s poor showing and the general Republican culture war. It seems they are forgetting that parents of school children are no longer Boomers, but Gen-Xers and Millennials. They grew up on the other side of the culture war and are tired of it. To them trans people and same-sex couples are not scary. The books they read to their kids included LGBTQ characters. Also the later generations are much more racially diverse so running on racism is much less effective. The culture war could draw out the Republican base. But it is facing more rejection from swing voters. Clawson reported that New York Times reported Peter Baker wrote about how close Democrats were to not flipping the Virginia legislature. Baker reported on seats Democrats won by only 830 votes in a House district and 1,923 votes in a Senate district. Clawson pointed out that 830 vote win was in percentages 51.48% to 48.33%, which doesn’t sound so narrow. Also, Baker didn’t say anything about a Republican representative who won by only 228 votes (50.32% to 49.51%) or one who won by only 966 votes. Nor did he mention the Republican senators who won by only 1,684 and 1,528 votes. Baker could have said the Democratic win could have been bigger. Baker is part of a larger media effort to say no matter how well Democrats do they’re still in trouble. I last wrote about the Russian invasion of Ukraine back in October. There always seemed to be something more important to write about. On October 26 Mark Sumner of Kos wrote about the ATACMS rockets were now being used in Ukraine. Their use has gotten some hits and some misses. It has also prompted Russia to pull some of its aircraft farther back from the front. Sumner also mentioned the debate on whether Avdiivka, near Donetsk, is the new Bakhmut, the town Russia seems determined to capture no matter the cost. Maps in this post show Russian occupying land around three sides of the town. As a reminder how old some of these posts are, back on October 27 Sumner reported that a change in US House leadership puts aid to Ukraine at risk. Russian propagandists rejoiced. On the 29th Kos of Kos reported that the Israel/Hamas war benefits Russia because it distracts the US from Ukraine. It also throws a lot of international relations into chaos – does one support or condemn the Hamas atrocities and/or the Israeli atrocities? And that chaos benefits Russia. It also gives useful idiots in the US House an excuse to to pull back on support to Ukraine. On the 30th Sumner reported that after five months the counteroffensive on the Zaporizhzhia front has stalled. This is the area where Russia has “constructed thousands of kilometers of overlapping trenches, minefields, and fortifications.” On November 2nd Kos reported that Russia is ready to talk peace! Yeah, it’s a phony proposal because it talks about “necessary conditions,” meaning Russia gets to keep the territory it now occupies plus some territory already liberated. On the 3rd Kos reported Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny had a candid interview with The Economist. An important part of the article is him saying the counteroffensive is at a stalemate. And it has been costly in terms of lives and destruction. What is needed is a technological breakthrough. Kos also reports that in a separate letter Zaluzhny stated what he needs for Ukraine to win. A continued supply of missiles and shells. Control of the skies (though Kos doubts they’ll ever have full control). More drones. Modernized electronic warfare – ways to jam communication and navigation signals and personnel to operate it. Also, the flip side – electronic protection from jamming. A better ground based GPS system to guide its drones. Mine breaching technology. And more training of personnel outside its territory. Kos says the whole world needs ways to neutralize drone threats. We need to be able to stop a barrage of drones at a political rally or sports arena. This is a Pandora’s box that has been opened and needs to be shut quickly. Kos concluded:

It is laudable that Zaluzhny was this open and candid about Ukraine’s challenges and needs. This war won’t end quickly; there is no quick-fix solution. But his requests here are reasonable and realistic, and will build the force—and technological edge—Ukraine needs to finally win this war.

On the 6th Kos reported President Zelenskyy’s new challenge is dealing with everybody calling for negotiations with Russia. Yes, part of that is international response to Zaluzhny’s declaration of a stalemate. And yes, Zelenskyy is now annoyed with his top general. A pause in the action to allow for more training of Ukrainian soldiers also gives Russia time to build more defenses. And a settlement leaves a “frozen conflict.” Russia is very good at creating those. A frozen conflict helps Russia in that it justifies leaving “peacekeeping” forces which oppress the local population. And since NATO and the EU don’t want to admit members that have existing territorial disputes that could keep Ukraine out of both. Also, Russia, despite its massive amount of land, is obsessed with adding more territory. On the 13th Sumner reported on the expansion of Ukraine’s efforts on the other side of the Dnipro river from Kherson. This is the region west of Zaporizhzhia. Russia thought the wide river would protect it. But Ukraine has crossed it at several points. They are improving their position, but have not yet pushed Russia far enough back to safely build a pontoon bridge to bring tanks and such across. As for Avdiivka Russia is slowly gaining ground at a high cost of men and weapons. And on the 14th Kos was able to say the Kherson counteroffensive is a real thing. Ukraine holds the entire southeast bank of the Dnipro River. They aren’t ready for that pontoon bridge yet. But this part of the front is less heavily defended – Russia thought the river was enough defense. Once Ukraine gets through the minimal defenses they have a clear path to both Crimea and Melitopol, the major logistical hub on the back side of the Zaporizhzhia defenses. So maybe the war isn’t completely at a stalemate.

A revolving door of ballot campaigns

More consequences of the election a few days ago. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos wrote that shortly after Ohio voters put abortion rights in their state constitution the House Speaker Jason Stephens declared an effort to ban abortions anyway. He says there are “multiple paths” the legislature can explore. His declaration came after another Republican was relieved the issue is settled so the party can focus on unseating Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown. Guys, good luck with that. Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Ohio Senate President Matt Huffman said there would be a “revolving door of ballot campaigns to repeal or replace Issue 1.” Does he intend to keep putting it on the ballot until he gets the result he wants? Why does he think the result will be different next time? Michigan voters approved our abortion rights amendment a year ago. The legislature spent some time clearing out some of laws that block abortion access. Alas, they didn’t get them all – the 24 hour waiting period remains – one Democrat didn’t think it was too much of a burden. McCarter reported that Right to Life of Michigan has now gone to federal court to overturn the amendment. They have some innovative (weird) arguments why the votes of a hefty majority should be overturned. Yeah, their aim is to get it back before the Supremes. There it will face the Justices that wrote the Dobbs decision, the one that overturned Roe that said the decision is up to the states. The plaintiffs are claiming that decision returned the issue “to the people’s elected representatives” – not the people. Hunter of Kos reported that Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt said Republicans should talk less about abortion because Republicans taking over is more important. Eleveld reported that during the campaign Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky emphasized the ant-abortion zealotry of his opponent Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Cameron responded with ads attacking Beshear for vetoing anti-trans legislation. Yes, abortion access won and transphobia lost. Wrote Eleveld:

Republicans are absolutely desperate for a social issue that can win back some of the suburban moms they have lost over abortion bans. But once again on Tuesday, GOP transphobia lost at the ballot box. Why? Because it’s patently hateful and, frankly, no suburban mom lays awake at night stressing over whether a transgender athlete might join their daughter's sports team. But they do worry about their daughters being able to access abortion care if they ever need it someday. Republicans just can't seem to grasp that they've lost when it comes to social issues—every damn one of them.

Mike Luckovich posted a cartoon of a pig labeled GOP looking at the election results. The pig says, “Lipstick wasn’t enough. Gonna also need eyeliner, blush, and a push-up bra...” I’ve written a lot about people whose primary motivation is being at the top of the social hierarchy. And I now see a dilemma facing Republicans. They can now pass laws to force women to carry fetuses to term, keeping women lower in the hierarchy, but likely at the expense of their own power at the next election. Or they can let the abortion issue slide while they consolidate power and come back to it later when their position is stronger. I’m fascinated in watching them take the first choice of legislating against women (and LGBTQ people) as soon as they have the chance with the apparent belief that strengthens their position in the future. Or they believe by then they will have disrupted the election process sufficiently so they won’t have to worry about elections. As I reported before Democrats had a pretty good election night. Clawson reported that the media still didn’t cut them any slack. The wins didn’t match their polling of the election a full year from now (remember the “red wave” that didn’t happen?) so while the Democrats did well they’re sticking with their polls and declaring this year is an aberration. Republican presidential candidates had a debate last night. Laura Clawson of Kos watched so we didn’t have to. Summary: Nobody won and it was irrelevant. Hunter reported it seems House Republicans have a new favorite joke, similar to a child that endlessly repeats a joke. When they hear about another person who has done something they don’t like they try to pass a law that cuts their salary to $1. They just tried to do it for press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and have tried it for Kamala Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the FBI, and prosecutors who indicted the nasty guy. It’s a joke because it is all a stunt, not meant to actually happen (nor could it). Like hearing a third grader tell a joke again, we’re getting tired of it. And, while they tell that joke again nothing is happening to prevent a government shutdown in about a week. Over the last several years I’ve written a lot about Sen. Joe Manchin. He got mentions because he thwarted important progressive bills or forced an environmentally damaging clause into a must-pass bill. It looks like I won’t need to write about him much longer. According to an Associated Press article posted to Kos he has announced he will not run for another term in 2024. Alas, he will almost surely be replaced by a Republican. The state was reliably blue when he started in the Senate and is now just as reliably red. Manchin isn’t exactly retiring just yet, though he is 76. Instead he will traveling the country “to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.” I’m not interested in any sort of middle Manchin might find. Eleveld agrees. Manchin knows little about the middle and the middle gives him mighty low approval ratings. Also, his announcement sounds a lot like a bid to be a third-party presidential candidate through a group such as No Labels, who pretends to be centrist and isn’t. All a Manchin-No Labels campaign would do is make the nasty guy the winner. Data Analyst Tom Bonior said that Manchin is using many of the nasty guy’s talking points (things are bad!) and should be treated as a nasty guy surrogate. One more thing... Manchin is 76 – not much younger than Biden and a year younger than the nasty guy. Another AP article reports that a trial has begun in the Michigan Court of Claims to keep the nasty guy off the state’s primary ballot. Activists say because of the insurrection clause he no longer meets the qualifications set out by the constitution. This is similar to cases already before judges in Colorado and Minnesota. While courts are pondering that issue the nasty guy’s children testified as part of the family business fraud trial. All three children kept saying things like, “I don’t remember.” Or, “I just signed what my accountants put in front of me.” That prompted exlrrp of the Kos community to post a meme:

And just like that, a family that claims to be business geniuses all of a sudden know very little about their businesses.

No more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together

My Sunday viewing was episodes 3 and 4 of the series Cosmos hosted Neil DeGrasse Tyson. This may seem like I jumped into the middle of things, but I did watch episodes 1 and 2 back in September last year. I have this series on DVD, likely a gift back in 2014 when it was released. Episode 3 is about comets. Back when humans first began to watch the sky they learned that from the positions of stars they could keep track of the year – when to plant, when to harvest, etc. So something strange, like a comet, interrupted the order of the sky. And that could only mean bad things were coming. We get a bit about the Oort cloud, where comets originate. Then the story turns to Edmund Halley and Isaac Newton. The story is that Halley sought out Newton to codify the motions of things acted on by gravity into mathematical equations. It was Halley that got Newton’s book published. Then Halley put Newton’s equations to work. No, Halley did not discover the comet that bears his name. What he did was comb through all the historical accounts of comets and, using Newton’s equations, figured out their orbits, which were a long, thin ellipses. Then Halley figured out that several sightings were the same comet reappearing every 86 years. The predicted the comet would return in another 50 years. He included the time of year and the part of the sky where it would appear. And was proven right. And comets lost their meaning as a sign of doom. I saw Halley’s comet when it came in 1986. For nearly all of the month or so the comet was visible the night skies in southeast Michigan were overcast. Towards the end of that month I heard the University of Michigan astronomy department was opening their viewing facilities northwest of Ann Arbor. I went. The sky was clear. A lot of other people had shown up. Some people I knew also showed up so I waited in line with them. By this time the comet was far enough away that it was no longer visible with just the eye. After the sky got fully dark each person was allowed about 15 seconds to peer through the eyepiece of their telescope. I got my turn well after midnight. What I saw was a faint smudge of light. Episode 4 is about the nature of light, its spectrum, and the spectral lines created by different elements absorbing different wavelengths of light, leaving lines in the spectrum. Along the way there is a discussion of the rules of science, such as: Learn from the results of an experiment. The episode also discussed how science was prized in the Arab world and kept alive. Eventually Europe was ready to accept science as part of the Enlightenment. My feeling of the series (I’ve finished disc 1 of four discs) is that it explains its topics well. And its recreation of various phenomena (especially in space) is stunningly beautiful. Many visual effects companies are listed in the credits. So why do the animated sequences, such as scenes between Newton and Halley, look so primitive? I finished the book The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. The title is taken from the Bible in a story that appears in at least two of the gospels. Here is the version from Luke: 8-58:

A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trodden down, and birds of the air devoured it. And some fell upon the rock; and as soon as it sprung up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it. And other fell on good ground, and sprang up and bore fruit a hundredfold.

Later verses explain the parable. Ideas are thrown about. Some are discarded immediately. Some are explored for a while but don’t take root. Some are beaten back by competing ideas. And some are carefully cultivated and bear fruit. No, the Bible doesn’t call the seeds “ideas.” The book was written 30 years ago. It is very much a dystopian story. Butler said she had taken the condition of the country in the early 1990s and projected the prevailing forces out to their logical end. She then set the story in ... 2024. As in next year. At the time it was published critics declared it to be farfetched, especially in such a short timeline. They said civilization can’t collapse that quickly. More recent critics, with the benefit of 25 years of history, said: Oh, that’s how. I’m not a fan of dystopian novels. But last summer NPR reported on an opera version of the story presented at Lincoln Center. And despite the dystopian setting it sounded quite hopeful. So I bought the book. At the start of the story Lauren is a black girl, 15 years old. She and her family live in a walled neighborhood of about a dozen houses somewhere north of Los Angeles. It’s walled because the world outside is quite brutal. She and the older children have lessons in how to use guns and a younger brother is quite annoyed he isn’t old enough for that yet. But this is a society in which protecting oneself and loved ones with a gun is vital. Her father, the neighborhood pastor, is also a college professor, so must go out every day. For those that do go there is always the fear they may not return and their body may or may not be found. They only call the police when the situation is worth the cost and even then getting actual help is unlikely. Some communities are opting for corporate ownership to keep them safe. Lauren’s dad refuses that opportunity, seeing the company doesn’t pay enough to afford company housing, so the people become indebted and enslaved. Lauren is smart enough to see her community’s situation is not tenable in the long term. She plans to escape, to head north. She wonders if she’ll be allowed to cross the fortified border into Oregon. In the time before she is 18 she prepares herself and tries to prepare her community. Close to her 18th birthday disaster strikes and she is forced to flee, and she starts her journey north. As she walks with the hordes of people fleeing the region she gathers a community of fellow travelers willing to help and protect each other. They search for a place to live and begin a new life. Lauren is a hyperempath. When she sees someone hurt she feels their injury. So when she has to shoot someone she wants it to be a quick kill, otherwise she’ll be overcome by their pain and no longer able to protect her companions. Lauren is also disillusioned by religion and creates her own, though she describes the process as uncovering. She calls in Earthseed. A primary understanding is God is Change, one can shape God, and through that one is also changed. One should be open to and embrace change. The theology is laid out in a series of sayings, like this one that matches my understanding of hierarchy and supremacy:

All struggles Are essentially Power struggles. Who will rule, Who will lead, Who will define, refine, confine, design, Who will dominate. All struggles Are essentially Power struggles. And most are no more intellectual than two rams knocking their heads together.

I don’t think the book describes this theology well beyond that it guides her to build a community. Perhaps her theology will be spelled out more in the sequel The Parable of the Talents and it looks like I’ll have to get that one. Silly Season 2023 is over as Silly Season 2024 continues (Republican debate this evening, which I’ll ignore). So there are election results with much to celebrate. In Michigan the two Democratic House members running for city mayor both won. That leaves the House membership tied between the parties. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will be scheduling special elections as fast as she can. David Nir of Daily Kos Elections has some national results. The big news is that Ohio voters approved an abortion rights amendment to their state constitution. When it was called with 36% of the vote it was ahead 59%-41%. That’s just under the threshold Republicans tried to impose in August, an effort that voters rejected. This amendment reestablishes the framework under Roe v. Wade and renders moot a six week ban held up in the courts. I think this is the seventh voter led protection of abortion rights to be put on state ballots and the seventh to pass. Efforts are underway for similar amendments in six other swing and red states. In Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin ran on getting a 15 week abortion ban passed. He hadn’t accomplished that yet because Democrats controlled the State senate. He and Republicans worked to flip the Senate to have the control they needed. Nir reported it was the House that flipped, putting both chambers in Democrats’ hands. That ban has no chance now. And Youngkin’s hopes of being a Republican candidate for president in 2028 now has little chance. Nir reported that in Kentucky Democrat Andy Beshear won another four year term for governor with a healthy margin of 53-47. He had highlighted his opponent’s support for a total ban on abortion. Being competent in the job and guiding his state through several emergencies (including COVID) helped too. I sense a trend here. Abortion rights still drive elections. And Republicans don’t get they’re losing because of it. Nir reported Democrat Dan McCaffery won a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court with a healthy 53-47 margin. Democrats hold a 5-2 margin on the court. It’s important because the court heard a lot of election disputes and likely will again next year. Moms for Liberty, the far right group with a goal of banning books from schools, ran lots of candidates for local school boards. Laura Clawson of Kos discussed that MFL candidates may not be easily identified, though an MFL endorsement is a good hint. This year about 65% of their candidates lost. In an update Clawson included a tweet that linked to a spreadsheet listing a few winners and lots of losers. An Associated Press article posted on Kos on Monday talked about the heat in our national political struggles:

The principal flashpoint: school board meetings. And not just here. A long tradition of doing prosaic but vital work has sunk into chaos and poisonous confrontation across the United States. The lower rungs of democracy are cracking.

The article then discussed Virginia, where nearly 600 school board seats were open. The seats are officially non partisan, but political parties and their aligned groups have been aggressively involved, wanting a national say in local school decisions. An AP article reported Gabe Amo is the first black candidate to be elected to Congress from Rhode Island. This is a blue seat, so the battle really was at the primary, which he comfortably won. He’s the son of Ghanaian and Liberian immigrants. He served in both the Obama and Biden administrations and in the administration of Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo. He’s part of the state’s transition away from its Italian-American political hierarchy. He’s for preserving Social Security and Medicare, for abortion rights, and for a ban on assault-style guns. Sounds good. Alas, Democrats didn’t win everything. Another AP article reported Republican Tate Reeves won a second term as governor of Mississippi, though it was “unusually competitive.” Bill in Portland, Maine in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos included a few appropriate quotes from Franklin Roosevelt.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

Dartagnan of the Kos community compared two media articles. The first appeared in the Washington Post, written by Molly Hennesy-Fiske. It is yet another story written by a “journalist” going to a diner and talking to “real” people. This diner is in Speaker Johnson’s home town of Shreveport, Louisiana and the people all proclaim how wonderful he is. And the author assures us how down-to-earth these people are. Yeah, we’ve read similar articles many times. The second article is by Tom Nichols writing in The Atlantic. His focus: Why are we cherishing the knowledge of these people? Yeah, they have definite opinions about how foreign aid should be spent, but they’re way off on how much money that is. Most Americans think foreign aid should be no more than 10% of the budget. They think they are calling for a decrease in foreign spending. But foreign aid is actually about 1% of the budget, pretty much a rounding error. So getting to 10% of the budget would be a massive increase. Dartagnan concluded:

Still, Nichols expresses a viewpoint most of us can relate to: With foreign aid such a critical issue at a critical time, it would be far more useful for the media in this country to educate those diners rather than writing the same article endlessly.

In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Thomas Zimmer writing for “Democracy in America” on Substack and his look at the same WaPo article.

The reason to dwell on this piece is not that it is uniquely awful, or that the author is singularly inept and/or disingenuous. If only! On the contrary, this reporting is indicative of pathologies that characterize too much of mainstream political journalism and the political discourse in general: A tendency to launder and normalize extremism for a broader audience, an impulse to accommodate and naturalize power, no matter where it resides – and an inclination to perpetuate ideas that form the bedrock of the ethno-religious nationalism that has galvanized behind Trump.

Dworkin also quoted Ian Dunt, also writing on Substack and about Jewish philosopher Isaiah Berlin.

Berlin believed that the world is composed of competing values: Hedonism, tradition, freedom, control, equality, hierarchy, whatever. They exist in cultures, which prize certain values above others. They exist in people, who do the same. And they exist within the beating heart of each individual. We all want things which cannot be put together. Maybe we value family but we've fallen in love with someone they disapprove of. Maybe we're a Ukrainian who wants to fight for their country but whose father is sick at home without anyone else to care for him. Berlin warns you to be wary of those who say that there is a right answer to these questions. He warns you to distrust those who say there is a future utopia where these difficulties have been conquered. They cannot be conquered. Life is composed of inevitable tragedy: the tragedy of competing values. There will never be a happy ending. It will never be solved, because humanity cannot be solved.

Intentionally confusing the ballot

My Sunday movie was Being 17, the English title to a 2016 French film. The setting is the Pyrenees Mountains near the border with Spain. Damien lives in town with his mother the doctor. Thomas is biracial and adopted and lives on a farm in the mountains. Getting to school is a 90 minute trek by foot and bus each way. Tom and Damien hate each other and frequently fight. Tom later says his hatred is because he thinks Damien is stuck up. Then life gets in the way. Tom’s mother is ill and Mom the doctor invites Tom to live with her and Damien to make his commute to school easier in the winter. One has a pretty good idea where this is going. But, thankfully, not quite. There’s schoolwork to complete, some growing up to do, and life to live. Metacritic gives this one a score of 83/100. Both young men were nominated for various acting awards, and the film won for best international narrative feature at the LA Outfest. I enjoyed it and recommend it. I had wanted to see a play this weekend. It’s titled Perfect Arrangement, written by Topher Payne, about a gay couple and a lesbian couple in the 1950s at the height of the Lavender Scare, when LGBTQ people were driven from government jobs because they were considered blackmail targets and thus security risks. They attempt to get around that by the gays faking being married to the lesbians and living in adjacent houses. This sounds like a play worth seeing. Alas, violent storms swept through the region Thursday evening – about the time the play let out. I’m glad I didn’t go. The storms knocked out the power, which made the rest of the show’s run impossible. The utility outage map suggests they might have gotten their power back today. David Nir and David Beard are hosts of The Downballot on Daily Kos. In this episode (transcript included) they talked to Kari Chisholm on his experience in working on drawing voting districts for the city of Portland, Oregon. This discussion is the second half of the episode, so perhaps search for the name. This is the first time Portland needed districts drawn. Before now the city council was four people, each elected by the entire city. They are moving to a council of twelve from four districts each supplying three. They hope this will broaden the representation on the council – the eastern quarter rarely got a seat and the western quarter almost always got a seat. Now both will have three seats. And those three seats will be chosen by ranked choice. Chisholm describes some of what the districting commission did. They talked about: What makes a good district? What does “community of interest” mean? How do they boost the representation of renters to be on par with homeowners? They talked to neighborhood organizations both before they drew maps and after. I had helped to get Michigan’s districting commission passed and attended some of their meetings. So I am quite interested in what it was like for a commissioner. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that backers of abortion rights are furious with the way their proposal will be summarized on the ballot. Their fury is, of course, directed at a Republican, this one Secretary of State Frank LaRose. An example of the switch: The original says “abortion may be prohibited after fetal viability” and the replacement says “always allow an unborn child to be aborted at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of viability if, in the treating physician's determination.” Laura Blauvelt of Ohioans United for Reproductive Rights calls this substitute summary “propaganda.” LaRose also, quite intentionally, labeled it “Issue 1,” the same as the ballot question earlier this month. Yup, let’s get as much confusion in the mix there as possible. The people that voted no on that Issue 1 will want, just three months later, to vote yes on this Issue 1. All the yard signs and other campaign documents will have to warn of the reversal. A week ago I wrote about the discussion of using the 14th Amendment to disqualify the nasty guy from the ballot. That’s the place in the Constitution that says someone who committed insurrection shall not be allowed to hold government office. Last week the discussion was how to trigger its use. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos reported Lawrence Caplan, an attorney in Florida, has brought a suit in a federal court to disqualify the nasty guy. Pennyfarthing then reviewed a few legal scholars, both liberal and conservative, who concur that the nasty guy is not eligible to run and serve as president. Perhaps instead of lawsuits secretaries of state should act on their own. But no matter how it is done it will be litigated. This could be fun. Kenneth Chesebro, one of the 18 co-defendants in the Georgia case about attempts to overturn the election, asked for a speedy trial. The prosecuting attorney requested a trial in March 2024. All the other defendants, particularly the guy at the top, want to delay the case as long as possible and certainly after the 2024 election. In response to Chesebro’s request the court granted him a date – October 23, as in just under two months from now. Now most of the other defendants are (or will soon be) clamoring that the whole group not be tried together. Sure, let Chesebro go first, but please delay my case. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos are a series of cartoons by Ann Telnaes. The nasty guy had posted last week “The public knows who I am.” That prompted Telnaes to show the ways the public knows him – “Narcissist, liar, instigator, phony, con man, thief, and a little, little man. In the comments of another roundup Rick McKee drew a cartoon of the nasty guy under arrest as the ghost of John McCain tosses words back at him saying, “I like people who weren’t captured.” Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that Russian propagandists have been quite busy claiming the plane crash that killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, was not caused by Putin. Must have been someone else that did it. Even Belarus strongman Lukashenko declared Putin didn’t do it. In an update Jay added that the Russian Investigative Committee had completed “molecular genetic examinations” of the bodies recovered from the crash and have confirmed they are Prigozhin, a few leaders in the Wagner group, and the others stated on the passenger list. Is “molecular genetic examinations” another name for DNA testing? Or is the RIC claiming some sort of scientific cover for their claim that Prigozhin is dead? Kos of Kos reported there is an emerging pro-Putin talking point coming from Republicans. The claim is that the US needs to “pivot to China” and to do that we have to drop our support of Ukraine. Kos then explains how silly and stupid that claim is. His major points: While China may not overtly support Russia’s war in Ukraine, they are allies and both are part of the growing BRICS movement. If China attacked Taiwan Russia and its Pacific fleet would support China. Allowing Russia to win in Ukraine would tie up NATO forces in Eastern Europe and hamper the US ability to focus on China. And if the US abandons its European allies, Asian allies would notice. So the US must fully support defeating Russia before it pivots to Asia.

You don't get to acquire new wealthy friends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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