A secret library of 600 books

I’ve known of Andrea Chalupa for several years now. She’s a co-host of Gaslit Nation, which I’ve discussed frequently here, though I haven’t listened to or read it in several months. Through the episodes I have read or listened to Chalupa talked about having written and helped produce the movie Mr. Jones. Her ancestors are from Ukraine. She wrote the movie, well before the war there, as a way to feel she was doing something to counter the nasty guy’s regime. I finally watched it as my Sunday movie. A note at the end of the movie says that while the basic outline of the story is true individual scenes were created to dramatize the story and should not be considered as having actually happened. The time is 1933. Mr. Gareth Jones is an analyst for Lloyd George in London. Jones gives a report of Hitler and Lloyd George and his cronies don’t believe it. Though Jones is one of the better analysts he is fired. I later found out this is David Lloyd George, who was Prime Minister of Britain during and just after WWI. Jones has a question he wants to research. Where is Stalin getting his money? Stalin is bragging about industries the Soviets didn’t have and now do. So he’s off to Moscow to try to talk to Stalin. There he meets Walter Duranty of the Hearst newspaper empire. Duranty has a Pulitzer for his reporting and we later realize Duranty is a Stalin propagandist. After hearing the phrase “grain is gold” a couple times Jones is off to Ukraine to understand more. There he encounters and experiences the Holodomor. This is the central truth to the story – Stalin stole so much of Ukraine’s wheat the locals experienced a famine and millions died. Once back in London Jones faces disbelief and pressure by the Soviets on London to not print the story. A frame of the story is George Orwell writing his novel Animal Farm. The story Jones tells influences the novel Orwell writes. Perhaps a few years ago Chalupa wrote about how Orwell fits into the wider story, so this is more than a simple plot device. I found Chalupa’s explanation fascinating but don’t remember any of it. In a pundit roundup for Daily Kos Greg Dworkin quoted a tweet from Mark Elliott:

Almost every journalist covering Trump has gotten this wrong. He owes a total of $542 million and counting: - $355 million in fines for fraud - $99 million in interest on that fraud (increasing by the day) - $83 million to E. Jean Carroll - $5 million to E. Jean Carroll

Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos poses an important question: How will the nasty guy pay more than a half billion? Yes, it will be appealed, but before it can be the money has to be put in escrow, or he has to provide some sort of proof that if the appeal fails he will pay up (and knowing how much this guy likes to stiff those he owes money to...). There’s cash reserves, but that’s reported to not be enough. Refinance? What bank would give him anything? He could sell assets, but he’s reluctant to sell anything except when he can get a price way above the value. To sell now means at well below value. Pennyfarthing quoted Dan Alexander, senior editor of Forbes:

He can’t even apply for a loan with many of these banks. But there are, for example, plenty of rich guys who might be interested in lending him $100 million, $200 million and may have good interest in wanting to do that for somebody who might become the president of the United States here in about a year.

Pennyfarthing added:

It’s actually rather astounding how matter-of-factly Alexander mentioned the “rich guys” loan option, considering that those rich guys could very well want something in return for their help—like, say, all of Ukraine. But you just know Trump would sell out his country before he’d ever consider selling one of his golf courses, so that’s almost certainly the option he’ll go with.

Then he quoted a tweet by Simon Rosenberg:

Trump is now broke. His party is broke. He has stolen America’s secrets and shared them with others - already. He’s sided w/Russia. The country is now looking at a grave national security risk as Trump will look abroad for financial and political help.

He could raid the Republican National Committee, now that he’s installing his daughter-in-law as co-director. But it doesn’t look like they have a half-billion. He’d be lucky to get a few million. Or he could declare bankruptcy. He’s done that many times for a long list of companies. But never personal bankruptcy, which rather spoils the billionaire vibe. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported the nasty guy has come up with a line of sneakers. If you think that’s weird you’re forgetting nasty guy vodka and nasty guy steaks. Yeah, former president reduced to selling shoes. While the initial run of sneakers sold out he’ll have to sell about 3 million pairs to cover what he owes. Or he could offer to autograph them for $9K each. Then he’d need to sell only 60K pairs. Einenkel lists ten of the nasty guy company bankruptcies. Mark Sumner of Kos linked to the latest ranking of US presidents. After noting the score and ranking for the nasty guy Sumner spent much of his post describing how wife Melania would be similarly ranked, though a First Lady survey hasn’t been done in a few years. Back to the presidents. I downloaded a PDF of the survey. Brandon Rottinghaus of University of Houston and Justin Vaughn of Coastal Carolina University sent a survey to 154 experts in presidential politics. They asked each expert to rate each president on a 0-100 scale for overall greatness. Then the ratings were averaged for a score and the scores ranked. The first few would not be a surprise. 1. Lincoln, 93.9 2. FD Roosevelt, 90.8 3. Washington, 90.3 4. T. Roosevelt, 78.6 5. Jefferson, 77.5 6. Truman, 75.3 7. Obama 73.8, up 9 positions from the 2015 ranking. Biden is at 14 with a score of 62.7, tied with J Adams at 13. Biden, along with Obama, Carter, and a dozen others are included in the “Most Under-Rated Presidents.” And at the bottom: 44. Buchanan, 16.7 45. Trump, 10.9 Yeah, in last place. By a lot. Einenkel reported Fox News is upset with the survey. Neda Ulaby of NPR talked to a teacher and students in a high school in Houston. Their names were not included in the report because this is Texas and the teacher has a secret library of about 600 books. She loans the books to the students she thinks need them – the ones who are both minority and queer. The students are delighted to read books that feature characters like themselves. The teacher got a list of 850 books to be banned. She gave a student the list and said tell me the books you think we should have, and go buy them (and it sounds like the teacher paid for them all). This is in a part of Houston where residents don’t have a lot of money. Many of their parents are immigrants and didn’t have much schooling. The teacher hopes her private library doesn’t have to stay secret.

I do believe that book banning is going to go away. I think it's kind of the last grasp of people trying to maintain control because they know it's slipping. That's what I tell myself anyway.

Orion Rummler, in an article for The 19th posted on Kos, wrote about the internal conflict of black gay Christians. So many black churches stigmatize their gay members, yet the black church is the center of their community and culture.

The Black church is a cultural and social hub that, throughout the country’s past, has been a singular source of protection and dignity for Black Americans. The community within the church isn’t just centered on religion; family life, school life and everyday support are intrinsically tied together.

Yet that center of their community rejects them. A new study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law and Utah State University looked into this. Tyler Lefevor of USU and a lead researcher said religions do a bad job of affirming queer folk. At the Reconciling Ministries Convocation last October I heard a black gay preacher talk about this issue. The black church is so central to black culture that a black gay man won’t go to an LGBTQ affirming white church. Rummler wrote that a black gay man may tough it out, attend even with the ostracization. Or he might leave the church. Or, if he learns about it, he might find a church through the Fellowship of Affirming Ministries. Elisabeth Rosenthal, in an article for KFF Health News posted on Kos, wrote that GoFundMe started for a way for friends to donate for honeymoon trips, church mission trips, or perhaps a fledgling musician wanting to record that first demo. It has become the go-to platform for patients with billing nightmares. The number of GoFundMe campaigns for medical bills is 25 times what it was in 2011.

Perhaps the most damning aspect of this is that paying for expensive care with crowdfunding is no longer seen as unusual; instead, it is being normalized as part of the health system, like getting bloodwork done or waiting on hold for an appointment. Need a heart transplant? Start a GoFundMe to get on the waiting list. Resorting to GoFundMe when faced with bills has become so accepted that, in some cases, patient advocates and hospital financial aid officers recommend crowdfunding as an alternative to being sent to collections. My inbox and the “Bill of the Month” project (a collaboration by KFF Health News and NPR) have become a kind of complaint desk for people who can’t afford their medical bills, and I’m gobsmacked every time a patient tells me they’ve been advised that GoFundMe is their best option. ... In many respects, research shows, GoFundMe tends to perpetuate socioeconomic disparities that already affect medical bills and debt. If you are famous or part of a circle of friends who have money, your crowdfunding campaign is much more likely to succeed than if you are middle-class or poor.

And if you are middle-class or poor you’re much more likely to have medical debt you can’t pay.

Despite the site’s hopeful vibe, most campaigns generate only a small fraction of the money owed. Most medical-expense campaigns in the U.S. fell short of their goal, and some raised little or no money, a 2017 study from the University of Washington found. Campaigns made an average of about 40% of the target amount, and there is evidence that yields — measured as a percentage of their targets — have worsened over time.

Sumner reported:

On Sunday’s edition of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver made a direct offer to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. After showcasing a new, luxury RV valued at $2.4 million, Oliver offered to give the RV to Thomas, along with $1 million a year in cash, if the justice would sign a contract promising “to get the f--- off the Supreme Court.”

Sumner said it isn’t the first such offer. Sam Bankman-Fried, before he was arrested for crimes committed while the head of a crypto corporation, offered the nasty guy $5 billion to keep him from running in 2024.

Both of these offers seem like they should be illegal. Because they should be illegal. But they’re just the flip side of what’s already happening—wealthy patrons buying figureheads who will do exactly what they want in office. ... In the meantime … Dear Clarence, that motorhome looks really sweet. Take it. Please take it.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included a short video of three seesaws installed through the border wall.

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.

Service was far more important than performative nonsense

My Sunday video was Young Royals episodes 5 and 6 on Netflix. As I said last week I’m not going to go into a lot of detail so there won’t be any spoilers. I’ll only say there were a couple good plot twists and that the ending I thought I heard about (which prompted me to watch the show) wasn’t how it ended – and season two has been announced. According to a quick internet search if COVID doesn’t interfere much with shooting and post production work that second season may be available this summer. I see Netflix doesn’t show how much of the show I’ve seen, they show how much is left to see. At one time I checked and saw there was 20 minutes left. I thought there was a lot to be packed into those 20 minutes. They’ll be packed into season two instead. The more I thought about it the more I see didn’t get resolved in season one. The story is about the love between Prince Wilhelm and commoner Simon. There will be more about that, of course. But there are other things not resolved. Why did Wilhelm’s cousin August have trouble paying his tuition? Are Simon’s sister Sara and her friend Felice both in love with August or are they both using him and in love with each other? Will we see the ending I thought I heard about? I will probably watch season two when it is released. If the story drags into season three I doubt I’ll watch it. It is interesting enough to hold me through six episodes of 40-50 minutes and maybe through twelve episodes of that length. But not eighteen. In the news today was Netflix reporting a big drop in subscribers that prompted a big drop in the stock price. Along with that came talk of Netflix cracking down on password sharing. If they do season 2 of the Young Royals or likely anything else on Netflix in my to-watch list would not be enough to prompt me to actually pay. In response to comment in Twitter that the military aid promised to Ukraine isn’t getting there with enough urgency prompted Kos of Daily Kos to discuss such things take time. A deployment of Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers with related howitzers took five weeks. Kos talked about the number of tons all this equipment weighs – just the ammo is 2,000 tons. And the airport in Poland all this stuff is going to already has a parade of planes from several countries delivering goodies. Kos wrote:

Meanwhile, NATO is rubbing Russia’s nose in these shipments. Those planes could turn off their transponders and arrive in secret, but they’re actively broadcasting their presence, their source, and their destination. They want Russia to know what they’re up to, repeatedly reminding them of Western resolve, perhaps hoping it erodes Russia’s own. Russia is certainly helpless to do anything about it.

Getting armaments to Ukraine is not like clicking a button on your phone app and Amazon delivering it tomorrow. There is a difference between “could more be done?” and “nothing is being done.” The history of this war will include the massive international logistical effort to help Ukraine win. Mark Sumner of Kos told the story of two villages in Donbas with about a mile between them. Since 2014 one has been held by Ukraine, the other by pro-Russian separatists. In satellite imagery Sumner pointed out the open fields and two military trenches between the villages, plus the heavily mined road with lots of wrecks and car-sized potholes. When the war comes here it will be deadly, with one side or the other trying to cross an open field to get at an enemy protected by trenches. David Neiwert of Kos wrote about Putin claiming his goal was to de-Nazify Ukraine. Neiwert discussed the numbers of neo-Nazis in the Russian army – some of them flying flags of Russian fascist movements. Hunter of Kos reported Ukrainian President Zelenskyy again vowed he won’t negotiate away any territory in exchange for ending the war. The reason is simple: He doesn’t trust the Russian military and leadership. It is quite likely that if he concedes territory in Donbas Russia will set up a base there and, ignoring any peace deal, use it to launch an attack on Kyiv. The likely outcomes of the war are a stalemate or a Russian loss. And the economic sanctions against Russia will last a long time – likely until after Putin retires or dies. And the country faces a long isolation. Kos described the various battles and tactics around Izyum – Russia doing this and Ukraine countering with that. However, what caught my attention was the discussion in the comments. Mainstream media appears to be discussing only Russian successes and not their setbacks. Which makes several of them glad for the clarity and accuracy of Kos reporting. There was also a quote of a tweet from the Kyiv Independent. April 16 was the first time more people entered Ukraine than left. The border guard said over a million people have returned to Ukraine. Kos reported that Russia has started attacking at various places as the start of the Battle of Donbas. But the attacks have been so light the Pentagon thinks something bigger must be yet to come. But Kos thinks what we see now is about as good as Russia can do. Chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen has set up several kitchens in Poland and other countries and in Ukraine. They’re busy feeding those they can in 30 cities and towns across Ukraine. Gabe Ortiz of Kos reported that one of those sites in eastern Ukraine (I don’t know how close to Donbas) was leveled by a Russian missile. One person died, a few others went to a hospital. The operation quickly shifted to a new location and those in the hospital have been released. Commenters suggest a Nobel Peace Prize be shared between Andrés and Zelenskyy. Rebekah Sager of Kos got me thinking of the joke that circulated about 20 years ago about the Al Gebra gang and their Weapons of Math Instruction. She started her post with:

In a statement released Friday, the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) announced it had rejected 41% of K-12 math books for not meeting Common Core standards and/or for “indoctrination” or “exposure to dangerous and divisive concepts,” aka critical race theory (CRT).

Math books teaching CRT? Are Florida officials afraid that anti-racist themes would be hidden in the story problems like Nazis used to hide racist themes? It looks like the math books were rejected for not meeting the Common Core standards (or maybe meeting them and shouldn’t). Even so, math is now a part of the politicization of education, a serious thing – or Gov. DeSantis is looking for campaign donations from book publishers. Hunter discussed the latest chapter in a long story, this one in Llano, Texas. Someone with a huge grievance got a judge to order the halt of the library purchasing new books and the county commissioners purging the library board and replacing them with the loudest advocates of removing pornographic books. Strange that “pornographic” means anything having to do with racism or LGBTQ issues whether or not sex or body parts are described. Hunter wrote:

So to sum up: A single angry conservative of the sort who believes they have a direct line to God, who shares all their own gut instincts on everything, popped up with a list of books to be disputed that she had not read herself but had simply cribbed from some other conservative group milking the same cow. They convinced a local judge to march into the library to seize books about The Pornographies. The growing movement convinced the county commission to purge local libraries of anyone with experience or who argued against one-party censorship, got themselves put into those now-empty positions of minor power, got freaked out when other members of their local community started taking notes about what they themselves were doing—after they had literally shouted and bullied the previous appointees out of their positions, which was according to them just fine because when Jesus is behind you you're allowed to be as cruel and tell as many lies as you want—and are now holed up in secret non-public meetings where they hold seances with Jesus to make decisions about rote library management that they can't figure out how to handle themselves. Because they got here by being loud, outraged know-nothing theocratic bulls***-shrieking paranoid bullies and don't have any other skillset that would apply here.

Neiwert started a post with:

The long-running gradual consumption of the Republican Party by the authoritarian QAnon conspiracy cult is nearing the terminal takeover phase: A recent survey by Grid found 72 Republican candidates with varying levels of QAnon affiliation. The most salient fact, however, is not only is the cult presence growing, but not a single Republican in any capacity can be found who either denounces the trend or works in any other way than in concert with it. That reality is terrifying not just because QAnon has a long record of inspiring unhinged, violent behavior with its fantastically vile beliefs and rhetoric. Most of all, QAnon at its core is deeply eliminationist, with an agenda calling for the mass imprisonment and execution of mainstream Democrats for ostensibly running a global child-trafficking/pedophilia cult—which seamlessly fits the people being targeted by Fox News and mainstream Republicans as “groomers” for opposing the right-wing attacks on the LGTBQ community.

And ended it with:

What all this tells us is that Democrats this fall will be facing a multipronged attack by Republicans, all based on hysterical fantasy: Democrats are soft on crime, they want to push critical race theory and “transgender ideology” on your kids, and they’re pro-pedophile. All three are designed to appeal to the lizard-brained lowest common denominators: the people inclined to violent eliminationism. Candidates should come prepared.

Lauren Sue of Kos reported on one who is prepared. Michigan state Sen. Lana Theis, a Republican, in a fundraising attempt, called Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow a “groomer” and accused her of being a snowflake “outraged they can't teach can't groom and sexualize kindergarteners or that 8-year olds are responsible for slavery.” After a moment of marveling how much over the top lying and fear mongering is in that charge, enjoy a bit of McMorrow’s response, starting with why her priest declared her mother wasn’t meeting church expectations:

So where was my mom on Sundays? She was at the soup kitchen with me. My mom taught me at a very young age that Christianity and faith was about being part of a community; about recognizing our privilege and blessings; and doing what we can to be of service to others, especially people who are marginalized, targeted, and who had less often unfairly. I learned that service was far more important than performative nonsense, like being seen in the same pew every Sunday or writing Christian in your Twitter bio and using that as a shield to target and marginalize already marginalized people. ... So who am I? I am a straight, white, Christian, married, suburban mom who knows that the very notion that learning about slave slavery or redlining or systemic racism somehow means that children are being taught to feel bad or hate themselves because they are white is absolute nonsense. No child alive today is responsible for slavery. No one in this room is responsible for slavery, but each and every single one of us bears responsibility for writing the next chapter of history. Each and every single one of us decides what happens next and how we respond to history and the world around us. ... People who are different are not the reason that our roads are in bad shape after decades of disinvestment or that healthcare costs are too high or that teachers are leaving the profession. I want every child in this state to feel seen, heard, and supported, not marginalized and targeted because they are not straight white and Christian. We cannot let hateful people tell you otherwise to scapegoat and deflect from the fact that they are not doing anything to fix the real issues that impact people's lives.

SemDem of the Kos community wrote on the first anniversary of the death of Rush Limbaugh that the loud voice on the right left behind nothing. No one quotes or references him. He never said anything profound or meaningful – just racist. He wasn’t all that meaningful in life because he merely repeated the same conservative talking points and his jokes were to make fun of those not like him. A lot of people do that same thing – and they’ll be forgotten too. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, ha a couple interesting quotes. One is a thread from Dan Lavoie referring to a poll conducted by the AP:

The AP poll found a majority of REPUBLICANS think schools are teaching about race and sexuality the right amount or not enough! How do we end up with a brainless "America divided" headline off this legitimately surprising and newsworthy result?! What to do when your polling results don't fit The Narrative? Just say Americans are "divided" -- a meaningless, amorphous term that you could've asserted even without a poll! Overall, 71 percent of Americans think schools are teaching about race and sexuality the right amount or want more. That's a shocking level of social agreement on any issue -- and more than twice as many people as think schools should teach about race and sexuality less. More independents want schools to teach MORE about racism and sexuality than less. But some very loud people at a school board meeting say otherwise so therefor: America Divided™️

Dworkin quoted Lawrence Freedman, writing on Substack, who quoted an essay by Hannah Arendt that was written 50 years ago. Arendt wrote:

Oddly enough, the only person likely to be an ideal victim of complete manipulation is the President of the United States. Because of the immensity of his job, he must surround himself with advisers, the “National Security Managers” as they have recently been called by Richard J. Barnet, who “exercise their power chiefly by filtering the information that reaches the President and by interpreting the outside world for him.” The President, one is tempted to argue, allegedly the most powerful man of the most powerful country, is the only person in this country whose range of choices can be predetermined.

Added Freedman:

The key insight was that someone so powerful could also be so badly informed. That was the case with Lyndon Johnson in the mid-1960s. Could it also be the case for Putin in 2022?

Come at them with unconditional love, as hard as that is

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported that Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter to her colleagues calling for the formation of a commission to investigate what happened during the attack on the Capitol. This will require legislation in the same way the 9/11 Commission was formed. There is a danger the outcome won’t be holding people responsible, but only recommending how to make the Capitol building more defensible. One thing the GOP wants investigated is how Pelosi hobbled the National Guard response. Laura Clawson of Kos reported the GOP is on board … sorta.

Lawmakers from both parties have called for a 9/11-type investigatory panel, but some of the Republicans are likely to either push for tight limits on what can be investigated or entirely back off those calls as impeachment—and the need to distract from it by acting very serious about some form of response to the attack—recedes into the past.

Translation: The GOP is making sure they’re a part of the commission so that they can control that it doesn’t investigate too much, as in the GOP. Clawson lists a few things that need to be investigated: Why were the Capitol Police unprepared? Why was the National Guard deployment delayed? Things to watch for: What investigative questions are off limits? What witnesses should not be called? Hunter of Kos reviewed a lot of things that show the GOP has fully embraced fascism. Along the way he discussed that if the GOP had convicted the nasty guy …

The message would have been clear: Violence as political tool is disqualifying. Forever. Not violence as political tool is unfortunate. Not violence as political tool is unseemly, but due to various technicalities and the current schedule cannot be responded to. Violence as political tool is an unforgivable act, whether such support is tacit or explicit, whether it was planned or it was spontaneous, and we will all stand united to declare that no matter what your political ambitions may be you are not allowed to do that.

Nick Anderson of Kos has a cartoon of GOP legislators on January 6th and today. Kalle Nemvalts tweeted:

When nearly half the jury is afraid of the mob, or actually members of the mob, you don’t expect a conviction of the mob boss.

Ben Franklin tweeted:

When the major ringleaders of an attack on the capitol like Ali Alexander, Alex Jones, Baked Alaska, N*ck Fuentes, etc are not even bothered by the FBI in the wake of an event that left several people dead I am left to conclude they are being protected by the FBI. … So either these guys are under the protection of the security apparatus, or the entire January 6th attack was being conducted by FBI informants, and these two things are more or less the same. Which means the security apparatus used them to attack the elected part of govt. The security apparatus left the doors wide open for a mob to attack on January 6th and almost kill members of congress, just like they let trump into power despite his ties to organized crime, foreign powers, and Epstein. The security apparatus is attacking democracy. The events of the last five years have largely been an exercise of all the governments and non governmental institutions which we were told to trust working together to allow an authoritarian movement to consolidate power all while keeping the truth from the public by distraction.

Sydette, who uses the handle Black Amazon, tweeted:

If you want to know what publishing/media is like … People are circulating my articles to find (white) writers LIKE me or get current “hot” writers to write like me But not talking to me.

I shoveled four inches of snow from my driveway today. Along with the three inches from last week the snow berm between my driveway and the neighbor’s is getting tall. The snow I got last night was the same storm that hit Texas – I followed its progress north on the weather map. I have family in Texas, so I’m concerned. I haven’t heard from them, perhaps because their power is out. Leah McElrath is in Houston and her power has been off for about 24 hours now. Here’s her description from this morning. Mark Sumner of Kos, who used to work in the energy industry (coal), explained why the Texas power grid collapsed. It was built around maximizing profit (never a good sign) and couldn’t handle the combination of cold and increased demands. In addition, the Texas grid is mostly isolated from the national grid so it isn’t easy for them to accept power from outside power companies. This one has been sitting in my browser tabs for a month. I spent all my blogging time writing about the impeachment trial and didn’t get to it. Audie Cornish of NPR talked with Dannagal Young, professor of communications at the University of Delaware, about how to mend family relationships after one member has been sucked into the QAnon conspiracy. People who are not sucked in try to lead their parent, child, or sibling away from the nonsense, try to say that Joe Biden really did win the presidency and did so fairly. That rarely goes well. Young said:

Because these belief systems are not about the information within them, but about the identity and the emotions that are appealed to through them, the only thing that can actually combat them effectively are loving, trusting, emotional connections.

To get back to reality they need help in the same manner as someone recovering from addiction or from a cult.

Do not mock. Do not use snark. All of the, you know, Twitter posts where people make fun of the crazy QAnon supporters, all that does is further reinforce their sense that they are disrespected and maligned. No. 2 - using scientific evidence, argumentation, etc., that comes through the very institutions that they have been told not to trust, that is going to backfire because now they think that you are the dupe because you trust these institutions, etc. … Come at them with unconditional love, as hard as that is, reminding them of the preexisting bonds that you have. If it's a brother or sister, how about talking about old stories and just texting them and saying, oh, my gosh, I remembered that fishing trip that we had back when we were 5 and you fell in the lake, right? Because now you're asking them to tap into an identity that they haven't tapped into in a while, and that is their identity as a brother or a sister. … My sense is that if your goal is to bring them back in and to reconnect that accountability is something that should be put aside for a while until much later.

Accountability for family members is later. Accountability for those who perpetrated these conspiracies for political gain is now. Laurie Voss tweeted:

It's Presidents Day in the US and once upon a time I read a biography of every single US president so I may as well make use of that useless knowledge. Here is a thread of the wildest tweet-sized fact I know about each president:

That is indeed followed by a thread where all the presidents get a tweet of their own. Read the post-scripts for corrections. Every so often I look over the Twitter feeds of Amazing Maps (no updates since June) and Terrible Maps, which I haven’t looked at in a couple years. So a couple tweets from Terrible Maps: The earth, if we put New Zealand in the middle. A map showing the 23 states with a total of 40 million people who get 46 senators and the 40 million people in California who get two senators. The caption is “Maybe a bunch of white slave owners from the 1700s did not come up with the best government ever.” There are a lot of comments saying this is the worst terrible map.

545 people are responsible

My sister forwarded an email suggesting I might like to blog about it. It claims to be the final column Charley Reese wrote for the Orlando Sentinel.

The first part says such things as “Completely Neutral,” and “Great read,” and “Worth the time,” and “Be sure to read all the way to the end.” Those parts seem to be from someone forwarding the email who added breathless encouragement to get the receiver to read and act. These phrases make me wary.

So after reading it I went directly to Snopes, the site devoted to debunking stuff floating around the internet. I searched for Charley Reese and found and article about this email. It said:

Yes, the core of it was written by Charley Reese. Yes, he wrote for the Orlando Sentinel.

No, it was not his last column. The first version was written in the early 1980s. It was revised and run again in 1985 and 1995 and likely several other times. It was updated in 2008 for such things as the current Speaker of the House. There was a different last column in August 2008 when Reese retired. He died in 2013.

Yes, various people have attached additional material to the beginning and end. So, not all of the email I received was written by Reese.

Here are a few excerpts from the 1985 version (the one Snopes quotes):

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why if all politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. …

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices — 545 human beings out of 235 million — are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

The population of America was 235 million in 1985. It is 323 million now. There are still only 100 senators, 435 representatives, 9 justices, and one president.

Don’t you see the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
…
Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses — provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

The last paragraph I quoted is, I’m pretty sure, the end of Reese’s article. It is good to be reminded that when GOP lawmakers (the ones controlling things at the moment) wail there is nothing they can do this is the game they are playing.

I suspect the rest of the email my sister sent is by other people, pushing their own agendas. There are two such agendas to mention.

The first is plea to throw the bums out, the whole lot of them! Yeah, there are a great number of Congresscritters I would want to get rid of. But I definitely want to keep a few, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and Sen. Al Franken.

As for Michigan’s senators, Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow, both Democrats, if I threw them out – voted against them – who would I get instead? There aren’t many Democrats wanting to run against such established figures. So, to throw out Stabenow I should vote for a Republican? Nope.

The second idea piggybacking on Reese’s writings is the idea that all taxes are bad. The email lists all the taxes that have been implemented in the last 100 years. There are, indeed, a lot of them.

But taxes pay for things that benefit my life and are important to me. Taxes pay for things we as a society hold in common. Good schools so the next generation is well educated. Good roads and other infrastructure. An internet where all may speak. City, county, state, and national parks – areas set aside for natural beauty, recreation, or perhaps simply allowed to be wild. Emergency management. Regulations and enforcers to keep our water clean, air pure, food safe, and bankers from fleecing us. A health system for my old age (wish it was broader than that). A retirement system so I and others can retire and not be impoverished. Workers cared for when injured on the job. A basic social safety net (which, alas, has some pretty big holes right now). The list is long.

I don’t mind paying taxes. I get a lot of benefit from them. However, I do mind when I don’t receive benefit from my tax and the society as a whole doesn’t either. I mind when the tax system is rigged to draw money out of the poor to hand it to those already rich (which the upcoming Congressional “tax reform” is all about). I’m pretty sure that’s what annoys most taxpayers who take their annoyance out on taxes instead of misused taxes.

Wresting the title of worst

After the nasty guy pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement I began to wonder if he might reach the distinction of worst president ever. I knew the one currently at the bottom of the ranking was James Buchanan the one just before Abraham Lincoln. My understanding was that Buchanan was either the most incompetent or the laziest. Perhaps the nasty guy would win on most destructive, the one that brought the world ecology to collapse? So I went surfing for bad presidents.

Brian Scot MacKenzie of the Indivisible Movement takes a look at a Buchanan and a few other bad presidents to give us a benchmark. First of all, the nasty guy hasn’t been in office long enough – two months when MacKenzie wrote his post, four months as I write mine.

Some reasons why bestowing the title of worst is premature: It evokes too much juvenile glee. The nasty guy won by declaring Obama to be the worst (which the GOP implied the day he took office). A claim of worst should not simply affirm our biases. False claims of worst assume the past has nothing to teach us. So let’s study that past.

MacKenzie lays out what made Buchanan (1857-1861) earn the spot at the bottom:

* At a time when the issue of slavery in the south shifted from an economic practicality to fanaticism, Buchanan lobbied the Supreme Court to finally settle the matter. That resulted in the Dred Scott decision that declared black people as subhuman noncitizens and opened northern territories to becoming slave states. This energized abolitionists in the North.

* The economy floundered and the Panic of 1857 wiped out hundreds of banks. Buchanan refused federal relief. That spooked investors, deepening the following depression. Buchanan’s party, the Democrats, had refused banking regulations.

* Buchanan’s appeasement of the South alienated Northern fellow Democrats. That divided his party and handed the House and Senate to the Republicans in 1858.

* When Democrats split into North and South in 1860, Buchanan didn’t stop them. Southern states started seceding. Buchanan essentially gave the South a four-month head start in preparing for the Civil War (at the time the Inauguration was in March).

MacKenzie’s benchmark:

In order to wrest the title of worst president from Buchanan, a contemporary commander in chief would need to wreck the economy, revoke all human rights from an entire race, violate the constitutional separation of powers, and plunge the country into a ruinous civil war that kills nearly 2% of the US population.

Are we there yet? The nasty guy hasn’t wrecked the economy, though today’s jobs numbers were low. As for human rights, he seems to gaining ground on revoking rights of Muslims. He’s working real hard to violate separation of powers (and commit other impeachable offenses), though not providing checks the Congress seems to be urging him on. As for the ruinous Civil War, perhaps we can substitute ruinous climate change? Perhaps as an extra bonus we can add disenfranchising voters and in other ways making hash of the constitution?

Some of the other bad presidents listed by MacKenzie:

Andrew Jackson (1829-37): defied the Supreme Court who required protection of Native American property rights. This resulted in the Trail of Tears, several tribes forced from their lands. He also killed the Second Bank, causing the Panic of 1837.

Andrew Johnson (1865-69): An avowed racist he vetoed every effort to protect the rights of former slaves. Congress overrode the vetoes, so Johnson tried to interfere with enforcing those laws. He was impeached, but not removed from office.

Warren Harding (1921-23) was incredibly corrupt. He signed laws that banned nonwhite immigration. Calvin Coolidge (1923-29), was Harding’s VP and with Harding’s help, invented modern economic conservatism: tax cuts for the rich and no regulation for workers or consumers. The 1920s were wonderful. The 1930s weren’t.

Herbert Hoover (1929-33) didn’t cause the Great Depression. But he did make it worse.

Richard Nixon (1969-74): Lyndon Johnson almost had a peace deal for Vietnam. The Nixon campaign convinced the South Vietnamese to hold out for a better deal once Nixon took office. But that deal, not reached until 1973, doomed South Vietnam. His incursions into Cambodia led to the bloody Khmer Rouge that killed off a quarter of the country. At home there was the Southern Strategy, War on Drugs, and Watergate.

George W. Bush (2001-09): He signed tax cuts skewed towards the wealthy, turning surpluses into deficits. He may have been justified in going into Afghanistan (we’re still there), but bungled it by needlessly going into Iraq, which destabilized the entire region, leading to the rise of ISIS. Deregulation led to the 2007 financial crisis, in which he insulated the rich from their bad behavior as the rest of us lost houses and jobs.

So the nasty guy isn’t the worst. Yet. But it is up to us to resist, to make sure he isn’t as bad as Buchanan because if he is many of our fellow Americans and humans will have suffered a great deal.