Why is someone donating this much money?

Kos of Daily Kos posted a piece titled Why Democrats need their own Trump. He admitted that was a poor choice for a title. But his point is a good one: The nasty guy has been the most effective recent president. Alas, what he’s done is all to benefit himself and not the country.

The reason is simple: Trump doesn’t believe in constraints. He doesn’t care about norms, traditions, public opinion, elite opinion, or whether anyone thinks he should be doing what he’s doing. ... Trump has shown that all those traditions and conventions were nothing more than artificial constraints on the power of the presidency. All those Democrats before him who claimed they couldn’t do this or that? It’s all been shown to be bulls---. The office has extraordinary power, now with the Supreme Court’s stamp of approval. ... Trump has exposed something that many Americans—and certainly many Democrats—never fully appreciated: The modern presidency is far more powerful than anyone admitted. For decades, Democratic presidents treated many of those powers as off-limits, constrained by norms and a fear of backlash from the wealthy and powerful interests most invested in the status quo. Sometimes public opinion mattered too. But more often, caution was treated as wisdom because the people who benefited from inaction demanded it. Trump has demonstrated that most of those constraints were voluntary.

Too often Democrats used their time in power to make small adjustments while explaining why they can’t make bigger changes. I see that as a big reason why voters are so annoyed with Democrats. To succeed in 2028 Democrats much actually use power. Anything less and voters are caught between Republicans who break the government and Democrats who restore the status quo. There is the illusion that good things can’t happen quickly. That illusion benefits the wealthy – and we now have a trillionaire. Kos knows what kind of candidate he wants out of the dozens who will run for the Oval Office in 2028. He knows what kind he doesn’t want. Anyone who talks about the old Congressional camaraderie, who wants to make sure the other party has a voice, who accepts that the Supreme Court can’t be fixed – instant disqualification. I add: Yes, Democrats have been too constrained. But in many cases we need that constraint. We need a president who spends money according to how Congress allocates it, who brings Congress with him when he thinks war should be declared, who respects the right to vote and its outcome, who protects the little guy from the big guy instead of the reverse, who works for democracy instead of breaking it. That post prompted a second. In the comments of the first post many said the nasty guy and Republicans smash things. Democrats need to build. Kos agrees that Democrats need to build – housing, clean energy, infrastructure, health care that actually works, an economy for all people. But before building, Democrats need to smash a lot of things too, to make all the building possible. They have to stop protecting the machinery that created and protects today’s extreme inequality. Kos lists more than a dozen things Democrats should smash and says in his first draft of the post the list went on for pages. Here’s just a few things from his list.

+ The Senate filibuster + Citizens United and the campaign finance system it unleashed + Corporate monopolies + The revolving door between Wall Street and Washington + Social media algorithms designed to maximize outrage instead of informing people + Major media outlets owned and controlled by right-wing billionaires + Private prison companies

These things exist because they protect the people with money and power. Democrats need to stop treating them as if they were inscribed on stone tablets – that was the party’s big mistake between the two nasty guy terms. Democrats like to say change takes time. Zohran Mamdani became mayor of New York because he was able to say here is part of the solution we can implement right now. Obama accepted the conventional limits to the presidency. The nasty guy tested every limit. Don’t mistake the status quo for progress. Robert J Petersen of the Kos community posted Hunter Biden’s advice to Democrats prior to the New York primary earlier this week. Here are a few of his points:

+ Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away. + Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost. + Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper. + If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn’t ask permission. He took the field.

In a third article Kos wrote that conservatives are sicker and die younger than liberals. We remember their antics during the pandemic when they refused masks and other things that could keep them healthy. But this study includes data from the mid-to-late 2010s. One reason for the disparity might be that less healthy people became more conservative. See how the right responded when Michelle Obama suggested children eat vegetables. Another reason might be more disturbing: “Conservative politics itself may now be a health risk.” People on the right are more skeptical of medicines, not just vaccines. They’re more distrustful of the “institutions and professionals trying to keep them alive.” They’ve been told expertise is the enemy and are hostile to it.

And to add insult to injury, liberals are now subsidizing those ridiculously unhealthy conservatives through higher health insurance premiums, just like rural red America wouldn’t survive without blue states and cities subsidizing them.

Wednesday’s pundit roundup for Kos, assembled by Greg Dworkin, features several quotes about the New York primary I mentioned. The short answer is that the candidates that Zohran Mamdani endorsed won. Below that Dworkin included tweets by Jamie Dupree:

Senate rebukes Trump over the Iran war, voting 50-48 to approve a House-passed resolution directing the President to remove U.S. military forces from hostilities against Iran. 4 Republicans voted Yes, 1 Dem (Fetterman) voted No. Trump cannot veto this war powers resolution on Iran - because the form it was in (a concurrent resolution) does not go to a President for signature. In essence, it is a non-binding vote by Congress.

Axios commented on US House races in Maryland suburbs to Washington. The summary: There is such a thing as spending too much on a candidate. It leads to people asking, “Why is someone donating this much money?” Down in the comments. ClimateHawk reported on the number of formerly Confederate states won by Republicans (the party that freed the slaves) from 1880 (after Reconstruction ended) to 1948. In those 18 presidential elections Republicans took zero of those eleven states, except for 1920 when they took 1 and 1928 when they took five (Hoover). They took 3-5 states from 1952-1965, two of those were for Eisenhower. Then Lyndon Johnson, Democrat, signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and Voting Rights Act in 1965. He said he was doing the right thing but would lose the South for a generation. In the 15 presidential elections since then (much longer than a generation) Democrats have taken 0-3 states except when voting for Carter after Watergate, when all Southern states voted for him, and when Clinton took 4 of 11 states. In today’s roundup Chitown Kev quoted Robert Jimison and Michael Gold of The New York Times:

“Hours after President Trump angrily confronted Senate Republicans for joining Democrats to approve a war powers resolution rebuking his handling of the war in Iran, Republican leaders brought another, nearly identical measure to the floor. In a 50-to-47 vote, with one senator voting “present,” they defeated the measure in a largely symbolic move that did nothing to change the resolution the Senate had narrowly approved a day earlier. Instead, it served as an unmistakable gesture to mollify a furious president who had just berated them. ... Ultimately, the maneuver did not undo Tuesday’s vote, which was the first war powers measure approved by both chambers since the war began and remains adopted. Wednesday’s vote neither rescinded nor superseded it. Still, Republicans sought to characterize the procedural move as a chance to “re-vote,” even though the initial action cannot simply be erased through a subsequent vote on different legislation.”

Jay Michaelson of Forward wrote that Israel is now pretty much isolated in the world and is doing a good job of alienating its allies in the US.

And for what? For what bowl of porridge did Israel sell its birthright as a member of the civilized world? For nationalist pipe-dreams of Gaza wiped off the map? For keeping Bibi’s coalition alive so he doesn’t go to jail for bribery? For messianic dreams of Greater Israel? For the most hawkish possible interpretation of Israel’s legitimate security needs? For revenge?”

I saw images of this elsewhere (which I can’t find now). The Independent in Britain reported that in 2014 a French TV channel showed a fictional weather report for August 2050 to show the effects of climate warming. It showed France hitting 43C (109.4F). That prediction was surpassed 24 years early. France and much of Europe and Britain are in a heat wave and the temperature in Paris hit 42.6C (108.7F). And that happened in June. This is a big problem because only a quarter of homes in Paris are air conditioned.

A scam on a massive level that was incredibly successful

I haven’t discussed an episode of Gaslit Nation since just before the new year. I get notices of each new episode then think I would rather read the transcript than spend at least 45 minutes listening. Yes, the ability to take notes and quote passages does have a lot to do with my preference. But a transcript comes a few days later and my usual source for blogging (Daily Kos) gives me plenty of material to write about. So I don’t get back to Gaslit Nation. It’s time for a break from Kos. The Gaslit Nation transcripts page shows 20 entries. So my first task was to decide, from a list that goes back to the inauguration, which one to write about today. I chose a recent one, a summary episode: How We Got Here, excerpts from seven episodes stretching back to 2021, a “best of” montage put together by host Andrea Chalupa, that explain how we got into this mess. This transcript page has links to the original episodes for more detail. Up first is Ari Berman, investigative journalist of Mother Jones and author of the book Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People―and the Fight to Resist It. He was a guest on Gaslit Nation in June 2021 and April 2024 Berman starts with the compromises made when the Constitution was written. The big thing was to get it passed, to have a guiding document for the nation. The first compromise was the makeup of the Senate. James Madison was opposed to two senators from every state because he thought states with a minority of the population to thwart the will of the states with a majority of the population. Which is what has happened. The second was the Electoral College. Many framers wanted direct election of the president. But others thought the people could be duped or weren’t well enough informed for that type of decision (hmm, sounds familiar). Also, small states and slave states (key point there) wanted protection. That reminds me of Elie Mystal’s point that the Constitution was written by slavers. The greater point is there were compromises between democratic and anti-democratic forces (there still are).

What we see over and over again is that the constitution that was created was a product of these compromises, and often what happened is the compromises would favor smaller states or would favor slave states, or it would favor wealthy white property owners. So over and over, these privileged minorities were getting preferential treatment in ways that would hurt this much larger and more diverse majority. And I think that's what sparked and laid the groundwork for minority rule to become a reality across the US society and across the US history.

Jump to 2010 and the Republican reaction to the election of Barack Obama. Wisconsin, a great example of the progressive movement, was converted to minority rule through gerrymandering and voting restrictions. Republicans went after labor unions, the primary support of the Democratic Party. Wisconsin became a national model of how to convert a progressive stronghold into minority rule and autocracy. I wrote about Elie Mystal’s book Allow Me to Retort just a few days ago. He is the Justice Correspondent for The Nation and he has another book out, this one Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America. He was on Gaslit Nation in February this year. Mystal said that Biden gets credit for good policies and programs. But Biden failed at the most important thing he needed to do. Alas, part of that was he didn’t recognize that thing. That thing was to roll back the voting rights restrictions implemented by John Roberts and the Supreme Court in 2013. The Court had implemented those rules because Republicans recognized the election of Obama as the first black president meant the black people had enough power to elect one of their own. The restrictions were to make voting harder so that could never happen again. That voter suppression was what made the nasty guy’s first term possible. So Biden missed job one listed above. He also missed job two: making sure the nasty guy couldn’t run again. Democrats had a chance to secure the guardrails – and didn’t. We’re paying for that now and will be for a very long time. Mystal does a great job of summarizing my view of Biden. Great policies, but not doing the two most important things he needed to do. Back to Berman. Voter suppression had been going on long before the nasty guy’s big lie weaponized it in 2021. But since then the effort has gotten more intense. Republicans are still working to pass voter suppression laws. Now there is a related effort to overturn election results. That was tried after the 2020 election. Republicans are now working to make that succeed in the future by trying to control how elections are run and managed. In Georgia the state election board can now take over local election boards. Where there are Republicans willing to stand up to the nasty guy they are getting primaried, so the party is in lockstep with the nasty guy. This is what happens in authoritarian countries. Stephen Ujlaki created the film Bad Faith about Christian Nationalism. He was on Gaslit Nation in April 2024. Ujlaki talked about Colin Weyrich who had worked for Goldwater in 1964 and co-founded the Heritage Foundation in 1973. He was the one who decided the Republicans should cultivate the Evangelicals, who had stayed away from politics since the Scopes trial of the late 1920s humiliated them. Evangelical leaders were told they would get wealth and political influence if they told their followers that Republicans were the party of God and Democrats were the party of the devil. Many of those followers still believe that. One thing the leaders wanted was protection for their segregated Christian academies. But the rallying cry wasn’t racism, but rights of the unborn. Being against abortion was long a Catholic position, but not Evangelical. But after that deal with Republicans abortion was the reason why the followers were told they needed to vote. Said Ujlaki:

It's a scam on a massive level that was incredibly successful, both the rallying cry and the divisiveness in the country that it caused.

Nancy MacLean is the author of Democracy in Chains, about how powerful plutocrats developed anti-democracy networks to hold the US hostage. She was on Gaslit Nation in June of 2022. The dumbing down of the American public, the huge number of people who believe things easily disproven, began with the ending the Fairness Doctrine of broadcasting in 1986. That doctrine required accuracy and balance on the public airwaves. Its end opened the way for conservative talk radio, Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News. The industry of disinformation became very profitable. Jesse Eisinger is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist at ProPublica. He wrote the book, The Chicken S--- Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives (the real title doesn’t have dashes). He was on Gaslit Nation in December 2023. In the early 1970s conservatives noticed liberals controlled the institutions of the economy, government, and culture. Pretty much the power in the country. Louis Powell wrote his famous Memorandum, which earned him a seat on the Supreme Court. That Memo was a conservative call to arms. Wealthy people built the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, and a few more while the Koch Brothers built their vast network. The right still claims the left controls the culture when they are actually the ones in control. The left needs to emphasize anti-trust efforts (there is a conservative anti-trust faction). But their efforts are blocked by judges. First, conservative judges did the blocking, but now Obama and Biden judges are also blocking anti-trust efforts. We need a decades long revision in legal thinking. There is the American Constitution Society, the liberal counterpart to the Federalist Society (I didn’t know they existed!). Caroline Frederickson, head of the ACS, admitted (back in 2023) they had made a big mistake – they had vetted judges on social issues like abortion, not economic ones. They hadn’t thought to ask about anti-trust, labor reforms, and regulation attitudes. MacLean talked about the Koch brothers. David ran as a candidate of the Libertarian Party in 1980. The platform was no public schools, no national parks, no postal service. It did include providing for national defense, ensuring the rule of law, and guaranteeing social order and very little else. The overwhelming majority of people rejected that platform. So David and Charles created their network to use disinformation to make their ideas more acceptable. Koch money and influence helped the Federalist Society capture our courts, especially the Supreme Court. On January 6th, 2021 the 147 members of the House and seven of eight members of the Senate who refused to certify that Biden won were all funded by Koch money. Efforts to gerrymander, suppress votes, and change how elections are run are also funded by Koch money. It’s a stealth strategy to rewrite rules of governance, even the Constitution, to return our government to what it was about 1900. At that time workers had no rights and no voice. There was no Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Only a tiny minority want this vision, which is why disinformation is so central and systematic. Social Security is so widely popular the disinformation on it included the stability of it and dividing current recipients from tax payers by saying it won’t be there when the youngsters need it. Koch money was also behind the Tea Party that appeared in 2009 in response to Obama’s election. They worked to control state legislatures in 2010 and succeeded in 28 states. Those legislatures attacked liberal laws, lying about why that was necessary. They also highly gerrymandered their states and pushed voter suppression masked as preventing voter fraud. Eisinger said that in the 1980s Democrats were crushed by Reagan and became afraid of economic reform. That was their start of no longer being the party of the working class. MacLean said Reagan was good at communicating: “Government is the problem,” and “Welfare Queen.” Though he made a lot of radical changes he did nothing close to what the Koch network wanted. When Reagan understood the cuts he asked for would cut Social Security and benefits for veterans and farmers, his base, he backed off. He didn’t cut spending, but still cut taxes. Between Reagan and Bush II the Koch brothers realized they can’t depend on elected officials. To remain popular enough to get elected again candidates couldn’t be as extreme as the Koch people wanted. That’s why the Kochs turned to disinformation. Anne Nelson is a journalist who has covered a few countries. She also wrote the book Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right. She was on Gaslit Nation in May 2024 to discuss Project 2025. She said:

Institution Project 2025 is a document that was released under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation a few months ago in late 2023. And it is a blueprint for the way that the radical right wing of the Republican Party plans to transform American flawed but functional democracy into a complete dictatorship. That's the short answer, but it goes into 900 pages of detailed information about exactly how they're going to do that throughout virtually every possible branch of the government.

One example from Project 2025 is about climate. The point, as Nelson describes it, is to “burn as many fossil fuels as quickly as possible because the priority is the profit for the profit stream for the fossil fuels industry.” To do that the document says to pull out of climate accords, remove energy ratings from appliances, even remove the Migratory Bird Act. Other parts of it talk about lowering all taxes on the wealthy. Allow fundamentalists to turn the country into a theocracy. Reverse marriage equality. Remove all rights from trans people (and the rest of the LGBTQ community). Challenge the right to birth control. And, the big one, concentrate government power in the White House, including control of the Department of Justice and turning the FBI into secret police. Take over the State Department so cronies become ambassadors able to cut deals at will. Replace all federal workers with loyalists without checking for education or competence. Nelson’s appearance in Gaslit Nation was before the election. I note that because of this comment from her:

Well, I don't think that Trump can win without the support of a hundred plus organizations who signed on to Project 2025.

These are the groups that met with the nasty guy in June 2016 offering money and campaign support. In return they wanted him to stack the federal judiciary, from the Supreme Court on down. Of these hundred groups, about half got funding from the Koch network. That and other funding sources has billions of dollars behind it.

Democrats need to end linguistic contortions

I’m on the email list for First Run Features, a company that makes documentary films. Most of the time I glance at the latest offering and delete it. Recently the notice was about the film The Cinema Within, talking about the film editing process. I’ve watched a few other films about filmmaking, so this sounded intriguing. The film’s page on the First Run Features’ website said it can be viewed through Kanopy, while its page on IMDb says it can be seen through Prime Video. Kanopy looked worth exploring. So I explored. It is a streaming service for and supported by libraries and colleges/universities. Here’s the Wikipedia page for the service. All I needed was my library card. Since I buy books and rarely visit my town’s fine library I had to renew my card. Once I did I signed up to be a Kanopy member. My library created a list of films it made available. I am given twelve “tickets” a month and for each film I’m charged one or more tickets (kid’s films are free). I did some exploring of what films in my “to watch” list are on Kanopy. Some are, many aren’t. I do see LGBTQ films are available (at least through my library) and there is an LGBTQ category under Browse. There is also access to some BBC shows. I’ll be back to Kanopy. The film The Cinema Within discusses why film editing works. In no other experience in life (or the 400 million years of eyeballs) are two different images shown immediately one after the other and we make sense of it. If we couldn’t make sense of such cuts film would be reduced to a motionless camera pointing to an acting area. The first films were exactly that. But by 1910 filmmakers had figured out a standard set of continuity principles that are still used in film today. Modern films cut every 3-4 seconds and we don’t notice. The same techniques are used around the world. We don’t need years to understand what these cuts between images mean. This film asks the question: Why do these techniques work? Yes, research was done. A woman found a village in Turkey where the residents had not seen movies. She showed them short videos of the various editing techniques and asked them to describe what they saw. She and other researchers were surprised at the results and surprised again when they saw what made a difference. Other researchers focused on the eye and blinking. Only a small area of our vision is in detailed focus, so 2-3 times a second we shift our focus. The brain can’t process the images as we shift, so doesn’t. Between that and blinking about a third of the time we’re functionally blind. Of course, other aspects of the research are also surprising. I found it fascinating and recommend the film. Kos of Daily Kos discussed a way Democrats might better reach voters. The discussion was prompted by an article in the Washington Post about “a growing backlash among Democrats who are fed up with jargon that alienates voters more than it persuades them.” Some examples of the jargon that confuses and turns off voters: “Oligarchs” instead of “rich people.” “People experiencing food insecurity” instead of “people going hungry.” “Equity” instead of “equality.” “Unhoused” instead of “homeless.” Bernie Sanders has toured, speaking against the oligarchy, and drew big crowds. But even he has switched to saying “greedy billionaires.” There are words and phrases that just baffle many voters: “privilege,” “cultural appropriation,” and “settler colonialism.” There is also that acronym that has gone from “LGBT” to “LGBTQ” to other versions that try to include every variation of human gender and sexuality (few are going to wade through all those letters or to understand “two spirit”). Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona won last November by championing liberal causes while speaking English. Not “social equity” but “even chance.” Gallego won the state’s Latinos 61-37, the same margin as Biden in 2020, while in 2024 Harris won them by 55-42.

Yes, some of these terms seek to avoid stigma and otherwise redress certain injustices embedded in our language, but it’s a distinction that’s lost on most people. The intent is noble, but the outcome is disastrous for those who are supposedly being protected by these linguistic contortions. ... Talk like a human—and win more voters.

Kos posted that article Thursday evening. He posted again on the same topic Friday evening. That first post got more than 1,000 comments (it’s over 1220 when I checked). Kos expected commenters would blast him. Yeah, some did. But the rest offered constructive commentary. Kos contrasted the big words of Democrats with the straightforward message of the other side:

Trump’s message is all about danger. You’re physically in danger—because Black and brown people are going to kill you. You’re economically in danger—because “globalists” (i.e. Jews) and immigrants are cheating you. You’re culturally in danger—because trans people are coming for your children. Security isn’t a luxury: It’s as fundamental as food, water, and shelter. And Trump taps into that primal fear so effectively that he’s peeled off major parts of our traditional base: lower-income voters of color and the organized labor movement.

Those three components about danger – they’re all lies. But they’re quite effective lies. To win again candidates need to talk about the most important issue, the economy, and to speak English. Mark Sumner, Kos Emeritus, discussed a lot of Democratic politicians and consultants are talking about. They believe Democrats need a “Joe Rogan of the Left.” Rogan has radio show or podcast (or something like that) who is quite influential in promoting conservative ideas. Rogan is far from the only conservative voice, just an effective one. So, we should have effective liberal voices out there too. Sumner calls the idea “painfully stupid.”

I do know what anyone who wants to reach out to young people should say: Billionaires took your money. They took your chance to buy a home. They took your chance at a good education. They stole your opportunities. Billionaires took the things you want in life. If you really want those things, you have to take them back. That's the message. That's the whole message.

Republicans are still at it, taking from you and giving it to people who already have so much.

How does a tiny fraction of the population get away with this? They do it by dividing the other 99% of Americans against themselves. They turn us against other working people who happen to be women. Other working people who happen to be Black. Working people who happen to be gay. ... Every single day, Joe Rogan and a host of other influencers spread out across social media to tell young people that their problems exist because Black people exist, gay people exist, immigrants exist. Women exist. Go forth and hate. Their message is clear: It's not you, it's them. And they're right. It is them. Only "them" isn't people of color or someone who happens to be LGBTQ. Them is billionaires. Them is funding this message of hate because they just f'ing love it when the little people turn on each other. Them is laughing at us all.

Conservatives, with the “again” part of their slogan, are invoking a time when finding a good job and buying a home was much easier.

But the reason that things were better for those Americans wasn't because that time came double-dipped in racism and misogyny. It was better because that time came with strong unions, vast investments in education and infrastructure, and tax rates that meant money flowed to first homes rather than super yachts.

Urge your progressive candidates to run on that message. That should be their job. A Joe Rogan of the Left isn’t necessary. The Senate has a tradition that if a member puts a hold on something, like confirming the nomination to a job, the whole body can’t combine that nomination with others and must go through a roll-call vote. Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville put a hold on about 450 military promotions for nearly a year because he opposed letting service members travel out of state for abortions. The hold put all those promotions in limbo because the Senate didn’t have the time to do a roll-call vote on that many individual confirmations. They’re usually handled many at a time and by voice vote. The vice nasty, back when he was a senator, also put holds on Biden’s attorney nomination. By the time he became a senator most of Biden’s nominations had already been confirmed, so no great damage. Lisa Needham of Kos reported that Democrat Sen. Dick Durban put a hold on the nomination for US attorney for Florida and said he might put a hold on other attorney nominees. Wow, a Democrat showing some spine! It’s also a nice switch for Durban who kept honoring the tradition of blue slips, which prevented the Senate from confirming liberal federal judges in conservative states. Putting a hold on nominations, as Tuberville did, is a long Republican tactic. And they’re quite annoyed that Democrat Durban is using it.

Republicans genuinely can’t conceive of a world where Democrats deploy the same tactics they do. Democrats are supposed to follow the rules, and the rules are whatever Republicans say they are. But as Durbin put it in his statement about the hold: “As I’ve said time and time again—there cannot be one set of rules for Republicans and another set for Democrats.”

Andrew Mangan of Kos puts out a weekly column on the most important polls. One of interest this week is about what Americans think of Biden’s cognitive decline. Did it have no effect on his ability to be president? Little effect? Or severely limited him as president? The poll shows 58% thought Biden was severely limited. That’s 31% for Democrats, 58% for independents, and 83% for Republicans. Yeah, the nasty guy is also cognitive decline and is also a terrible guy, and we’re still focused on Biden? It matters because another poll shows 57% of all people believe Democrats concealed Biden’s true mental state. That includes 28% of Democrats, 57% of independents, and 86% of Republicans. A reminder that Republicans were pushing the idea that Biden was too old, so of course their people believe that he couldn’t handle the job. But poll numbers like that indicate how the public views the Democrats. Less trust and lower favorability ratings. Which means while voters are turning away from Republicans they are not necessarily turning toward Democrats. To win back trust Democrats need to honestly discuss all that happened around Biden’s mental abilities. Kai Ryssdal of the NPR show Marketplace spoke to Evan Osnos, whose new book is The Haves and the Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich. While working on the book Osnos began to wonder if America was approaching an “untenable imbalance.” We may be living in the most unequal time in all of history. Wealth has accumulated so fast our minds, laws, and institutions can’t keep up. About 100 years ago some of the top capitalists realized that disparities had gotten so large that if they didn’t figure out a more even distribution capitalism could be in doubt. They wanted to make sure the country was sustainable. The current moment is quite different. The Vanderbilts, even when they could buy members of Congress, didn’t have a White House office. Also, Republicans are flat on their backs as Musk rampaged through the government. Even so, Osnos is optimistic. Americans are noticing and clearly seeing who is standing in their way of succeeding. America has “a way of finding its way back to a more sustainable path. But it takes a time, and it takes sustained commitment on the part of the public.” Lisa Needham of Kos wrote that the nasty guy, through his Truth Social, attacked Leonard Leo. I’ve mentioned Leo a few times as the guy at the Federalist Society who recommended sufficiently conservative candidates for federal and Supreme courts. He was the one who made sure it was Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett who got onto the high court. So why did the nasty guy attack the one person who shaped the American court system to allow the nasty guy get where he is? Recently, a three judge panel on the Court of International Trade ruled that the nasty guy’s wide ranging tariffs are not legal, at least through the law the tariffs are based on. And the nasty guy is not capable of admitting his mistake of selecting a judge who would rule against him. So he blamed Leo, even though Leo probably didn’t have a part in selecting these judges. Rather nice these two are in a catfight. So the nasty guy will select judges without Leo’s help. A problem with that is at least the candidates Leo recommends are competent. The last time I wrote about the Russian invasion of Ukraine was quite a while ago. And over the weekend there is news. NPR talked about the massive drone strikes Ukraine pulled off deep in Russian territory, but didn’t give details. So I did a bit of online searching and found a story by NBC. I’ll let you read the details of the audacious plan. Though Kos didn’t post an officially reviewed article, annieli of the Kos community has been posting daily for quite a long time and, of course, included this attack. The post included another attack on the Kerch bridge, which allows Russia to get supplies into Crimea. This explosion wasn’t enough to bring the bridge down, but it was just as good – the bridge was declared unstable and closed for use. About a third of the way down annieli’s post is a meme showing the cost of various aircraft carriers. The US model costs $13 billion. The British model is $7.6 billion. The French is $4.14 billion. And the Ukrainian version is 39,000 Euros – it looks like a semi truck and “Comes with kettle and toaster.” Down in the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos are several of memes and cartoons about the attack. A few more are in response to the nasty guy telling Zelenskyy that he doesn’t have any cards. Zelenskyy is showing holding a royal flush (with an extra ace) the whole time. Todd Alcott posted what looks like the cover of a comic book with Batman wearing a pink outfit with identical green, yellow, blue, purple, and orange outfits behind him.

Robin: Batman! You’ve been wearing a different color suit every night! What’s going on? Batman: Homophobes are terrified by rainbows, old chum!

Back in the main body of the roundup Chitown Kev quoted Margaret Sullivan of the Guardian talking about libraries and museums.

Why would any politician – especially one as hungry for adulation as Donald Trump – go after such cherished parts of America? It seems counterintuitive, but this is all a part of a broad plan that the great 20th-century political thinker Hannah Arendt would have understood all too well. Take away natural beauty, free access to books and support for the arts, and you end up with a less enlightened, more ignorant and less engaged public. That’s a public much more easily manipulated. [...] What’s really going on is a long-term power grab. In crippling learning, beauty and culture Trump and his helpers “seek to make the country more amenable to their political domination”.

Jonathan Sumption is a former justice of the supreme court of Britain. He wrote an article for the New York Times about failing Western democracies:

The tragedy is that historical experience warns us that strongmen do not get things done. At best they may indulge the fantasies of some of the population. But at what cost? Strongmen tend to be fixated on a few simple ideas that they offer as solutions to complex problems. The concentration of power in a small number of hands and the absence of wider deliberation and scrutiny enable them to make major decisions on the hoof, without proper forethought, planning, research or consultation. Within the government’s ranks, a strongman promotes loyalty at the expense of wisdom, flattery at the expense of objective advice, and self-interest at the expense of the public interest. All of this usually makes for chaos, political breakdown, economic impoverishment and social divisions.

Max Burns, a Kos contributor reported that “A supermajority of Americans support ditching the Electoral College in favor of using popular vote,” though no mainstream media is discussing it. The Electoral College is a big deal because Republicans won the presidential popular vote only twice since 1992, yet won the presidency four times. And because of that Republicans haven’t wanted to get rid of the Electoral College. They are changing their opinions on the EC because the nasty guy won the popular vote. They could claim to be the ones to get rid of it. There are lots of reasons to get rid of the EC. One is that voters in all states matter, not just those in the swing states. In the comments of another pundit roundup are several cartoons for Pride month. One posted by paulpro and created by Bless the Messy shows two rainbow colored circles. The top one is what people think Pride is: rainbows and parades. The bottom one, with a lot more colors, is what Pride actually is: Being in the closet to stay safe. Having community. Feeling free. Loving yourself more than needing to be loved by others. Being accepted and respected as ourselves. Protecting trans youth. Fighting for equal rights. Honoring those who paved the way (especially black trans elders). And a few more. There are also more cartoons about TACO – Trump always chickens out. Quite a ways down is a cartoon by Monte Wolverton showing a taco talking with lots of exclamation points. Xi of China tells Putin, “I’m not particularly concerned about it... It’s mostly full of beans.”

A long history of ignoring and undermining the Constitution

I finished the book Allow Me to Retort, a Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Elie Mystal. This is a book I would love to delve into and write about every interesting thing I found, filling pages and pages. But that wouldn’t be fair to Mystal and his book (and its copyright). So I’ll reluctantly stick to summarizing the book rather than each page. In case that wasn’t clear, I highly recommend this book. I’ve encountered Mystal’s writing a few times and I’ve heard others praise his fine logic, his ability to get at the core of an argument, and doing so with wit. He went to Harvard Law School, but being a lawyer didn’t suit him. So he switched to law and justice commentary. He has appeared on CNN and MSNBC and helped the NPR show Radiolab with their series on the Supreme Court titled More Perfect. Yeah, he knows his stuff and he’s quite the justice warrior. The hardcover edition came out in 2022. When the paperback edition (the one I read) came out in 2023 he had to add another chapter as a preface, condemning the “originalism” used to overturn abortion rights. Of course, the Constitution, its amendments, and the commentary of the late 18th century don’t mention abortion! The Constitution was written by people who owned slaves! They were also highly misogynistic and restricted government participation to land owners like themselves. Mystal is okay with the body of the Constitution – well, most of it. It’s the amendments that cause all the problems. It isn’t that the amendments are bad, but that the white supremacists running the country have always been very good at ignoring and undermining the parts they don’t like. And, yes, for a great deal of our national history white supremacists have been in charge. Some examples. The Supreme Court, urged on by the NRA, reinterpreted the Second Amendment to mean a personal right to own and carry a gun (if one is white). Mystal gets into the original intent of the amendment – protection against slave uprisings – and the illogic of those who are fans of this interpretation. Our police brutality would wither away if courts actually enforced the Fourth Amendment. Mystal told his own harrowing story of a police encounter. Courts don’t enforce the Fourth because white people don’t want them to. If the Fifth Amendment says a person cannot be a witness against themselves why do police spend so much time trying to trick a suspect into confessing and why is that confession admitted into court proceedings? Yeah, we’re familiar with the Miranda rights from their use in police shows, but does a frightened teenage black kid facing hostile cop know what it really means? If we really believed the Eighth Amendment on cruel and unusual punishment no criminal would get the death penalty. Mystal was not a fan of the Constitution created by slavers. But then came the Thirteenth (banning slavery), Fourteenth (birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection), Fifteenth (the right to vote), and Nineteenth (women voting) Amendments. These are great! They make the rest of the Constitution work! Except society and the courts find all sorts of reasons why they don’t apply in particular cases. See Jim Crow. Mystal has only two complaints about the main body of the Constitution. The first is the makeup of the Senate. It was designed to make sure slavers could stay in control. It is now justified by saying the needs of rural states should not be overrun by the needs of urban states. That doesn’t make sense to Illinois where Chicago dominates the rural areas of the same state. The second complaint is the Electoral College. An amendment would need to be passed to get rid of it, which isn’t going to happen. The National Popular Vote Compact is great – until someone is elected using it. That case will go to the Supreme Court, who will pick the president. A big problem in the US, as defined by this Constitution, is the Supreme Court. A body that can limit or overturn every law that comes out of Congress, even limit or ignore the Constitution is a threat to democracy. Perhaps we should prevent the Court from reviewing laws. That review is not in the Constitution. There is one thing worse than a Supreme Court full of conservatives that block progress. That worse thing is conservative politicians who are quicker to wield their supremacy. So to close the book Mystal discusses how to reform the Court. Reform could start by saying that a Justice may be appointed for life, but not necessarily on the Supreme Court. They can be given senior status and sent to lower courts, able to return when a sitting justice recuses themselves. Mystal suggests the right number of justices should be 29. Some circuit courts have this many. Perhaps the Supremes should reorganize to handle cases as a circuit court does with a randomly selected three-judge panel hearing a case and the full court getting involved only when other justices disagree with the original panel. There is a lot more to the book – it is over 250 pages – and all worth reading. Again, I highly recommend it.

People had cultivated the habit of apathy

A couple days ago my friend and debate partner sent an email saying he had received emails that say computer hacking experts think the presidential election was cooked in the swing states. The fraud was done through votes that were entered electronically without a matching paper ballot. They were “bullet ballots” with a vote for the nasty guy but no votes for any other races. He asked if I had heard anything about it. I replied that I hadn’t. Shortly after replying to my friend I saw an email that mentioned bullet ballots. That email is from Gaslit Nation. As part of an episode’s description are notes for the show. That includes a link to an article posted on Free Speech for People. It describes a letter from computer hacking experts warning Harris of the ways the vote tally could be hacked and that she should ask for recounts. The article summarizes the letter saying that after the 2020 election nasty guy operatives accessed voting equipment to get copies of its software. In the years since they could have studied it for vulnerabilities, ways to introduce malware. While this sounds dire, the letter does not allege specific misdeeds or say whether or how the vote count was affected. It only says election fraud is possible and that a recount is highly recommended. I then got a link to an article on Snopes, the site dedicated to affirming or debunking internet stories. I’ve referenced Snopes in the past, though not for several years (is it now owned by msn?). This article is by Jordan Liles and is in response to allegations by Stephen Spoonamore made in a letter to Harris and posted on Spoutible that made much more specific descriptions of bullet ballot counts, which are high enough to overturn the election. The lengthy analysis by Liles, which I scanned, but did not entirely read, essentially says Spoonamore’s numbers don’t add up and he doesn’t back up his statements. Spoonamore made a claim of a particular count of ballots that voted for only president, but reported state statistics are well under the claimed number. Irontortoise of the Daily Kos community (not verified by DK staff) that (in two parts, here and here) linked to the Snopes report. They also ran the numbers and concluded the number of bullet ballots this year is not far from historical rates, which means there weren’t many extra bullet ballots and they weren’t enough of thems to change the election. Emily Singer of Kos wrote about Matt Gaetz’ withdrawal from the nomination for Attorney General. Singer said that withdrawal was actually pushed by the nasty guy, who recognized there are enough senators to block confirmation and they weren’t going to change their vote. Singer said Gaetz’ departure a mere eight days from nomination is out of character for a wannabe strongman who made “fight” his motto. It is also surprising the nasty guy didn’t use his threat of recess appointments, though Republicans have been telling him they won’t let him shred their advice and consent power. All this is typical for a man known for chaotic decisions. That prompted Jessica Sutherland of Kos to wonder which of the nasty guy’s other hasty and problematic picks will fall next. Sutherland lists plenty of reasons to reject Pete Hegseth for Defense, Robert Kennedy for Health and Human Services, Kristi Noem for Homeland Security, Linda McMahon for Education, Mehmet Oz for Medicare and Medicaid, Sean Duffy for Transportation, Tulsi Gabbard for national intelligence, and Elon Musk for that made up department. Maybe Republicans will assert themselves and reject them all. This morning Tamara Keith of NPR talked about the speed of the announcements for various cabinet positions. She also talked of the things the nasty guy has not done. There are three documents the transition team has not yet signed. The documents are not named. They were instituted after the disputed 2000 election shortened the transition time and also after the issuing of a report on the Sept. 11 terror attack which emphasized the need to have a fully functioning government as quickly as possible. They were designed to make the transition go smoothly. The FBI (still controlled by Biden) isn’t doing background checks on the nominees, something the Senate has required. There seems to be no effort to get the nominees properly vetted before confirmation hearings in January. In addition to the FBI check each nominee is supposed sign an ethics agreement that says they have resolved conflicts of interest, such as divesting stock or ending a business relationship. Since this takes weeks it is usually done before the nominee is announced. In 2017 many nominees were delayed because of the process. Did the nasty guy learn the wrong lesson and instead of starting earlier is trying to circumvent the process? Does he know some of them will not meet ethics rules, which his Department of Justice will not prosecute? So will the Senate demand these background checks and ethics declarations? We’ll see. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted several people with interesting views. Heather Digby Parton of Salon wrote:

But for all the nuts and kooks Trump is appointing to some of the top jobs to accomplish his revenge agenda, there are some areas where he's stocking the administration with people who are determined to fulfill their own. Many of them are Project 2025 veterans.

So much for the nasty guy claiming he had nothing to do with Project 2025. Makena Kelly of Wired looked at one of those nominations. This one is Brendan Carr to head the Federal Communications Commission. Carr wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC. And it looks like Carr, in addition to giving communication companies all the goodies they’ve been asking for, wants to transform these companies into speech police. Sam Wolfson of the Guardian discusses how destructive the “manosphere” might be because of its ability to corrupt youth. This couples with many people getting their news from influencers, rather than actual news sources, which I mentioned yesterday.

It’s not on one channel on a DirectTV box, but its audience is far bigger, potentially reaching 10 times as many people [as Fox News]. It’s an amorphous network of podcasts, YouTubers, Twitch streamers and meme accounts from Kill Tony to Joe Rogan to Dilley Meme Team. They encompass entertainment, comedy, sport, health, relationships – but a distrust of the Democrats and the mainstream media permeates them all. Like Fox News and conservative AM radio, the audiences of these podcasts are scared about a changing world, but their fears are very different from those of older viewers and listeners. They’re less susceptible to bogeymen stories of violent migrants, socialism or kids watching pornography (they are the kids watching pornography). They’re more worried about money in politics, ongoing wars, the #MeToo movement, and liberals who can’t take a joke. They’re also curious about heterodox thinking, history and the environment.

Kev objects to the word “heterodox.” These people are saying the same old stuff supremacists have always said. They simply have the luxury of being able to blast it out. Kristen Ghodsee of The New Republic discussed the people who lived behind the Iron Curtain and the dangers of withdrawing from public life.

Yes, escapism through art, culture, and nature helped East Europeans persevere despite the many hardships of life in a command economy. But it also left them uniquely unprepared to deal with the sudden changes that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because people had cultivated the habit of apathy, they stood helpless as the lofty promises of free markets and democracy descended into kleptocratic chaos.

If you must retreat into a private sphere, do it with cherished others. Binge watch with a friend. Play board games. Stay active in your faith community. “Practice ‘scruffy hospitality’ by inviting friends and neighbors over even when your house is a mess and you can only serve a frozen pizza.” Joe Stanley-Smith of Politico Europe discussed a memoir by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and what she had to say about the nasty guy. A bit of it:

“He judged everything from the perspective of the property entrepreneur he had been before politics,” she wrote of Trump. “Each property could only be allocated once. If he didn’t get it, someone else did. That was also how he looked at the world.” “For him, all countries were in competition with each other, in which the success of one was the failure of the other; he did not believe that the prosperity of all could be increased through co-operation.”

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme: “Let me get this straight, you want to know what is on Hunter’s laptop but not what is in the ethics investigation on Matt Gaetz.” Dennis Goris posted a cartoon of two men in a bar. One says, “After I posted the cartoon I realized my mistake was assuming disdain for Nazis was universal.” Another meme posted by exlrrp: “It’s really something to watch the party whose supporters poop on the floor in the Capitol and wipe their feces on the wall tell us which bathrooms to use.” A cartoon by Drew Sheneman shows a whale talking to a dolphin, “The oil companies want you to worry about theoretical wind turbines when our stomachs are full of actual plastic.”

Political reporters treat Republicans as 9-year-old children

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos discussed what is going in to choosing the next leader of Republicans in the Senate since Moscow Mitch is stepping down from leadership at the end of the year. Biden keeps talking about bipartisanship...

But as Republicans scramble to pick a replacement for outgoing Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, there are three big demands on the table: get rid of the seniority system for committee assignments, impose a term limit on leadership positions, and never, ever compromise. The death of bipartisanship is a base requirement.

Stopping the seniority system for committee assignments means members would be chosen more for their purity of beliefs. Mitch was wrong about many things, most wrong about the nasty guy impeachment votes and stealing two Supreme Court seats. But he was right about a few things, like the Ukraine aid bill. But for his successor...

Compromise makes government possible. A refusal to compromise makes it impossible. But the choice is only obvious for those who want government to work.

Sumner also wrote the nasty guy’s VP pick is likely North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. He’s rich, though not in the billionaire range. Even so, he is an ambassador to the only group the nasty guy really cares about – billionaires. Burgum has another great quality he doesn’t care whether he gets the job.

But Burgum has given a clear signal that he’s willing to lie for Trump, be his bagman, and never step near the spotlight. That’s a combination that no other hopeful seems to match.

In a third post Sumner said that while billionaires love the nasty guy, corporate CEOs don’t. Out of the Fortune 100 CEOs, zero have sent money to the nasty guy, even though a majority are Republicans. The reason is simple. The nasty guy terrifies them. Even though Biden calls them out for their greed Biden has guided the best economy in decades. Biden has shown clear goals and consistent regulation. In contrast, the nasty guy’s economic plans are shown to be a disaster. In his first term the nasty guy attacked individual companies and their executives and he has talked of retribution. They like their corporate diversity programs and cringed when the nasty guy called the Charlottesville protesters “very fine people.” They’re afraid of Project 2025, ready to fill the government with incompetent idealogues who have no idea how business works.

CEOs may be dragging in far more money than they deserve. They may be failing to protect their companies by failing to stand up for employees. But, says [head of Chief Executive Leadership Institute at Yale Jeffrey] Sonnenfeld, CEOs are “not protectionist, isolationist or xenophobic, and they believe in investing where there is the rule of law, not the law of rulers.”

Fernando Oliver posted a cartoon of Lisa Simpson (forgive me if I have the name wrong, I didn’t watch the show) appearing to lead a seminar where on the screen are the words, “‘Billionaires won’t create jobs if we tax them,’ is a myth made up by billionaires so we won’t tax them.” In a fourth post Sumner talked about nasty guy surrogates laying the groundwork for tomorrow’s debate between the nasty guy and Biden. The example shown here is a surrogate declaring the CNN moderators are biased and the nasty guy would be in a hostile environment. So if the nasty guy doesn’t show or he clearly loses the excuses are already there. And if Biden commits a flub that dominates the news the surrogates can say the nasty guy wonderful because he won despite the environment. Yeah, the situation is that if Biden flubs it will be all over the news – even if he gets a date wrong or mispronounces a name. Yet, the nasty guy can flub a whole lot worse in lots more ways and the news will ignore it. I will ignore the debate, being satisfied with summaries I can read on Friday. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Paul Glastris of the Washington Monthly who wrote that Biden is the oldest leader in NATO – he was born before it was founded – and as he has aged his clout and respect has increased.

It was Biden who warned European leaders in early 2022 that Vladimir Putin was going to send his military into Ukraine, a warning many of them initially refused to believe. When the invasion happened as predicted, it was Biden who rallied Western and other allied countries to Ukraine’s defense. It was also Biden who authorized a dramatic increase in U.S. natural gas exports to Europe as Russia cut off supplies. It was Biden who picked up the phone and called the heads of Finland and Sweden with a quiet suggestion that they join NATO. And it was Biden and his team who overcame the resistance of Turkey and Hungary to make NATO expansion a reality, thus turning Putin’s military quagmire into a geo-strategic disaster for Russia.

Dworkin added: “Experience matters on the world stage.” Dworkin quoted a couple tweets by John Stoehr and his Editorial Board:

Because the press corps' lens though which it sees politics is a family drama in which Trump is the child and Biden is the dad, and no one but a crazy person would question the mental fitness of a child. Dad, however ... If you're ever confused about how political reporters treat Republicans, stop seeing the Republicans as grown men and women and start seeing them as 9-year-old boys and girls. Things will make a ton more sense.

In the comments exlrrp included a meme from Turning Point USA that says, “If conservatives are being silence, then why don’t they ever shut the f--- up?” West Central Tribune posted a cartoon by Adam Zyglis that shows a classroom shooter and behind the stream of bullets are the Ten Commandments with “Thou Shalt Not Kill” legible. One kid cowering under a desk says to another, “At least our shooters will know they’re sinners.” A couple tabs that have been sitting there perhaps too long. In the comments of a pundit roundup from mid May kurious quoted an article from The Guardian about Justice Alito and the upside down flag. The Supreme Court should be a check on a radical Republican Party, but has become its ally.

The rule of law cannot be relied on to stem the tide of rising authoritarianism, because our legal institutions have been captured by the authoritarians… The justice is perfectly aware that he does not need to pretend to neutrality, or hide his partisan loyalties, or behave, with anything like a convincing effort, like his work on the court is motivated by the law and not his own reactionary political preferences. Alito knows that he does not need to maintain any pretext of integrity, intellectual commitment or seriousness in his work. The supreme court has accumulated enough power to itself – and the justices have done a sufficiently good job of insulating themselves from any accountability or consequence – that he doesn’t even think he needs to lie any more. He’s comfortable being a partisan operative right out in the open.

From about the same time Rep. Jamie Raskin tweeted:

Justice Alito turned the flag upside down. Donald Trump turned the Bible upside down. MAGA turned the Capitol upside down. The Roberts Court turned the Constitution upside down. Let’s set America right side up in November.

Arizona Republicans boxed themselves in over abortion

On Monday the nasty guy posted a video of himself discussing his position on abortion. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported the nasty guy seemed to think he took the issue out of play in the campaign. His position satisfied nobody. Conservatives say it didn’t go far enough. Those not conservative say it went too far. And Biden issued ads blaming the national abortion mess squarely on the nasty guy. Biden has a campaign issue to take him all the way to victory in November. Part of what the nasty guy said is that abortion should be a state issue. And on Tuesday the Arizona Supreme Court issued a decision that put a restrictive 1864 abortion ban in play. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Rachel Maddow of MSNBC discussed the headlines in various media outlets which gave the impression the nasty guy had moderated his position on abortion, which he has not. Those headlines likely delighted him. He got what he wanted. A more accurate headline might be:

Trump abandons previous criticism of strictest state abortion bans. Trump avoids mention of Republican proposals for national restrictions.

Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the Republican response to the Arizona abortion ban. It’s like what happens when a dog succeeds in catching the car. Yup, Republicans have been pushing a ban, campaigning on a ban, and even working to get a case before the state Supremes. Sumner lists many of their efforts. But now the ban is about to be put in place and because of how unpopular it is they are frantically backpedaling. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic. There is already an effort to get a proposal on the November ballot to put abortion rights in the state constitution. That will be a big gain for Biden, who narrowly won the state in 2020. That puts Republicans in a box.

But here is what is clear: If the GOP-run Legislature does nothing and allows this 19th century law to stand, Republicans soon could be looking at a state where abortion is a constitutional right and Democrats take total control of the state. ... But how does a MAGA Legislature extract itself from the box it built? If Republicans repeal the 1864 law now about to take effect, they make a mockery of their own belief that life begins at conception and all abortion is murder. If they put a competing measure on the ballot, proposing that abortion be legal for up to 15 weeks, they risk alienating their voter base and send a message that the “ultimate sin” is negotiable. And if they do nothing, disaster.

Please, take that last option! Down in the comments is a cartoon posted by Mike Luckovich. Two elephants are talking as behind them are a crowd of angry women with “Keep Abortion Legal” signs. One elephant says, “Perhaps we erred in ending women’s reproductive rights...” And the other replies, “...Without ending women’s voting rights...” Kos of Kos discussed the stock price of the nasty guy’s Truth Social company. At its height the company was worth $8.8 billion and the nasty guy’s share was about $5 billion. The share price is down to $36 and the company is down to a value of under $5 billion (as of Monday) with his share down to $2.8 billion. How low can it go? What is a company like that really worth? A generous valuation would be ten times its annual revenue (not profit), or $32 million, a lot less than $5 billion. The average tech stock is worth about five times its revenue, or $16 million. That would put the stock price at 12 cents a share with his portion worth about $9 million. This could fall a lot further. In the situation of a highly overvalued company investors like to short a stock, to profit from a falling price. But so many people want to short this stock the cost of doing so has jumped sky high. Last week Republicans promoted the idea of renaming Washington’s Dulles airport in honor of the nasty guy. Why not? The other big airport in the area is named for Ronald Reagan. Einenkel reported Democrats have a different idea:

Introduced by Gerry Connolly of Virginia, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, and John Garamendi of California, the legislation would “designate the Miami Federal Correctional Institution in Florida as the Donald J. Trump Federal Correctional Institution.”

Connolly wrote in a statement:

I see no reason to wait. Donald Trump faces nearly 100 felony charges. He has been found liable of sexual abuse and, subsequently, for defaming the victim of that abuse. He has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars in a civil fraud case. It is only right that the closest federal prison to Mar-a-Lago should bear his name. I hope our Republican friends will join us in bestowing upon Donald J. Trump the only honor he truly deserves.

And Moskowitz said:

Everyone knows President Trump loves to write his name in gold letters on all his buildings. But he’s never had his name on a federal building before and as a public servant I just want to help the former president. Help us make that dream a reality.

If convicted perhaps he can ask to be sent to the prison with his name on it. They could even put his name in gold. A while ago I wrote that the Senate would have to deal with the articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas even as their schedule was full preventing a government shutdown. Well, the budget was approved and they left town for Easter and there is no impeachment trial yet. The reason is because though the House approved the articles of impeachment back in February they haven’t been delivered to the Senate yet. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the Senate is getting ready. They’re doing that by trying to figure out how they can get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the whole thing is “absurd” and a waste of time. Sen. Joe Manchin trashed it. Even at least three Republicans, including Mitt Romney, think there is no crime to warrant impeachment or trial. So the first item in dealing with it is to vote whether to hold a trial, with the expectation the answer would be no. Kalli Joy Gray of Kos wrote on Tuesday that Mike Johnson might delay delivering those articles of impeachment until next week. A Johnson spokesperson wrote: “To ensure the Senate has adequate time to perform its constitutional duty, the House will transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week.” What difference would that make? None. See above for what the Senate thinks of the mess. Wrote Gray:

Okay, sure. Just wait a little bit longer and the Senate will come around. But perhaps, just to be safe, Johnson should give it another week after that. And another week after that. And another week ...

In an Earth Matters column for Kos Meteor Blades discussed a report by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, and others at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. It is titled “Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles.” I downloaded it and read through the list of false claims and a couple of the rebuttals. Some of the false claims are: Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm our landfills. Solar energy is more expensive than fossil fuels and completely dependent on subsidies. Wind turbines frequently fall over, and blades or other components easily break off, threatening human health and safety. Wind turbines are bad for farmers and rural communities. Electric vehicles are impractical due to range restrictions. Again, all those claims are false. Each of those false claims is met with facts and a large number of references to research. Blades quoted the rebuttal to the first false claim I mentioned. Yes, manufacturing panels produces waste, as does any manufacturing. But it is significantly less waste than the fossil fuel industry produces. Making solar panels has 300-800 times less waste than coal ash. Blades also quoted science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, who has written several novels on environmental themes. He and the books have won honors. One of those books is “The Ministry for the Future.” Robinson said,

If we could have gotten a 9% rate of return for destroying the world and 6% for saving the world, we’re going to go for the 9% because we don’t care about the world. We like capital, so we go to the highest rate of return. And so do governments. If you want us to invest in good things like saving the Earth, you need to indemnify us, we need to be insured by the government. ... The pandemic slapped us in the face with the realization that the biosphere could kill us and change your life drastically on a turning of a dime. I think that gave “The Ministry for the Future” more force in people’s minds when they read it. It comes down to this: we really are paying attention and trying to do things and I’ve seen huge commitments by people all across the board, governments, diplomats, business people, academics, all of them focused on can we deal with this problem, and that is a powerful combination of social forces. I didn’t think that was true when I wrote the book, but now I think it is true.

Mark Parisi posted an eclipse cartoon. Just after the event the sun says, “Can’t believe I just got mooned.”

A military wins or falls on the strength of its logistics

My Sunday movie was Young Royals on Netflix, season 2, episodes 1 and 2. I had finished season 1 back in April and season 2 was released a couple weeks ago. This is the story of Wilhelm, prince of Sweden who falls in love with Simon, a commoner. Part of this story is revenge for the betrayal that happened at the end of season 1. Wilhelm and Simon are trying to recover from it. And Wilhelm, though acting like a teenager, is beginning to stand up to his mother the queen. In thinking about episode 2 I realized something that surprised me. Wilhelm, Simon, and August are all on the rowing team. The surprise is there is no adult coach. One of the senior members puts the others through their training paces. And, by a vote of the others, can be replaced. Yes, that’s a factor in the story. The series is filmed in Sweden and this American version is dubbed in English. As I noted for season 1 it can be jarring to see the lips not in sync with the English I hear. And that seems to be more pronounced this time. Simon is a decent singer and his songs are in Swedish as are his words when he speaks to his mother. That makes me think the actors on screen also did the English dubbing – and mostly without accents. The Netflix credits show other names for the versions in other languages. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a couple days old Kos of Daily Kos has said several times a country’s military wins or falls on the strength of its logistics and Russian logistics are sorely lacking. That is again true for the liberation of Kherson, though this time Ukraine helped. Ukraine damaged the bridges across the Dnipro River, they lobbed rockets at every Russian command center and supply depot, and they attacked the Kerch bridge that supplies Crimea (the bridge’s rail line is still out). Ukraine also declared the liberation of Kherson was next. The prompted Russia to shift troops to the region, leaving the Kharkiv region with too little defense and allowing Ukraine to sweep through. But by then Russia didn’t have a way to sufficiently supply all those troops it had shifted to Kherson. Catherine Cortez Masto has been declared the winner in the Nevada race for senator. She keeps her seat and Democrats now have 50 seats. Yet to come is the Georgia runoff which, if Warnock is reelected, will lessen the power Sen. Joe Manchin has over the Democrat’s agenda. Aldous Pennyfarthing of Kos discussed an article in the Washington Post that says Democratic operatives goaded the nasty guy to help nominate Republican candidates that were more easily defeated. One way they did this was to hint the better candidate had criticized the nasty guy. He then endorsed the primary opponent. Bill in Portland, Maine, in a Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted late night commentary. Here’s one entry.

It’s Day One following the 2022 midterm elections. While the GOP did make modest gains, the massive victory they predicted never materialized. This morning's headlines said it best: 'The vaunted red wave never hit the shore in midterm elections' … 'That's not a red wave' ... and 'The red wave was more like a pink splash.' Yes—a pink splash. It was a salmon drizzle. A rosy wash that's like what happens when you accidentally wash your Klan robes with your MAGA hat. —Stephen Colbert

In position to spring a trap

In my travelogue, posted yesterday, I missed a piece of the story. Through the whole trip when out in public and not eating I wore a mask. It wasn’t a top rated mask, though one I could wear for long periods. About Tuesday evening during my week at the handbell events (with hundreds of people around) I had a mild sore throat. That disappeared quickly, though my nose was soon dripping. And, yeah, I had a pretty good idea what this was, having had similar symptoms in January. On Wednesday I put on an N95 mask. I tolerated it for about a half day. It hurt the bridge of my nose. It’s straps insisted on primary positions around my ears so my glasses didn’t seat well and fell off when I bent over. Thursday evening the entire Symposium went to Nashville’s Wild Horse Saloon for supper and a party. The band was loud, so little talking. The staff gave line dancing lessons and the dance floor was full, so I didn’t join in. At least the food was good. While there I had to lower my mask to wipe my nose. After a couple hours (and a friend was surprised I lasted that long) I left the party to walk around a bit of downtown Nashville, then headed to the bus to go back to the resort. Once back I immediately went to bed. When I was awake during Wednesday night I had arguments with myself. A runny nose in the time of COVID should mean I get tested. If positive I should go home. Doing otherwise is irresponsible. But I really want to stay for the big final concert! When awake Thursday night I came around to the right thing. I could still change my reservation at the hotel in Cincinnati, pulling it ahead a couple days and avoiding 10 hours of driving in one day. In the morning I should call them, then go to the massed ringing floor and gather up my stuff and say quick goodbyes. My nose stopped dripping when I went to bed Thursday night. It sometimes does that when I sleep. But Friday morning it didn’t resume. So I stayed. And continued to keep my mask on as much as possible. When I got home yesterday there was an email from a friend with whom I had spent a lot of time. She had tested positive and suggested I get tested. She didn’t say anything about strong or mild symptoms. Though I kept my mask on whenever possible I don’t think I ever saw her wearing one. From what little news I read during the trip I emailed eight links to myself. I also accumulated another six from today’s reading. So some of these might get only a quick mention. And I won’t get to all of them tonight. I’ll start with a couple Ukraine updates: On August 5 Kos of Daily Kos noted that Ukraine has announced very little about their progress in Donbas, yet everyone from Zelenskyy on down has been talking about an imminent counteroffensive against Kherson. Why warn Russia well ahead of what they intend to do? It looks like all that talk of Kherson is to draw Russia into reinforce their position there – drawing soldiers and equipment from other fronts. That part looks to be working. Once in the Kherson area it looks like Ukraine will be in position to spring a trap, where Russia can’t supply their troops and they must surrender. At the same time Ukraine has a clearer path towards its real target – to take out key supply line depots, shutting down Russia’s ways to keep its army going (not that it is all that good at it now). On August 7 Hunter of Kos wrote about a couple of news reports that criticize Ukraine. They’re really Russian propaganda. The first, by CBS, complains that only 30% of all the military equipment sent by NATO to Ukraine has actually reached the front lines. The way this report is written makes it sound like a scandal. Hunter replied: First that the 30% number was plucked out of thin air. Second, even if it is accurate that’s a good thing. Hunter explains why an army doesn’t want all of its military resources on the front line at any one time. One does not want all available rockets sitting beside the launchers. What is a front line now hopefully won’t be a front line next week. Some weapons need to be held back to be able to respond when the enemy attacks at a new location. And not all military aid promised by NATO is intended for the front lines – some of it is for training well back from the front. The other report is from Amnesty International and it complains that Ukraine, because it is fighting in urban areas, is endangering civilians. Hunter, and everyone else paying attention, replied that Ukraine is fighting in urban areas because Russia is attacking in urban areas. And Russia is conducting a war of conquest and genocide. This sort of statement allows Russia to avoid responsibility of bombing Ukrainian residential buildings. Even Zelenskyy issued a condemnation. It looks like the head of Amnesty Ukraine tried to prevent the article from being published, and when that failed, resigned. Eventually Amnesty issued a non-apology. A lot of watchers have said Amnesty International has lost all trust in its main humanitarian campaign. Hunter reported that all Senate Democrats – including Manchin and Sinema and with VP Harris breaking the tie – passed a bill with critical climate protection, inflation, and healthcare components. It’s a lite (very lite) version of Biden’s campaign promise Build Back Better plan. It even includes a minimum corporate tax! The bill went through as reconciliation, meaning Republicans couldn’t filibuster it. The Senate parliamentarian said a provision to cap insulin prices did not meet reconciliation rules, so needed 60 votes. It got 57. Joan McCarter of Kos reported on some of the details of this bill. A big chunk of money for clean energy and electric vehicles. It allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices. It makes health care coverage more affordable. It funds the IRS so it can go after corporate tax cheats. McCarter also reported on what it took to get Manchin’s vote. And it’s a dirty deal. There is a Mountain Valley Pipeline going through Virginia and West Virginia that isn’t finished because residents oppose it. So permits have been held up. The White House promised to approve the permits and Manchin got a promise of a vote on separate legislation to stop further legal challenges to the permits. Even with that dirty deal, there is still lots for Democrats to celebrate. Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, had a few interesting quotes. Adrianna McIntyre tweeted:

If you want a preview of midterm ads this fall, look at the latest tweets using the word “insulin”

Republicans know voting against an insulin price cap would be a big opening for Democrats. They did it anyway. Dworkin quoted a tweet from Amanda Carpenter that quoted a New York Times article saying Rep. Liz Cheney has a red line on which Republicans she would support for president in 2024. Does the candidate state clearly that the nasty guy lost a legitimate election in 2020? So far supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida would be very difficult for her. Dworkin quoted Rex Huppke of USA Today, known for his snark.

You may have noticed high gas prices have swiftly and rudely become less high, a trend that, if it continues, threatens to rob Republicans of a glorious midterm election cudgel. Democrats are undoubtedly to blame, but lowering gas prices isn’t the only way they’re sticking it to well-meaning Republicans. They’re also trying to help veterans and passing legislation aimed at lowering inflation. All this governing is an outrage and a clear political shot at the long-standing Republican philosophy that says the government shall help only rich people.

In case of fire break glass

My Sunday movie was The Whaler Boy. I heard about it because it was shown at the Detroit Film Theater and the story has a connection to Detroit. This is a coming of age movie of Leshka, a teenage boy living in a small village on the Russian side of the Bearing Strait. Their major industry is whaling and one of his jobs is to deliver whale meat around the village. Now that the village has internet one of the things the men do is watch a porn site, one where the women strike suggestive poses before a camera and for a tip will remove more clothes. Leshka becomes infatuated and obsessed with one of them. She happens to be in Detroit. He feels the village has become confining and he decides to cross the strait to try to meet her. Yeah, Detroit isn’t anywhere near the Bearing Strait. It was a nice story, though I was confused by what really happened in the last ten minutes. A couple more articles to go along with my long posts on abortion and the Supreme Court. Laura Clawson of Daily Kos reported on how much of a scam “crisis pregnancy centers” are. They do not discuss abortion. They pressure pregnant people to carry the baby to term. And they collect data. Lots of data.

“Their goal is to collect and store ultrasound photos, income, history of possible abuse in relationships, history of addictions, history of drug use, your STI history, your medical history,” [Women’s Law Project’s Tara] Murtha said. “And in many cases this is shared in a national database.”

And what do they do with that data? They could potentially turn it over to prosecutors as proof that you were pregnant on a particular date. And if you aren’t now and don’t have a healthy baby they have lots of data for criminal proceedings. They outnumber abortion clinics – places that really want to help women – 3 to 1, a ratio that will get bigger as clinics are forced to close. Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that after Roe was overturned red states saw a big jump in the number of people seeking vasectomies and tubal ligations. Many are people who don’t want children and are acting to make sure there aren’t any accidents. On to the (pathetic) Democratic response to what the Court did over the last couple weeks. Joan McCarter of Kos called on Pelosi and Schumer to Do Something. Cancel the August recess. Put bills on the floor to counteract the loss of abortion rights and also take Thomas at his word of the other things he wants to overturn. End the filibuster – there have already been filibuster carveouts in this Congressional term, so do it again. And fix the Court. While that is in process declare war on the Court. It isn’t just Daily Kos demanding action. Activists are also keeping up the pressure. They say Democrats aren’t treating the attack on democracy with sufficient seriousness. Simply voting again is not enough. Republicans see no consequences to their power grabs so why would they not continue? And if Democrats want us to vote for them again their leaders need to spell out exactly what they will do to protect rights. And do it. If they don’t embrace the need to fight voters won’t either. Back in a 2019 debate Elizabeth Warren said this while talking to another candidate, but she could say it to the current president:

You know, I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for. I don’t get it.

Kos of Kos wrote that the midterm election goes to the party out of power. And right now many voters are seeing the Democrats are the ones out of power, even though they hold (slim) majorities on both chambers of Congress and the White House. Voters can tell who is blocking the Senate from getting anything done. They can tell who stacked the Supremes who are overturning rights. We’re used to seeing single issue voters on the right – one large group demands expanding gun access, another demands abortion be banned. Now we’re seeing single issue voters on the left – people who will look only at whether a candidate supports abortion rights (which sounds good to me – if they support abortion rights they’ll likely support other things I want, the reverse is also true). Kos also showed a map of the 116 counties across 33 states that each have a greater population than the whole state of Wyoming. Michigan has four such counties. Kos made the point:

The Senate is so breathtakingly undemocratic that five of the six Republican-appointed justices were confirmed by Republican majorities having earned fewer votes and representing fewer people than the Democratic minority.

McCarter wrote that the Supreme Court, packed by the nasty guy, has gone rogue. The president and Congress must fix it. McCarter noted the Republicans do believe in expanding the court – when they do it. Republicans in Arizona expanded their state Supreme Court in 2016 and are proposing to expand the state’s court of appeals. The response from Democrats can’t just be what Edward-Isaac Dovere tweeted:

Biden, in a statement on the Supreme Court guns decision sent to reporters by email: “I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line.”

The Constitution was founded on checks and balances. Democrats must use them. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a few things to say on Twitter. If the president and Congress do nothing to restrain the Court, the Court has said they will come for the presidential election next. Members have sworn an oath to the Constitution. It is our duty to check this gross overreach. Einenkel added:

It is political malfeasance not to fight vociferously for the rights of millions of voters in your political party. It is morally and intellectually bankrupt not to see the Constitutional crisis we are facing.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos referred to the story of crisis pregnancy clinics in saying Republicans are now the party of overreach. Democrats can and must run on protecting privacy and liberty. McCarter compared our current situation to the signs “In case of fire break glass.” It’s time to break the glass because this is a five-alarm fire.

The consequences for the nation—for the globe—are dire. On everything, from abortion to criminal justice to the environment to voting rights. The only way this centuries-long experiment in democracy will survive is by taking minority rule away from the Court and from the Senate which created it. End the filibuster. Expand and reform the court. Or wave goodbye to every freedom that matters.

Building a paramilitary branch predicated on a right to violence and sedition

Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported the Senate has come to an agreement on a gun safety bill that has little to do with gun safety. They left guns out of the title, calling it the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.” McCarter details what is in the bill. There is a good chunk of money for mental health. It is needed but should have been funded by Medicaid expansion rather than tying it to a gun law which connects mental health to violence and further stigmatizes it. There is better background checking and longer wait times for 18-21 year olds, though it sunsets in 10 years. There his help for states to pass red flag laws, in which courts can remove guns from the home of a dangerous person, though states that refuse pass such a law can redirect the money to drug courts and veteran courts. The boyfriend loophole is closed – guns can be taken from a recent dating partner convicted of violence as well as a spouse. All to the good, but not nearly enough. And it hasn’t actually passed yet. New York had a gun law that limited licenses to carry guns outside the home to sportsman and those who could prove a need, such as a messenger carrying cash. Nina Totenberg of NPR reported that had is the right word – today the Supreme Court struck it down. Clarence Thomas wrote the 6-3 majority opinion. He called the right to bear arms not a second class right and, as Totenberg wrote, “just as the First Amendment doesn't allow the banning of unpopular speech, the Second Amendment is not limited to people who can demonstrate a special need to carry a gun in public.” New York Governor Kathy Hochul said, “This decision isn't just reckless, it's reprehensible.” The insanity of gun culture has possessed everyone, even the Supreme Court. This is an Originalist view – if a regulation wasn’t around at the time the Bill of Rights was enacted, it isn’t permissible. So since there was no ban on high capacity magazines in 1789 there can’t be one now – except there were no high capacity magazines in 1789. There are limits to the ruling. A state may require a license to own a gun and that may require a background and mental health check. But many states have laws that say if a person asks for a gun license the state “shall issue” one. Unknown yet is what kinds of places can ban guns – stadiums, subways, New Year’s Eve on Times Square, where liquor is served? The ruling is an invitation for a do-over for the NRA. Don’t like a gun law, such as the one before the Senate? Come on back! McCarter wrote about another 6-3 ruling the Supremes issued last week. It was about the way schooling is handled in very rural Maine. If the state pays for students to attend a private school it must also pay for students to attend religious private schools. Justice Sotomayor wrote the dissent, calling the ruling “especially perverse” and saying the Constitution does not require this result and that it undermines the separation of church and state. Dartagnan of the Kos community said one of the cases yet to be handed down will likely attack how the Environmental Protection Agency works and may make it extremely difficult for the US to do much about climate change. Dartagnan then discussed the Federalist Society, which selected five of the six conservatives on the Supremes and another 241 federal judges confirmed in the nasty guy years. Their goal is to remake the judiciary into a tool for business. Over the last several years these Federalist Society judges have shifted from litigating individual rules from government agencies to choosing cases that can attack the ways the government does business. Tired of litigating every little rule the EPA hands down? Create a case that guts the EPA. The Federalist Society creates the cases and guides them through the federal court system. The way of doing this in the case now before the Supremes is to say Congress must pass each and every one of the rules developed by the EPA and other federal agencies. But Congress simply doesn’t have the time of expertise for that. The ruling could mean the conservative majority of the Supremes will take for themselves veto power over huge swaths of federal policy and making Biden the weakest president in over 80 years (that’s the number put out by Ian Milhiser – but 1942 was when Franklin Roosevelt was at the height of his powers, maybe he meant 100 years?). This theory that Congress can’t delegate the creation of rules to federal agencies would, as Dartagnan wrote, “automatically render the vast majority of consumer, worker safety, and environmental protection laws invalid.” It would overturn a great deal of court precedence – which this gang appears ready to handle with a machete. Back to guns, the main topic at the start of this section. From a post a couple days ago (before the ruling on guns by the Supremes) Hunter of Kos reported last week a man dressed in a tactical vest and having a semi-automatic rifle and a pistol attempted to enter several buildings in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Of course, just by being there, he terrorized the people around him. There were multiple 911 calls and the courthouse was locked down and store employees were evacuated. But, because of Oklahoma’s open carry laws – and this ruling by the Supremes – a guy can cosplay as a purveyor of violence and the police could do nothing until he pulls a trigger. Wrote Hunter:

It is obviously an asinine situation, the public is obviously right to presume a gunman walking toward a courthouse or store means trouble, because no citizen has a plausible reason to need an assault weapon inside those buildings and no reasonable citizen would try it. Only criminals and assholes parade semi-automatic rifles in public. There aren't exceptions. ... It is perfectly, 100% reasonable for any law enforcement officer to presume a man headed for a grocery store, a public building, a movie theater, or a public school carrying an assault rifle, handgun, ammunition, and other gear intends to do harm. It is transparently obvious that the man ought to be stopped, and with violence if necessary.

The police arrested the guy. Not for the guns or for the terror he caused. But for the brass knuckles he also carried. Hunter wrote that being arrested for having brass knuckles means the Oklahoma legislature can regulate guns – if they wanted to. Or with this ruling, could. Laws like this show contempt for law enforcement. They tip the situation away from police officers and towards vigilantes. Yet, when black Americans protest with banners they are met with a military response. And a black man would not have been allowed to pull the stunt this white guy did.

The practical effect of relaxed "open carry" laws, the erasure of licensing and training requirements, and other legislative promotion not just gun ownership but of guns as public accessories is the creation of a paramilitary force, in America, that is as or more heavily armed than law enforcement; that answers to no one, and is exempt from police harassment; that is almost exclusively conservative; that is almost exclusively conspiratorial and paranoid; and that is self-selecting for those most willing to resort to mass violence. The Republican legislatures are in essence building a paramilitary branch of their own movement predicated on a right to violence and sedition. It is not being hidden. The number of Republican lawmakers who now cite a right of rebellion as the reason for removing gun restrictions far outstrips the number of Republican lawmakers who oppose the seditionist premise.

From a post at the beginning of the month, David Neiwert of Kos reported that Liberty Alliance, a far right group in Missouri, has a website that shows a “Woke Heat Map.” It lists and identifies schools in Missouri allegedly promoting “crazy ideas” such as Critical Race Theory and grooming toddlers with sexually explicit books. Click on a school on the map and content explains why the school is classified as “woke.” The content is, of course, from far right groups. The purpose is to alert residents of the craziness in their own communities. Neiwert wrote:

Stochastic terrorism and the scripted violence that comes with it have become essential features of post-insurrection Trumpism and its unfolding strategy: claim your political opponents are literally satanic pedophiles conspiring to traffic your children and destroy America by replacing white people, and then tell your army of True Believers the names and identities of these fiends. Paint targets on them.

Then wait for the “lone wolf” to show up. A wolf that isn’t so lone because a large number of people have radicalized him, normalized the extremism, and encouraged the violence. That’s a large number of people quite content for the media to not connect from the gunman back to the encouragers.