Budapest Pride was banned and 180,000 came

The June 3 episode of Gaslit Nation hosted by Andrea Chalupa is titled Putin is Dead Man Walking and came shortly after Ukraine pulled off that amazing drone attack that damaged key airplanes in Russia’s fleet and did it in bases far from Ukraine. The guest in this episode is Lionel De Lange of South Africa. He is a conservationist, saving animals from neglect from private zoos. He believes nature is a healing force in the world. He now visits the front lines of Russia’s position in Ukraine to save humans. They discuss the claim of white genocide in South Africa, something the nasty guy made a big deal when the South African president visited the White House. Yeah, white people have been murdered, but far more black people have been murdered. Also, there are about 60 million people in South Africa and 1.5 of them are white. If the blacks wanted to wipe out the whites that would have been done already and done very quickly. That drone attack in Russia happened in part because Ukraine is afraid of falling support from the US and the West. Yes, the planning of the attack happened while Biden was still in office, but even he wasn’t giving Ukraine all the help they wanted, as generous as he was. So Ukraine said we’ll do it ourselves. Ukraine paid for the successful attack through ongoing nights of Russian missiles firing on Ukraine cities. In the 11 years that De Lange has been in Ukraine he has noticed a lot of difference. The people now respect each other, no longer shoving each other in supermarkets. Now they’re more polite, greeting others on the street and ready to help when needed. But one must still be careful of propaganda. In addition to rescuing animals, and he has stories about that, De Lange also rescued humans. That meant he was exposed to Russian drone attacks. After accident at Chernobyl the humans evacuated. The animals and plants thrived, not affected (perhaps made stronger) by the radiation. De Lange wanted to turn the region into a nature park. Alas, with the war it didn’t happen. When Russia invaded many of its soldiers dug trenches in the Chernobyl region. Most of them have now been hospitalized and a few died of radiation poisoning. Russia attempted to cause an explosion at the Chernobyl plant in hopes of breaching the radioactive container. They wanted to send the radiation across Ukraine and Europe (and some across Russia too). They did not succeed. And Ukrainians were quick to repair the damage. Ukraine is protecting us as well as themselves. They’re holding back Russia that would invade Europe after it took Ukraine. We need to pay closer attention and provide more help to Ukraine. Poland narrowly elected a deeply corrupt figure similar to the nasty guy, one who is staunchly against LGBTQ rights. He capitalized on all the Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Other minorities, including Jews, feel they have a target on their heads. This will not be helpful to Ukraine. De Lange said Putin has been meddling around the world. He’ll soon try to meddle in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Putin’s downfall will be like Hitler’s, fighting on too many fronts. That will be the only way he gets wiped out. Alas, millions of people will die before he is stopped. De Lange said Putin can’t walk away even if everyone promised there would be no charges against him. Between the Ukraine war (and that successful attack by Ukraine), his international meddling, and the horrible Russian economy Putin is dead man walking. In Russia changing the guy at the top is frequently violent. I don’t know how accurate De Lange is in his predictions. Two week’s later the June 17 episode was titled Putin’s Sledgehammer. That’s part of the title of a book by Candace Rondeaux. She’s a reporter and an expert on global security and the future of warfare. The full title of the book is Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos. June 23, a couple days after this episode was posted, marked the two year anniversary of Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner group getting within 125 miles (200 km) of Moscow. The book is about Wagner and that crack in Putin’s power. Exactly two months later Prigozhin’s plane exploded. The Wagner group was created because Russia’s conventional warfare capacity has always been challenging. The Wagner group could be more agile in situations like Syria while giving the Russian state plausible deniability. The Wagner group had a brand identity of violence and aggression. The Wagner group, and other groups dealing in mayhem, would record their excessive violence and post it on social media. In a sense it was displaying their trophies. These groups got such a reputation of terror that their targets would empty out to avoid the violence and sadism. The title of the book comes from the group beating a guy with a sledgehammer while others filmed it. Guys beating the devil with a sledgehammer became the group’s logo. I’m so not interested in the brutal details of the Wagner group that I stopped reading less than halfway through. My Sunday movie was the documentary Casting By. I watched it through Kanopy. It is about the role of the casting director in making movies. More accurately, most of the film is about the first great casting director Marion Dougherty. In the Hollywood Studio system the person in charge of casting essentially looked over the list of contract actors and assign them to parts based mostly on looks and assumed character type. When TV came along the early directors were more interested in acting ability and personality than looks. Dougherty got a casting job because a friend invited her to be the assistant. Soon she was the person in charge. She would attend New York theater productions, Broadway and not, looking for great actors. She had quite an eye for talent. Her earliest big successes were Naked City and Route 66 that needed new actors for every episode. Some of the talent she discovered and promoted were James Dean, Gene Hackman, Glenn Close, Al Pacino, Diane Lane, Dustin Hoffman, Bette Midler, and Robert Redford. Many of those actors and their directors are in this documentary to describe what their relationship with Daugherty did for their careers. There were times when Dougherty had a particular actor in mind for a particular role and she did a lot of convincing to win over the director. Some of her wins are now iconic performances rewarded with Oscar nominations and wins. Daugherty’s roster of known talent was so vast that when she was asked to cast The Sting, which came out in 1973, she went down the list of characters and assigned the actors. She actually auditioned for only one character. The movie spends some time with the casting of Lethal Weapon, released in 1987. In one of the two major roles Daugherty recommended Danny Glover. The director said, hold on, he’s black. Her response was, so? The director later admitted she had opened his eyes to his internal racism. There were some regrets in her long career. In the 1990s many studios were bought by conglomerates, some of them foreign. Again, casting decisions were made according to the actor’s looks and whether the studio wanted to promote an actor from this TV series for that movie. That pretty much ended Daugherty’s career, though several of her protégés are still going strong. Another regret was while Oscars are given out for scenery, costumes, and editing, there isn’t one for casting. And casting can make a big difference in how a movie comes out. The Oscar snub is more annoying because there is an Emmy for casting. Lisa Needham of Daily Kos wrote a good summary of all five cases for which the Supreme Court issued decisions last Friday, the last day of their term. Only one of the five is good for democracy. I’m glad Needham wrote the summary because most other news outlets reported on only one or two. The nasty guy’s executive order banning birthright citizenship went before the Court, but not to get a decision on that question. The case, Trump v. CASA asked the Court to rule instead on whether lower courts can issue injunctions against the government that apply nationwide. The Court ruled they can’t. That means when a person, group, or state wins a case in a federal court the ruling affects only the people who brought the suit. This means overturning an executive order that contradicts the Constitution is much harder. Every state has to pursue a case (and some stated won’t) or an organization has to go through the extra effort to certify they represent a class of affected people. That could mean until the Supremes rule on birthright citizenship some states will follow it and some won’t. And that raises a big legal mess, such as whether a baby born in Minnesota is a citizen if the family moves to Texas. This means the nasty guy can issue an executive order undoing part of the Constitution and the legal system has a much harder time stopping him. In the meantime he gets to continue doing his unconstitutional thing until the case gets to the Supremes and they get around to acting on it. I heard today that the ACLU is assembling a class action suit over the birthright citizenship issue. In Mahmoud v. Taylor the Court decided schools need to allow students to opt out of a classroom lesson if their parents object. The case went all the way to the Supremes because a school district tried it and found it unworkable. The particular case involved books with LGBTQ content, but could be expanded to cover evolution or science in general. Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent that the decision “threatens the very essence of public education.” The conservative justices probably think that’s a good thing. The case Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton is a case brought against the Attorney General of Texas. The decision means internet porn sites are required to see a government issued ID to verify the person is an adult. All this is about “sexual material harmful to minors.” Yes, the Court added an exception to the First Amendment. And conservatives could expand the definition of “harmful” to include discussions of transgender issues and many other things. The case is Kennedy v. Braidwood is nominally about conservative Christian business owners objecting to pay for health insurance that covers such preventive care things as PrEP, the medication that prevents the transmission of HIV. Behind that is an attack on the US Preventive Services Task Force, which recommends what things should be covered by insurance. The good part is the PSTF care recommendations remain. The bad part is its members were declared to not need Senate confirmation, which means Heath Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. can replace them with people who agree with his conspiracies. The last case is FCC v. Consumers’ Research. The Federal Communications Commission requires internet and phone carriers pay into a fund to subsidize access in rural and poor area. Consumers’ Research argued a technicality to say the fund is illegal. Six justices – the liberals plus Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett – kept the agency’s authority to institute the fund. Since the justices have gutted other federal agency authorities, this seems like a vulnerable win. Kos of Kos reported last Thursday evening that the Department of Justice is coming after Daily Kos. The DoJ went after ActBlue and Media Matters, so attacking Kos to silence the nasty guy’s enemies isn’t a surprise. The details of the case can’t be disclosed (yet?). Even so Kos asked readers to donate to the site’s legal defense fund. By Friday at 1:00 Kos reported readers had donated over $50,000. He is humbled by the support of the Kos community.

Because this has never just been about me. Or even Daily Kos. It’s about what we’ve built together over the past 23 years: a space to fight for democracy, for decency, for a government that serves people—not authoritarians. And just as importantly, it’s become a community—a place where people who care about those things can find each other, lift each other up, and know they’re not alone in this fight. What you gave on Thursday wasn’t just financial support—it was a reminder of how deeply connected we are. That when one of us is under threat, the rest of us show up. That we have each other’s backs. I’m getting emotional just typing that. (Who am I kidding? I’ve been an emotional wreck writing this entire piece.) [Deep breaths, composing myself …] It’s proof that this community is strong. That it’s kind. And that it’s ready to stand together, no matter what.

Now for some beautiful stories. TheCriticalMind of the Kos community reported that in April Hungarian dictator Victor Orban’s Fidesz party passed an amendment to the Constitution requiring recognition of only two genders and restricting LGBTQ events, citing “child protection.” Yeah, we know that’s a fake reason. However, it means Pride parades are banned in Hungary. And the one in Budapest was one of the best. Pride organizers in Budapest renamed it “Budapest Pride Freedom” in honor of Hungary’s return to freedom when Soviet troops left in June 1991. Not that anyone was fooled. Organizers anticipated 35,000 to 40,000. TheCriticalMind quoted a report from The Guardian:

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Budapest in defiance of the Hungarian government's ban on Pride, heeding a call by the city's mayor to "come calmly and boldly to stand together for freedom, dignity and equal rights", writes Lili Rutai in Budapest and Ashifa Kassam. Jubilant crowds packed into the city's streets on Saturday, waving Pride flags and signs that mocked the country's prime minister, Viktor Orbán, as their peaceful procession inched forward at a snail's pace. Organisers estimated that a record number of people turned up, far outstripping the expected turnout of 35,000-40,000 people. "We believe there are 180,000 to 200,000 people attending," the president of Pride, Viktória Radványi told AFP. "It is hard to estimate because there have never been so many people at Budapest Pride."

See the photo at the top of the post. Also see the photos in a Bluesky tweet by valentine. He says the attendance topped a half million. From the photos I believe a half million is possible (not that I know what a half million people looks like). Budapest Pride is still one of the best. I scrolled down the replies to that tweet and saw an image of the Sydney Opera House lit up in Pride colors. Bridgette Redman for Between the Lines reported the Presbyterian Church of Okemos, Michigan held a baptism rededication service for 16-year old Zach Nawyn-Hellinga, transgender, so that he would be baptized with his new name, leaving his deadname behind. Before the service there were discussions with Rebecca Mattern, who led youth ministry, pastor Rev. Lisa Schrott, and the church’s governing body. “Everyone expressed enthusiasm.”

On Jan. 12, Nawyn-Hellinga was joined by his family at the front of the congregation where Mattern, Schrott and the Clerk of Session asked him the questions of his reaffirmation and led the congregation in a responsive liturgy. “The congregation just resoundingly said, ‘We see you,’” Mattern noted. “They said it loud and with confidence, and several of the members of the congregation had tears in their eyes. If I hadn’t processed it and cried before I got there, I would have been crying, because we are in a time where there is a concerted effort to erase trans people. They’re being told that they don’t exist, that they’re predators. Their parents are being told they’re grooming. It is the job of the church, and the calling of the church, to say to those who are in the margins, 'We see you and we love you.' No matter what the world says, you are a beloved child of God.” Schrott said they added their Clerk of Session because they wanted it to be clear that it was an action of the church, not a rogue pastoral choice.

And one just for fun. Sarah Bricker Hunt of Between the Lines reported the Motor City Bears did their 17th annual car wash. They raised almost $1,700 for Affirmations and Ruth Ellis Center. In gay jargon a “bear” is a large hairy gay man. And many do the car wash wearing only a speedo (and I hope a great deal of sunscreen). They liked to joke, “your car is so dirty, so dirty.”

How will I know I’m special if I don’t have all this?

I had written about the meeting between the nasty guy and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The nasty guy kept pushing the racist lie of white genocide in South Africa and Ramaphosa tried to refute it. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos wrote that the video and paper images the nasty guy used as evidence were not at all what he claimed they were. A field of white crosses was a protest, not a burial ground. Another image was from Congo, not South Africa. And so forth. No, I’m not surprised. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote that U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy was getting mighty annoyed with Department of Justice lawyers. The reason was that the lawyers didn’t give deportees enough time to challenge their deportation. Then the lawyers refused to say which country the were sent to. South Sudan? Djibouti? Or maybe it was Narnia or Atlantis. Sending people to South Sudan is quite bad because the State Department says to avoid it because of armed conflict. DHS spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin said the crimes of these deportees are so uniquely dangerous that no other country would accept them. To that Needham wrote:

Show your work, Tricia. If these are the worst criminals in the world, surely you can easily prove that.

Emily Singer of Kos discussed a new poll by Civiqs for Kos. It shows that 46% of voters say that “bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. is more important than keeping prices low.” But 66% don’t want to be those factory workers. Only 5% said they already work in a factory. That poll was done because Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has been saying when manufacturing returns to the US workers would be glad to do the jobs. So what happens if manufacturing is brought onshore but nobody (or not enough people) want the jobs? Are Republicans trying to make life for the poor so difficult they’d be glad to take these jobs? Speaking of which, Singer reported that the One Big Beautiful Bill (I’ve replaced the third word with “ugly” and Singer used “cruel” though I think the best substitute is “brutal”) passed the House by one vote. It now goes to the Senate, where there is Republican opposition. But don’t be surprised if fealty to the nasty guy gets it passed anyway. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Michael Podhorzer of Weekend Reading:

The current backlash against Trump is exactly the outcome we’d expect to see if my long-standing argument is true: that America has an anti-MAGA majority, but not necessarily a pro-Democratic one. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the reality of American politics today is not a “realignment,” wherein the views and values of most ordinary Americans have become fundamentally more aligned with the views of MAGA Republicans. Rather it’s been a “dealignment” from both parties. Voters, increasingly distrustful of institutions and clamoring for substantial change that neither party is delivering, have punished incumbent parties in nine of the past ten elections—a D-R-D-R presidential alternation pattern unseen in over a century.

From Monica Hesse of the Washington Post discussing the nasty guy’s claim of white genocide in South Africa:

“Dead White farmers” was a bizarre fixation in what should have been a serious meeting. In three words, he invented a genocide. And then he spent the rest of the hour creating a different problem. Because every time he insisted that the mainstream media refused to cover the genocide of dead White farmers, he sowed more distrust in journalism. To the point that now, every time an article on the topic doesn’t appear, that in itself will become evidence for this genocide that is not actually happening. So if you came to this column because you Googled “dead White farmers,” here is your mainstream media coverage of the issue. I’m so sorry.

Harry Enten tweeted in response to Musk’s announcement that he will no longer donate to politics:

Why's Musk edging out of politics? Because he's political kryptonite. His net favorable plummeted: +24 pts to -19 pts. (It fell by 126 pts with Dems!) Musk crushed Tesla's popularity (-20 pt net favorable). Trump was done with him (100% drop in Truth Social posts about Musk).

I’m not sure how favorability can fall 126 points. I thought the scale maxed out at 100. In the comments is a cartoon by Dennis Goris. It shows the Capitol dome surrounded by the words:

We remember the poor and sick. As it is written. In the bill. Let us prey.

The caption: “From the book of big and beautiful” Nick Anderson posted a cartoon showing a pregnant woman with “Waste” on her forehead, a child with “Fraud” and an old woman with “Abuse.” The nasty guy, holding a sharpie, says “I told you we could make big spending cuts!” Thom Hartmann of the Kos community and an independent pundit started a discussion with a quote Neil deGrasse Tyson made this week.

If a foreign adversary snuck into our Federal budget and cut science research and education the way we’re cutting it ourselves — strategically undermining America’s long-term health, wealth, and security — we would likely consider it an act of war.

Almost two-thirds of Americans can’t afford life necessities. Income for the bottom 60% of Americans declined from 2001 to 2023. Before the pandemic a family earning $75,000 could afford half the homes on the market, now they can afford only 20% of homes. Hartmann talked about the Santa scam. Republicans claimed they were better than the Democratic social safety net by bestowing tax breaks. That was followed by declaring the national debt was a big problem, forcing Democrats to end social programs. The same scam is now being used to hollow out the American government. From the start of the nation until Reagan the federal government was consistent at paying off the national debt, which had only grown through war. The Revolutionary War was paid off in the 1830s. The Civil War was paid off by the end of the 19th century. Paying down WWI was interrupted by the Great Depression, but there was only $17 billion remaining. The debt from WWII was 106% of GDP, but was steadily paid down until Reagan took office. The national debt under Reagan rose by $2.4 trillion. That boosted the economy, masking Reagan’s faults and this plan’s faults. Hartmann said that Jude Wanniski came up with a “Two Santas” plan. As Hartmann described it, quoting Wanniski:

Force the Democrats to “shoot their Santa [of programs like Social Security and Medicaid] in the face.” Whenever a Republican is in the White House, Wanniski argued, Republicans should run up the debt as hard and fast as possible, so when a Democrat is in the White House they can squeal about “the debt our children will inherit! Oh, the humanity!”

Republicans have followed that plan for 44 years. Hartmann included a chart showing the national debt falling after WWII until 1981. It rose under Reagan/Bush I, fell a bit under Clinton, rose again under Bush II, then slowed under Obama, before rising quickly under the nasty guy. Biden’s efforts aren’t shown. By the chart, if Reagan hasn’t slashed taxes and balanced the budget we would have paid off WWII about year 2000. So the entire national debt since then is because of Reagan and Bush tax cuts (and now nasty guy cuts) and the illegal wars of Bush II. This tactic transferred about $50 trillion from the poor to the rich. In 1980 the middle class was about two-thirds of the population and did it on one paycheck. Now about 47% of Americans are middle class and require two paychecks to stay there. So that Big Brutal Bill is damaging education, changed the promotion of democracy to the embrace of dictators, and gutted the social safety net. I had written that the national debt is unsustainable. The reason is the national debt has passed the GDP, the total value of the American economy. I did an online search and found the GDP of America is just under $28 trillion and the national debt is above $36 trillion and the Brutal Bill could push it up to $40 trillion. Then Hartmann gets to his question. Why are Republicans doing this? Did Putin or Xi tell the nasty guy to do it? (Quite possibly.) Greed? Because democracy is outdated? And why is the media saying so little about this? I was a bit surprised that Hartmann keeps saying nobody knows. Commenters to the article give a good try at answering the question: Greed. Power. Commenter mozartsister explained what I had also developed on my own.

I’ve said this before, but my ultimate light bulb moment was when my rich friend took me to lunch in the mahogany-clad dining room at his country club, where the waitress greeting him by name. He said, sweeping his arm around the room, “How will I know I’m special if I don’t have all this?” It was power, it was stuff, but above all it was the deepest need imaginable to prove yourself superior to and more deserving than others. To me, those are the two fundamental belief systems: his, which I think of as authoritarianism, which categorizes people into groups, hierarchies, of more or less worth. And mine, which I think of as humanism, in which all people (and all living beings, actually) fundamentally have innate dignity and worth, i.e. all humans are equal on an existential level. Looking at things this way has been very useful for me in explaining a lot of what’s going on, from white supremacy to dismantling democracy to the Silicon Valley tech bros. Capitalism is based on the “deserving” worldview; democracy is based in the “equality” worldview. They could be more compatible than they are, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope lately.

The largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich

About a year ago I discussed the book Tyrant, Shakespeare on Politics by Stephen Greenblatt. One of the tyrants discussed by Greenblatt is the English King Richard III. But what if Shakespeare portrayed Richard III not as the man actually was, but how the following Tudor dynasty portrayed him? Richard III, the last of the Plantagenets (Wikipedia says he was the last of the Yorks) was followed by Henry the VII, the first of the Tudors. And the Tudor line, especially Henry VIII, is the fodder of a great number of novels, plays, TV series, and movies because of how bad they were. My Sunday movie was The Lost King, based on a true story. That story is that the bones of Richard, lost since his death in 1485, were found under a car park in Leicester in 2012 (so we know how the movie ends). The woman behind the excavation was Phillipa Langley, an amateur historian. She lives in Edinburgh and is inspired to do the search after seeing Shakespeare’s play. Phillipa gets help through the Richard III Society, those who believe that the king’s reputation was slandered by the Tudors. She also sees an apparition of Richard, who sometimes answers her questions, and sometimes not. The big one he doesn’t answer is: What happened to the two nephews in the Tower of London? (I’ve read a science fiction story about the boys, posing another answer to what happened to them.) Eventually she gets to the University of Leicester and the City of Leicester. She’s dismissed because she is an amateur, a woman, and claiming that Richard was not what historians and the royal family say he was. Eventually they help her – and then claim the credit. IMDb added that Langley was not the first to accurately conclude where Richard III was buried and how that land was now used. She was the one to act on her conclusion and dig up the car park. I enjoyed this one. Though Shakespeare may or may not have accurately portrayed Richard III, that play is accurate in portraying how a tyrant may rise to power, what happens when in power, and how the tyrant falls. Last evening I was in my car and listened to about ten minutes of the NPR show Fresh Air. The topic of this episode was the book Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. In this 44 minute segment Terry Gross talked to Tapper. This is the book discussing Biden’s mental decline and the cover-up by Jill Biden and senior staff at the White House in the last two years of his presidency. Tapper says that cover-up – insisting that Biden was mentally fine while covering for him on days when he obviously wasn’t then insisting he was healthy enough for another term – is why we have the nasty guy in the White House. In the part I heard Tapper lays out a pretty good case. That included an excerpt of Biden being interviewed by the Justice Department in October 2023 about what he knew about mishandling presidential documents found on his property. The deposition was the same day that Hamas attacked Israel. I remember the uproar when the interviewer said the DoJ would not bring charges because the jury would see Biden as a forgetful old man and would not convict him. In that excerpt Biden did indeed sound like a forgetful old man. During the last 18 months of Biden’s tenure, on days where he wasn’t good, the senior staff acted as a five-person presidential board. When Biden had to speak publicly on a not-so-good day he speech was prepared for him and he read it from a teleprompter. He could still do that. I didn’t listen to the whole episode, so maybe my question was answered. That question is: Why did Jill and senior staff cover up the decline? What were they trying to protect? Joe’s reputation? Sure. But his reputation would be better if he made a graceful exit before a decline. The chance to keep a Democrat in the White House? That didn’t work. The good of the country? That backfired. As I thought about it I became more disappointed in what the Bidens chose to do. First, of all, they should have prevented him from running for a second term. That was Tapper’s point. Even better, they should have convinced him to resign or used the 25th Amendment to have the Cabinet force him out, handing the presidency to Harris. That would have given her time to show she was presidential material. It would at least given challengers time to mount a campaign and go through the primary process. It would also shifted the “too old” meme onto the nasty guy. Even though what Tapper documented is likely accurate, showing the “too old” messages of the campaign were justified, the book still feels like a hit-job because there is no corresponding book on the nasty guy, detailing his own mental decline and his much more obvious poor mental health and dangerously fragile ego. Alas, too many people – billionaires, Republicans, white nationalists, and the MAGA faithful – like what the nasty guy is doing (at least until the faithful discover his agenda biting them in the ass) and don’t care about his mental state. Emily Singer of Daily Kos reported on the big bill (no, it’s not “beautiful”) being considered in the House. It hasn’t passed the House yet, and I’ve heard an important committee voted it down. It would also have a hard time in the Senate. But if it did pass... Singer begins her report:

President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" that House Republicans are trying to ram through the chamber would be the "largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in a single law in U.S. history," according to a report published Wednesday by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. The bill, if passed, would lead to at least 13.7 million people losing their health insurance. It would also impose massive cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—better known as “food stamps”—that would put nearly 11 million people at risk of losing the ability to feed their families. And it will make college more expensive by eliminating subsidized federal student loans, meaning loans would start accruing interest as soon as students take them out rather than once they leave school. And Republicans are doing all of this only to partly pay for an extension of the tax cuts they passed in 2017, which have overwhelmingly benefited the richest taxpayers while giving the lowest-income Americans pennies.

The bill is in a bit of trouble because some Republicans say it cuts too much and other Republicans say it doesn’t cut enough. Lisa Needham of Kos reported that Republicans have found a group they can raise taxes on. Republicans don’t mind raising taxes. They “just hate to be perceived as raising taxes.” And one way to do that is to tax people whose complaints they can ignore. They propose to tax remittances. A remittance is sent by a person in the US to family in their home country. This is usually money the people back home desperately need. The money is usually sent through a financial institution set up to protect the transaction. Republicans propose to tax those remittances at the 5% rate, but only if sent by a noncitizen. This idea has been floating around for a while. It won’t raise much money for covering the huge budget deficit. But it will make immigrant lives harder – which is what Republicans really want. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted tweets by Aaron Fritschner who quoted Brendan Duke who included a chart by the Center on Budget and Policy and Priorities. The chart shows the change in income both in percent and dollar amount for various income groups for year 2029. For the top 10% their income increases by 3.4% though for the top 1% that is $52,050 a year. Percentages drop from there. The second 20% (from the bottom) get an increase of 0.6% or $260 in a year. The bottom 20% would lose 0.5% or $100 a year. Duke:

The bill is even more regressive when you look at 2029 when tax cuts for families expire & tax increases resulting from cuts to ACA premium tax credits grow larger.

Fritschner added:

But here is the thing Per JCT, Congress’ official scorekeeper, the bottom 20% of households – tens of millions of Americans – will see a Tax Increase beginning in 2029. Republicans are cutting taxes for billionaires and raising taxes on working people. This isn’t a nit-picky point based on a technicality or an asterisk. It isn’t analysis from a far left group, the White House sent these tables out and posted them on their website.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme from Occupy Democrats:

A tiny Chinese company owned by the same people that own TikTok just bought $300,000,000 of $Trump Coin. Now why do you think they did that? Foreigners are literally bribing Trump with hundreds of millions to get favors!

Also, paulpro posted a cartoon by Christopher Weyant. Two girls are talking. The girl of color says, “My first choice college is the one with an endowment big enough to protect me from the government.” In today’s news was a story about South African president Cyril Ramaphosa visiting the White House. The nasty guy lectured him about “white genocide” which Ramaphosa tried to refute. But like the infamous visit by Ukraine’s Zelenskyy it didn’t go well for the visitor. Last Saturday Oliver Willis of Kos wrote about the Republican fixation on white genocide. This fixation includes the nasty guy admitting fifty white South African refugees not long ago while refusing refugees from other countries. The SA refugees were welcomed because of this false white genocide. Willis explained:

The “white genocide” myth is being invoked in U.S. politics because conservatives long ago embraced the politics of victimhood. Even when the right is in majority control of U.S. political institutions, like right now, it still claims that it’s a persecuted minority. ... This mentality perfectly combines with the conservative embrace of white supremacy. Claiming that a “white genocide” is underway, even when the data disproves it, becomes a way of being racist while simultaneously laying hands on the mantle of victimhood.

Also, the whites of South Africa (and no doubt in America) felt the law that distributed land from white to black owners (as in back to the original owners) was an “attack.” And an attack on their land was equivalent to an attack on their body. I thought of the claim of victimhood this way: When those at the top of the hierarchy (and Republicans declare they are) feel challenged in any way they will claim they are the victim, even if their position in the hierarchy is still quite secure. An attack on their position in the hierarchy is to them equivalent to an attack on their body. They feel they are the victim because in their position in the hierarchy no one is supposed to be able or allowed to challenge them. No one is supposed to be able to make them feel uncomfortable. This article in Kos linked to one in Salon by Michael Bader from January 2024 discussing claims of victimhood. Some of Bader’s points: Those claiming to be victims use it as a rationale for striking out at others without guilt. These acts of violence are reframed as revenge or a twisted form of self-care. Conservatives can use fear to claim liberals are trying to replace them. That makes their listeners feel they are victims. That, in their minds, justifies violence. The “victims” become victimizers. For example, if an election was “stolen” stealing it back makes moral sense. They don’t need to feel guilty about hurting others because they quickly come up with a story on how those “others” were first hurting them. Bader also compared the use of “victim” by liberals and conservatives. Liberals identify actual victims, people actually injured by racism, war, or other form of oppression. They try to defend these victims and care for them. Conservatives use victimhood as propaganda, to stir up a mob. They then use the mob to get rid of the democratic norms that restrain the political aims of the conservatives. Those political aims are always to oppress some other group. Because of that incitement to violence claiming to be a victim is dangerous. Denise Oliver Velez of Kos, in her Caribbean Matters series, reported that Pope Leo has Louisiana Creole ancestry through his mother, Mildred Martínez. Her parents were described as black or “mulatto” in historical records. They lived in New Orleans Seventh Ward, a Catholic area and melting pot of people with African, Caribbean, and European roots. The pope’s brother John Prevost said that while growing up in Chicago he and his brothers always considered themselves to be white. Passing for white has a long history in the US. But his ancestry would have marked him as “colored” in Louisiana as recently as 1982.

Claiming the last area the middle class has to build wealth

Dartagnan of the Daily Kos community discussed how abortion bans affect standard pregnancy care. The reason is simple: Doctors are scared some aspects of formerly routine care, especially around miscarriage, will be interpreted as assisting abortion.

The stakes are no longer limited to the “debate” about abortion itself, but now to implicate the health care of anyone, anywhere, experiencing any type of pregnancy.

Walter Einenkel of Kos discussed Jon Stewart of The Daily Show explaining the nasty guy’s civil fraud trial (the one where the amount he needed to post before appeal was just reduced). The whole case is because the nasty guy lied. He did so frequently in his business deals. Conservative media pundits have been saying this is a victimless crime. The banks were repaid, so no harm done. But the bank was paid less than they would have if the nasty guy was honest. And the money loaned to him wasn’t loaned to someone more honest. And the “everybody does it and no one is caught” excuse isn’t allowed – by many of the same people who excuse the nasty guy – for those who commit fraud in the SNAP food program. The nasty guy lying on business forms isn’t any more victimless than Justice Clarence Thomas receiving “gifts” from billionaires. Though in the case of Thomas the victim is usually democracy. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who discussed the success of Obamacare (coming up to 10 years of full implementation) and a renewed effort by Republicans to kill it.

So the reality of Obamacare’s success won’t deter Republicans who want to destroy it. If anything, the law’s success only increases their determination to kill it, because it shows that, contrary to their ideology, government actually can make Americans’ lives better.

Down in the comments is a cartoon by Randy Bish showing two guys pausing for coffee. One says to the other, “It amazes me how any person with over 90 felony counts against them can keep a straight face while telling people that they are the victim.” Dave Whamond posted a cartoon. A mother says, “My child was killed in a mass shooting!” The nasty guy responds, “Get over it!” Then the nasty guy says, “I’m a victim! I’ve been unjustly persecuted! Nobody has been mistreated as badly as me!” The mother replies, “Get over it!” Earlier this month Clay Jones posted a cartoon on Kos. It shows Justice John Roberts talking to the rest of his Supreme Court colleagues after they ruled that states cannot bar a candidate from the ballot because he committed insurrection and while they are considering whether the nasty guy has immunity from prosecution. The cartoon has Roberts saying, “Voters should be able to choose an insurrectionist while not knowing if he’s a convicted felon.” From mid month a cartoon by Mike Luckovich shows Putin saying, “I grabbed him by the presidency. When you’re a dictator, he lets you do it...” To decide what to write about today I went through old browser tabs. In many of them I decided nah, I don’t want to write about that. Here’s one I found from mid February and thought it worth writing about. It is by SemDem of the Kos community. This writer was annoyed with relatives supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for president. Reports from today say he has chosen his vice president (I really don’t care who) because some states say the VP must be named before he can get on the ballot. The relatives support RFK Jr., though he is caught up in vaccine conspiracies, because he talked about housing affordability and the nasty guy and Biden have said little to none. Kennedy mentioned a big reason why young people have troubles buying houses. Giant corporations are buying up houses and turning them into rentals. They can, when they want to, outbid anyone else trying for the same house. By 2030 corporations may control 40% of single-family rental homes. SemDem wrote, “It truly does appear that the billionaire class really wants to claim the last remaining area the middle class has left to build wealth.” Kennedy has been gaining support because he is campaigning through social media and at college campuses. And by focusing on houses he has a topic of high interest to younger voters. Yes, Biden has mentioned housing and has a plan. But much of what he wants to do is dependent on a Congress vying for how little they can accomplish. SemDem mentions some of Biden’s efforts and efforts of other people. Loosen zoning laws so neighborhoods don’t have to be filled with single family houses to allow more people to fit on available land. Convert office space (a big surplus of that now) to apartments. When Sister visited at Christmas I shared a bit of background on Elon Musk, which explained a lot of things to Sister. What I said was that Musk was raised in South Africa and was quite upset that whites lost their top spot in society and could no longer enforce rules on the black population. Nancy Groutsis of the Kos community read the biography of Musk by Walter Isaacson and pulled out a few things. She said Musk was born and completely immersed in South Africa’s white racist culture until he moved to Canada in 1989. Then she explained what Apartheid culture was like. On NPR Jason DeRose talked about religious churn, people switching faith traditions or leaving religion. Surveys show that about a quarter of Americans identify as religiously unaffiliated. High in departures is the Catholic Church with fewer Protestants leaving. The fewest departures are by black Protestants and Jews. Of those who left nearly half said it was because of negative teaching and treatment of LGBTQ people.

"Religion's negative teaching about LGBTQ people are driving younger Americans to leave church," [Public Religion Research Institute chief executive Melissa] Deckman says. "We found that about 60% of Americans who are under the age of 30 who have left religion say they left because of their religious traditions teaching, which is a much higher rate than for older Americans." ... About one-third of religiously unaffiliated Americans say they no longer identify with their childhood religion because the religion was bad for their mental health. That response was strongest among LGBTQ respondents.

Other reasons for departures: clergy sex abuse and over-involvement in politics. I’m getting close to finishing my taxes. My printer will be cranking out a stack of forms and I hope to have them in the mail by early next week. I’ve been checking the little box that directs $3 to the presidential election campaign fund. This pays candidates so they don’t have to raise so much corporate cash and be as beholden to corporate interests. Just Saying of the Kos community wrote this year one of those candidates is the nasty guy and this federal money given to his campaign will be used to pay his legal bills. So this is a year not to check that box (and to verify your tax software or preparer didn’t check it for you). Perhaps send a donation directly to Biden instead.

The dog that chases cars and finally caught one

My Sunday movie was Breaking Fast. The story takes place during the Muslim month of Ramadan. I’m a bit familiar with the season because the Detroit region has so many Arabs. During Ramadan a believer is not to eat or drink between sunup and sundown. At sundown there is a feast to break the fast. This is the story of Mo, short for Mohammed. He lives in West Hollywood and is gay. His family is cool with it. At Ramadan one year his boyfriend Hassan, who has a homophobic father, says he must return home (somewhere in America) and be a good son and marry a woman. Mo takes it as rejection. At the start of Ramadan the following year Mo goes to a party and meets Kal. He’s American, though grew up on a military base in Jordan, so can speak Arabic. Since a military base is not a great place for a gay kid Kal hung out in the kitchen and learned to cook Middle Eastern foods. The two take a liking to each other and Kal shows up every evening so Mo doesn’t have to break the Ramadan fast alone. There are complications, of course. I enjoyed this one. There is another positive aspect – Mo and Kal are not teenagers. Since Mo is a practicing doctor I’m pretty sure they’re in their 30s. I enjoy a story where the romance is between adults and being gay isn't something they struggle to figure out. It's a given. I’ve mentioned that since the Supreme Court has overturned Roe several state legislators are itching to tee up same-sex marriage and contraception so these conservative justices can take a swipe at them too. Rebekah Sager of Daily Kos reported that Jonathan Mitchell, the guy who came up with the abortion ban law in Texas (the one that left enforcement to bounty hungry citizens), has come up with a new target. He wants to make it unlawful for the Affordable Care Act to cover the cost of Descovy and Truvada. Most readers who aren’t LGBTQ won’t know what those are. They’re drugs that can significantly reduce the risk of getting HIV. They’re called PrEP – pre-exposure prophylaxis drugs. They are recommended for everyone who is at risk of getting HIV because that little virus is still out there and can still be deadly. And it can infect more than gay men. Mitchell has a case ready to go. His plaintiffs are “Christian” and therefore are not willing to buy health insurance that subsidizes PrEP drugs that encourage and facilitate homosexual behavior. Sheesh, they want a world that is so pristine, in which all possible cooties have been eliminated. It reopens the possibility that an EMT paramedic can see a bleeding man, realize he’s gay, and refuse treatment. We’ve been there and we don’t need to go back. Notably missing from the rights for which Clarence Thomas invited cases he would like to overturn is interracial marriage. It’s missing because Ginni Thomas is white. But that won’t stop Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana teeing up an interracial marriage case for the Supremes to struggle over. Not long after Roe was overturned there was news of a 10 year old girl who had been raped and was now six weeks pregnant. She lived in Ohio, which has banned abortion. She had to travel to Indiana to make it happen. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported as this news came out Republicans scrambled to discredit and undermine the story. They’re both trying to say the story is a lie and trying to figure out some grounds on which to prosecute the Indiana doctor. Eleveld says Republicans are like the dog that chases cars and finally caught one. I recently bought clothes. Slacks (jeans in cooler seasons), tees, and polos. No way am I fashionable. I’m also retired and have no one I need to impress. Even so, in my last two jobs, academic and corporate settings, I wore slacks and polos. In the winter I added a sweater. The only time I wear a tie is when I perform or attending a wedding or a funeral. So I’m rather clueless about the world of fashion and especially what is called fast fashion. And it sounds like I’m not missing anything. sophialburns, a Daily Kos Emerging Fellow, wrote about how it developed, how it works, and how harmful it is. The harm is because the premise is one buys clothes frequently and only wears them a few times (wasteful of resources) and the garments are inexpensive and made in Asian factories (workers are exploited). One can be fashionable on the cheap. One of the claims of fast fashion is that it makes fashionable clothes available to poor people. This author quoted a thread by Lakyn thee Stylist, who explains it succinctly:

That’s the thing about critiquing fast fashion: it makes the people who can’t afford better defensive while those who actually buy fast fashion the most use its accessibility as a shield. “What about poor people?” Fast fashion is keeping them poor. The problem is, while defending the poor’s right to new and trendy clothes, the poorer (mostly) women of color in the global south who make the clothes for pennies a day get shafted. Poor in Western countries often starts at “unable to consume like the middle class/rich.”

Ayesha Rascoe of NPR talked to Eve Fairbanks about her book The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa’s Racial Reckoning. One thing white South Africans said sounds a lot like what I hear from conservative white Americans. Fairbanks said:

Apartheid persisted long after the vast majority of other African countries freed themselves from colonialism, and the justification that the white regime used was that, look; maybe this actually honestly isn't that just, but frankly, we can't give it up, or else we'll be rounded up and killed in revenge. And I realized, you know, it was one of the most surprising things, was how burdensome and painful psychologically it could be to white South Africans that that did not happen. You know, these people policed South African Black townships in this very - pretty brutal way, and they justified it as necessary to themselves. And if it turns out that it wasn't necessary, it just makes you look, like, not only immoral, but foolish. And it really deepens the kind of gravity of the sin that was committed.

Fairbanks said those fighting white minority rule looked at the white parts of the country and thought that’s what would be coming for everyone. But the poor areas of the country had never gotten resources and it would take a lot of those resources to match what the white government had used to make nice places for white people.

Abuse or hurt or exploit or humiliate or harm

Lulu Garcia-Navarro of NPR spoke to Oliver Hermanus, the director of the movie Moffie. It is set in South Africa of 1981 during Apartheid. The movie sounds brutal, so I won’t be seeing it. The term “moffie” is a derogatory work implying the target is gay. Since being gay was illegal it was dangerous to be called that. It was also aimed at straight men to imply they weren’t man enough. At the time military service in South Africa was mandatory for two years, starting at age 16. What military service turns out to be then is indoctrinating boys into the ways of supremacy they are expected to uphold. Hermanus was asked about the practices used on the men. He replied:

So we really were quite ferocious about our research, and so many of the scenes that we show in the film of how they get stripped of their individuality and their sort of identity is very much what would happen. And it's a sort of standard kind of military thing to do. And so it would be about humiliation. It would be about beating out any kind of political attitudes, any kind of intellectualism, obviously sort of sexuality if that was the issue. But you were not allowed to be a free-thinking person. The other thing, I guess, to remember about the legalities of this conscription was that you were property of the state for these two years. If you were killed under their watch or died, there was no recourse for your family to pursue the government in any way.

His response to the brutality of the film:

I was very determined to position the audience in the headspace of the racist white South Africa. If you were a young white person or white boy or white teenager, white man, your interaction with Black people was the kinds of interactions that we show in this film, where Black people were there for you to abuse or hurt or exploit or humiliate or harm. So it's an uncomfortable position to put an audience in, particularly in this time in history, but I think it was necessary, as a person who has experienced racism many different times in my life, to demonstrate that to a white audience that would see this film. This is what racism looks like.

On top of all that a couple of the characters are indeed gay. I’m sure it doesn’t go well. One large aspect of supremacy is that it makes sure it is perpetuated. Mandating white boys spend two years under such brutal conditions, teaching them that Black people are there to be abused is an effective way to perpetuate the supremacy. When I saw the film Kanarie on my list of films to watch I saw it as companion and antidote to Moffie, so that’s what I watched last night. I finished it this morning because my cousin called and we had an enjoyable chat of about an hour. Johan, obviously gay from the opening scene, gets the letter saying it is time for his compulsory military service in the South African Defense Force. The way to avoid the worst of it is to try out for the Canaries – the choir of soldiers who serve as public relations, the “soft” side of the military. But it is still the military. They may not do weapons training, but they are subjected to the whims and humiliations of drill instructors and inspections where there had better be nothing out of place. Even though Moffie is about boys age 16, the soldiers in Kanarie didn’t look that young, more like 18. The actors were probably older than that. After several weeks on base they tour, giving concerts and essentially spreading propaganda about how wonderful the military was. After a concert a woman talks to some of them. She asks: Have they been to the black townships? Do they really support the war? Are they there to spread the message of the military or of God? That question is hard. They have been calling their superiors “Reverend.” When they give a concert on the border they see, for the first time, what the brutality of war is really about. Johan has a relationship, but then has a hard time dealing with the whole situation. The story takes place in 1985. Some of the attitudes towards gay people and of gay people towards themselves seem a bit dated (thankfully), at least from our understanding in 2021 America. I recommend this one. I see Rotten Tomatoes gives it a rating of 100% fresh.