unraveling

31.Jan.2024

Rep. Julianne Young is at it again

Written testimony submitted this morning to the House State Affairs committee, which has her House Bill 421 on its agenda this morning. Emphasis and a hyperlink added; the legislature's testimony form only accepts plain text. It would not surprise me to see the committee send it to the full house on a party-line vote, which would be 11-2, after receiving public testimony that is overwhelmingly in opposition to it. I'd love to be proven wrong about that.

I testify in opposition to HB 421.

I have read the bill. It begins with the statement of an "alternative fact" reflecting a belief system that has created great harm, insisting that everyone "recognize" something that is not true.

It relegates the considerable, well-documented facts of the non-binary variation of human gender into "rare disorders of sexual development" in order to dismiss them.

As such, it will amplify harm to many Idahoans. The National Library of Medicine includes a 2017 paper, A Review of Contemporary Assessment Tools for Use with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Adults. From its abstract:

"Individuals who identify as transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) experience an incongruence between their gender identity and their sex assigned at birth. TGNC individuals are at elevated risk of discrimination, stigma, and violence and experience escalated risk for mental health problems including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide compared to cisgender individuals."

This bill would deny the lived experience of many Idahoans--including many I know personally to be good people--and effectively deny their identity.

It is unnecessary. But it goes beyond "unnecessary," to genuine evil.

I urge you to vote against this bill.

HB 421 Update:
I hadn't planned on tuning in to the live testimony, but as it happened, I did, just in time to hear Nikson Mathews, one of my fellow D16 Democrats precinct captains, testify eloquently against the bill and handle questions from the committee members with aplomb.

After Joanna Schaffer testified against the bill, from her perspective as a "citizen, soldier, and follower of Christ," Rep. Jaron Crane used the Christian angle to ask what her response to the Old Testament (it doesn't have to make sense), Genesis 5:2, saying "Male and female he created them."

She answered well. I was distracted by thinking of the sign at the Women's March earlier this month, to the effect that WOMAN DID NOT COME FROM ADAM'S RIB, ADAM CAME FROM A WOMAN'S UTERUS. I mean, you know the Old Testament is not a science book, right?

The Rev. Sara LaWall—my minister, from my church—testified, passionately, and succinctly (that 2 minute timer), from both the religious perspective, and that of her own family. UU is new to Rep. Bruce Skaug; he wanted to know what the basis for Unitarian Universalism is? She offered our first two core principles, the inherent worth and dignity of every person; and our advocating justice, equity and compassion in human relations. The chairman prompted him to rephrase, and he made it clear he wanted to know what scripture, or such-like, is our "basis"?

Yeah, we don't have that, you know. No creation fairy tales, no vengeful god sanctioning genocide, and so on.

Finally, Chairman Crane's question about how trans-women would have too big an advantage in high school sports made me think of playing tennis next to a couple of BSU tennis players the other day. I wish I could "hit like a girl" the way they do. I wish I could (or even could have) hit like that, ever. Sports are important. They're not a reason to deface Idaho Code, however. Talk to your school board if you have concerns.

In the end, with almost no debate among themselves, the 11 Republicans on the committee ignored all of the heartfelt testimony against this awful bill and voted as one to send it to the House with a "do pass" recommendation.

Their self-righeous hackles raise in an instant at anything they deem "impugning motives," but I'm sorry, there is no "good faith" interpretation for their behavior in erasing the testimony of the people who came before them today.

30.Jan.2024

Sending out an SOS

Last time I crossed paths with Idaho's Secretary of State, I'd written out a question for the Q&A period, but before the meeting got to that, I decided that the second of the four presentations organized by Idahoans for Open Government (on campaign finance and lobbying) was not the right venue to put him on the spot. I did talk to him after the presentation about the question on my mind. The shorter version of his answer to "are you prepared to consider whether [Trump] is disqualified to be on the Idaho ballot in 2024 by the 14th Amendment?" was obviously no.

I see from our local news channel KTVB that there's a longer answer, in the former of an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson. Idaho's and ten other Secretaries of State argued "in support of neither party" that

(1) Section Three Does Not Empower Secretaries of State to Disqualify Candidates for Federal Office, and
(2) Even if the Court Holds That Section Three Is Self-Executing, It Should Nevertheless Avoid Any Construction That Empowers Secretaries of State To Exercise An Inherent Disqualification Power Because of the Obvious Practical Problems That Would Flow From Such A Decision.

The table of contents made me think the 2nd part was a form of the Pitchfork Argument but I see it's more nuanced than that. Their Summary of the Argument, from pages 5-8 of the document (p.12-15 of the PDF), hinges quite a bit on the question of whether 14.3 is "self-executing" or not, and argues (in the penultimate paragraph of the summary) that it was not seen as such back in the day. With regard to Secretaries, in particular:

"Section Three was enacted at a time when the Reconstruction Congress passionately fought to enlarge federal power, and to curtail state power. It would have been ironic indeed for the Reconstruction Congress to believe Section Three would be fully and faithfully enforced on nothing more than the good faith of Southern Secretaries of State."

That's argument #1. Furthermore (and finally, in the summary), argument #2, we are not qualified for this job!

"Even if the Court disagrees, and holds that Section Three is self-executing, Secretaries of State should not be the decision-makers tasked with exercising any disqualification power. The exercise of such a power is not the type of ministerial qualification decision that a Secretary of State is well-equipped to make. It is, rather, a complex, political, and adjudicative question that requires a well-defined process that allows for a fulsome [sic, whoops] factual inquiry. Worse, allowing elected Secretaries of State to make time-sensitive and unreviewable decisions about ballot qualification will lead to partisan abuse. Tit-for-tat disqualification decisions, if abused by partisan actors, sets a dangerous precedent for a deeply-divided Nation."

They don't discuss the matter of fact of Donald J. Trump's insurrection, which does not need a Secretary of State, a Congress, nor a Supreme Court to adjudicate, actually, given that we all saw his incitement, and what he did not do as the insurrection happened on January 6, 2021. Eventually, enough of the rest of the story was established with a bipartisan inquiry for certainty. So now the question is, given the unambiguous intent of the post-Civil War "founders," will the compromised branches of government punt on the technicality that said founders never contemplated a so-obviously lawless chief executive emboldened and empowered by a new rebellion as to provide the means to execute their intent?

Betrayal, again

There's a big difference between the Nixon-Kissinger treason in the 1968 election, the Reagan treason with Iran in 1980, and today's story: unlike those episodes, the current malicious psychopathic rapist leader of the Republican Party and his sycophants are trying to pull this one in public, rather than in secret.

Here's a gift link to long-time right-wing commentaor David Frum, in The Atlantic, good for 14 days: The GOP’s Great Betrayal; "Congressional Republicans are blocking crucial aid to Israel and Ukraine out of sheer servility to Trump."

"Ukraine depends on U.S. aid to keep fighting. Congress’s inaction—meaning, again, the inaction of Johnson and his MAGA caucus—has curtailed the flow of supplies to Ukraine. Frontline reports say that Ukrainian units are compelled to ration ammunition, conceding the artillery advantage to the Russian invader. ...

"[T]he background political reality is that Donald Trump is an enemy of Ukraine and an admirer of the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. As Trump has neared renomination, his party—especially in the House of Representatives—has surrendered to his pro-Putin pressure. Biden overestimated the time available to keep aid flowing to Ukraine because he underestimated the servility of House Republicans to Trump’s anti-Ukraine animus. ...

"The true outcome of the fiasco in Congress will be the collapse of U.S. credibility all over the world. American allies will seek protection from more trustworthy partners, and America itself will be isolated and weakened."

H/t to Heather Cox Richardson for highlighting Frum's column, and an informative status update on middle east war and diplomacy in her Jan. 29 Letters from an American.

P.S. Robert Reich provides a rundown of the BS on the border, pinging between "it's an existential crisis" and "let's just wait until Donald Trump is president again before we do anything." Idaho's governor, Republican Brad Little is playing along with the crisis and simmering insurrection, by announcing he'll send some of our state police "to help secure the Texas border." And yippee skippee, we got ourselves a convoy too. The ISP's skill at directing traffic could come in handy.

29.Jan.2024

Gimme some of that old-time neuro-linguistic programming

Thom Hartmann keeps his long-form blog going daily, which you know is more than I can do, try as I might. (Keeping up with more energetic writers, among other things, slows me down.) And he sends out a weekly What You May Have Missed to subscribers, short teasers to the week's worth of dailies. You can find out if he's your cup of tea in a hurry, and a free subscription (such as I have) gets you plenty.

My Monday morning catch-up started with his provocative question, Can America & the World Survive the Davos "Billionaire’s Woodstock"? ("America fought back America’s oligarchs twice; will we succeed this third time with an actual oligarch running for president as a neofascist populist?")

Opened that one in a new tab for later, and scrolled down to another question, Can You Deprogram Your Trump Cultist Friends & Family? Friends, hmm, but family, yes, I have some who qualify. It's a critically important question right now, I think, and a tall order: "Can you build bridges to Trump cultists that may, over time and with work and love, help you pry them loose from the authoritarian leader or movement to which they’ve bonded?"

Along the way, he tosses out "NLP" without spelling it out, and somehow, I know that stands for Neuro-linguistic Programming. It's hyperlinked to a longer piece in The Wisdom School ("What it Means to be Human"), which does much more than spell it out. We start with assumptions of good faith, and positive motivation. With his link, and emphasis:

"One of the core assumptions of NLP is that all behavior, no matter how weird, destructive, or dysfunctional it may be, is an attempt to achieve a positive outcome. This is always the case, and, if you dig deep enough, you’ll generally find what that positive outcome looks like, sounds like, and/or feels like to your friend or family member.

"Therefore, it’s not useful to enter the conversation with the goal of “converting” the other person; instead, be inquisitive and non-judgmental. After all, in their mind they’re working toward the best outcome they can imagine."

"Cracking the modal code" requires establishing some kind of rapport to enable true communication. It demands "a small act of empathic imagination" (at least!), to "step into the world they inhabit." Hartmann suggests "NLP is for everybody." You don't have to agree, but that doesn't mean you're opting out; it's being used on you whether you signed the Terms of Use or not. You can let it throw you to the mat and occasionally wonder "what just happened?" or you can learn more about the tool and have a fair... fight? It's not a fighting thing, though. It's a construction project:

"Though the techniques of NLP are now being used around the world to pitch everything from political candidates to toys for children, it is also a powerful and transformative psychotherapeutic and relationship tool that can benefit individuals seeking greater control over the minds and satisfaction in their relationships and professional lives. Seminars now offer to teach NLP to therapists, teachers, and parents. NLP can be used to for everything from the improvement of communication skills to the defeat of phobias. It has the power to change lives."

If you're not piqued enough to take The Wisdom School jump, considered this alluring invitation:

"The experience of reading this series will permanently transform your understanding of the world.

"Proceed with joyful enthusiasm!"

28.Jan.2024

History Sunday

Today's inimitable lesson, from Heather Cox Richardson:

“Having ever regarded Government as their deadliest bane,” Lincoln said, “they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations; and pray for nothing so much as its total annihilation.”

In 1838. Déjà vu. He was 28 years old.

Lincoln's call for "general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws" echoes to our antipodes.

Speaking of ante- and post-bellum, twenty-five Civil War and Reconstruction scholars wrote up an amicus brief on today's hot topic, whether the 14th amendment bars a certain someone from serving in office again. Martin Pengelly summarizes for us and The Guardian, along with a synopsis of Sean Wilentz' "forthcoming article" for the New York Review of Books.

“Whether motivated by … fear of Trump’s base, a perverted sense of democratic evenhandedness, a reflexive hostility toward liberals, or something else, [commentators who say Trump should stay on the ballot] betray a basic ignorance of the relevant history and thus a misconception of what the 14th amendment actually meant and means. That history, meanwhile, has placed the conservative members of the supreme court in a very tight spot.”

If they were to adhere to the vaunted principle of "originalism," that is. What are the chances?

Recently used to remove the right to abortion and to gut voting rights, originalism now threatens, Wilentz says, to become a “petard … exploding in the majority’s face.”

I'd love to be proven wrong, but my expectation is that they will quietly chuck "principle" over the gunwale, in favor of some more convenient argument to go ahead and "shred[] the foundation of their judicial methodology."

26.Jan.2024

Standing up for our country

Fired up after reading HCR's latest daily on perfidy and treason, I wrote to my Congressman, Mike Simpson. Yet again.

I see your party, led by the multiply disgraced, criminal ex-president, is now openly working toward sabotaging the national interest on multiple fronts, not least in denying support for Ukraine to resist Russian aggression, and in incessantly pounding the drum of "illegal immigration" while making sure no deal can be made.

When are you going to stand up and say no to this, Mike? Is staying in Congress really worth betraying the country?

You say you want to hear from your constituents, lots of push polls and "sign up for my newsletter." I want to hear from YOU, with more than just boilerplate campaign rhetoric.

UKRAINE IS RUNNING OUT OF AMMUNITION.

While I was at it, I sent similar to Idaho's two senators, Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, who likewise have not done jackshit lately to break out of the sabotage and insurrection cycle of the psychopath-in-chief.

I should note that I don't use the term "treason" as casually as some do. It's succinctly stated in our Constitution, you know:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

We're there now. And as I've referred to various times, and Thom Hartmann details more explicitly, it's not a new story. Nixon. Reagan. George W. Bush and the Supremes. Trump.

"Once again, America and the world are watching with horror as a Republican candidate for president — just to win an election — manipulates world affairs in a way that will cause widespread death and destruction while damaging the interests and reputation of America.

"There’s a long tradition of Republicans running for president committing what can best called treason, or at least criminal manipulation of international affairs, to advantage themselves and hurt incumbent Democratic presidents.

"Yesterday, Mitch McConnell let the proverbial cat out of the bag. A bipartisan group of senators had been working on a bill to provide funding to Ukraine and Israel, with money for the southern border, and when it looked like they were going to produce something that would actually pass the House and Senate, Donald Trump inserted himself, telling the Republicans they should kill the bill...."

There's also the more direct NYT report from said insert, as Trump seeks to escape his criminal past through re-election and self-pardon: Trump Strengthens Grip on Capitol Hill as He Presses Toward Nomination. "The former president’s opposition has all but killed the prospects for a bipartisan border deal, reflecting how his influence in Congress has grown as he gains ground in the Republican primary."

25.Jan.2024

The ebullience of affordable gas

We have gas stations at the nearest arterial cross-roads, two stone's throw from our house, and of course I notice the numbers every time I go by. It's under $3 a gallon for "regular," plus 30¢ for my preferred flavor of ethanol-free. (The local Maverick has maintained that 30¢ bump through thick and thin, so the premium premium has varied from a mere 6% to 10%.)

The last time I went by, I wondered if this year's presidential election will be decided by whether gas is "cheap" or "not so cheap" this coming October and November, and whether sheikhs, dictators, or other malign (cough–Republican–cough) actors who want to swing the US election are able to game the system.

Never mind that gas has remained decidedly cheap for half a century, give or take. The most convenient time series I find this morning, from 1978-2022, shows it remarkably flat/slowly declining from the relative high that helped drive Jimmy Carter out of the White House. (That and Ronald Reagan's campaign prolonging the Iran hostage crisis, while the Nixon-Kissinger treason in the 1968 campaign was still in current memory. I digress.)

The end point of the time series data shown is $4.19 in 2022; a year ago. FRED shows the December 2023 price at $3.41; more than 15% below the long-term average. Today's $3/gal a gas is more than 25% below average. Crazy cheap.

There's a lot of really good economic news right now, and Robert Reich's latest blog post leads with some of it. Hear me out before taking that jump; what follows includes the links he provided.

The "impending recession" never arrived, and GDP was up 2.5% in 2023 (in the BEA's latest numbers), +4.9% in Q3, and +3.3% in Q4. Inflation has come down from the spike when Russia invaded Ukraine, to a possibly tolerable 3.4%. Unemployment remains low, 3.7%, far lower than the long-term average of 5.7%. Interest rates have stopped going up, at least. And while the minimum wage is woefully out-of-date, most "burger flippers" are making twice minimum. Consumer confidence is surging in response to all that good news.

After leading with the facts, and good news, Reich remarks upon the anti-fact, bad news team that's afraid of dropping a glass of water on magnets, and will be desperately lying about the state of whatever, from now until fall.

24.Jan.24

He doth protest overmuch

The Idaho Press is apparently happy to give our potentates Guest Commentary space, whatever the quality. Attorney General Raúl Labrador's latest, "Idaho citizens deserve the best defense" is a dog's breakfast of gaslit whining, complaining about the fact that he has critics. It's all "personal and petty," he says, proving his point in the lede. That's after invoking Winston Churchill, no less, and winding up with "history will show" how great he is. No, really.

(In a bit of commerce-driven irony, when I looked for the online version, the "next up" story was commentary from our Lieutenant Governor Scott Bedke, Humility is the virtue most needed, hearkening to the wisdom of the aging Benjamin Franklin.)

Labrador promised us partisanship, and he is certainly delivering that. In celebrating "the remarkable win" of "prioritizing the lives of women and children" in the bid to make Idaho the most repressive state against women's bodily autonomy and access to healthcare. He doesn't need legislation to rewrite "fetuses" to "unborn children," nor to segue from that to just "children" and pretending that they and women matter too. (As long as they stay in the kitchen?)

Just as our state legislature doesn't really need to provide support for early childhood education, healthcare, and nutrition for women and children, as long as they bang the drum for the "preborn."

23.Jan.2024

As promised

The drip, drip, drip of incessant gaslighting, projection, lies, has worn down the body politic to the point where for the out-group, at least (which is only half-out), there are no trusted sources for at least the out-group. Excepting Dear Leader, and his media organs, oddly. Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug. His in-party opponents are humiliated before their transformation into run-of-the-mill sycophants. “The past was alterable. The past never had been altered....”

Thom Hartmann leverages the Zeitgeist into speculative fiction, with a clever prompt (and "every incident" generously hyperlinked):

[Every incident mentioned in this article is based on an actual statement or action by Donald Trump, the people closely surrounding him, or something Trump has praised about his role model Victor Orbàn.]

It's a dark tale, but if you've been tuned in lately, you've heard a lot of the set-up already. The short extrapolations, for "just the first five months," are chilling, and my only hesitation about sharing any is that it reads like a Bannon & Miller fascist playbook. Not like we're giving them new ideas, of course...

"At his swearing-in, Trump announced that he was going to fulfill his “dictator for a day” promise and pardoned himself, all Republicans who were in Congress in January 2021 and helped organize or support the attack on the Capitol, and all the January 6th seditionists.

"He then announced that the 24 Democrats leading their congressional delegations who’d voted against him in the House were “guilty of sedition against the United States.” As he spoke, each was arrested and taken into custody...."

Light refreshment

Top of today's spam digest from a group list, PAYMENT NOTIFICATION got in ahead of Ace Confirmation, YETI Confirmation, and Harbor Confirmation (so much winning). "James Morrison's" pitch, clipped by the digestion right before the punchline:

"I am an internet fraudster and scamming people for the past 22 years, I made over $450 million over the years with all kind of expensive cars, houses and living extremely rich life, I made so much money from scamming people but now, I..."

22.Jan.2024

On another anniversary

Heather Cox Richardson's latest Letter from an American, marking the 51st anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, refreshes the connection between the slavers' oligarchy of the 19th century, and the present. Recommended reading.

The Idaho Legislature's House State Affairs committee is marking the date with its latest salvo in the culture wars, proposing to turn all our human embryos and fetuses into "PREBORN CHILDREN." There is more right-wing extremist work to be done. Having achieved the dubious distinction of MOST RESTRICTIVE abortion policies, with access ELIMINATED, it is a near certainty they (and other red states) will be coming after contraception next. It isn't "pro-life," it's a cynical political strategy that's older than Roe.

You can tell because the legislature is not keen to add support for early childhood education, healthcare, and nutrition, the way they are to regulate bodies that don't meet their politico-religious norms. It comes at a heavy cost to all Idahoans, as healthcare professionals vote with their feet. Last year, the legislature put the state's maternal mortality review committee to death, to try to hide inconvenient statistics. Idaho is the only state without a maternal mortality review committee. The wider context is that maternal mortality nationwide has doubled in the last 20 years.

19.Jan.2024

Supreme judicial activism

Timothy Snyder's latest blog post highlights five essays he wrote between August and this month, with the Supreme Court preparing to hear Trump v. Anderson, and perhaps reach in to override the clear language of the 14th Amendment (demonstrating their fealty to "originalism" was always hokum). It would be a hell of a thing for them to provide what two-thirds of each house of Congress surely would not: removing of Donald J. Trump's Section 3 "disability" against serving, having fomented insurrection.

There are ways to argue around the plain, original intent of our Constitution. Teri Kanefield has assembled a potpourri. I see in the Scotusblog (linked above), the servile Hans von Spakovsy (and the Public Interest Legal Foundation) have weighed in with an amicus brief. Looks wholly specious to me, starting with "The Continued Legal Viability of Section 3 Is Suspect" (because we say so!); "Section 3 Does Not Apply to Former President Donald Trump" (because, mirabile dictu the president is not "an officer of the United States"); and on down to "Section 3 Is Not Self-Executing," again, because we say so.

Here are Snyder's opinions, which I recommend to you, with a brief quote pulled from the last of the five:

• We can have the Constitution, or we can have Trump
• Trump cannot run for office according to the US Constitution
• The Pitchfork Ruling; the Trap the Commentariat sets for the Court
• Courting ridicule; When constitutionalism becomes comedy
• Constitutional Courage; How our fears endagner our future

"Americans who should know better are choosing fear over the Constitution, finding excuses to ignore what it says. Indeed, they are choosing to fear the Constitution. Far too many politicians and other media commentators respond to our present situation -- a real insurrectionist who has tried to overthrow the Constitution while in office, a real Constitutional ban on insurrectionists running for office a second time -- by saying that it is the Constitution that must yield.

"Their slogan is: “let the voters decide.” That is to say: in the case of Trump, and Trump alone, let us simply overlook what the Constitution says....

“Let the voters decide” appeals not to law or logic but to conformism and fear. It evades critique from within our Constitutional order because it rejects that order. Rather than following Constitutional procedures meant to handle fear, it redirects fear against those Constitutional procedures."

18.Jan.2024

BORDER BORDER BORDERRRRR

Mike Johnson #1: BORDER BORDER BORDER WE CAN'T DO ANYTHING UNTIL BORDER

Mike Johnson #2: “It’s a complex issue. I don’t think now is the time for comprehensive immigration reform, because we know how complicated that is.”

The bad faith is palpable. The extremist faction's treasonous bent is all too obvious. Also in BORDER BORDER BORDER news, from Heather Cox Richardson's daily, Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee already have Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas' impeachment teed up, with draft "articles" before they've even bothered with hearings.

"Republicans argue that Mayorkas lied to Congress because he said the government has operational control over the border. They dispute this characterization because the Secure Fence Act defines operational control as one in which not a single person or object enters the country improperly. This perfect standard has never been met, and yet they apparently decided to impeach over it before even holding hearings."

As the failed insurrectionist confabs with Fox News talking heads, and he gives the Speaker of the House marching orders to fabulate the #1 issue to whip up the Base, we wonder together: Is it time, finally, to find a new way?

"Creating a false reality to trick voters is central to undermining democracy, and it is no secret that autocratic states like Russia, Iran, and China are spreading disinformation in the U.S. But I have always wondered what would happen when the American people finally pushed back against suggestions and innuendo and instead demanded actual evidence and policies designed to address problems, as they did before American politics turned into entertainment."

16.Jan.2024

Genius pet tricks

The tardigrade's involvement seems a non sequitur to me, but it livens up the story considerably. Never mind the qubits, who could have imagined something living could survive a chill to 10 millikelvin ("Feels like absolute zero") for more than two weeks, and a pressure drop to one microbar ("Feels like outer space")? The tardigrade can!

Also, I'd like to know what the little doo-dads on the feet and back (and, uh, face?) of the thing are. Hairs? Tardigrade barnacles? There are a lot of images of diese kleine Wasserbäre out in the wild, but none other like Giovanni Cancemi's (in the Discover Magazine item, not here) that I saw.

Wikipedia tells us there are 1,300-some known species of these things. That could go back half a billion years. And, "one tardigrade, Echiniscoides wyethi, may be found on barnacles." They have a bilaterally symmetric, "dorsal brain atop a paired ventral nervous system." Some of the species are parthenogenic, and both sexes have a single gonad. And just for fun,

"Tardigrades tend to court before mating. Courtship is an early step in mating and was first observed in tardigrades in 1895. Research shows that up to nine males aggregate around a female to mate."

We're also told that "tardigrades can survive impacts up to about 900 meters per second," and I'd like to know who thought of doing that to them, and just how the hell you get a tardigrade moving that fast.

More wonders (including the "sketch of the experiment," with "a tardigrade in the tun state [] positioned between the shunt capacitior plates, slightly offset from the Josephson junction, of the transmon qubit B") are in the (un-paywalled) paper, Entanglement between superconducting qubits and a tardigrade, from two years ago. I don't know why I'm nust finding out about it now, but here we are.

"The results reported here have been measured in a single experimental sequence, i.e. using one tardigrade in its tun state. Two more experiments have been conducted and we wish to point out that it is very important for the revival of the animal to change the external temperature and pressure gently."

Martin Luther King Day, 2024

What comes next

Finished Bradley Onishi's Preparing for War; the Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism—and What Comes Next today. To add to the longer remarks in my January 6 post, below: Onishi spells out how we got here, in chapters from "Extremism is a Virtue" (Goldwater, 1964), "Killing Democracy to Save the Nation," "Insurrection," and "Right Flight," from southern California to the burgeoning American Redoubt, right up here in our neck of the woods.

In the first skirmish of this year's Idaho Legislature culture wars, the House State Affairs committee getting right after "harmful materials in libraries" ignored the proponderance of testimony strongly against HB384 and routed the opposition with an 11-2 "do pass" recommendation (after slapping down the audacity of giving another day for the people to voice their opinions before shoving it through). One woman who testified in favor emphasized the horror of the government taking "my husband's hard-earned money" to buy books she didn't like and put them in libraries. (Both California and Idaho are community property states, honey; that hard-earned money is half yours.) But let's not be distracted by the side shows. Spoiler alert:

"January 6 was not the end of a movement—some last-gasp attempt of a weakened and aggrieved group supporting a politician who didn't want to admit he'd lost an election. ... [T]he insurrection was the logical next step for a certain diminishing White Christian population trying desperately to retake what they considered theirs. Acclimating or adjusting themselves to the inevitable waves of religious, racial, and other forms of diversity, for White Christian nationalists, is no option at all. This was not the last stand of a dying faction. It was the first violent battle in what they foresee as the coming civil war."

13.Jan.2024

Finding a way forward at the border

Speaking of festering fields of seemingly unresolvable conflict, "the border." Especially the Texas border these days. This week's episode of Firing Line with Margaret Hoover, interviewing Rep. Tony Gonzales from TX-23 provided a lot more signal than the incessant noise of partisan bad faith that fills the daily.

His turf stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, with an astounding 823 miles of border with Mexico, majority Hispanic, the population 78% urban, in a "predominantly rural" geography. And he's been working to find solutions.

"I’ve hosted 22 different congressional delegations and nearly 200 members now. You know, just last, just last week, I hosted Speaker Johnson and 63 of my colleagues. So out of these nearly 200 people, most of them have been Republicans. There’s only been four Democrats that have taken me up on it, but I want them to see it unfiltered, untapped, unspun as best as possible. I won’t put you in a spot that’s going to hurt you politically. I just want you to hear from the mayors, the judges, the first responders, the ranchers, you know, the people that live there."

That may or may not be enough to start to deal with the problems that most of the Republicans seem content to use as an unending bludgeon against the current administration, in favor of their Xenophobe kidnapper, but we can hope. Worth a listen.

Two middle eastern stories

Thom Friedman's important column from the eve of 2024: What is Happening to Our World?

And a nearly ancient (Oct. 20, 2022) piece in The New York Review deconstructing Jared ("JK") Kushner and his "beige rage" tome, "a bleaching, a blanching, a prose laundromat set to whitewash out all stain." Call it Lucky Guy.

That's a gift link to Friedman's piece. I've just got the slick paper from NYR and no pull past their paywall. It might be worth the price of subscribing, but I see you can also register for a free account to read just this article. Do it. You won't be sorry. And you certainly won't have to suffer through JK's book after you do. (Never mind the surfeit of library copies begging for attention.)

I haven't always been a fan of Friedman's analysis, but he's paid much closer attention to the foreign affairs beat than I have, and his column provides the long context of the current expanding war, with the punchline in the <title> tag: The Israel-Hamas War Was Not Inevitable, and in a pull-quote: "...not as inevitable as you might think." Or in the run of text, "as some want you to think."

He considers the lens of choices made between Dubai and Gaza, as if (seriously?) the latter could have been as successful as the former. "It's not oil," he waves away the most obvious distinction, as if oil playing "only a small role in Dubai's diversified economy today" makes it old and irrelevant news. But choices:

"[T]he emirate of Dubai in particular could choose to be Arab, modern, pluralistic, globalized and embracing of a moderate interpretation of Islam. Their formula incorporates a radical openness to the world, an emphasis on free markets and education, a ban on extremist political Islam, relatively little corruption, a strong rule of law promulgated from the top down and a relentless commitment to economic diversification, talent recruitment and development."

While Gaza's future course was set by the blunder of "the Bush team insist[ing] that Hamas be permitted to run without embracing Oslo, hoping that it would lose and this would be its ultimate refutation." Hamas eliminated its primary competition, "violently oust[ing] Fatah from Gaza in 2007, killing some of its officials and making clear that it would not abide by the Oslo Accords or the Paris protocol," deciding "instead to make Gaza a springboard for destroying Israel."

Friedman provides some of the long list of "terrrible" choices Benjamin Netanyahu has made as well, with the goal "to destroy the Oslo option once and for all."

"In that, Bibi and Hamas have always needed each other: Bibi to tell the United States and Israelis that he had no choice, and Hamas to tell Gazans and its new and naïve supporters around the world that the Palestinians’ only choice was armed struggle led by Hamas.

"The only exit from this mutually assured destruction is to bring in some transformed version of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — or a whole new P.L.O.-appointed government of Palestinian technocrats — in partnership with moderate Arab states like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia...."

Now we have "Iran squeezing Israel" and the US "into a multifront war with its proxies," Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Shiite militias in Iraq.

12.Jan.2024

Laying waste to the rule of law

If you're paying the least bit of attention, and not a duped member of the cult of Don, you already knew about the thirty thousand lies, and that there have been a lot of court cases with skeevy lawyers coming and going. You might not have known about the incomprehensible tally in the title of James Zirin's book, Plaintiff in Chief; A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits.

It's old news: published in 2019, so the arguably most important ones (not to mention the criminal trials) aren't included. Fire up the sequel machine. Until then, Michael Kruse has us covered, with Politico's Friday read: ‘This to Him Is the Grand Finale’: Donald Trump’s 50-Year Mission to Discredit the Justice System. Yesterday's pathetic rant of a "closing statement" had been previewed in November, when Trump was on the witness stand, and

"over the course of four or so hours" "savaged the judge, the prosecutor, the attorney general, the case and the trial — savaged the system itself. He called the attorney general “a political hack.” He called the judge “very hostile.” He called the trial “crazy” and the court “a fraud” and the case “a disgrace.” He told the prosecutor he should be “ashamed” of himself."

Props for the irony; for a psychopath who has made an industry out of shamelessness and inhabiting an empathy-free zone, that is some top shelf gaslighting extraordinaire. For shame, all you people against me! Here we are at the "culmination" of his grifting campaign "to grind down the legal system to his advantage," while destroying our democracy as collateral damage. "It has been a lifelong project," Kruse writes.

"Deny, delay and attack, always play the victim, never stop undermining the system: Trump has taken the Cohn playbook to reaches not even Cohn could have foreseen — fusing his legal efforts with his business interests, lawyers as important to him as loan officers, and now he’s done the same with politics. He’s not fighting the system, it seems sometimes, so much as he’s using it. He’s fundraising off of it."

Think of that! Fundraising! Imagine a self-proclaimed multi-billionaire (ha ha) begging for money. And millions of people credulous enough to send theirs in. There's a side-industry leveraging his poor little rich kid brand. The NRCC says President [sic]Trump needs your support for 2024!. The perfidious weasel JD Vance is trying to leverage Trump's criminal indictment in Georgia for his fundraising. Junior writes to say My father and I need a favor, and Eric writes While my father is in DC court. The West Virginia Republican Party still pushing the Big Lie about the 2020 election.

Ian Bassin, former White House lawyer in the Obama administration and current executive director of Protect Democracy:

“Our democracy rests on a foundation of trust — trust in elections, trust in institutions. And you know what scares me the most about Trump? It’s not the sledgehammer he’s taken to the structure of our national house,” he told me. “It’s the termites he’s unleashed into the foundation.”

You want some vermin, we've got your vermin right here.

News was slow getting here

That country in the middle of the middle east with the capital that's Istanbul (not Constantinople) is now—where "now" is either 1923, or two years ago—Türkiye (not Turkey).

I also missed the transition to Eswatini (fka Swaziland) in 2018, but knew about "The Netherlands" (not Holland, thanks to my Flemish friends at Stanford back in the day), and Mumbai (because, movies), Czechia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka.

11.Jan.2024

Dot Moon's top priority

Our John Bircher-adjacent (at least) Republican state party chair (who is not our Secretary of State, thank goodness) Dorothy Moon celebrated her party election in July by saying “We have to make sure with the Democrats coming at us with full force that we have our barriers up, our guns loaded and ready to keep this state free.” (Of course she's a 2020 election denier, too, and tried to sign on to the amicus brief for Texas v. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin in the heat of the Big Lie.)

Here's Moon at the top of the news in yesterday's paper, "outlining the party's priorities for the legislative session" just underway. Reporter Laura Guido cuts to the chase, with the first of (eight) resolutions that came out of the winter meeting held this past weekend:

"The Idaho Republican Party is hoping this year legislators will focus on either making it harder to pass citizen initiatives or removing the petition process altogether."

The idea of Idaho's citizens having the ability to nullify the legislature's malfeasance, or the audacity to actually enact law rankles the hell out of the extremist wing of the supposed "limited government" party. The latest idea to raise the bar impossibly high is to demand a two-thirds majority to pass anything that clears the significant petition hurdel to get on the ballot. Guido reported that was "met with applause" from the audience.

"She said if this two-thirds majority requirement can’t be passed, then the party would like to see a state constitutional amendment to remove the initiative process altogether — one person in the audience gasped in response to this."

So, one person? At amending the state's constitution to eliminate the 112 year-old provision (that took the legislature more than two decades to implement in some fashion, as our Secretary of State's history recounts). From 1936 to 2018, there have been 37 measures put to the vote of the people; 30 initiatives, and 7 referenda.

Thirteen initiatives have been adopted, two approved, and fifteen defeated. The referenda have resulted in two laws being explictly approved by voters, four being rejected, and one that left "term limits repealed" by a narrow margin.

Of the successful efforts, only five have had more than two-thirds support: the Idaho Fish and Game Commission Act in 1938 (76%); the Senior Citizens Grants Act in 1942 (68%); Regulate dredge mining in Idaho in 1954 (85%); the Sunshine Law for political funds and lobbyist activity disclosure in 1974 (78%); and one of the three referenda in 2012. In 2012, voters delivered a trifecta of rejection to the so-called "Luna Laws," by votes of 57.1, 58.0, and 66.7%.

And in 2018, voters split on two initiatives: YES to Medicaid expansion (after the legislature had failed in multiple sessions to get it done), and NO to the cockamamie "historical horse racing" video game gambling industry.

The big threat to Dorothy Moon and the extremist wing of the state Republican party, and why this is at the top of her agenda is this year's Open Primaries Initiative, responding to the specifically Republican closed primaries (the Democrats' primaries are open) that disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of independent votes from what are often the deciding races.

It's a threat that led our partisan, extremist Attorney General to try to torpedo the initiative in the press, and then by writing misleading titles. (Misleading in the Idaho Supreme Court's judgment as well as mine.) We'll be hearing more about it as the session wears on.

10.Jan.2024

The culture warriors are back in town

"Town" being our capital city and my blog namesake. There's a proposal on today's agenda for introduction in House State Affairs for "Harmful materials, libraries." I assume the GOP super-majority will approve its introduction, and we'll get to read bill text shortly, unless it's deemed too harmful to print and has to be passed in secret? (The RS is from Ronald "Jaron" Crane, younger brother of the committee's chairman, Brent Crane.)

And right out of the chute (so to speak), there's a bill proposing to change all of the Idaho Code references to "fetus" to "unborn child," moving the religious proposition of "life" (and therefore personhood) beginning at conception into American Sharia. One theocratic state legislature at a time. Exaggerating? Oh no.

Senate President Pro Tempore, Chuck Winder, preview-opined that "it's not just low birthrate, but it is the number of abortions that have occurred" that has our state short of workers. Oh sure, "many of them were probably medically necessary," but some were "elective," so there.

Our state Democratic Party chair, and House Assistant Minority Leader, Lauren Necochea boiled Winder's proposition down succinctly: "forced pregnancy is a way to solve our workforce woes," seriously? Just spit-balling here, but upgrading the state's minimum wage from its 2008-vintage, the-feds-made-us-do-it $7.25/hr would do a hell of a lot more good than cancelling bodily autonomy for half the populace. ($7.25 today has the same buying power as $4.98 did back in 2008.)

As Kootenai County Democratic Central Committee chairman Evan Koch put it in the Coeur d'Alene/Post Falls Press, “The Handmaid’s Tale” has come to life in Idaho. Put another way, here are those Death Panels Republicans railed about (when they wanted to repeal "Obamacare" and replace it with nothing). Since Idaho's "trigger ban" was triggered by the Supreme Court's judicial activism in Dobbs,

"Fifty percent of our fetal/maternal physicians left the state. Two Idaho hospitals quit labor and delivery services. Women in a wide section of North Idaho now travel great distances to find care.

"Any treating physician is now exposed to criminal liability for performing an abortion.

"The American College of Emergency Physicians said that its members “were in an impossible position where they must choose between their patient’s health or their own exposure to liability, which in some states could be criminal charges.”

"Idaho Democratic Chair Rep. Lauren Necochea said physicians who violate the law, “don’t just get a parking ticket, they go to prison and lose their license.”

"Lest anyone claim the ban is not total, consider that it has no health or fetal fatal anomaly exception, and it makes it a crime to transport a minor to another state where abortion is legal. Seventy-three of 117 obstetricians surveyed are considering leaving Idaho because of the ban."

9.Jan.2023

Bad faith

Having a look at yesterday's speech at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, the site of a heinous racist hate crime in 2015. President Biden reminded us of what we all saw, the "lost cause" back from the grave, carrying a confederate battle flag inside the capitol. Having tried to steal an election, "now they're trying to steal history."

"The lies that led to January 6th are part of a broader attack on the truth America today that we all have seen before. The same movement that, throughout the mob at the United States Capitol, isn’t just trying to rewrite history of January 6th, they’re trying to determine to erase history and your future: banning books; denying your right to vote and have it counted; destroying diversity, equality, inclusion all across America; harboring hate and replacing hope with anger and resentment and a dangerous view of America.

"That narrow view of America, a zero-sum view of America that says, “If you win, I lose. If you succeed, it must be I failed. If you get ahead, I fall behind.” And maybe worst of all, “If I hold you down, I lift myself up.”

Calling it "zero-sum" is generous; the toll of personal vendetta and retribution that reached its peak on January 6, 2021 is still being counted, a negative sum that put (and still keeps) our democracy at risk of elimination.

"[F]aith and history teach us that however dark the night, joy cometh in the morning. And that joy comes with commands from scripture: “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, all thy soul,” and “Love your neighbor as thyself.” Not so easy. It’s hard. But in those commands is the essence of the gospel and the essence of the American promise.

"And in my life, I’ve tried to live my faith. And I’ve many times failed. But I’ve learned, as many of you might have learned in your path as well, we’re all — we’re all imperfect beings. We don’t know where fate will take us or when. But we can do our best to seek a life of light, hope, love, and justice and truth."

Contrast that message with Trump's refusing to sign an Illinois ballot pledge that he wouldn't "advocate the overthrow of the government"; and the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House, Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) saying on Meet the Press that she would not commit to respecting the results of the 2024 election; or a re-truthed campaign video from Dilley 300 Meme Team that would make Leni Riefenstahl blush, "GOD MADE TRUMP." Stephen Miller's job might be at risk! (If you take the jump from the Business Insider link to Truth Social to watch that, I recommend a private window and a shower afterwards. It tried to leave 6.7MB worth of cookies behind.)

The voice of God script even claims that Trump goes to church on Sunday, who said there are no miracles?

Deseret News just ran a poll that produced results almost as over the top as the Meme Team's work. Of the self-declared Republicans in the 1,012 registered voters polled during Thanksgiving Week, 64% said Trump was "a person of faith," up from 53% a month earlier. (His faithiness is apparently headed for the moon!) He came out 10 points ahead of Mike Pence, for god's sake.

Not so much religious, though. Pence got 62% for that, and less than half for Trump. "[O]nly 13% of Republicans said President Joe Biden was a person of faith, [while] 26% acknowledged he was religious." The claimed margin of error of ±3.1% is sketchy as hell for the cross-tabs, divided down to Republicans who called him religious, for example, 53% of whom imagined him to be “honest and trustworthy.” It's an Ouroboros of strained credulity.

We don't need a poll to know that that former guy "boasts massive support from evangelical Christians, who make up a significant portion of the Republican electorate." Thanks in no small part to the packing of the Supreme Court, and its delivery of the big win for zealots who put ideology over bodily autonomy. The Dobbs decision has been a massive loser in elections so far; it remains to be seen whether the filter of the Electoral College can pull another rabbit out of the soiled tricorn.

Samuel Benson dug a little deeper into analyzing the poll (under a file photo of the infamous St. John's Church Parish House stunt, still working to dupe the rubes), to conclude that it's transactional, not theological in any way. Obviously. They don't imagine him religious in the "go-to-church and say-your-prayers sense," or for adhering to religious beliefs, or being involved in a faith community, or "by his Sunday School attendance [sic] or his moral cleanliness." It's the political actions they love. It's not Christianity we're talking about, it's Christian nationalism. White Christian nationalism.

Benson also reported that at least two Iowa pasters denounced the "God Made Trump" video, and filled in a piece of the puzzle that flew right by me. it "begins as a parody of Paul Harvey's famous 'So God Made a Farmer' speech" I'd never heard, two minutes of Harvey at the top of his game. With images artfully added 11 years ago to make it into a... pickup truck ad? Oh, even better, a pickup truck ad for the Super Bowl. (Listed under the "Death and tributes" section of Harvey's Wikipedia page.)

"I need someone who shape an axe handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire feed sacks and shoe scraps."

It doesn't have to make sense if you say it right, eh? The Trump send-up devolved it to "somebody who can shape an axe" (wut), segueing to "someone who can wield a sword," as Trump clown-dances with the Saudi princes on his first foreign state visit. So there's that.

H/t to Heather Cox Richardson, who got me started on this morning's crazy roller coaster ride.

8.Jan.2024

Hot enough for you?

Back in the day, 2014 Was the Warmest Year Ever Recorded on Earth. Then in 2016 Every Month This Year Was the Hottest in Recorded History. July 2019 officially became the hottest month ever recorded, but not for long. A year ago January, it was reported that Earth’s Last 8 Years Were the Hottest on Record. Then last July was the world's hottest month.

So it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that 2023 set a new hottest year record. By a lot. We're talking about over the last century and a half, with comparable measurement of "global temperature," something that takes a lot of data, and a lot of inference. (Moreso to estimate the warmest "very likely for the past 125,000 years," but that, too.) The trend is not subtle. Former NASA scientist James Hansen, who told the US Senate back in 1988 that global warming had begun, now estimates we've reached the 1.5°C threshold, and will not likely be going back. Ever for me and many of my readers, at least.

“Passing through the 1.5C world is a significant milestone because it shows that the story being told by the United Nations, with the acquiescence of its scientific advisory body, the IPCC, is a load of bullshit,” Hansen said.

“We are not moving into a 1.5C world, we are briefly passing through it in 2024. We will pass through the 2C (3.6F) world in the 2030s unless we take purposeful actions to affect the planet’s energy balance.”

Epiphany, 2024

Our grim anniversary

As the luck of the draw of my library reading stack would have it, I'm in the middle of Bradley Onishi's Preparing for War; The extremist history of White Christian nationalism—and what comes next as we mark three years since the first attempted insurrection of Donald J. Trump. Three long years with the wheels of justice grinding too slowly (it seems) for the man at the top, even as more than 1,265 people have been charged, 718 pleaded guilty (213 to felonies), 171 found guilty at trial or otherwise convicted, and 467 sentenced to some term of incarceration.

It is (very mildly) reassuring that the harshest sentences were meted to the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers kingpins, Enrique Tarrio (22 years) and Stewart Rhodes (18 years). The FBI's still working dozens of others before the 5 year statute of limitations runs on many of the possible charges. They managed to collar three fugitives on this anniversary. No one returned a phone message left Saturday at Rapture Guns & Knives, the Lakeland, Florida store owned by family of the 20-something brother and sister, and where the other 20-something had worked.

Onishi tells the story of his own 20-something stint as a youth pastor, in the heart of southern California Christian nationalism, teaching the story of Jericho, with that awkward question, "did the kids need to be killed?" Along with "every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys." (Save "Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house," "because she hid the spies we sent.") We don't have a lot of historical proof of the story, but to the extent that something like that happened, once upon a time, in perhaps the oldest city in human history, where we took our first steps toward "civilization," it's not exactly a narrative to celebrate, you wouldn't think. (The murderousness, most of all, but also weird irony for a faction that made such a big, damn deal about building walls.)

The section From Joshua 6 to January 6 takes us back to December 12, 2020, the convenient Saturday before the Electoral College vote of December 14, which, for rational participants in our quasi-democratic process would settle the contest, once and for all. (Never mind the ceremonial couting in the new year, scheduled to accommodate the vagaries of 18th century communication and transportation.)

My blog post on the date was focused first of all on the reactions to the dismissal of the outrageous lawsuit of Texas, accusing a bunch of other states of having thrown the election (without basis in actual facts). The Supreme Court just said "no." I see that the link to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's statement on Dec. 11 has gone stale, expunged by the new regime. The Wayback Machine has it, for those who missed the first chance: Pelosi Statement on Supreme Court Rejecting GOP Election Sabotage Lawsuit. She called out the 126 Republican Members who signed onto the lawsuit for having "brought dishonor to the House."

"Instead of upholding their oath to support and defend the Constitution, they chose to subvert the Constitution and undermine public trust in our sacred democratic institutions."

The worst was yet to come. They did not heed her demand to "once and for all end their election subversion." My attention on the date was to Idaho's subversives, led by then-Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin, fond of her flag, pistol and Bible, and including 7 of our 35 state senators, and 29 of 70 representatives. My prediction back on the day:

"We have not, I'm sure heard the last of the thundering nonsense and boiling sedition embedded in this dudgeon. The perfidious gang is doing all they can to convince themselves and their camp followers of the utterly unsubstantiated lies of their Conman in Chief. It must be something stupendous to negate the fact that he lost the vote of the people by twice the margin he did on his first try..."

Onishi, and Reuters reporters described the events of the day, including speeches by Michael Flynn and Alex Jones, the latter giving "one of his notorious screaming rants," "send[ing] bundles of non sequiturs to the audience to activate their anger and grievance."

"God is on our side.... The state has no jurisdiction over any of us," he belted. ... Joe Biden will be removed one way or another." "We need to keep our eyes on Christ and never back down and never surrender."

That would be the White Christ, with the MAGA hat.

When the "prayer" rally ended, the Proud Boys and other groups spread throughout downtown DC, wreaking havoc and instigating violence. They vandalized numerous historic Black churches, tearing down Black Lives Matter flags...

The forces of White Christian nationalism have certainly not been chastened. "[A] second round of marches was planned for January 5, 2021..." Onishi's description of January 6 features Leandra Blades, from the Orange County sister church of the one Onishi worked for. The Yorba Linda HS Wrangler featured her and her "girls trip" to DC, 8 days after the fact. Remarkable. They quote Blades' own Facebook post (from the day after):

"What was supposed to be a peaceful rally was essentially ruined by a group of agitators who's [sic] actions do not represent me or a majority of the people who attended the rally."

It's breezy, credulous, and given the lie by the events of three years since. As Onishi notes (my emphasis added):

"January 6, 2021 is a day of infamy, a day that marks a Before and an After in American history, similar to the bombing of Pearl Harbor or 9/11. The difference with J6 is that the attack was by a mob of Americans incited by the sitting president rather than a foreign enemy.... Unable to overthrow the election by way of the courts or state legislators, [Trump] turned to the mob as one of the last weapons in his arsenal."

Onishi wrote that Blades "looks like my mom—and countless other Orange County moms I knew growing up."

"It's not the maliciousness or cunning of Leandra Blades that plagues me. It's the banality of her actions and rationale. It's the ordinariness of her thought patterns. She is not exceptional.... In terms of the region where I grew up, she's pretty average. And that scares the hell out of me."

The "ritual acts" of the insurrectionist mob as they crossed each threshold are chilling, including the "QAnon Shaman's" prayer in the Senate chamber, pervasive religious imagery providing "a permission structure and a psychological safety net" in Peter Manseau's assessment. (He's the Smithsonian's Curator of American Religious History.)

"If any had second thoughts as they charged up the Capitol steps, they perhaps needed only to see a Bible thrust in the air above the crowd to be put at ease. How could a righteous mob be wrong?"

I was reminded of the months-earlier thrust up in the air in front of the parish house of St. John's Episcopal Church across Lafayette Square from the White House. C-Span's raw footage of the walk-up to the St. John's Church photo-op in the summer of 2020 is a sobering set up. The suited cabinet members with deer in the headlights looks as they walk across Lafayette Park. The shambolic 3 minute "photo op" is as banal as you could imagine, the press herded along to play their role. (After protesters had been cleared by National Guard troops, with tear gas, smoke canisters, and pepper balls.) Ivanka hands off the featured prop.

Trump sends The Message: holding up a Bible. Almost nothing needs to be said. "We have a great country" he said, and he's going to make it even greater. It's beyond parody. Then he calls up a few of his toadies. "Chief" Mark Meadows. National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien. Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. Attorney General William Barr left in a hurry, didn't put a tie on. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. The President puts a finger to his lips to shush the press, points at the reporter he wants to shut up, just before Mark Meadows loses the plot, turns to gaze at the plywood-boarded Greek revival windows of the church. "Ok, thank you very much" the big man says, "We have the greated country in the world" and you can all go now.

Other noteworthy voices on this date: Timothy Snyder recaps his 20 lessons from the 20th Century, On Tyranny. "For those who want democracy and the rule of law in the United States after 2024, I would only add: now is the time to organize, to prepare to win locally and nationally, and to talk not only about what is to be lost but what can be gained." I see he's updated his 2017 pamphlet "to account for the Big Lie, the coup attempt, the war in Ukraine, and the risks we face in 2024."

Historian Heather Cox Richardson gives more detail on those latest FBI arrests, contrasting their story with that of the actual patriots of Valley Forge. Among her links is one to Marcy Wheeler's blog, Meet Johnny Pollock: ... leader of January 6 Lakeland insurrectionists.

Joyce Vance's Civil Discourse blog looks at the grind of justice, including the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the case of Trump being removed from Colorado's ballot, on February 8. She calls that "quickly," I call it another unnecessary month's delay. Vance writes (my emphasis added):

"I feel obligated to reiterate that we are here because Senate Republicans refused to convict Donald Trump on the article of impeachment charging him with inciting insurrection. The Supreme Court is only called upon to make that decision now because Senate Republicans failed in their duty to the country in the wake of January 6. Here we are, three full years later, with Trump still leading the Republican Party and seemingly on track to be their nominee for the presidency, despite his despicable history."

Senate Republicans including both of Idaho's members, Mike Crapo and Jim Risch.

"It’s important to be clear on who Trump’s political enablers are. He could not have run again if the members of his party who condemned his conduct in private, some in public, had done what they knew to be the right thing."

Oh, and Mark Esper has said a few words since that photo-op at St. Johns. In May, 2022, he admitted that his boss was yeah, a threat to democracy. Without saying it directly. But here now, for the anniversary, he's not tiptoeing quite so much.

“[Y]es, I do regard him as a threat to democracy, democracy as we know it, our institutions, our political culture, all those things that make America great and have defined us as, you know, the oldest democracy on this planet.”

Finally, the remarks by President Biden. "Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time, and it’s what the 2024 election is all about."

5.Jan.2024

The case against letting the insurrectionist run again

Jamelle Bouie spells out the case for disqualifying Trump from the 2024 ballot, succinctly (NYT gift link), and well. Never mind the inexplicably equivocating headline.

"In 2020, President Trump went to the voting public of the United States and asked for another four years in office. By 51 percent to 47 percent, the voting public of the United States said no. More important, Trump lost the Electoral College, 306 to 232, meaning there were enough of those voters in just the right states to deny him a second term.

"The people decided. And Trump said, in so many words, that he didn’t care. What followed, according to the final report of the House select committee on Jan. 6, was an effort to overturn the result of the election.

"Trump, the committee wrote, “unlawfully pressured state officials and legislators to change the results of the election in their states.” He “oversaw an effort to obtain and transmit false electoral certificates to Congress and the National Archives.” He “summoned tens of thousands of supporters to Washington for Jan. 6,” the day Congress was slated to certify the election results, and “instructed them to march to the Capitol” so that they could “‘take back’ their country.’” He even sent a message on Twitter attacking his vice president, Mike Pence, knowing full well that “a violent attack on the Capitol was underway.”

"In the face of this violence, Trump “refused repeated requests over a multiple hour period that he instruct his violent supporters to disperse and leave the Capitol, and instead watched the violent attack unfold on television.” He did not deploy the National Guard, nor did he “instruct any federal law enforcement agency to assist.”

"Trump sought and actively tried to subvert constitutional government and overturn the results of the presidential election. And what he could not do through the arcane rules and procedures of the Electoral College, he tried to do through the threat of brute force, carried out by an actual mob."

The facts have not been concealed in any way, nor are they in any serious dispute. The argument against disqualification is absurd: "Disqualification, goes the argument, would bring American democracy to the breaking point."

It's already there. Failure to disqualify would confirm it is fully broken.

Finally, a House Oversight bombshell

Featured in the Jan. 4 Letter from an American from my favorite historian blogger, Heather Cox Richardson. $7.8 million seems like small change, kind of, given how much slush our billionaire class moves around, but it's definitely not nothing, which is all James Comer seems to have come up with for all his trying. What I saw in the letter that didn't rise to the top of the headline coverage was that the amount with receipts was "likely only a fraction of the actual money exchanged, since they cover only four of more than 500 entities Trump owned at the time."

"When the Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January 2023, Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) stopped the investigation before [Trump's former accounting firm] Mazars had produced the documents the committee had asked for when Democrats were in charge of it. Those records included documents relating to Russia, South Korea, South Africa, and Brazil.

"Trump fought hard against the production of these documents, dragging out the court fight until September 2022. The committee worked on them for just four months before voters put Republicans in charge of the House and the investigation stopped."

The unending parade of unsubstantiated accusations is not going to let up, of course; the propaganda response to actual corruption is to match it (to multiply it) with gaslighting. As HCR puts it:

"Claiming that Biden is as corrupt as Trump undermines faith in our democracy. After all, if everyone is a crook, why does it matter which one is in office? And what makes American democracy any different from the authoritarian systems of Russia or Hungary or Venezuela, where leaders grab what they can for themselves and their followers?"

We're seeing the tenuous nature of the rule of law, these days, as the former guy's bottomless collection of lawyers drag out all the many cases against him, using the run-out-the-clock technique that's served him so well, and the people so poorly over his whole life.

I did see the soundbite that House Oversight Chair James Comer responded that it was "beyond parody that Democrats continue their obsession with Donald Trump," which, is such bald-faced parody itself, what can you say? Ranking Member Jamie Raskin responded, to say that's "amusing,"

"because the masochistic obsession with Donald Trump obviously belongs to Chairman Comer and all the Republicans who have used their legislative power to cover up evidence of Trump’s lawlessness and to serve his demands for personal vengeance. Chairman Comer and his partisans still cannot think of anyone else in their party qualified to be president.

"They continue to promote Trump for president (or dictator) even after he was impeached for inciting a violent insurrection against the Constitution, even after he has been found to be a sexual assailant and defamer of his victim and even after it has become clear that he stole classified and top-secret government documents and refused to return them. The moment the Republicans drop Donald Trump, who is a clear and present threat to American constitutional democracy, I will be pleased to never mention his name again in a political context and simply allow the courts and his family to deal with him. Is the Chairman too obsessed to let Trump go?"

Meanwhile, you know what the media are not talking about so much? The $2 billion of investment from the Saudi foreign wealth fund that Jared Kushner landed just after vacating 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, even though the board of the fund voted against giving Kushner the money, and had to be overruled by Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

All told (five months ago), more than $3 billion has been committed to Affinity Partners' assets under managment, three thousand $millions, an astounding haul for a brand new private equity guy whose most dramatic previous deal was getting Qatar to provide a $billion bailout for his 666 Fifth Avenue money pit—while he was working for the Trump administration, thanks to his dad-in-law (!) waiving his security clearance failure.

More than three quarters of the $3.1B came from the Arabian peninsula, a fifth from "Other Non-US" and barely 1% from US investors. It looks so bad that even James Comer was "vocal" back in August that "what Jared Kushner did crossed the line of ethics," but breezed it off because "Kushner actually has a legitimate business." Does he, really?

This just in:
New York AG seeks $370 Million from Trump for his civil fraud. In addition to the penalty, she's asking that Trump be barred from participating in New York’s real estate industry and from running any company in the state.

Update #2:
Another trophy for Letitia James' wall: Waybe LaPierre resigns as head of the NRA, with his corruption trial in NY set to open.

3.Jan.2024

Happy holidays

Happy New Year for those who celebrate, and a merry Perihelion whizzing by, 14 hours ago on the mark. We're a full 3 million miles closer to our star than at the far end of the ellipse, to be celebrated with ever-more insane fireworks this year, on the night of July 4th. More than 3.3% of the average between min/max, you'd think that would count for more, talk of a "Super Sun" for our northern winter sunrises. But no. (Today's sunrise hiding behind an unattractive inversion layer in any event.)

It didn't occur to me until just now, but let me resolve to use more of my gift links to the NYT and WaPo this year. We get ten a month, with no carryover. Use 'em or lose 'em. This one should be usefully durable for some months to come: Sync Your Calendar With the Solar System, for astronomical and space events through the year. People and things are going to the moon again! Vulcan might be leaving in less than a week, and who knew, "SLIM, a Japanese mission, should be the first lunar landing attempt of 2024, on Jan. 20. The small, experimental spacecraft launched in September and is already orbiting the moon." SLIM stands for Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, and look there, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has a pointy-swooshy logo that's going places. They were pleased to announce SLIM's insertion into lunar orbit, just in time for Christmas.

Also of note, and I love the name is the Europa Clipper setting sail for Jupiter's frozen confection of a moon in October (it's hoped) and arriving in 2030 (pace your enthusiasm). NASA's website for it is a wowser; scroll to the (imagined) view from the surface to see that scientists are almost certain a vast ocean lies beneath Europa's icy shell, in which we may have our first encounter of extraterrestrial life.

Catching up on Christmas Eve, I found Maureen Dowd's remembrance of The Church of Christmas Past interesting to compare with my own Catholic upbringing. (That link, in the Herald/Review, "serving all of Cochise County" uninhibited for me.) I left over disagreements about the dogma, rather than misdeeds. As a teenager, I found that I just didn't believe in any of the magic, nor the threats intended to keep me in line. I never personally "ran up against a mean priest," let alone an abusive one, so lucky me. The impression it left on my youthful psyche was more positive than negative, it seems to me, and I'm not harboring any grudges at this long remove. I think Pope Francis is the best they've had since John XXIII, but it's not my club anymore.

raveling

Tom von Alten