Friday Reads
Posted: January 6, 2017 Filed under: morning reads 43 Comments
Good Morning!
I don’t have a lot of time to distill these articles for you. I’ve got more of a link dump than anything. Let’s just say elections have consequences and the consequences of the 2016 election are looking increasingly dystopian. I have three superheros doing what I’d like to do. Go Wonder Woman! Go El Peso Hero! Go Captain America!!! Notice both Marvel and DC have made a villain of Orangeholio! We need to take this goon down!!!!
I’m headed to get what could be my last mammogram for awhile and blood draw and whatever else I need. The Republicans just voted to take away my health care. The repeal of the ACA puts millions of American’s Health–including mine–at risk. It’s waiting now for the signature of our Comic Book Villain whose installation by the Russians has me in mind of a bad James Bond movie.
The ReThuglicans are also talking about drastically changing Medicare which is the only thing that looms on the horizon for those of us that will likely be uninsurable in the private market. I am a cancer survivor. Things are coming unraveled quickly for many who were given hope during President Obama’s tenure. I owe both my home and health to his policies which were placed in jeopardy by the slash and burn policies of former Governor Bobby Jindal.
Now, Republican congressional leaders say they will repeal the ACA early this year, with a promise to replace it in subsequent legislation — which, if patterned after House Speaker Paul Ryan’s ideas, would be partly paid for by capping Medicare and Medicaid spending. They have yet to introduce that “replacement bill,” hold a hearing on it, or produce a cost analysis — let alone engage in the more than a year of public debate that preceded passage of the ACA. Instead, they say that such a debate will occur after the ACA is repealed. They claim that a 2- or 3-year delay will be sufficient to develop, pass, and implement a replacement bill.
This approach of “repeal first and replace later” is, simply put, irresponsible — and could slowly bleed the health care system that all of us depend on. (And, though not my focus here, executive actions could have similar consequential negative effects on our health system.) If a repeal with a delay is enacted, the health care system will be standing on the edge of a cliff, resulting in uncertainty and, in some cases, harm beginning immediately. Insurance companies may not want to participate in the Health Insurance Marketplace in 2018 or may significantly increase prices to prepare for changes in the next year or two, partly to try to avoid the blame for any change that is unpopular. Physician practices may stop investing in new approaches to care coordination if Medicare’s Innovation Center is eliminated. Hospitals may have to cut back services and jobs in the short run in anticipation of the surge in uncompensated care that will result from rolling back the Medicaid expansion. Employers may have to reduce raises or delay hiring to plan for faster growth in health care costs without the current law’s cost-saving incentives. And people with preexisting conditions may fear losing lifesaving health care that may no longer be affordable or accessible.
Furthermore, there is no guarantee of getting a second vote to avoid such a cliff, especially on something as difficult as comprehensive health care reform. Put aside the scope of health care reform — the federal health care budget is 50% bigger than that of the Department of Defense.3 Put aside how it personally touches every single American — practically every week, I get letters from people passionately sharing how the ACA is working for them and about how we can make it better. “Repeal and replace” is a deceptively catchy phrase — the truth is that health care reform is complex, with many interlocking pieces, so that undoing some of it may undo all of it.
Take, for example, preexisting conditions. For the first time, because of the ACA, people with preexisting conditions cannot be denied coverage, denied benefits, or charged exorbitant rates. I take my successor at his word: he wants to maintain protections for the 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions. Yet Republicans in Congress want to repeal the individual-responsibility portion of the law. I was initially against this Republican idea, but we learned from Massachusetts that individual responsibility, alongside financial assistance, is the only proven way to provide affordable, private, individual insurance to every American. Maintaining protections for people with preexisting conditions without requiring individual responsibility would cost millions of Americans their coverage and cause dramatic premium increases for millions more.4 This is just one of the many complex trade-offs in health care reform.
Given that Republicans have yet to craft a replacement plan, and that unforeseen events might overtake their planned agenda, there might never be a second vote on a plan to replace the ACA if it is repealed. And if a second vote does not happen, tens of millions of Americans will be harmed. A recent Urban Institute analysis estimated that a likely repeal bill would not only reverse recent gains in insurance coverage, but leave us with more uninsured and uncompensated care than when we started.5
Put simply, all our gains are at stake if Congress takes up repealing the health law without an alternative that covers more Americans, improves quality, and makes health care more affordable. That move takes away the opportunity to build on what works and fix what does not. It adds uncertainty to lives of patients, the work of their doctors, and the hospitals and health systems that care for them. And it jeopardizes the improvements in health care that millions of Americans now enjoy.
With this deed done and awaiting our Russian Puppet President’s signature, they are moving on to defunding Planned Parenthood. This is truly turning into a nightmare for which I have no adequate descriptions. People are going to die. Lots of people are going to die.
During a news conference on Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said the process to dismantle Obamacare will include stripping all federal funding for Planned Parenthood, but he did not provide much further detail.
His remarks come two days after a Republican-led House investigative panel released a report that recommended the health care provider be defunded. The investigative panel—created to examine allegations that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue for profit—was then disbanded, because it was not reauthorized for a new Congress. Planned Parenthood was never found guilty of any wrongdoing at the state or federal level, despite multiple GOP-led investigations.
Democrats immediately denounced the move. “I just would like to speak individually to women across America: This is about respect for you, for your judgment about your personal decisions in terms of your reproductive needs, the size and timing of your family or the rest, not to be determined by the insurance company or by the Republican ideological right-wing caucus in the House of Representatives,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). “So this is a very important occasion where we’re pointing out very specifically what repeal of the [Affordable Care Act] will mean to women.”
The measure to cut funding will appear in a special fast-track bill expected to pass Congress in February, during a session that allows legislation to bypass filibuster. The bill would need only a simple majority of senators to pass, rather than a 60-vote supermajority. Should the measure pass, according to the Washington Post, the largest women’s health care organization in the country would lose 40 percent of its funding. Planned Parenthood received $528 million in federal funding in 2014, and the government is its largest single source of funding.
A federal law known as the Hyde Amendment forbids the use of any federal funds for abortions. The money Planned Parenthood receives is for preventative screenings, birth control, and general women’s health care for their 2.5 million patients.
Jessica Valenti calls for us to not put up with demagoguery. We are literally now in a fight for our lives and for the American Way of life with White Nationalists and Right wing extremists.
As Americans continue to grapple with Donald Trump’s presidential win, it’s a lesson we need to remember more than ever: there’s nothing wrong with shaming people who have done shameful things. And there are few things more shameful than supporting a fascistic bigot.
Yet since the election, we’ve heard again and again that calling Trump enablers out for their bigotry is fruitless and wrong-headed. This line of argument, which comes mostlyfromwhite men who have the privilege of seeing racism and sexism as a thought experiment rather than a destructive reality, says that “identity politics” hurt Democrats and that the election is proof that feminism “lost”.
Trumpites and misguided liberals are eager to “move on,” insisting against allevidence that Trump’s campaign had nothing to do with sexism or racism. By doing so, they are encouraging Americans to be polite in the face of demagoguery.
But we cannot retreat from this clear line in the sand. Not only because shaming is deserved, but because it is effective, too.
I understand that Mitch McConnell intends to railroad through all the cabinet appointees too. He also has totally changed his tone on blocking SCOTUS appointments. He now suggests that no one do to him what he’s been doing for 8 long years; obstructing everything in his path.
Rolling back regulations for out of control Wall Street is on the agenda too. Don’t even get me started on what they intend to do on denying climate change. Nuclear options will be exercised. Be prepared to see arcane congressional procedures used to tear down everything achieved in the 20th and 21st century.
GOP lawmakers indeed look forward to exploiting this rare alignment. Folks on the Hill estimate that CRA will be used to nix somewhere between 8 and 12 rules. (Which ones should get the axe, and in what order, remains a subject of energetic internal debate. Those mentioned to me include the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order, greenhouse-gas emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks, and the Stream Protection Rule.) Not that there aren’t plenty of others they consider worthy of takedown. It’s largely a question of floor time, they tell me. The incoming president has his own priorities, not to mention a raft of appointees to be confirmed. Even with fast-tracking, lawmakers can invest only so much time tackling individual rules.
There is, in fact, a push in the House to supercharge the CRA. Currently, only one rule can be tackled per resolution. The Midnight Rules Relief Act would change that, allowing Congress to bundle and dispatch multiple rules with a single resolution, making the process even easy-peasier. The House passed the bill (for the second time since Election Day) on Wednesday, its second day back from break. Obama has vowed to veto it, but that only matters for another couple of weeks.
Safe to say, Democrats will find themselves less than delighted by CRA’s impact on the “new day coming” later this month. Fiddling with the legislative process invariably has unforeseen consequences. And now congressional Dems have little recourse but to try and gum up the works as much as possible, using whatever obscure, complex mind-numbingly arcane tools they can dig up. It won’t be pretty—but, then again, so little of what Congress does ever is.
Read the article on exactly what the CRA is and how it will be used.
To this end, one obscure legislative tool is suddenly getting scads of attention: a rarely used oversight measure called the Congressional Review Act, or CRA. Passed in 1996 as part of Newt Gingrich and the Revolution’s “Contract with America,” the CRA allows Congress to overturn rules freshly issued by federal agencies without going through all the rigamarole required to pass regular bills. Most notably, CRA resolutions cannot be filibustered, meaning Republicans need only a simple majority in both chambers to get the rollback party started. Those last-minute “midnight regulations” Obama has been so defiantly issuing on everything from fuel efficiency standards to the funding of Planned Parenthood? Any—or all––could easily be rendered Dead On Arrival under the CRA.
That’s the bottom line. Everything is under attack. EVERYTHING.
Actually, let’s talk a bit about global warning before the NASA is torn apart by the witch hunt and we no longer hear abou the science.
In September, Arctic sea ice shrank to the second-lowest level since records began in 1979. The lowest sea ice extent was recorded on September 17, 2012, when it fell to just 1.31 million square miles (3.39 million square kilometers).
The polar sea ice has a direct influence on ocean circulation, weather and regional climate across the globe. Vanishing sea ice is an easy indicator that climate change is taking place.
According to NASA, many global climate models predict that the Arctic will be ice-free for at least part of the year before the end of the 21st century. Some models predict an ice-free Arctic by midcentury.
Here’s an NPR story about the coastline in Louisiana disappearing that’s a direct result of this. Land and History are washing away.
Louisiana is losing its coast at a rapid rate because of rising sea levels, development and sinking marshland. Officials are trying to rebuild those marshes and the wetlands, but much of the coast can’t be saved. This makes Louisiana’s history an unwitting victim. As land disappears and the water creeps inland, ancient archaeology sites are washing away, too.
Richie Blink was born and raised in Plaquemines Parish, La. — way down south of New Orleans along the Mississippi River. Now he works for the National Wildlife Federation.
When he was a kid, his dad showed him a special place in Adams Bay, where they’d go fishing.
“We would come out of the floodgates and my dad would say ‘Head for the Lemon Trees!'” Blink says.
What’s locally known as the “Lemon Trees” is a stand of weathered old trees on a grassy tuft of land. It’s a well-known landmark for fishermen, but Blink says they would rarely stop there to hunt or fish because it’s a sacred Native American site.
“The legend goes that you were always to bring some kind of sacrifice, so somebody left some lemons for the ancestors,” Blink says.
And those grew into big trees with grapefruit-sized lemons. But as land was lost to the Gulf of Mexico, saltwater made its way into the freshwater marsh, killing off the trees and other plants.
The trees stand like skeletons on the edge of this scrappy, wind-beaten island. Waves beat against the dirt, washing it away, exposing shards of ancient pottery.
I feel like I wake up to a new horror every day. If Trump plans to build a boom economy on a fossil fuel bubble, it will fail badly and likely take the future of the planet with it.
Each of these bubbles just might expand for a while in the short run — which so-called balanced and objective journalists will report as signs that Trump’s policies are “working.” But they’ll have to join with Trump in denying reality in order to do so. Let’s examine each of these bubbles to see why.
The most troubling aspect is Trump’s commitment to the “carbon bubble,” a commitment to expanding the production of fossil fuels, despite the fact that 80 percent of existing reserves are unrecoverable or unusable —worth absolutely nothing — if we’re to survive as a civilization. Treating those reserves as if they will actually be used vastly overvalues them, creating a carbon asset bubble, just as multiple factors overvalued housing in the Bush years, in turn creating strong incentives for a wide range of foolish, destructive and even criminal acts.
The carbon bubble does exactly the same thing. It’s not just fossil fuel reserves that are overvalued by the bubble, but everything associated with the sector — pipelines, power plants, refineries, etc. — as well as assets at risk from climate change, such as waterfront property (see Miami Beach, still in deep denial).
The carbon bubble risk is only made worse by the fact that renewable energy costs have dropped dramatically in recent years, and become increasingly competitive. Thus, even if those reserves were not unburnable because of their potential impact on climate change, they will become so for economic reasons in the next few decades. For example, the World Economic Forum’s recently released “Renewable Infrastructure Investment Handbook: A Guide for Institutional Investors” reported:
[T]he unsubsidized, levellized cost of electricity (LCOE) for utility scale solar photovoltaic, which was highly uncompetitive only five years ago, has declined at a 20% compounded annual rate, making it not only viable but also more attractive than coal in a wide range of countries. By 2020, solar photovoltaic is projected to have a lower LCOE than coal or natural gas-fired generation throughout the world.
Add to this the fact that renewable energy — particularly solar and wind — is a new technology sector, in which large efficiency gains are to be expected. That’s quite unlike the fossil fuel industry, whose costs are increasing because the cheap, easy-to-get fuel has already been burned. By 2030, renewables could well leave fossil fuels in the dust. Which is why Trump’s embrace of the carbon bubble is particularly foolish.
So, I leave you with a lot to read and be depressed about for which I am sorry but we cannot afford to be ignorant in a day and age where ignorance is valued and so on display.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Monday Reads: The United States of Thugs (Russian installed and otherwise)
Posted: January 2, 2017 Filed under: Afternoon Reads 16 Commentsbonne année!!
Well, it’s 2017 and I can tell you that you’re best getting your research and journalism from Twitter these days by following the right people. People responsible for actual research are taking to Twitter like it’s their only hope. It’s one of the few places where you can really see the in-depth dig into Trump’s Russian mob connections which should make the Thug Elect impeachable from the moment he takes the oath of office.
So Adam Khan’s feed is a must read and follow.
https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/816005216298377216
The other is Selim Sazak.
https://twitter.com/scsazak/status/815034945714397184
Sazik did op research for three “clients” last year on Trump and his Russian Thug connections. He’s a PhD candidate and you have to work around the Tweets in Turkish although I had a friend translate a bunch of them last night for me while we we’re catching up over drinks at J&J’s. My friend’s also a professor in Middle Eastern Studies from here but teaching in Maryland. They’re kind of interesting and I’m assuming Google can translate them for me too.
A lot of what he’s found has been out there but not in what we’d call mainstream media. BB has covered some of this before, but it’s worth looking at these two researchers Twitter Story Boards as well as some of the original research from places like Foreign Policy. This is a 2014 article introducing us to the Corleones of the Caspian who are business associates of Trump as outlined by Sazak, Khan, and Financial Times (be sure to follow this link https://ig.ft.com/sites/trumps-russian-connections/ or google Trumps Russian connections.) among other reputable sources. If you really want some fascinating reads, start with those two folks and read their links and go straight down the Rabbit hole to the Russian Mafia that will soon hold the lease on the White House.
Here’s a good long thread to help you get a start:
https://twitter.com/Khanoisseur/status/813850552467476480
It includes links to magazines–this one is MOJO–and some side notes. The MOJO article that always intrigued me most is still where they write about a “veteran spy” who insists that the Russians have been grooming Trumpf for a long time.
Meanwhile, as the Russian version of the Sopranos awaits us on January 20th, Paul Krugman says we’re on our way to becoming Trumpistan and I think he’s right.
Meanwhile, with only a couple of weeks until Inauguration Day, Donald Trump has done nothing substantive to reduce the unprecedented — or, as he famously wrote on Twitter, “unpresidented” — conflicts of interest created by his business empire. Pretty clearly, he never will — in fact, he’s already in effect using political office to enrich himself, with some of the most blatant examples involving foreign governments steering business to Trump hotels.
This means that Mr. Trump will be in violation of the spirit, and arguably the letter, of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bars gifts or profits from foreign leaders, the instant he recites the oath of office. But who’s going to hold him accountable? Some prominent Republicans are already suggesting that, rather than enforcing the ethics laws, Congress should simply change them to accommodate the great man.
And the corruption won’t be limited to the very top: The new administration seems set to bring blatant self-dealing into the center of our political system. Abraham Lincoln may have led a team of rivals; Donald Trump seems to be assembling a team of cronies, choosing billionaires with obvious, deep conflicts of interest for many key positions in his administration.
In short, America is rapidly turning into a stan.
Is it possible Teen Vogue could be the most useful source of news in the country right now? Check out this headline: ” Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Made over $420,000 Selling Access to the President-elect on New Year’s Eve; “The transition is not concerned about the appearance of a conflict,” a spokesperson said,.”
To be clear, simply saying “the president cannot and does not have a conflict” in no way eliminates the obvious potential conflict of interest. Previous issues include but are not limited to Trump’s hotel in Washington D.C. and its pay-for-play potential, Trump’s attempt to prevent development on British wind farm because it would block the view from his golf course, and hisdiplomacy-disrupting call to Taiwan after scoping out the possibility of building Trump property in the region. There are a lot of other examples.
While Trump has said his sons will take over his business, many have suggested that the only way for Trump to truly avoid conflicts of interest is by divesting his assets entirely. As ethics expert Norman Eisen put it in an interview with Chuck Todd, “There is no way that Donald Trump can serve as the president of the United States and hang onto this enormous web of domestic and international businesses and keep an interest in them. He’s going to be conflicted, there’s going to be a cloud, a question every time he makes a decision. … He’s going to stumble over the Constitution.”
Or Vanity Fare be thanked for commiting random acts of journalism?
Only in America could a serial bankrupt pass himself off as a successful businessman. (And almost none of those he bankrupted were even regular businesses. They were casinos—where people essentially come to lose their money.)
Only in America could a man who offended Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, and African-Americans, as well as women, babies, and the handicapped, become the Republican nominee for president.
Only in America could a man for whom truth is an inconvenient concept feel comfortable referring to his opponent as “lying” and “crooked.”
There are more …
Der Spiegal compares Trump To Mussolini to check out exactly the extent of his loyalty to fascism and white nationalism or his own very grandiose need for ego assurance. Can he pass the Fascism test?
If it is fascism, then it would be a disaster on a global scale. See above. But if it isn’t fascism, it would be a defamation of Trump’s voters to call it that, akin to accusing them of helping to bring a fascist to power and potentially driving them away from democracy forever. That’s why we must exercise great care when using the term. What is fascism and how does it relate to Trump? Or to the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany party, the Freedom Party of Austria, France’s Front National or Viktor Orbán in Hungary?
In February, fascism expert Robert Paxton told the online magazine Slate that Trump “even looks like Mussolini in the way he sticks his lower jaw out.” There are also parallels when it comes to his treatment of women: Mussolini was accused of being addicted to sex (a charge, it must be said, that was never levelled at Hitler). At the political level, though, comparison is difficult because there are so many different ideas about what truly constitutes fascism.
Action française, which formed at the end of the 19th century, is considered Europe’s first fascist organization. Mussolini’s Italy became the first fascist country, followed by Hitler’s National Socialist Germany. Hungary, Croatia, Spain and Portugal also developed regimes during the 1930s and 1940s that had fascist elements. But the differences between Nazi Germany and Francisco Franco’s Spain were so great that it’s difficult to mention them in the same breath. Franco was a dictator, but didn’t seek control of his subjects’ thoughts and private lives. He wasn’t an imperialist and he didn’t seek to eradicate Judaism.
One early definition comes from German historian Ernst Nolte, who wrote a fair amount of nonsense in his career but who was an undisputed expert on fascism. He described it as such: “Fascism is anti-Marxism which seeks to destroy the enemy by the evolvement of a radically opposed and yet related ideology and by the use of almost identical and yet typically modified methods, always, however within the unyielding framework of national self-assertion and autonomy.” It’s a long-winded sentence and it provides little by way of orientation today, given that the Soviet Union no longer exists and Marxism is no longer considered be a real political adversary.
It’s a long an interesting read.
Robert Kutner prepares us for Impeachment. He’s definitely got a call to action out there on HuffPo.
Donald Trump is wildly unfit to be president, and he will demonstrate that in ways that break the law and violate the Constitution. Since the election, there have been three wishful efforts to keep Trump from the presidency: a recount doomed by a lack of evidence; a futile campaign to flip Trump electors; and an even more improbable drive to get the Supreme Court to annul the 2016 election.
These moves, indicative of magical thinking, make Trump’s opposition look a lot weaker than it is―at a time when the stakes for the Republic could not be higher. There will also be marches and demonstrations, but they will also look weak unless they have a strategic focus.
There is only one constitutional way to remove a president, and that is via impeachment.
What’s needed is a citizens’ impeachment inquiry, to begin on Trump’s first day in office.
The inquiry should keep a running dossier, and forward updates at least weekly to the House Judiciary Committee. There will be no lack of evidence.
The materials should be made public via a website. The inquiry should be conducted by a distinguished panel whose high-mindedness and credentials are, well, unimpeachable.
There needs to be a parallel public campaign, pressing for an official investigation. For those appalled by Trump, who wonder where to focus their efforts, here is something concrete―and more realistic than it may seem.
Trump has already committed grave misdeeds of the kind that the Constitutional founders described as high crimes and misdemeanors. With his commingling of his official duties and his personal enrichment, Trump will be in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which unambiguously prohibits any person holding public office from profiting from gifts or financial benefits from “any king, prince or Foreign state.”
Trump, who has entangled his business interests with his political connections at home and abroad, has already declared his contempt for these Constitutional protections. He declared, “The law is totally on my side, meaning the president can’t have a conflict of interest.” Oh, yes he can, and this president will.
In his dalliance with Vladimir Putin, Trump’s actions are skirting treason. John Shattuck, former Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and former Washington legal director of the ACLU has pointed to the constitutional definition of treason: a crime committed by a person “owing allegiance to the United States who… adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort.” By undermining further investigation or sanctions against the Russian manipulation of the 2016 election, Trump as president would be giving aid and comfort to Russian interference with American democracy.
The New Yorker sings the praises of The Return of Civil Disobedience. We shall resist.
Movements are born in the moments when abstract principles become concrete concerns. MoveOn arose in response to what was perceived as the Republican congressional overreach that resulted in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. The Occupy movement was a backlash to the financial crisis. The message of Black Lives Matter was inspired by the death of Trayvon Martin and the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. Occupy’s version of anti-corporate populism helped to create the climate in which Senator Bernie Sanders’s insurgent campaign could not only exist but essentially shape the Democratic Party platform. Black Lives Matter brought national attention to local instances of police brutality, prompting the Obama Administration to launch the Task Force on 21st Century Policing and helping defeat prosecutors in Chicago and Cleveland, who had sought reëlection after initially failing to bring charges against police officers accused of using excessive force.
President Obama will take to the stage in Chicago to tell us that our Democracy will survive. I wish I had that kind of faith and hope.
On the evening of Jan. 10, at Chicago’s McCormick Place, president Barack Obama will give his final address to the American people, a tradition that dates all the way back to George Washington. In 1796, after 45 years of public service, Washington penned a lengthy address about his decision not to run for a third term as president.
Just over 220 years later, that same speech is inspiring Obama, whowrote in an email to supporters that he was taking a cue from the original founding father for his own farewell. “In 1796, as George Washington set the precedent for a peaceful, democratic transfer of power, he also set a precedent by penning a farewell address to the American people,” Obama wrote. “And over the 220 years since, many American presidents have followed his lead.
“Since 2009, we’ve faced our fair share of challenges, and come through them stronger. That’s because we have never let go of a belief that has guided us ever since our founding—our conviction that, together, we can change this country for the better.”
Washington’s final address was handwritten over 32 pages, and touched on everything from geographical ideology to international alliances. Here are some choice excerpts (emphases mine); you can read the full text here or the original handwritten document here (pdf).
We’ll certainly be hanging together here and not alone.
Love you all! And my best to every one and their loved one’s during this very challenging time.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Last Friday of 2016 Reads: RESIST
Posted: December 30, 2016 Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: RESIST 25 Comments
The struggle continues in earnest. RESIST.
I’m not going to be celebrating the New Year as much as I will be crying over 2016 which turned hope into dread. The only hopeful thing I’m seeing at this point are the acts of deliberate protest against the Fascist regime we face starting January 20th. Some are more subtle than others. The most important thing is that must continue.
We must RESIST.
Mama Ayesha’s restaurant Washington, D.C.’s Adams Morgan neighborhood does not plan on painting President-elect Donald Trump into its presidential mural, the Washingtonian reported on Thursday.
“Our official position is that it is not in the budget,” Amir Abu-El-Hawa, a member of the family that owns the restaurant, told the publication.
The mural features the founder of the restaurant, “Mama” Ayesha Abraham, standing alongside 11 presidents, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Obama.
“She was the American dream. For a Muslim and Arab woman immigrant from Palestine to come here on her own and build this business, is a remarkable legacy,” said Abu-El-Hawa, who is the founder’s great-nephew.
According to the Washingtonian, the mural was painted by Karla “Karlisima” Rodas between 2007 and 2009 and was partially sponsored by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
The artist is Colombian born had has been in the USA since 1984. You can see more about the artist and the restaurant at the link. There’s a great video of the artist explaining her work and vision.
A member of the Mormon Tabernacle choir has resigned rather than be part of an organization that would participate in the Inauguration of the Hair Furor. The best part is that she said she “could not throw roses at Hitler” and would “certainly never sing for him”.
President-elect Donald Trump’s plans for his inauguration have hit another bump in the road. A member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which is slated to perform at the event, has quit in protest and penned an open letter explaining her reasoning.
Jan Chamberlin announced her resignation from the Church of Jesus Chris of Latter-day Saints-affiliated choir in a note on Facebook on Thursday. In the letter, which is addressed to the choir’s leader and her family and friends, Chamberlin said that after reflection and prayer and with “a sad and heavy heart,” she is resigning her position in the choir.
T-rump continues to have a difficult time getting any one to perform at his installment. Performance is definitely a political statement for many and even those who may like him are afraid of the blowback from those of us that RESIST.
Unlike any other year, however, the overarching theme of performing at Trump’s swearing-in is that of risk. “An artist would be risking too much,” notes Horowitz. “Their career, their fan base, their relationships in the music industry. As one of the most divisive president-elects in history, Trump shouldn’t be surprised that he’s facing a lack of support.”
Meanwhile, a restaurant in Hawaii has banned Trump voters saying “No Nazis”.
Café 8 ½ in Honolulu, Hawaii, is facing harsh criticism for hanging a sign on its front door that tells voters who cast their ballot for President-elect Donald Trump to eat elsewhere.
“If you voted for Trump you cannot eat here! No Nazis,” reads the yellow sign, as reported by Fox News on Tuesday.
Here’s a great interview to read at VersoBooks: “Trump, fascism, and the construction of “the people”: An interview with Judith Butler”. Isn’t it nice to see people calling it what it is? FASCISM!!!!
What does Donald Trump represent? The American philosopher Judith Butler, professor at Berkeley University, has recently published a short book in French, Rassemblement [Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly]. She explains that Donald Trump incarnates a new form of fascism. As she puts it, “A lot of people are very happy to see this disturbing, unintelligent guy parading around as if he was the centre of the Earth and winning power thanks to this posture.”
Many writers and intellectuals in the United States and Europe have expressed their views on the Trump phenomenon; mostly to express their consternation or their reprobation, condemning the excesses of his language or expressing their alarm at his proposals to build a wall on the Mexican border or to expel millions of undocumented migrants. But if we are to try to understand what is going on with “Trump” — the Trump phenomenon — then we need to bear in mind the analyses that Judith Butler has elaborated since the late 1990s, from her Excitable Speech, A Politics of the Performative to her latest book, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly.
Mediapart: Might we say that Donald Trump is a sort of “figure in the carpet” of the analyses you have been producing over the last two decades? Is Trump not a “Butlerian object” par excellence
Judith Butler: I am not sure that Trump is a very good object for the analyses that I usually conduct. For example, I do not think that there is a fascination for Trump as a person. And when we look at his speeches, we also have to consider more particularly the effects this discourse has on a certain fringe of the American people. Let us not forget that he was elected by less than a quarter of the population, and that he is on the brink of becoming president only thanks to the existence of an archaic Electoral College.
So we should not imagine that Trump enjoys wide popular support. There is a general disillusionment with the political field and a certain scorn for the two main US parties. But Hillary Clinton got more votes than Trump. So when we ask about the support for Trump, we should also ask ourselves how it was that a minority of Americans was able to bring him to power. What we need to interrogate is not an upsurge of popular support [for Trump], but a democratic deficit. The Electoral College should be abolished so that our elections more clearly reflect the popular will. I also believe that our political parties should be rethought in order to increase popular participation in the democratic process.
The minority that supported Trump, the minority allowing him this electoral success, was able to achieve its goal not only thanks to its own rejection of the political field but also the fact that almost 50% of the electorate expressed their disaffection by not going out to vote. Perhaps we ought to speak of the collapse of democratic participation in the United States.
I think that Trump unleashed a rage that has many causes and many targets, and we should probably be sceptical of those who claim to know the true cause, the one single object of this anger. The state of economic devastation and disappointment and the loss of hope for the future — born of economic and financial movements that have decimated whole communities — certainly did play an important role. But so, too, did the United States’ increasing demographic complexity, as well as forms of racism both old and new… There is a desire for “firmness,” expressed through the strengthening of state power against foreigners and undocumented workers, but this is also accompanied by a desire for greater freedom from the burden of government: a slogan simultaneously serving both individualism and the market.
Here’s a ten-point list of what we can do in the upcoming year(s) of the work to tear down our country within the White House itself. Peter Drier suggests we prepare ourselves. I love this first one.
1. Don’t forget: Trump does not have a mandate. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote byclose to 3 million votes. Only 27 percent of the nation’s 231 million eligible voters voted for Trump. In the first election in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act, Republicans intensified their voter-suppression efforts, targeting black and Latino communities in key battleground states. More than 40 percent of eligible voters did not vote; most non-voters were low-income, minority and/or young Americans who, had they gone to the polls, would have voted Democratic. Polls also show that even most Trump voters do not agree with much of his policy agenda. A CBS survey showed about one-quarter of Trump voters said he is not qualified to be president. Seventy percent of all voters said immigrants without documents should be able to apply for legal status rather than be deported.
But, can we ever forget exactly how much we saw racism, misogyny, and xenophobia on display this last year? Can we face down our disappointment at being wrong when we thought that America was basically good and couldn’t go down this rabbit hole of hate? Can the struggle for justice succeed?
After Trump’s election, it is more or less impossible to believe that we are making meaningful progress. White liberals who woke up horrified on Nov. 9 weren’t horrified because the world had suddenly changed—we were horrified because the scales had finally fallen from our eyes, and we could at least see our unjust, racist, sexist country for what it is. The next president will not be a woman, the makeup of the Supreme Court will not shift toward progressivism, and we are not jolly passengers on a cruise ship sailing toward an era of tolerance, justice, and respect for the dignity and rights of all.
The first challenge is being met now. Trump’s spin on Russian interference in our election is falling apart. The Alt-Right enablers have going from denying Russian involvement to saying it was a good thing. How can this not be seen as treason?
This morning, Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the Obama administration’s announcement yesterday that the United States will undertake sweeping retaliation against Russia for its alleged interference in our election. In a surprise, Putin said he would not be expelling U.S. diplomats as part of the escalating tensions.
This led to some speculation that Putin is simply biding his time until Donald Trump takes over as president, putting someone more friendly to Putin and Russia in the White House — hopefully meaning all those bad feelings about possible Russian efforts to tip the election to Trump can be forgotten. Trump, too, has been saying we need to “move on.”
Reporters and scholars continue to be under attack for providing evidence. False claims from Alt Right enablers are sending Trump Goons into attack and threat mode.
If we ever had any doubt that DudeBroProgs are just Republicans in hipster clothing who smoke pot, take a look at this Chait headline: “Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson Unite to Dismiss Russian Hacking Allegations”. At least were seeing the birds of that feather finally flock together.
One of the great meetings of journalistic minds took place last week, when left-wing journalist Glenn Greenwald appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson. The segment was devoted to their purportedly strange agreement over the Russian hacking story (which is not actually strange at all, given their mutual antipathy for the center-left). Greenwald has long dismissed the charge that Russia manipulated WikiLeaks’ publication of Democratic party emails as a “smear,” mocking suspicions of misbehavior by what he referred to in sarcastic capitalized words as “The Russians”; he called it typical of the Democrats’ alleged tendency to use false attacks against Russia to discredit its adversaries (“So WikiLeaks has become an enemy of the Democratic Party, and they seem to have one tactic with their adversaries and enemies, which is to accuse them of being Russian agents”). On Carlson’s program, Greenwald attacked the Washington Post for reporting that the CIA and the FBI believed Russia’s hacking was intended to help Trump win. It is a remarkable segment that merits close reading.
“Should we believe that assessment?” asked Carlson. “We should be extremely skeptical of it for multiple reasons,” replied Greenwald. “These are assertions that are being made unaccompanied by any evidence whatsoever.”
https://twitter.com/AlGiordano/status/814660479683534848?lang=en
We actually need to thank Lady Lindsey and her sidekick McGrumpy McGrumpkins for doing the right thing today.
Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain has scheduled a hearing on cyber threats for Thursday, where the issue of Russia’s election-year hacking will take center stage, a source familiar with the committee’s planning told POLITICO.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Agency and Cyber Command Chief Adm. Mike Rogers and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Marcel Lettre are scheduled to testify, according to the source.
The timing of the hearing — three days into the new Congress — is in the same week that President-elect Donald Trump says he plans to be briefed by the intelligence community on the Russian hacking.
This is going to be a long, draining struggle but I don’t think we have much of a choice at this point but to fight all we can.
RESIST.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Careening towards disastrous 2017
Posted: December 28, 2016 Filed under: just because 38 Comments
This is just an open thread. But, if any one can explain why a Victorian artist would put an animated potato on a New Year’s postcard I would be much obliged! Is this Mr Potatoheads’s Grandspud?
President Obama was named Most Admired Man in America for the 9th time. Hillary Clinton was named Most Admired Woman in America for the 15th consecutive year.This brings her total to a record-breaking 21 times.
Please note that “record-breaking,” does not mean “for a woman”. Clinton earned this title more times than any person–man or woman–since this distinction was created back in the 1940s.
Eat shit and die T-RUMP.
Monday Reads: 2016 has been like a year long Red Wedding
Posted: December 26, 2016 Filed under: Afternoon Reads 23 Comments
Well, it’s the last week of 2016 and the only thing I can think is that it’s a prelude to 2017 which is lining up to be an even worse year although we don’t know which of the icons that wrote the soundtrack to our lives will die at this time. I’m actually more concerned about the death of more important things like civil liberties and civil rights.
But, before I move on to my tribute to people who resisted Fascism in the past as inspiration for what faces us in 2017, let me just say goodbye to George Michael whose life, loves and music was unapologetically, in your face sexuality after being outted by Tabloids. George Michael was fierce.
I can barely get through a week without listening to his outstanding tribute with Queen to Freddie Mercury. He considered it his proudest but saddest moment. I’ve linked to a video of Queen and George in rehearsal for that performance where you can see David Bowie watching with Seal. It feels like George RR Martin wrote the script for 2016 where all the good guys get killed and the bad guys take over the kingdom. Seriously, it feels that way to me.
Here’s some inspiration from the past to help us buckle up as we careen towards 2017 and the take over of our government by Fascists. A flamboyant sportscaster led a secret mission to get his family out of Germany during those famous 1936 Berlin Olympic games. His story is now coming to light.
But here’s where we can start. Stanley Wertheim was a little more than 2 years old when Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. He doesn’t remember much from his childhood in Warburg, about 400 kilometers southwest of Berlin.
“I have some memories, but they’re vague. And only memories of certain incidents,” he says.
In one of those incidents, Stanley wandered out of his family’s backyard.
“And saw everyone saying ‘Heil Hitler’ and raising their arms, and so I did the same thing,” Stanley recalls. “Until, finally, some man caught me by the back of the neck and dragged me back to my house. ‘Cause that could have resulted in serious consequences.”
Stanley Wertheim is Jewish. Everything he did — or didn’t do — could have resulted in serious consequences.
The Olympics came to Berlin when Stanley was 6. The world was becoming concerned about German militarization and discrimination against Jews. And the regime hoped to send the message that there was nothing to fear.
So, the Games were important for Hitler and the Third Reich, but they weren’t of much consequence to 6-year-old Stanley Wertheim and his family.
“Well, that meant nothing to us except that Ted would be here,” Stanley says.
Also worth reading is the obituary of 96 year old Marion Pritchard who saved the lives of around 150 Jewish people and children in acts of bravery that should be told and retold. She was a true hero.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
We take time now to remember Marion van Binsbergen Pritchard who died this month at the age of 96. During the second world war in her native Holland, she helped more than 150 Jews evade the Nazis. Her son Ivor Pritchard told us how she became a rescuer.
IVOR PRITCHARD: She was riding her bicycle down the street and came upon a scene where the Germans were collecting Jewish children, just picking them up by the arm and the leg and the hair and throwing them into a truck. And there were two women who saw this. And they went up to the Germans and protested, whereupon they took the two women and put them in the truck, too, and drove off. And my mother witnessed this.
CHANG: From that moment forward, she committed herself to protecting Jews. She shuttled young children from one hiding place to another. Little ones couldn’t be moved in the dark after curfew because they might cry out, so she transported them in broad daylight.
PRITCHARD: She would put a child on her bicycle and pedal down the street. And the German soldiers would see the young woman with her child and wave at her, and she would wave at them. And she would go right by to wherever she needed to go.
CHANG: For almost three years, Marion helped hide a Jewish man and his three children in a home outside Amsterdam. One day, several Germans and a local Dutch collaborator came to the door looking for Jews. They left without finding the hidden family. But then…
PRITCHARD: The Dutch collaborator came back by himself. And she had a revolver that had been given to her by the friend in the resistance. And she didn’t know what else to do, so she shot him. So now she’s got a Dutch collaborator dead on the floor. What’s she going to do?
CHANG: Marion had a friend who found a delivery man to pick up the body and a mortician to dispose of it. This is the lesson that Marion Pritchard took from that story.
PRITCHARD: The world, at that time, did not neatly divide up into perpetrators, victims, bystanders and rescuers. The delivery man wasn’t actively involved in the resistance. The mortician wasn’t actively involved in the resistance. And yet, when asked, they cooperated.
In two truly bizarre acts of weirdness, the Trump administration seems to have declared itself the beacon for radical christianity in an act of unconstitutional unrepentant reptilian ickiness. Then T-Rump himself sends out a weirdish christmas greeting that looks like a raised white power fist. It was such a tiny fist with such tiny fingers.
Sean Spicer is going to be T-Rump’s press secretary and he’s already caused quite the controversy with a badly worded tweet which appears to be the way of things right now. One badly worded tweet after another on things that are blatantly not constitutional, legal or American. Who tweets out about freaking Kings these days anyway? George RR Martin are you writing this script? Please, let us know.
President-elect Donald Trump’s team yesterday accused media critics of politicizing Christmas after a holiday message from the Republican Party sparked a Twitter war over whether the GOP was comparing Trump to Jesus Christ.
The message released yesterday by the Republican National Committee read in part, “Over two millennia ago, a new hope was born into the world, a Savior who would offer the promise of salvation to all mankind.
“Just as the three wise men did on that night, this Christmas heralds a time to celebrate the good news of a new King,” the statement continued.
That last clause caused social media users of both parties to question whether the “new King” referred to on “this Christmas” was Trump.
For a lift, check out our Seventh Ward Santa who made the NPR news.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
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