Finally Friday Reads: The Regime of Chaos and Death

Posted: January 31, 2025 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: Broligarchy, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, MAGA Assholes | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Avian Flu and Egg Prices, Cabinet of Shame, FARTUS and Elonia, federal employees, Federal Purges, idiocracy, Inside Attacks on Federal Agencies, kakistocracy | 6 Comments

“State of the Union.”John (repeat1968) Buss, @johnbuss.bsky.social

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

The last ten days of our country’s life have been wrought with chaos, death, and higher prices. This is what you get in a kakistocracy because no one in charge knows what they’re doing. We’ve had the first in-air collision in nearly a quarter of a century. There was already a shortage of air traffic controllers and pressure on the FAA by Congress to allow higher levels of traffic when these steps were taken by FARTUS and Elonia to dismantle the FAA and related regulations. Elonia is making the rounds at all Government Agencies, ensuring chaos and disruption abound. This is from Public Notice. “DCA crash puts Trump’s appalling unfitness on full display. When crisis hits, he makes it worse.”

Donald Trump’s first actions back in the White House included demolishing an air travel security advisory group, forcing out the head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for corrupt reasons, implementing a hiring freeze for air traffic controllers as part of a bigoted rampage against women and people of color, and sending blanket resignation offers to the remaining FAA employees.

Then tragedy struck. Nine days after Trump took office, a military helicopter collided with a passenger jet just above Reagan National Airport (DCA) airport, killing 67 people. A report indicates staffing in DCA’s air traffic control tower at the time of the collision was “not normal for the time of day and volume of traffic.”

It’s America’s worst aviation disaster since 2001. And it shows the danger of wantonly destroying a federal government whose functioning remains vital for, among other things, keeping air travelers safe.

Does the new president have regrets about any of this? Of course not. Instead, Trump responded to the disaster by appointing an acting FAA head a day late and a dollar short, then held a dystopian media event where he signed an order pinning blame for the crash on Biden, Obama, and the Democratic Party in general.

Actually, Axios shows the facts that Air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists are overwhelmingly white men. I had an aunt who was an Air Traffic Controller in Boulder, Colorado, back in the 1960s. The training, testing, and demands on them were stringent, and even more so now.

President Trump rallied against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in air traffic control as having contributed to the deadly plane crash outside of D.C. Wednesday, but the data paints a different picture.

The big picture: Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau and IPUMS show air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists are predominately male and white.

By the numbers: 78% are men, while 22% are women, per data from the U.S. Census Bureau and IPUMS.

71% identify as non-Hispanic white.
The data includes air traffic controllers and airfield operations specialists working in air transportation or services incidental to transportation.

CBS News reports the latest update on the tragedy. One thing stood out given the shortage of air traffic controllers just made worse by FARTUS and Elonia.

One air traffic control worker was managing the helicopters and some planes from the Reagan National Airport tower at the time of the collision, a job normally done by two people, two sources tell CBS News.

Also, the pilots of the Black Hawk helicopters and the American Airlines jet were ALL WHITE MEN. The co-pilot of the helicopter was a woman, per The Guardian. They were all seasoned aviators.

Elonia is making serious trouble at the US Treasury. This is from WAPO. “Senior U.S. official to exit after rift with Musk allies over payment system. A top Treasury career staffer, David A. Lebryk, announced his retirement. Surrogates of Musk’s DOGE effort had sought access to sensitive payment systems.” My role at the New Orleans Fed included managing the Treasury TT&L payments and Bond Sales. My grandfather held a much bigger but same position at the Kansas City Fed during two World Wars. I am seriously familiar with the amount of protection over FedWire and the other transmittal systems. I wouldn’t want anyone outside the Fed or a long-term Treasury employee near it. You have no idea how tightly those things are monitored. A breach would seriously harm the economy and undermine the US Dollar. You also have to have security clearances. To my knowledge, Elonia hasn’t and wouldn’t be approved under the usual circumstances.

The highest-ranking career official at the Treasury Department is departing after a clash with allies of billionaire Elon Musk over access to sensitive payment systems, according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks.

David A. Lebryk, who served in nonpolitical roles at Treasury for several decades, announced his retirement Friday in an email to colleagues obtained by The Washington Post. President Donald Trump named Lebryk as acting secretary upon taking office last week. Lebryk had a dispute with Musk’s surrogates over access to the payment system the U.S. government uses to disburse trillions of dollars every year, the people said. The exact nature of the disagreement was not immediately clear, they said.

Officials affiliated with Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” have been asking since after the election for access to the system, the people said — requests that were reiterated more recently, including after Trump’s inauguration.

A spokeswoman for DOGE declined to comment. Lebryk could not be reached for comment late Thursday.

When Scott Bessent was confirmed as treasury secretary on Monday, Lebryk ceased to be the acting agency head.

Typically only a small number of career officials control Treasury’s payment systems. Run by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the sensitive systems control the flow of more than $6 trillion annually to households, businesses and more nationwide. Tens, if not hundreds, of millions of people across the country rely on the systems, which are responsible for distributing Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries for federal personnel, payments to government contractors and grant recipients and tax refunds, among tens of thousands of other functions.

The clash reflects an intensifying battle between Musk and the federal bureaucracy as the Trump administration nears the conclusion of its second week. Musk has sought to exert sweeping control over the inner workings of the U.S. government, installing longtime surrogates at several agencies, including the Office of Personnel Management, which essentially handles federal human resources, and the General Services Administration, which manages real estate. (Musk was seen on Thursday visiting GSA, according to two other people familiar with his whereabouts, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters. That visit was first reported by the New York Times.) His Department of Government Efficiency, originally conceived as a nongovernmental panel, has since replaced the U.S. Digital Service.

Yes, there are likely some places where the “bureaucracy” could be reduced, but the databases on the bank transfers should remain strictly off-limits to anyone who doesn’t have a security clearance. Meanwhile, “Trump’s FCC chair investigates NPR and PBS, urges Congress to defund them
Brendan Carr described as “Trump’s Censorship Czar” as he launches media probes.”

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS in a move that Democrats described as an attempt to intimidate the media.

“I am writing to inform you that I have asked the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau to open an investigation regarding the airing of NPR and PBS programming across your broadcast member stations,” Carr wrote in a letter yesterday to the leaders of NPR and PBS.

Carr alleged that NPR and PBS are violating a federal law prohibiting noncommercial educational broadcast stations from running commercial advertisements. “I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” Carr wrote. “In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”

Carr’s letter did not provide any specific examples of underwriting announcements that might violate the law, but said the “announcements should not promote the contributor’s products, services, or businesses, and they may not contain comparative or qualitative descriptions, price information, calls to action, or inducements to buy, sell, rent, or lease.”

I guess FARTUS can hawk merch, but Sesame Street can’t. These people are fucking insane.

Here are some other stomach-churning headlines.

New York Times: Trump Administration Shocks Senior F.B.I. Ranks by Moving to Replace Them
Michael Sainato /The Guardian: Independent regulators in ‘real danger’ after Trump firings, say ex-NLRB chairs
ABC News: Federal employees told to remove pronouns from email signatures by end of day
NBC News: Defense agency bans Black History Month and other ‘special observances’
Biden-appointed Census Bureau director resigns midway through term — Census Bureau Director Robert Santos’ resignation will allow Trump to reshape the agency.
Sanjana Karanth / HuffPost: New DOT Memo Directs Funds To Communities With Higher ‘Marriage And Birth Rates’
Kate Kelly / New York Times: Official Email Urges Federal Workers to Find More Productive Jobs
CNN: EPA workers receive emails warning their employment could be terminated

I am having a hard time not being overwhelmed at this point. This doesn’t mention the disastrous Senate Hearings for Tulsi Gabbard, RFK jr, and Kash Patel. RFK Jr looks more ready to be a California Raisin than head of HHS. And wtf is with Kash Patel’s eyes? This is from The Hill. “Top FBI officials brace for Trump shake-up.”

Top officials at the FBI are facing a shake-up by the Trump administration.

According to House Judiciary Committee Democrats, the five executive assistant directors of the bureau were notified they would be demoted.

“These changes will further jeopardize our national security, leaving the FBI with no experienced senior leadership and a partisan Trump loyalist heading up the Bureau’s response to increasing security threats from Russia, China, and other authoritarian adversaries,” the committee said in a fact sheet circulated to House Democrats.

The move targets the band of top officials who oversee the FBI’s five internal branches and are among the highest-ranking career positions in the bureau. Many report directly to the director and deputy director.

They oversee the FBI’s national security branch and criminal and cyber branch, among others.

The FBI and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

I wouldn’t want a kidnapped child’s case in the hands of any of these people. This article is from the BBC. “Five takeaways from Gabbard and Patel’s confirmation hearings.”

Several of President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees faced tough questioning from Republicans and Democrats alike during hours-long confirmation hearings on Thursday.

Former Democrat and military veteran Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence, was grilled about her past remarks supporting government whistleblower Edward Snowden as well as her relationships with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syria’s former dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor and Trump administration aide, was pressed on his prior comments praising those involved in the 6 January Capitol riots as well as his ties to the QAnon movement.

Read the analysis at the links. I want to add one more thing that’s another mark on the path of the Louisiana Governor’s attempts to sideline professors he doesn’t like. Political firing of tenured professors is another MAGA mishap. “LSU law professor sidelined for political speech sues university. Professor alleges university is violating its own policies regarding tenured faculty.” This is from the Louisiana Illuminator.

A tenured LSU law professor removed from his classes pending an investigation into alleged political comments is suing the university, saying it violated his First Amendment rights and its own policies.

Ken Levy, a professor of constitutional and criminal law, alleges he was removed from his classes earlier this month after political comments made on the first day of his Administration of Criminal Justice course were reported to Gov. Jeff Landry, which he believes led to calls to the university administration about his comments.

In his affidavit, Levy says that he brought up Landry’s comments regarding fellow law professor Nick Bryner and asked his students not to record his lectures because he didn’t want to be targeted by Landry.

“If Governor Landry were to retaliate against me, then f*** the governor and f*** that. — all of which was a joke and clearly said in a joking manner to highlight my no recording policy in class and the First Amendment,” Levy wrote in the affadavit.

Landry called on LSU to discipline Bryner last year for his comments about President Trump the day after the presidential election.

Levy argues in the affidavit that the actions taken against him stifle not only his right to free speech and academic freedom but that of other faculty members.

Landry spokeswoman Kate Kelly referred questions to LSU. University spokesman Todd Woodward has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Levy is asking a judge to grant a temporary restraining order that would allow him to return to teaching as well as an order prohibiting LSU from taking further action against him.

In the suit, Levy also alleges LSU also violated its own policies regarding the punishment of a tenured professor.

These actions are fascist purges. I can only tell you that I feel much worse off than I did two weeks ago. Also, I just paid $9.06 for 1/2 dozen eggs. Do we have a task force on the Avian Flu yet? They have one in Canada already. Japan has one too. Here’s a few headlines on that from a few weeks ago. No word at the moment. Just wondering how many people will die from this disease because FARTUS is an idiot.

New York Times: Trump Administration Temporarily Mutes Federal Health Officials. Scientific meetings were canceled, and research data on the bird flu outbreak was delayed, amid confusion over the directive.

Forbes: Why The U.S. Could Be Making The Same Mistakes With Bird Flu As It Did With COVID-19.

The first severe case of bird flu occurred last month in a Louisiana man hospitalized after having had contact with sick birds in a backyard flock. In addition, the state of California recently declared a state of emergency as the bird flu virus continues to spread among livestock in the state.

To date, there have been 66 confirmed human cases of bird flu in the United States, according to the CDC. The current public health risk remains low, as no sustained human-to-human transmission has occurred.

Some obvious questions remain- like how did the U.S. allow a patient to get severely ill from the virus? Also, are we repeating the same mistakes we made with the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020? Here are some reasons we may be repeating history.

You can read the reasons on the link. I was a little slow getting this done today. I was one the phone with doctors and vets all morning and it took longer than I thought it would. Love you all and Stay Safe!

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: January 25, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: American Fascists, cat art, caturday, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Donald Trump, Foreign Affairs, immigration, U.S. Politics | 11 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Alexandr Klemens The White Cat’s Slumber in the Library

Everything is going to hell in a handbasket, as everyone here knows. Trump is issuing shock executive orders at an unbelievable pace. His goal is to overwhelm us and force us to give up in despair. Of course many of his orders are illegal and/or unconstitutional and many others are simply idiotic. We’re in for four years of this–if we still have elections in the future.

I was born right after World War II, in 1947. In the aftermath of the war, there were dramatic changes in U.S. culture. The culture continued to change in many positive ways during my lifetime–until recently.

Trump managed to put the Supreme Court under right wing control, and they proceeded to overturn Roe v. Wade, making women once again second-class citizens.

The court had already weakened many of the advances in Civil Rights that took place in of 1960s and 1970s, such as voting rights. Now they are poised to continue overturning more of the rights we have gained in recent years, including the right to same sex marriage. This was happening before Trump, but he has greatly speeded up the process.

I’ve been thinking about all this, because of a wonderful essay I read this morning by historian Heather Cox Richardson at “Letter from an American.”

She begins by describing events that took place after D-Day. U.S. troops were exhausted and were told to rest in the Ardennes region of Belgium. Then the Germans organized a massive offensive on the Ardennes that led to the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans told allied soldiers they had no choice but to surrender, but they refused.

“NUTS!”

That was the official answer Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe delivered to the four German soldiers sent on December 22, 1944, to urge him to surrender the town of Bastogne in the Belgian Ardennes….

Members of his staff were more colorful when they had to explain to their German counterparts what McAuliffe’s slang meant. “Tell them to take a flying sh*t,” one said. Another explained: “You can go to hell.”

By the time of this exchange, British forces had already swung around to stop the Germans, Eisenhower had rushed reinforcements to the region, and the Allies were counterattacking. On December 26, General George S. Patton’s Third Army relieved Bastogne. The Allied counter offensive forced back the bulge the Germans had pushed into the Allied lines. By January 25, 1945, the Allies had restored the front to where it had been before the attack and the battle was over.

The Battle of the Bulge was the deadliest battle for U.S. forces in World War II. More than 700,000 soldiers fought for the Allies during the 41-day battle. The U.S. alone suffered some 75,000 casualties that took the lives of 19,000 men. The Germans lost 80,000 to 100,000 soldiers, too many for them ever to recover.

The Allied soldiers fighting in that bitter cold winter were fighting against fascism, a system of government that rejected the equality that defined democracy, instead maintaining that some men were better than others. German fascists under leader Adolf Hitler had taken that ideology to its logical end, insisting that an elite few must lead, taking a nation forward by directing the actions of the rest. They organized the people as if they were at war, ruthlessly suppressing all opposition and directing the economy so that business and politicians worked together to consolidate their power. Logically, that select group of leaders would elevate a single man, who would become an all-powerful dictator. To weld their followers into an efficient machine, fascists demonized opponents into an “other” that their followers could hate, dividing their population so they could control it.

In contrast to that system was democracy, based on the idea that all people should be treated equally before the law and should have a say in their government. That philosophy maintained that the government should work for ordinary people, rather than an elite few. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt inspired the American people to defend their democracy—however imperfectly they had constructed it in the years before the war—and when World War II was over, Americans and their allies tried to create a world that would forever secure democracy over fascism.

Winter Slumber, Shawn Braley

After we defeated the fascists, many dramatic changes took place:

The 47 allied nations who had joined together to fight fascism came together in 1945, along with other nations, to create the United Nations to enable countries to solve their differences without war. In 1949 the United States, along with Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the U.K., created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a peacetime military alliance to stand firm against aggression, deterring it by declaring that an attack on one would be considered an attack on all.

At home, the government invested in ordinary Americans. In 1944, Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, more commonly known as the G.I. Bill, to fund higher education for some 7.8 million former military personnel. The law added to the American workforce some 450,000 engineers, 180,000 medical professionals, 360,000 teachers, 150,000 scientists, 243,000 accountants, 107,000 lawyers, and 36,000 clergymen.

In 1946 the Communicable Disease Center opened its doors as part of an initiative to stop the spread of malaria across the American South. Three years later, it had accomplished that goal and turned to others, combatting rabies and polio and, by 1960, influenza and tuberculosis, as well as smallpox, measles, and rubella. In the 1970s it was renamed the Center for Disease Control and took on the dangers of smoking and lead poisoning, and in the 1980s it became the Centers for Disease Control and took on AIDS and Lyme disease. In 1992, Congress added the words “and Prevention” to the organization’s title to show its inclusion of chronic diseases, workplace hazards, and so on.

More changes: investments in infrastructure such as the interstate highway system, efforts to end racial discrimination.

After the war, President Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948, and as Black and Brown Americans claimed their right to be treated equally, Congress expanded recognition of those rights with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Shortly after Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, translating FDR’s 1941 measure into the needs of the peacetime country. “It is the policy of the Government of the United States to provide equal opportunity in Federal employment for all qualified persons, to prohibit discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, or national origin, and to promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity through a positive, continuing program in each executive department and agency.”

This democratic government was popular, but as the memory of the dangers of fascism faded, opponents began to insist that such a government was leading the United States to communism. Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, along with the deregulation of business and cuts to the social safety net, began to concentrate wealth at the top of society. As wealth moved upward, lawmakers chipped away at the postwar government that defended democracy.

And now, since the inauguration of President Donald Trump on Monday, the dismantling of that system is happening all at once…

Richardon lists the horrors we’ve seen from Trump in recent days: read about them at the link above. But she is suggesting that we don’t have to give up; we can still fight fascism when things look the darkest, as they did in the Ardennes when they faced being overwhelmed by the Nazis.

January 25, 2025, marks eighty years since the end of the Battle of the Bulge.

The Germans never did take Bastogne.

I’ve quoted a great deal, but I still hope you’ll go read the whole essay.

Mostly Monday Reads: Record Early Voting and MacDonald’s Cosplay

Posted: October 21, 2024 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: 2024 Elections, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights | Tags: #DonOld, #riseup4abortion, 2024 Election Polls, Abortion Rights on Ballots 2024, Arnold Palmer's Penis, Jeff Landry Worst Governor EVER, MacDonald's Cosplay, VOTE for freedom and democracy! | 7 Comments

“Health Departments will be deregulated under the next trump administration.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

Last year in Louisiana, a number of folks yawned off the election, and this is what we got. “Is Jeff Landry the Worst Governor in America? From prisons and policing to the environment, Louisiana’s new leader is making everything worse.” It’s a lesson the entire country needs. This is what happens when you stay home.

The title is a provocative question, I know. After all, the competition for “worst governor” is stiff. There’s Ron DeSantis in Florida, banning library books and making life harder for transgender people every chance he gets. There’s Greg Abbott in Texas, putting circular saw blades in the Rio Grande to kill and maim immigrants who try to swim across. There are lesser-known menaces like Alabama’s Kay Ivey, a particularly venomous union-buster, or South Dakota’s Kristi Noem (hide your dog!). But I think there’s a case that Jeff Landry, the recently elected governor of Louisiana, may surpass them all.

Landry is, of course, terrible in all the ways that Republican governors like Abbott and DeSantis are terrible. He’s a climate change denier and a loyal ally to the fossil fuel industry, which has poisoned Louisiana’s majority-Black neighborhoods along the stretch of the Mississippi River known as “Cancer Alley.” He’s also appointed former oil, gas, and coal executives to several important environmental positions within his administration. (Keep in mind, Louisiana has been hit especially hard by climate-related disasters like hurricanes, so this is a direct threat to his constituents’ safety!) As a state representative and later Louisiana’s attorney general, he went out of his way to oppose LGBTQ rights on numerous occasions, and has even been condemned by his own brother (who’s gay) for his homophobic politics. He’s trying to dismantle and privatize the Louisiana education system, promoting so-called “education savings accounts” that allow public money to be spent on private school tuition. He wants censorship in public libraries, and may soon sign a bill to require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public schools. He praised the recent brutal police crackdown on students protesting for Palestine at Tulane University. There’s little need to go into further detail here, since Landry’s policies and actions are so similar to those of his fellow Republicans; just read a profile of Ron DeSantis, and 90 percent of it will also apply to him. But there are a handful of factors that are unique to Landry, and that make him especially dangerous.

At that time, The Louisiana Illuminator had this headline. “Louisiana’s low voter turnout attributed to apathy, mistrust.” It never makes sense to me when no one shows up to vote, and we get the worst person ever.

In an important election year — featuring races for governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer, secretary of state, attorney general and several local government seats — Louisiana saw historically low voter turnout. Experts are still looking at why.

Only about 36% of registered voters cast ballots in October’s primary election, marking the lowest turnout in a Louisiana gubernatorial primary since 2011. The general election in November saw even lower turnout, when only about 23% of registered voters made it to the polls.

“This entire state didn’t show up,” said Ashley Shelton, president and CEO of the Power Coalition, a nonpartisan civic engagement group.

Turnout was significantly down among Democrats and Black Louisianans. And it was down in areas that traditionally lean more Democratic, like New Orleans.

Primary election turnout in Orleans Parish was about 27% — down by more than 11% compared to the 2019 gubernatorial primary. And a lower percentage of Orleans residents voted for Shawn Wilson, the only high-profile Democratic candidate in the governor’s race, than for outgoing Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2019.

All told, Wilson brought in only 26% of the votes cast in the primary election. His main opponent, Republican Jeff Landry, brought in 52%.

“I think people had a foregone conclusion that every Democrat makes it to the runoff when that is absolutely not the case when you’ve got other voters more energized and engaged than you,” Wilson said in an interview after his loss.

Friday’s headline in the Illuminator is hopefully an example of what should happen. “New Louisiana record: Nearly 177,000 cast ballots on first day of early voting.” What’s exciting is we seem to be part of a nationwide trend. Here’s the good news today from USA Today. “Harris leads Trump 2-1 among the earliest voters, many driven by abortion access: new poll.” Susan Page reports the story.

Democrat Kamala Harris has a sweeping lead over Republican Donald Trump − among voters who have already cast their ballots, that is.

A new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll shows the vice president leading the former president by 63%-34%, close to 2-1, among those who have already voted.

That preference turns around among those who plan to wait until Election Day to vote, with Trump ahead 52%-35%.

As some states have begun early mail-in and in-person voting, one in seven respondents said they had already voted. A third said they plan to vote early; that group supported Harris by 52%-39%. And nearly half said they’ll wait until Election Day.

Overall, Harris was favored by 45%, Trump by 44% − a coin-toss contest.

The poll of 1,000 likely voters, taken by landline and cell phone Oct. 14-18, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Among those who have already voted, one in five volunteered “abortion rights/women’s rights” as their most important issue, second only to the economy/inflation.

This CNN headline says it all. “Infants died at higher rates after abortion bans in the US, research shows.” This isn’t a poll. This is data.

In the year and a half following the Supreme Court Dobbs decision that revoked the federal right to an abortion, hundreds more infants died than expected in the United States, new research shows. The vast majority of those infants had congenital anomalies, or birth defects.

Earlier research – spurred by a CNN investigative report – found that infant mortality spiked in Texas after a 6-week abortion ban took effect in 2021, and experts say the new data suggests that the impacts of the bans and restrictions enacted by some states post-Dobbs have been large enough to affect broader trends.

“This is evidence of a national ripple effect, regardless of state-level status,” said Dr. Parvati Singh, an assistant professor of epidemiology with The Ohio State University College of Public Health and lead author of the new study.

In the new paper, published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, Singh and co-author Dr. Maria Gallo, a professor of epidemiology and associate dean of research with the Ohio State University College of Public Health, compared infant mortality rates for the 18 months following the Dobbs decision against historical trends.

They found that infant mortality was higher than usual in the US in several months after the Dobbs decision and never dropped to rates that were lower than expected.

In the months that infant mortality was higher than expected – October 2022, March 2023 and April 2023 – rates were about 7% higher than typical, leading to an average of 247 more infant deaths in each of those months.

About 80% of those additional infant deaths could be attributed to congenital anomalies, which were higher than expected in six of the 18 months following the Dobbs decision, according to the new research. Congenital anomalies can range from mild to severe cases, and some of the most common types can affect an infant’s heart or spine. In some cases, babies with a birth defect may only survive a few months.

“This is the tip of the iceberg,” Singh said. “Mortality is the ultimate outcome of any health condition. This is a very, very acute indicator. It could be representative of underlying morbidity and underlying hardship.”

Other research has found that births have increased in states with abortion bans, and experts say that some of that increase is linked to a disproportionate rise in the number of women who are carrying fetuses with lethal congenital anomalies to term.

As we all know, Polls recently have been wrong quite a few times. So, no one can take any one of them seriously. I did run across this interesting article on the consultant who does the election analysis for Faux News. He is that guy that pissed all the Trumperz and the Big Orange Muffin Monster last time by calling Arizona for Biden. It’s in Politico.

The man who may call the winner of the 2024 presidential election is ready to make a prediction for at least when the news will come.

“The over/under is Saturday,” said Arnon Mishkin, the head of Fox News’ decision desk. “Which was when the call was made last time.”

…

So would you say that makes the job harder in 2024 than it was in 2020? Because we don’t necessarily know that, “Oh, all the Democrats are going to vote early or by mail, and all the Republicans are going to vote on Election Day.”

Yeah, I think it’s going to be a little harder. On the other hand, I think that some of our models have gotten better. We’ve created a new model based on the vote count which is much more focused on either getting vote by type and then using that in the model, or knowing that you’re not going to get vote by type and then making estimates around on that. And then I think our FNVA — because we ask people how they vote, it’s self-reported — we have a pretty good idea of what the skew is. And that number has been pretty accurate over the years.

When do you think you’re going to be able to call this election? Do you think it’s going to be the night of? A week later? Possibly longer? The race seems so close.

The race seems very, very close. It is dependent on a number of states, like Pennsylvania, that we believe are going to be reporting in a pattern similar to the way they have reported in the past. So I’d say, the over/under is Saturday. Which was when the call was made last time. Which is when Pennsylvania is likely to come in.

I think we have to accept the reality that we don’t really know how close this election is going to be. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be close. I see some polls that say, “Actually, it ain’t going to be close. It’s going to be one way or the other.” There’s some reporting that Trump is sort of gaining. Some of the polls have showed he’s gaining. There’s another sense I have that actually he may be declining. I think the real issue is what happens to Trump. I’ve always thought this about this election: It’s less about who’s running against him than it’s about Trump.

But it’s his vote share, you mean? Which was 46 percent and 47 in his two elections.

It was 46.1 percent in 2016. It was 46.7 or 46.8 in 2020.

46.1 and a very low turnout — his advantage in the Electoral College allowed him to win in 2016. With a very heavy turnout and him at roughly 47 in 2020, his Electoral College advantage meant it was a really close election in the Electoral College.

So, again, take nothing for granted. Just get out there and do it for all the people in your life who were disenfranchised from voting over the decades. I always vote for my grandmothers who couldn’t vote until they were well into middle age. Unlike them, if Trump gets into office, I may not have Social Security six years from now. This is from the Washington Post. Trump proposals could drain Social Security in 6 years, budget group says. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget predicts that many of Trump’s policies could hasten the looming depletion of the Social Security Trust Fund.”

A new report projects that the Social Security Trust Fund might run out of money within six years under a Donald Trump presidency, while Vice President Kamala Harris’s proposed policies would not meaningfully change the current trajectory

Social Security faces a looming funding crisis in an aging country, with trustees most recently predicting that the retirement and disability program’s trust fund will become insolvent in 2035. Many of Trump’s campaign proposals would accelerate that timeline, potentially by years, said the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan group that opposes large federal deficits.

In a report released Monday, the organization concluded that many of Trump’s proposed second-term agenda items all work in the same direction when it comes to the Social Security Trust Fund. The budget group did not produce a similar report on Harris’s policies because they would have a negligible effect measured only in weeks or months rather than years, said Marc Goldwein, CRFB’s senior policy director.

Compared to prior presidential campaigns, Goldwein said, “I can’t think of anything that would be this order of magnitude” in its detrimental effect on Social Security’s bottom line compared to the policies Trump has proposed.

Anyone who isn’t a washed-up Reality Star or someone who thinks those reality shows are staged was probably as weirded out by Trump’s stage MacDonald’s Act that appeared aimed at the Vice President. He is acting weird at a privately owned McDonald’s, which closed down for the day and specifically coached chosen customers to be good foils. This antic has so many obvious mistakes that it’s like an outtake from a bad movie. He wasn’t wearing a hat/hair net, gloves, etc. You actually have to have food handler training and certification to do the job. He’s a felon. MacDonald’s doesn’t hire felons. The Independent’s Kelly Rismann reports it far better than me. All I can say is they probably had to scrub the entire place down between his farting and hair loss issues. He probably didn’t even wash his hands. “McDonald’s workers roast Trump over ‘insulting cosplay’ stunt at restaurant that failed health inspection. Trump sported neither gloves not a hair net as he worked at a branch of the fast food chain in Pennsylvania.”

Donald Trump’s obsession with questioning Kamala Harris’ work experience at McDonald’s peaked over the weekend when he worked the fry cooker at a Pennsylvania branch — without a hairnet or gloves.

McDonald’s workers have now given their verdict on the former president’s performance – and came away less than impressed.

Trump has baselessly called his Democratic opponent’s summer stint at a McDonald’s “a lie,” so he decided to try his hand at the fast-food chain himself, shutting down a Bucks County restaurant to do so.

While serving food through the drive-thru window and working the fry cooker, some have pointed out that he wasn’t taking proper precautions — at a location that has previously been cited for health code violations.

Earlier this year, this location didn’t meet the compliance requirements of the Bucks County Health Department. A health inspection in March at the Feasterville-Trevose location resulted in four violations, including citing employees not having their “hands clean & properly washed.”

It was likely just a playdate that made him feel good about himself, but this Independent Headline was harsh.”Is this the publicity stunt that secures the White House for ‘McDonald Trump’? If Donald Trump serving fries at a Pennsylvania drive-thru doesn’t clinch him the swing state, then a side order of Elon Musk just might, says Sean O’Grady.” His staff was likely relieved he didn’t get a chance to talk about Arnold Palmer’s Penis or telling a little boy there would be no more cows if the Vice President became President.

Nascistic, babyish, menacing monster that he is, the Donald Trump we saw in the footage of him visiting a McDonald’s yesterday came across as… somewhat genuine and relatable. Even if he wore cufflinks while handing out Happy Meals.

Donald “aced” the fries, as he might put it, and managed to hand over huge bags of fast food to stunned customers without swearing once. That’s a bigger feat for him than it might sound, now that he’s gotten a bit more uninhibited lately.

He didn’t demean anyone or threaten them with vengeful vexatious prosecution as he did after the last election (“Would you like a lawsuit with that?”). Nor did he bring up that “a lot of people” tell him how intelligent he is. He didn’t even do those inane dances he does when he’s run out of things to say.

Dare I say it: “McTrump” was almost… charming. Almost.

But, of course, this scene was all a ruse. He did not, as his PR team would have you believe, put in a full shift at the drive-thru in Feasterville (yes, really), Pennsylvania. Rather, he was there for one hour max, in a carefully controlled environment.

The proud Americans he served prefer Big Macs and Filet-O-Fish to eating pet dogs and cats or (as per the Trumpian fantasy) wild geese like those nasty illegal immigrants – and so found themselves worthy of Trump’s courtesy.

But, nice as he was, he’s fooling no one. Those who choose to believe in Trump – and there are many who do – will also choose to believe that he’s just like they are; kinda relatable. And those who despise him, an equally large group, will dismiss the exercise as a stunt driven by Kamala Harris’ more substantial experience at the sharp end of the fast-food business.

In terms of McDonald’s, after all, the super-sized Trump has spent a lot more time guzzling burgers than flipping them. Despite liking a Big Mac, Trump and the life he has always led are about as far away from the average Pennsylvanian as, let’s say, the human settlement on Mars that Elon Musk is preparing for them to migrate to.

Which brings us nicely, like a Musk starship being eased back to base, to the role now being performed by the world’s richest man to get Trump back into the White House.

While the McDonald’s appearance is unlikely to shift the vote much in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, Musk’s “win a million dollars” lottery might.

As a stunt, this is the one that has the capacity to do much more damage – not so much to the outcome in the state and thus the electoral college (a vital 19 votes, which could get the Orange Man over the line of 270 to win), but to the wider integrity of the system – to the notion (and the law) that people shouldn’t be bribed to vote or even to register to vote.

So what about this latest Musk attempt to get voters in Pennslyvania for Trump? This is from CNN’s Marshall Cohen. “Elon Musk’s daily $1 million giveaway to registered voters could be illegal, experts say.” Do tell.

While stumping for former President Donald Trump on Saturday, tech billionaire Elon Musk announced that he will give away $1 million each day to registered voters in battleground states, immediately drawing scrutiny from election law experts who said the sweepstakes could violate laws against paying people to register.

“We want to try to get over a million, maybe 2 million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment. … We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election,” Musk said at a campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

The X owner and Tesla CEO was referring to a petition launched by his political action committee affirming support for the rights to free speech and to bear arms. The website, launched shortly before some registration deadlines, says, “this program is exclusively open to registered voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.”

Musk, the richest man in the world, has given more than $75 million to his pro-Trump super PAC, and said he hopes the sweepstakes will boost registration among Trump voters. He recently hit the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, holding events advocating for Trump, promoting his petition and spreading conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

“This is a one-time ask,” Musk told the crowd shortly after announcing the $1 million prize. “Just go out there and talk to your friends and family and acquaintances and people you meet in the street and … convince them to vote. Obviously you gotta get registered, make sure they’re registered and … make sure they vote.”

The first million-dollar winner was named Saturday, with Musk handing a giant check to a Trump supporter at his event in Harrisburg, saying, “So anyway, you’re welcome.” He announced the second winner Sunday afternoon during an event in Pittsburgh, handing out another check on a stage adorned with big signs reading, “VOTE EARLY.”

In an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Musk’s giveaway was “deeply concerning” and is “something that law enforcement could take a look at.” Shapiro, a Democrat, was previously the state attorney general. In response to Shapiro’s comments, Musk posted on X that it was “concerning that he would say such a thing.”

Federal law makes it a crime for anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting.” It’s punishable by up to five years in prison. After legal outcry over the weekend, Musk’s group tweaked some of their language around the sweepstakes.

“When you start limiting prizes or giveaways to only registered voters or only people who have voted, that’s where bribery concerns arise,” said Derek Muller, an election law expert who teaches at Notre Dame Law School. “By limiting a giveaway only to registered voters, it looks like you’re giving cash for voter registration.”

Offering money to people who were already registered before the cash prize was announced could violate federal law, Muller said, but the offer also “can include people who are not yet registered,” and the potential “inducements for new registrations is far more problematic.”

Alright, I’ll stop here. I’m jittery enough. I’ve got Schrödinger’s election box syndrome. I really want this over, but I’m so afraid of the bad outcome that I’d rather not see what’s inside the box. Every encounter with MAGA is abuse.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Dum, dum, dum, honey, what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum, it’s the sound of my gun
Dum, dum, dum, honey, what have you done?
Dum, dum, dum, it’s the sound
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her whole world’s come undone
From lookin’ straight at the sun
What did her daddy do?
What did he put you through?
They said when Janie was arrested
They found him underneath a train
But man, he had it comin’, now that Janie’s got a gun
She ain’t never gonna be the same
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Tell me now it’s untrue, what did her daddy do?
He jacked a little bitty baby; the man has got to be insane
They say the spell that he was under the lightning and
The thunder knew that someone had to stop the rain
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
What did her daddy do?
It’s Janie’s last I.O.U
She had to take him down easy and put a bullet in his brain
She said, “‘Cause nobody believes me, the man was such a sleaze”
He ain’t never gonna be the same
Run away, run away from the pain yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Everybody is on the run
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Because Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun
Her dog day’s just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Janie’s got a gun
Janie’s got a gun

Mostly Monday Reads: Size Matters

Posted: August 12, 2024 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, Biden Harris 2024, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights | Tags: ground game, On the Ground Politics, Presidential Election 2024, What, What's Vance's Drag Queen name? | 7 Comments

“The desperation is real. The next fake elector coup is coming.” John Buss, @repeat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

It was inevitable that the incredible crowds that the Harris/Walz appearances have been attracting would eventually impact Donald’s psyche. One of the first signs was the amount of disinformation being packaged by right-wing sites and news. The KKKult is falling for it. I even had to fact-check someone myself. I’ve never seen a group of more gullible people in my life. They’re even rehashing some of the crap they tried to pass in 2020. We’ve also seen poorly photoshopped pictures of crowds in Trump’s appearance, where the same obvious guys appear in four different stadium sections. We’ve now advanced to AI conspiracies.

Marcy at emptywheel has a delightful account of this current bout of fake crowds. It’s filled with pictures and videos of the size issue. “In Which Ian Miles Cheong Understands Trump’s Campaign Better than NYT. The second I saw video of Vice President Harris rolling up to a hangar at Detroit’s airport on Air Force Two, then alighting with Tim Walz in front of cheering crowds, I knew it would break Donald Trump’s brain.” Indeed.

This is the kind of spectacle Donald Trump excels at creating.

This is the kind of spectacle on which Trump has built slavering loyalty from millions of MAGAts who see power in such spectacle.

And a Black woman created it.

Or rather, a Black woman and her campaign team, a campaign team which has already demonstrated they know exactly how to trigger Donald Trump, created it.

And sure enough, it did melt his brain.

Yesterday, he adopted the hysterical claims of some of his followers, posting that Vice President Harris was cheating because (he falsely claimed) she had used AI to sub in a crowd of people who weren’t there.

After these many years of dealing with this emotionally disturbed man with his plethora of Personality Disorders, we know his defense is projection. I know you are, but what am I! Donald has crowd-size envy, so it has to be resolved by calling it fake photos, fake videos, and fake reporting! Marcy brings the tape and photos to show how deluded he is. So deluded that even social media right-wing troll Malaysian Ian Miles Cheong. This guy jumps for red meat but can’t even with the entire AI crowd thing. Marcie continues with this. Wait for it. She mercilessly goes straight from the well-known troll to WAPO and NYT.

And Cheong is not the only right wing troll complaining that Trump is hurting the movement, their movement, with his unhinged response to Vice President Harris’ rally. At a time when some prominent right wing trolls are showing RFK-curiosity, they’re also questioning the campaign, in significant part because of Trump’s public meltdown over this arrival.

And that’s where things start to get weird.

Both WaPo and NYT reported overnight on Trump’s unhinged claim.

But they’re both missing a bit of what’s going on, and they’re missing it, in my opinion, because they’re still seeing this race from Trump’s perspective.

In a piece on Saturday, WaPo claimed that Democrats were obsessing over crowd size in their own right, citing Tim Walz’ boast about crowd size in a Friday rally in Phoenix, even while (in the penultimate paragraph) quoting a Harris spox mocking Trump for the meltdowns he has in response.

Read more for details. It’s true. We’ve all had fun with Trump waving his hands to a nonexistent crowd at airports and in front of Trump Tower. Watching Trump meltdown over his dwindling crowd size has been epic fun. This is from Brett Bachman from The Daily Beast. “Dem Rep: Trump’s Latest Conspiracy Is Evidence He’s in ‘Dementia Land.’

Rep. Ted Lieu had some harsh words for Donald Trump Sunday after the former president falsely suggested that Vice President Kamala Harris had somehow digitally altered photos of her rally at a Detroit-area airport over the weekend. “Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport?” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday. “There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!” Lieu attacked the conspiracy theory during an appearance on MSNBC, saying that Trump was “really going bonkers off the edge into dementia land.” Lieu added: “He’s now fantasizing that all these rallies are not real and that somehow, Air Force Two is not real and that the rally she had in Michigan was not real. I think the American people realize that Donald Trump is not suited for office in any way whatsoever.”

So, yeah, they’re going for the paid actor thing yet again. Why not? In fact, it seems they’ve just doctored some of the stuff they used in 2020, as I said. But, here’s world-class troll Ian Miles Cheong at least copping to them not being AI. Michael Tomasky writes this for The New Republic. “Grab the Popcorn. Donald Trump Is Freaked Out in Ways He Never Imagined Were Possible. Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are getting under his skin, and it’s a beautiful sight to behold.”

The Harris-Walz campaign proved two important things last week. First, it proved that sometimes all you really have to do is answer attacks—the mere fact of answering them deflates their momentum. Second, it proved that Democrats have finally learned something from brazen Republican presidential campaigns over the years: Convert your perceived weakness into strength and their perceived strength into weakness.

The campaign did both of these things effectively last week. And it drove Donald Trump, and Republicans generally, nuts. Democrats aren’t supposed to do that! It’s like Cinderella saying she’s not doing the dishes. But Democrats are saying it, and it’s effing awesome.

…

Republicans have understood this for years. Seeing a Democratic presidential campaign finally get this is exhilarating to me personally but, more important, potentially game-changing.

And Donald Trump is freaked out in ways he never imagined were possible. He has faced a lot of opponents—from 1980s New York Mayor Ed Koch to all his many creditors to the 16 dwarves he ran against in 2016 to a Clinton campaign that thought the race was over to prosecutors he has known for years how to slow down, especially with corrupt hack judges having his back. But Trump has never had an opponent that made him go: “Oh fuck, these people mean business.”

Now he does. And that it’s a Black woman who means this business makes it so great, so much better. The New York Times reported over the weekend that he is so shell-shocked by the turnabout in this race that he’s doubling down on racism and “stop the steal” delusions. He is in full-blown meltdown mode, in other words.

All the pressure is on Trump now. Can he come back? Can he respond? Can he prove, contra George Conway’s brilliant ads, that he is not a pathetic psychopath? Can he make up these polling gaps, like his sudden four-point deficit in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan?

In 2016, we had a Trump who expected and even wanted to lose, who had no investment in winning. In 2020, we had a Trump with a deep investment in winning, and who expected to win. In 2024, we had a Trump—while he was running against Joe Biden—who fully expected to win.

But now we have a new Trump. He really isn’t sure. We’ve never seen this animal on the loose. Hide the wives and children. The Democrats are hitting him where it hurts. And it’s about damn time.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson believes that “Vice President Kamala Harris’s choice of Minnesota governor Tim Walz to be her running mate seems to cement the emergence of a new Democratic Party.” Her analysis was posted yesterday in her SubStack Letters from an American.

While Biden worked hard to make his administration reflect the demographics of the nation, tapping more women than men as advisors and nominating more Black women and racial minorities to federal judicial positions than any previous president, it was Vice President Kamala Harris who emphasized the right of all Americans to be treated equally before the law.

She was the first member of the administration to travel to Tennessee in support of the Tennessee Three after the Republican-dominated state legislature expelled two Black Democratic lawmakers for protesting in favor of gun safety legislation and failed by a single vote to expel their white colleague. She has highlighted the vital work historically Black colleges and universities have done for their students and for the United States. And she has criss-crossed the country to support women’s rights, especially the right to reproductive healthcare, in the two years since the Supreme Court, packed with religious extremists by Trump, overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

To the forming Democratic coalition, Harris brought an emphasis on equal rights before the law that drew from the civil rights movements that stretched throughout our history and flowered after 1950. Harris has told the story of how her parents, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan, who hailed from India, and Donald J. Harris, from Jamaica, met as graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley and bonded over a shared interest in civil rights. “My parents marched and shouted in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s,” Harris wrote in 2020. “It’s because of them and the folks who also took to the streets to fight for justice that I am where I am.”

To these traditionally Democratic mindsets, Governor Walz brings something quite different: midwestern Progressivism. Walz is a leader in the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which formed after World War II, but the reform impulse in the Midwest reaches all the way back to the years immediately after the Civil War and in its origins is associated with the Republican, rather than the Democratic, Party. While Biden’s approach to government focuses on economic justice and Harris’s focuses on individual rights, Walz’s focuses on the government’s responsibility to protect communities from extremists. That stance sweeps in economic fairness and individual rights but extends beyond them to recall an older vision of the nature of government itself.

Philip Bump of the Washington Post believes Donald’s most recent behavior is ominous. “‘AI’ crowds and unskewed polls: Trump prepares to reject another loss. The former president’s recent rejection of obvious realities indicates that he is not planning to treat a negative 2024 outcome as legitimate.” As I mentioned on Friday, shenanigans are afoot.

The first person who I noticed spreading the idea that images of Vice President Kamala Harris’s rally in Michigan had been manipulated was conservative moviemaker Dinesh D’Souza.

On Saturday evening, D’Souza posted a photo on social media of Harris exiting her airplane with a crowd of supporters looking on. Two reflections from the airplane were circled in red, illustrating that, despite the crowd, no one was visible in the reflection.

“Does this look like a real picture to you?” D’Souza asked. Within hours, similar questions were everywhere on social media — and by Sunday had popped up in former president Donald Trump’s feed at Truth Social.

“Has anyone noticed that Kamala CHEATED at the airport? There was nobody at the plane, and she ‘A.I.’d’ it, and showed a massive ‘crowd’ of so-called followers, BUT THEY DIDN’T EXIST!” Trump wrote. “She was turned in by a maintenance worker at the airport when he noticed the fake crowd picture, but there was nobody there, later confirmed by the reflection of the mirror like finish on the Vice Presidential Plane.”

That D’Souza was at the leading edge of this argument is not surprising. It was D’Souza, you may recall, who produced a feature-length movie arguing without evidence that the 2020 election had been stolen by “mules” who collected and submitted ballots on behalf of Joe Biden. Then, as now, D’Souza’s claims were rooted in a trivial misrepresentation of digital information.

There was a crowd in Michigan to meet Harris, as shown below in a photograph taken by a Washington Post photographer. You can also see why the reflection from the plane didn’t show the crowd; it was angled away from the speaking platform.

No AI. No whistleblowing maintenance worker, ginned up from the ether to make the claim of dishonesty seem more credible. And no “cheating” by Harris.

Why would Trump and his allies spread a false claim about attendance at a rally that was covered on C-SPAN? In part because many elements of Trump’s base have embraced rejections of basic reality (like the existence of “mules”) for years. In part, it’s confirmation bias, with partisans being more likely to accept false information as true when it supports their preexisting beliefs. But in part, it’s because Trump and his allies are already eagerly raising questions about the reliability of measures of Harris’s support — and by extension, the reliability of the results in November.

Bump makes a strong case that the Trump campaign will reject the election results and chaos will follow. The response will be in Biden’s court. Recent Polls show that “Democratic attacks on JD Vance are working.” This is from Semafor and reported by Kadia Goba.

New polling shared exclusively with Semafor shows Democrats’ attacks on JD Vance’s views on abortion, divorce and “childless cat ladies” are sticking with voters.

A pair of surveys by Blueprint, the centrist Democratic pollster backed by Reid Hoffman, one taken July 21 – July 22, two days after Vance was announced as Donald Trump’s running mate, and then again two weeks later on August 4, showed Vance’s net favorability falling from -7 to -11 with fewer voters unsure either way. That’s similar to other public polling, which has also shown Vance making a poor first impression since joining the Republican ticket.

The main shift in how respondents viewed Vance: He’s become more and more identified with his particular brand of conservatism and less with his famed biography as an author, veteran, and politician. Presented with a list of options to describe Vance in August, the most common answers were “conservative,” “anti-woman,” and “weird,” while more positive options like “young,” “smart,” and “businessman” declined from July. The percentage calling him “extreme” shot up 13 points.

So, it appears to be the crazy season, even if it isn’t even Labor Day yet. However, constant craziness just naturally comes with anything DonOld does.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Come to my FaceBook page and play the game of Name this Drag Queen, or do it here! We gotcha Couchy Tomato!

Finally Friday Reads: For our Children’s sake, the 100 year anniversary of the unpassed ERA

Posted: July 21, 2023 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: cat art, children, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights | Tags: 100 YEAR anniversary of the ERA, Black History and First Nation History, Race Massacres, white washing, Women and Infants die when Politicians make health decisions, Women's Rights are Human Rights | 13 Comments

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

So my granddaughters turn 2 today. I keep reading things that make me worry about what sort of life they will lead as they grow. I’m glad they are relatively safe in terms of culture war crazies. But, it’s difficult to imagine what climate change horrors will await them when they head to university and grow into adulthood. Maybe I need a few hobbies that will send me down different rabbit holes. I could be this granny that crochets huge cats. I wish I could just detach more gently from the events of the day, but I cannot.

Today is the centennial anniversary of the introduction of the ERA on July 21, 1923. It was introduced by Alice Paul. This was the year both my late parents were born.

So, you know that I lived in Nebraska, and everyone that I really was good friends with could not get out of there fast enough. I wanted out because I didn’t want my kids growing up there because I had, and it was not a place that I ever wanted to be. Horrifying stories come out of there that put me in mind of Florida and Texas. This is one. This is from the New York Times. “Nebraska Teen Who Used Pills to End Pregnancy Gets 90 Days in Jail. Celeste Burgess, 19, and her mother, Jessica Burgess, 42, were charged last year after the police obtained their private Facebook messages.”

A Nebraska teenager who used abortion pills to terminate her pregnancy was sentenced on Thursday to 90 days in jail after she pleaded guilty earlier this year to illegally concealing human remains.

The teenager, Celeste Burgess, 19, and her mother, Jessica Burgess, 42, were charged last year after the police obtained their private Facebook messages, which showed them discussing plans to end the pregnancy and “burn the evidence.”

Prosecutors said the mother had ordered abortion pills online and had given them to her daughter in April 2022, when Celeste Burgess was 17 and in the beginning of the third trimester of her pregnancy. The two then buried the fetal remains themselves, the police said.

Jessica Burgess pleaded guilty in July to violating Nebraska’s abortion law, furnishing false information to a law enforcement officer and removing or concealing human skeletal remains. She faces up to five years in prison at her sentencing on Sept. 22, according to Joseph Smith, the top prosecutor in Madison County, Neb.

The police investigation into the Burgesses began before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

But the case gained greater attention after the court issued the ruling, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, fueling fears that women, and those who help them, could be prosecuted for abortions, and that their private communications could be used against them.

At the time, Nebraska banned abortion after 20 weeks from conception. In May, Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, signed a 12-week ban into law.

Greer Donley, an associate professor of law at the University Pittsburgh School of Law, said in an interview on Thursday that the case was a “harbinger of things to come,” as a flurry of Republican-led states have enacted abortion restrictions and more women in those states have sought abortion pills as a workaround.

“This case is really sad because people resort to things like this when they’re really desperate,” Professor Donley said, “and the thing that makes people really desperate is abortion bans.”

No kidding. Plus, the death of infants and pregnant women is on the rise. This is about control of women and reverting them to chattel status. This does not promote life in any manner. This is from Austin TV station KXAN. “Texas sees spike in infant mortality after enacting abortion restrictions, DSHS data says.” It’s reported by Erica Pauda and Cora Neas.

Since Texas enacted its abortion restrictions, it has seen a spike in infant mortality, according to preliminary data from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

According to the DSHS data, 2,200 infants died in Texas last year. That’s 227 more than the year before, or an 11% increase.

At the same time, infant deaths caused by severe genetic and birth defects rose by 21%, DSHS said.

This comes after a nearly decade-long decline between 2014 and 2021. According to the data, deaths had fallen by 15%.

The race for the most cruel Governor in a state is between DeSantis and Abbott. They both promote ignorance and seek to torture and harm children. Abbott ordered the installation of razorwire across a lot of the Texas Border. He also has ordered State Troopers to push back anyone attempting to enter the United States, even if it means tossing nursing and pregnant women into a river. Another order was to not provide water to border-crossers facing imminent heat stroke. This resulted in a child of 7 passing out. Today, The Dallas Morning News reports, “Razor wire at Texas border is illegal and must be removed, Justice Dept. tells Abbott. Federal threat comes as Democrats in Congress prod Biden to halt Texas’ border security operation.”

The Justice Department has warned Gov. Greg Abbott that Texas’ use of razor wire and floating barriers to deter illegal migration across the Rio Grande is illegal. And Democrats in Congress pressed President Joe Biden on Friday to halt the state’s efforts, after reports of drownings and of young migrants being sliced.

Federal authorities told Abbott they may seek a court order “requiring the removal of obstructions or other structures in the Rio Grande River.”

In their letter, the congressional Democrats expressed “profound alarm” at the injuries, including at least one pregnant woman who became entangled in the 60 miles of concertina wire installed by Texas forces in recent months.

A Department of Public Safety trooper recently raised an alarm about migrants being pushed back into the river and denied water despite scorching heat.

“We urge you to assert your authority over federal immigration policy and foreign relations and investigate and pursue legal action, as appropriate, related to stop Governor [Greg] Abbott’s dangerous and cruel actions,” says the letter to Biden, led by Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio and signed by nearly 90 other Democrats in the House, including all 13 Texans.

“As Governor Abbott continues to escalate his efforts on the border, we urge you to …stop this horrific abuse of power,” they wrote.

Abbott launched Operation Lone Star two years ago, sending National Guard and state troopers to the border when Biden took office, halted construction of the border wall promoted by predecessor Donald Trump, and began to dismantle many of Trump’s harsh immigration policies.

Democrats asserted in their letter that the state’s actions are “putting asylum-seekers at serious risk of injury and death, interfering with federal immigration enforcement, infringing on private property rights, and violating U.S. treaty commitments with Mexico.”

Mexico’s president denounced the “inhumane” treatment of migrants by Texas this week.

Meanwhile, the “pro-life” Justices on the Supreme Court love promoting death penalty politics. This is from Lawrence Hurley at NBC News. “Liberal justices blast Supreme Court majority for allowing Alabama execution. The high court allowed the execution of James Barber despite botched attempts to execute other inmates last year.”

The three liberal Supreme Court justices took aim at their conservative colleagues for allowing the early Friday execution of an Alabama death row inmate who had raised claims about the state’s history of botching the lethal injection process.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, declined to block the execution of James Barber, who was put to death at about 2 a.m. local time.

“This court’s decision denying Barber’s request for a stay allows Alabama to experiment again with a human life,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by her liberal colleagues, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Barber had argued that the execution would violate his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.

His claim was raised in light of the state’s problems executing three inmates last year. Two of those executions, those of Alan Miller and Kenneth Smith, were ultimately called off when prison officials could not access a suitable vein. Another inmate, Joe James, was put to death only after a three-hour delay.

The state subsequently reviewed its procedures, which was enough to convince the Supreme Court and lower courts that the execution could go ahead.

The Supreme Court’s brief order did not explain its reasoning in allowing Barber’s execution.

Sister Helen Prejean and me in my hood in June. I’m still not crocheting gigantic cats, and she’s still fighting the death penalty.

It gets to the point where you just don’t know what to say about the Sicko Six. However, there are 3 very strong women on the court that can call out the bullshit when the read it.

And now to Florida for your adventures in Orwellian speech. Nicole Chavez reports this for CNN. “Florida Board of Education approves new Black history standards that critics call ‘a big step backward’.” Sounds like they believe that everyone should be a slave every now and then because, wow, there are so many benefits to being someone’s personal property to do with what they want. Food and job training! Plus, you get the religious instructions that tell you it’s the Angry Sky Fairy’s will that there be slaves!

The Florida Board of Education approved a new set of standards for how Black history should be taught in the state’s public schools, sparking criticism from education and civil rights advocates who said students should be allowed to learn the “full truth” of American history.

The curriculum was approved at the board’s meeting Wednesday in Orlando.

It is the latest development in the state’s ongoing debate over African American history, including the education department’s rejection of a preliminary pilot version of an Advanced Placement African American Studies course for high school students, which it claimed lacked educational value.

The new standards come after the state passed new legislation under Gov. Ron DeSantis that bars instruction in schools that suggests anyone is privileged or oppressed based on their race or skin color. DeSantis has used his fight against “wokeness” to boost his national profile amid a national discussion of how racism and history should be taught in schools.

The new standards require instruction for middle school students to include “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” a document listing the standards and posted in the Florida Department of Education website said.

When high school students learn about events such as the 1920 Ocoee massacre, the new rules require that instruction include “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” The massacre is considered the deadliest Election Day violence in US history and, according to several histories of the incident, it started when Moses Norman, a prominent Black landowner in the Ocoee, Florida, community, attempted to cast his ballot and was turned away by White poll workers.

Similar standards are noted for lessons about other massacres, including the Atlanta race massacre, the Tulsa race massacre and the Rosewood race massacre.

“Our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for,” Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, said in a statement condemning the new standards. “It is imperative that we understand that the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow were a violation of human rights and represent the darkest period in American history.”

“We are proud of the rigorous process that the Department took to develop these standards,” Alex Lanfranconi, director of communications for the Florida Department of Education, said in a statement, noting the standards were created by a group of 13 educators and academics.

“It’s sad to see critics attempt to discredit what any unbiased observer would conclude to be in-depth and comprehensive African American History standards. They incorporate all components of African American History: the good, the bad and the ugly. These standards will further cement Florida as a national leader in education, as we continue to provide true and accurate instruction in African American History,” Lanfranconi said.

I was a history major and an American history explorer with my family. My mother made sure we saw every unblemished historical fact about our country, from sea to shining sea. She also became the family genealogy expert and hid nothing from me about the slave owners in our family tree. She could crochet up a significant number of things too. However, she never soft-peddled the ongoing US genocide of our First Americans. She also didn’t hold back on the slave uprising that ended the life and career of one whatever great Uncle back there on the side branches. He was an expert in breaking uncooperative slaves. That fits right in with the white-washing of American History. Sorry folks, there’s a newspaper out there that reports his death and the whys and hows of everything. I’d like to send that to every kid in Florida to take to their teacher who tries to teach that bullshit.

Did I feel good about any of this? No. That’s the point. It caused me to fight bullies twice my size as a kid when I saw what I saw. It caused me not to want to be like them. That was the lesson. This brings the fight I fought for at least 3 decades, starting five decades ago. It’s back, and I’m not about to give up on it now. This is from The Conversation. I’m sure unisex bathrooms will once again be a scare factor. “U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney speaks during a press conference in December 2022, calling to affirm the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. Alex Wong/Getty Images. Democrats revive the Equal Rights Amendment from a long legal limbo – facing an unlikely uphill battle to get it enshrined into law.” This was my first big civil rights fight and we’re still fighting today.

Democrats in Congress are making a new push to get the long-dormant proposed Equal Rights Amendment enshrined into law. As legislation, it would guarantee sex equality in the Constitution and could serve as a potential legal antidote to the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which removed the federal right to an abortion.

“In light of Dobbs, we’re seeing vast discrimination across the country,” said U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York in an interview July 13, 2023. “Women are being treated as second-class citizens. This is more timely than ever.”

Gillibrand, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri and other Democratic lawmakers are arguing that the Equal Rights Amendment, often referred to as the ERA, has already been ratified by the states and is enforceable as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution.

Efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution to recognize women’s rights have faced major challenges for the past century. Most recently, in April 2023 Senate Republicans blocked a similar resolution that would let states ratify the amendment, despite an expired deadline.

The piece was written by Deana Rohlinger, a Professor of Sociology at Florida State University. DeSantis will probably come for her job. She studies gender and politics. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Co-Chair of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) Caucus, leads the fight that started 100 years ago. This happened on July 19th.

“Nearly 100 years since the Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced, our broad, diverse, and intersectional movement is using every tool available to get the ERA over the finish line and enshrine gender equality into our Constitution,” said Rep. Pressley. “Our Republican colleagues have the opportunity, once again, to stand on the right side of history and support the dignity, humanity, and equality of every person who calls America home. They must meet the moment.”

“The Equal Rights Amendment is all about equality—the most fundamental of American values. After 100 years, we are closer than ever to realizing the vision of the ERA,” said Senator Cardin, lead sponsor of S.J. Res. 4, the Senate companion resolution. “The required 38 states have already ratified the ERA, and it is long past time that Congress formally recognized the ERA as a part of our Constitution. I’m committed to pushing forward on all fronts until we finally see equality enshrined into our Constitution. There should be no deadline on equality.”

“This week marks the 100th anniversary of the unveiling of the Equal Rights Amendment at Seneca Falls. Seeing the ERA through to publication will require bold and decisive action, which Rep. Pressley is taking today by launching a discharge petition to bring HJ Res 25 to the House floor for a vote. Today’s ERA movement is multi-generational, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, intersectional, and inclusive, led by Black and brown women, LGBTQ+ people, and youth,” said Zakiya Thomas, President and CEO of the ERA Coalition/Fund for Women’s Equality. “We’re grateful to the leadership of Representatives Pressley, Bush, Dean, Garcia, Kamlager-Dove, and Spanberger for advancing equality of all women, especially women of color, and LGBTQ+ folks; making sure we are all represented and seen in our Constitution. This fight won’t end here! We are in this, along with our nearly 300 partner organizations, until we’ve achieved true equal protection under the law for all.”

I have to admit I’d love to have a hobby, but I’m not sure it’s really me. Meanwhile, I’ll go tilt at a few more windmills and hopefully, enough people will join they will topple. I’m not leaving a mess for my grandchildren to pick up if at all possible. I’d rather they not have to wait another 100 years before the ERA is ratified.

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