Florida Ballot Amendments 2020: As Always, What the People Want (And Sometimes, What They NEED)

 As before, many thanks to Ballotpedia website, which tracks all the state referendums and goes into the details of the debates surrounding each issue facing the electorate. If you're visiting this blog from a state other than Florida, do yourself a favor and check that Ballotpedia link to see what your state is voting on this 2020.

In the meantime, here's what I and 18 million other Floridians have to deal with:

Amendment One: Citizenship Voting Amendment

It's a relatively straight-forward amendment that spells out "only U.S. citizens can vote in the elections." Which is kind of odd because our Florida Constitution already HAS wording to that effect. Seriously, click this link to the Florida Senate's Constitution website, Chapter 97.041 in the Florida Statutes, (1)(a) 2. must be a citizen of the United States.

What this reads like to me is part vanity project by the people backing this referendum, part intimidation tactic to scare minorities. The ones pushing this want to see a positive turnout and majority Yes vote on a no-brainer "Patriotic By God" referendum that really changes nothing. Anybody caught voting No to this bill can thus be labeled UN-PATRIOTIC. Screw that. I'm voting No because there's no reason for this referendum to reinforce something that's already in the law.

Amendment Two: Minimum Wage Amendment

Now here's an amendment that matters: "Raises minimum wage to $10.00 per hour effective September 30th, 2021. Each September 30th thereafter, minimum wage shall increase by $1.00 per hour until the minimum wage reaches $15.00 per hour on September 30th, 2026. From that point forward, future minimum wage increases shall revert to being adjusted annually for inflation starting September 30th, 2027."

State of Florida is currently one extra dollar above the national minimum wage, which is $7.46 (so Floridians are at $8.46). That's nowhere near a living wage (calculated at $16.07 in 2018) to afford rent, car and gas, and food.

What this will do to full-time employees is minimal, other than making entry-level wages go up to put them near the $15 an hour level. But this will have a profound effect on most part-time and seasonal workers, whose ability to pay the rent and other bills will get easier. This will be a huge wage boost since 2009, the last time the federal government raised the minimum wage.

For all the yelling and screaming from businesses that this will force them to fire workers because they can't afford the salaries, or that they'll leave the country, not of lot of them follow through on that. Businesses hire who they need to in order to keep up with any demands for work that befall that industry, and they'll have to hire - and keep - quality workers. And the businesses most affected by a minimum wage increase - restaurants, hotels, retailers - well, they have nowhere else to go and markets here to fill.

In the places that implemented this kind of wage boost: Costs for some services have gone up (but not enough to trigger inflation fears), businesses had cut back on hiring more employees than they already have, and a number of employees working multiple part-time jobs found it easier to cut back to working just one (or two). But the threatened collapse of the cities and states that have pushed these laws never came to pass.

This is anecdotal but I have relatives on part-time employ who live in a state that just went to a $15-per-hour wage. That relative has reported back that mortgage payments just got easier, which has reduced some of the anxiety they're coping with. I don't have much more to report than that.

By all measures, this is a Yes vote from me. Anything we can do to lift our working class out of poverty is a damn good thing.

Amendment Three: Open State Primaries Amendment

This is an interesting attempt to shake up a broken electoral system. This referendum "Allows all registered voters to vote in primaries for state legislature, governor, and cabinet regardless of political party affiliation. All candidates for an office, including party nominated candidates, appear on the same primary ballot. Two highest vote getters advance to general election. If only two candidates qualify, no primary is held and winner is determined in general election. Candidate’s party affiliation may appear on ballot as provided by law."

This does not look to affect the federal-level elections (President, Congress, Senate, Awesomest Chris, etc). 

What this looks to emulate is the Open Primary system they use in California (although that does include the non-Presidential federal offices). It mixes up the major parties (Republican and Democratic) and forces them to play nice with the smaller parties (Libertarian, Green, is Modern Whig still around...) and/or anybody else able to get on the primary ballot.

The results of this can be a mixed bag by the looks of it. As the WaPo article highlights, it can give one party an advantage in certain districts by dominating the primary and having both finalist spots filled (meaning a party win no matter what), but if too many candidates from the same party fill the ballot, they risk a split between party voters in that district (or state) and the less popular party can fill those two gaps instead (it hasn't happen yet, not noticeably).

The advantage to the Open Primary system as proposed is one that affects me: I am registered a No-Party-Affiliate. Yes, I am voting All-Democratic ticket now and for the foreseeable future thanks to Republican BS, but having been burned as a former registered Republican I feel uncomfortable signing up for another party even if I agree with them on 95 percent of the issues. Anyway, the problem being NPA is that I can't vote in either party's primaries (currently closed to members only): With an Open Primary, I now have a reason to show up in March and August when the primaries usually take place in Florida and I can have a say on which candidate(s) I think should represent in the General Elections that November.

And you'd be amazed at how the two major parties - Republicans and Democrats - are responding to this referendum: They both fear it, which is like having Burger King and McDonald's teaming up to stop a Wendy's from getting added to the other street corner they're on.

There's also arguments that this primary process of filtering down to two choices in November hurts the minor parties like Libertarian and Green. But here's the thing: They're not winning under the Closed Primary system anyway. Seriously, how many third party representatives are sitting in Tallahassee right now? (spoiler: Florida has NEVER had a non-Dem or non-GOP elected official in the state Lege) With an Open Primary, the odds ought to improve for a Libertarian or Green to do well enough to garner second-place in a two-place final round in one or two districts, if they find the right district that can support them.

The likelihood that a lot of No-Party-Affiliate voters like meself - currently around 3.6 million Florida voters - will show up more to vote improves the chances we will get candidates responsive to the voters instead of the major parties. More voters, better outcomes (or at least HONEST outcomes). On this point alone, I am leaning towards Yes on the Open Primary amendment.

Amendment Four: Second Vote On Public-Approved Amendments Amendment

This should be called the "No No, You Gotta MEAN IT When You Vote A Referendum Into Law" Referendum.

Officially, the legal wording is this "Requires all proposed amendments or revisions to the state constitution to be approved by the voters in two elections, instead of one, in order to take effect. The proposal applies the current thresholds for passage to each of the two elections." Unofficially, this amendment says "We don't believe 60 percent of you really wanted this, so screw you."

Instead of relying on 60 percent of voters to agree on a State Amendment the one time they get that many voters to agree on ANYTHING, this Amendment requires a second set of hurdles to get installed and do the vote ALL over again in case someone gets a bad case of buyers' remorse (or more likely, get inundated with ads and media claims opposing that amendment until enough people give in and vote No the second time).

What this Amendment will do is force the Initiative groups - the grassroots organizations, the non-profits, the ones looking to push reforms that the powerful elites controlling Tallahassee don't want passed - to double up on the costs and hassles of getting an Amendment created in the first place. It's not easy to get the petitions signed and confirmed, it's insanely difficult and expensive.

This is a ridiculous extra step getting added to a process that already has a difficult application process, approval process, judicial process, and then voter process. For any Amendment to survive and get 60 percent or more voters to back it should tell you that YES this is it, no do-overs, this becomes Florida law.

This is the big NO vote this year. This dare not become law, because if it does then nothing else the People desire as law will ever be allowed.

Amendment Five: Homestead Transfer Amendment

Also known as the "Save Our Homes Portability Act," it extends out an existing Homestead Exemption benefit getting transferred between a previous owned home to a new home from two years to three. It's one of two Legislature-approved Amendments, and one that both parties approved as a common-sense measure.

There doesn't seem to be any kind of financial impact statement regarding state revenues, not on Ballotpedia anyway, except for an example of how the "Save Our Homes" benefit reduces the tax paid for the homeowner by several thousands of dollars. There is an editorial listed with the Tampa Bay Times arguing in favor of this Amendment, while the League of Women Voters are opposing it on a blanket opposition to any referendum involving tax cuts that would harm public funding.

I am with the League in that this looks like another way to starve the state revenues, especially at a time when other resources for state funding is affected by the COVID pandemic. I would have to vote NO on this. I understand it'll probably pass because most voters are also homeowners who see the need to increase their exemption benefits, so I'm not particularly fighting hard against this one...

Amendment Six: Veterans' Spouse Tax Amendment

Again, for Florida a lot of taxation happens with property tax, and there's a lot of Homestead Exemption add-ons to give homeowners to keep said homeowners appeased. One such benefit was given to military veterans - especially popular due to the number of retirees here in-state - and so what this Amendment does is add a rule to that allowing the spouse of that veteran to continue receiving the veteran benefit even if the veteran dies (the exemption goes away if the spouse remarries or sells that property).

Again, this legislative-approved Amendment is so popular with elected officials that nobody balked at it, and again this looks like a popular Amendment to pass because noone dares put the tax squeeze on veterans or widows/widowers. The League of Women Voters opposes, again as a matter of principal. However, I am stuck on the fact this Amendment affects my parents (Dad's a vet) so I gotta go with what's good for my folks. I know this puts a crimp on revenue building but, you know, family. Voting YES on this one.

And... that's it, these six are the ones that survived the ballot process. Pretty quiet this election cycle, eh.

The key things to remember: Be wary of anything that takes our rights AWAY from us, be wary of anything the legislature throws at us, and be wary of anything that's got more parts to it than a Star Wars Lego set. 

This is why Amendment 4 is a disaster deserving a huge NO vote to reject it: If it passes, we may never see another citizen-approved referendum made again. 

This is why Amendment 3 is a GOOD one to pass: It expands our voting rights, especially for the large plurality of non-party voters who can finally get a say on which candidates they prefer in August well before they're forced to choose party hacks in November.

And anything that gives our workers better wages is always a plus, so YES on Amendment 2.

One last key thing: Every election the ballots we get are big ones, lots of offices to fill, lots of local ordinances up for votes as well. Check EVERY part of the ballot and make sure you've filled out every single choice you can see. Every vote needs to count, every election matters.

Now get the damn vote out, Florida. Early voting starts in October, and registration ends around October 3! Prepare yourselves.

Oh No. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Died.

No No No is literally trending on Twitter.

WE ARE BACK AT DEFCON-1, AMERICA.

This is like Scalia's dying except it's a MILLION TIMES WORSE BECAUSE MITCH MCCONNELL IS AN EVIL FCKING BASTARD.

Okay, if we can go to a calmer voice like Russell Berman at the Atlantic about this:

The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg today represents a devastating loss for feminists who held up the 87-year-old as an icon of women’s rights, and as a bulwark protecting abortion rights and a wide range of other progressive ideals on a conservative Supreme Court. The Brooklyn-born jurist became one of the nation’s foremost advocates against gender discrimination as a lawyer for the ACLU, decades before President Bill Clinton appointed her to be the second woman to sit on the high court.

But her passing less than two months before the presidential election also tosses one more lit match into the tinderbox of national politics in 2020: It will surely inflame a deeply polarized country already riven by a deadly pandemic, a steep economic downturn, and civil unrest in its major cities.

In Washington, the vacancy fight could ratchet up tensions to a level unseen even in the tumultuous Trump era. President Donald Trump will be eager to fill Ginsburg’s seat immediately, seizing an opportunity to rally his base before the election and to cement his legacy in the event he is defeated in November. He could also become the first president since Richard Nixon to install three justices on the high court in a single four-year term. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already indicated he’s ready for another confirmation battle, either before or immediately after the election. Republicans might be hard-pressed to consider and approve a Trump nominee in the eight weeks before November, but even a victory by Vice President Joe Biden and a Democratic takeover of the Senate might not prevent Trump from successfully appointing another justice. Republicans would still control both the White House and the Senate until a new Congress takes office in early January...

...McConnell has insisted that the precedent he created to deny former President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland in the final year of Obama’s term—in a vacancy that occurred nearly nine months before the 2016 election—no longer applies, because the same party controls both the White House and the Senate majority. “Oh, we’d fill it,” the Kentucky Republican promised in May 2019, more than a year before Ginsburg announced the cancer recurrence that took her life. Never mind that the rationale McConnell gave at the time—that voters should have the chance to weigh in on their next Supreme Court justice—would seem to apply even more strongly during an election in which the first ballots have already been mailed...

McConnell will break the rules he himself made because his main objective - Republican political rule even in spite of a majority of Americans opposing Republicans - is all that matters.

You know Mitch is going to summon the Senate back this Monday and push through a trump nominee of some 30 year old with maybe three weeks worth of legal work but with the farthest Far Right ideology spewing out his mouth to get voted to Ginsburg's seat by the end of next week.

We are looking at the reality of a 6 conservative - 3 liberal skewed bench ruling on banning abortion (plus birth control because the Patriarchy demands it), ending affordable health care, voter suppression, immigration torture, and every other legal matter starting this October.

We are so very royally fucked.

I know, I know. We are coping with the passing of a lioness in American jurisprudence in Ginsburg, a feminist icon whose legal rulings were of high importance and foundational.

But we're also in the gravest national crisis of political gridlock and self-inflicted destruction since 1860. We're being led by crooks and corrupt bastards who do not care for justice or equality or the law itself.

The Darkest Timeline has gone full dark.

What We Do To Women In The Shadows of Our Government

 The report hasn't been fully verified but there's enough to this story to make one sick. Via Nicole Narea at Vox: 

The allegations began with a nurse, Dawn Wooten, who filed a whistleblower complaint on Monday that cited concerns about a seemingly high number of hysterectomies performed on immigrants detained at the facility.

On Wednesday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the vice chair of the House immigration subcommittee, said in a statement that she had been briefed by three attorneys representing detainees at the facility. At minimum, she said, 17 or 18 people held at the Irwin County Detention Center had been subjected to unnecessary gynecological procedures — often “with the clear intention of sterilization” and without obtaining proper consent...

Many of the details of the allegations against the Georgia facility are still emerging, and both ICE and the private operator of the facility have called for skepticism of the complaint, which relies on secondhand accounts of the hysterectomies that were allegedly performed. Attorneys have since come forward with firsthand accounts of such procedures, but it is not clear to what extent ICE and the medical staff involved sought the detainees’ consent to perform those procedures or whether they were medically necessary...

According to Wooten’s complaint, the detainees, many of whom have limited English skills, were allegedly sent to a gynecologist outside the facility who performed the hysterectomies, often without them fully understanding why they were getting the procedure done. One woman was told it was because she had a “thick womb” or “heavy bleeding,” even though she had never experienced heavy bleeding or been told by a doctor previously that she had a thick womb, according to the complaint...

Hysterectomies can be commonly used to treat noncancerous growths in the uterus that contribute to heavy periods and painful sex, as well as endometriosis, pelvic support issues, abnormal uterine bleedings, chronic pelvic pain, and gynecologic cancers. But the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advises that, depending on a patient’s condition and comfort level, they may “want to try other options first that do not involve surgery” or see if the condition improves on its own first, waiting to perform the hysterectomy until a woman no longer wants to bear children.

Detainees were also subject to other invasive gynecological procedures, including one woman who allegedly had Fallopian tube removal without her consent, which will likely make it harder for her to conceive in the future...

The report suggests that these surgeries were unnecessary. There were other ways to treat women - birth control pills for example help with treating ovarian cysts - but it looks like this private corporation - well removed from any public oversight - went too far.

It's known as "Forced Sterilization."

It's considered a human rights violation.

And given the open hostility that trump and his closest handlers like Stephen Miller are towards immigrants, and especially towards women, a lot of this looks intentional.

And this is just at ONE detention facility run by ICE and their corporate partners.

And this is just ONE MORE moment of a Republican agenda to make women suffer for the sake of a twisted patriarchy.

Ye Gods, trump and his anti-immigrant horde are desperate to hurt other people - above all, to hurt women - any chance they get.

Go Read Infidel's The Choice

There's a lot to write about so I want to post something quick about the 2020 Election and WHY IT MATTERS so here's Infidel753 on "The Choice," read it in full and understand WE NEED TO VOTE THE REPUBLICAN CROOKS OUT NOW. Pass it on.

Documenting The Character of Joe Biden for the Presidency In 2020

I know I pimp heavily the work of James David Barber's Presidential Character, and I've already made my analysis of Joe Biden's traits heading into the 2020 general election.

But I wanna confirm my reading of Biden's habits and potential performance as President, so I went looking for research from other observers. It's always good for the soul to find out other people see the same things you see...

Anywho, here's some links to what I found that matches my conclusion of Biden being Passive-Positive.

From "The Political Personality of Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden," by Aubrey Immelman in a working paper for College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University via Digital Commons:

The personality profile yielded by the MIDC was analyzed on the basis of interpretive guidelines provided in the MIDC and Millon Index of Personality Styles manuals. Biden’s primary personality pattern was found to be Outgoing/gregarious, complemented by a secondary Accommodating/cooperative pattern and subsidiary Ambitious/confident features.

The prominence of the Outgoing pattern, in conjunction with a distinctive Accommodating pattern in his overall personality configuration, is indicative of the conciliatory extravert subtype. This personality composite provides the personological substrate for a strong affiliation motive. These individuals are driven to seek approval; they want others to like them and view them as a friend or ally. To achieve that motivational goal, they often compliment, praise, or flatter others, presenting an image of goodwill. When disagreements occur, they attempt to smooth things over, sometimes at the cost of conceding.

Leaders with Biden’s personality profile are likely to exhibit an interpersonal leadership style, characterized by flexibility, compromise, and an emphasis on teamwork. The general tenor of a Biden presidency likely will be conciliatory, which could render a prospective President Biden vulnerable to manipulation by pressure groups and handicap him in negotiations or conflicts with foreign adversaries...

In terms of presidential temperament, Joe Biden seems most similar to Barber’s (1972/1992) passive–positive presidential character — leaders such as William Howard Taft, Warren G. Harding, and Ronald Reagan, characterized by an ingratiating personality, optimism, and a desire to please. These affiliation-motivated presidents are low on the need for power and do not invest much energy in the office of the presidency but nonetheless like the job...

Here's something from a source I normally don't quote from (the American Conservative) in a June 2020 article by Robert W. Merry:

...but Biden’s ability to work with senatorial colleagues was a hallmark of his image over the decades of his congressional tenure. The highly regarded Congressional Quarterly book of political profiles, Politics in America, praised Biden for his ability to work with North Carolina Republican Jesse Helms when Helms was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and Biden was its ranking member. Said the book: “Biden’s ability to maintain lines of communication with all groups often has made him, rather than Helms, the key vote on Foreign Relations.”

This can be viewed as evidence of a Positive trait, based on the Barber scale. Even after 30 years in the Senate, said Politics in America, “he still exhibits the intelligence, drive and passion of his youth.” The key word here, in terms of presidential character, is “passion.” Positives demonstrate a zest for the job and an openness to people, even those in the opposition who represent impediments to success that must be dealt with through persuasion, cajolery, back-slapping, and old-fashioned horse-trading. Positives love that game; so does Biden.

On the Active/Passive scale, Biden seems to tilt toward passivity... Thus does it appear that Biden represents a likely Passive/Positive president. Recall, Barber sees presidents in this category as wanting to be loved and thus ingratiating—and easily manipulated. That indeed is one of the knocks on Biden by conservatives—that he is being manipulated in his campaign, and would continue to be as president, by his party’s emergent leftist radicals...

Merry might need to recognize that the fears of Biden being manipulated by the Far Left Progressives is mirrored by the Progressives' fear that Biden will be manipulated by the Moderates and Centrists that Merry would view as advocates to his issues. Ah well, can't please everyone.

P.S. Merry, I can explain to you why Barber graded Reagan as a Passive-Positive, drop me a message we'll talk aboot it.

To round out to a nice third entry, here's an Atlantic article from Franklin Foer about Biden's campaign struggles and rebounds:

In the face of upheaval, he’s given reason to hope that the traits that were his supposed weaknesses could prove to be his great strengths. If one of the ultimate purposes of protest is to push politicians, he’s shown himself a politician willing to be pushed. His tendency to channel the zeitgeist has supplied him with the potential to meet a very difficult moment...

More than other figures in the Democratic Party, Biden can speak warmly about the protesters without risking political backlash. With his gaffes, which sometimes veer toward the politically incorrect, he’s hardly an easily caricatured avatar of wokeness. His penchant for cringeworthy remarks, and his old-time mannerisms, help cushion whatever anxiety some white voters might have about his tough criticisms of police and blunt condemnations of systemic racism...

The challenge for the Biden candidacy is to bridge an alliance with a resurgent left. Biden, a creature of the Senate, has to convince young people rushing to the barricades that he’s worth a trip to the polls. And the challenge for the left is to accept that Biden is its greatest chance of achieving its long-held dreams. What he’s demonstrated over the past week is a willingness to play the role of tribune, to let the moment carry him to a new place...

What Foer speaks to is the conciliatory nature of a Passive-Positive, a sizable amount of humility and self-deprecation (traits sometimes shared with Active-Positives) mixed with the awareness of the moment and the ability to attune to the needs of others (in this case, the needs of Americans both Left Center and Right battered by four years of trumpian abuse).

In terms of our nation's need for a Passive-Positive figure, in many respects this makes Biden the perfect antithesis to donald trump, a pure Active-Negative and thus polar opposite in nature to Biden's Congenial traits (referring back to Merry's article, even Merry notes the unhappy, grasping and raging traits of trump puts him squarely in the A-N chart).

This is where we are at: The choice is between a benevolent, congenial Biden and a rage-filled, destructive trump.

It shouldn't be that hard a choice, America. For the LOVE OF GOD, vote Biden.

Nullifying 2020

(Update 9/16/20: Thanks again to Tengrain at Crooks&Liars to share this article at Mike's Blog Round-Up! Wish me luck with the FWA Royal Palm Literary Award for Non-Fiction: Blogging)

It's getting more obvious by the day: trump wants to nullify the 2020 Elections. Via Cameron Peters at Vox:

It’s not a new talking point for Trump, who has already mounted a sustained campaign against mail-in voting and the US Postal Service — and who continues to claim there was widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election, when there was not.

But in an election where as many as six in 10 Americans say they plan to vote early and a historic number of ballots are likely to be cast by mail, such rhetoric takes on a dangerous new dimension. There’s a fair chance we won’t know who won on election night as ballots are counted — many states accept ballots postmarked on Election Day for days afterward — and Trump is already sending up a signal that he plans to dispute the results or even prematurely claim victory on Election Day if early returns show him ahead...

...Trump also suggested Saturday that his supporters should turn out as poll watchers, “because with you people watching the polls it’s going to be pretty hard to cheat. I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t want to be a cheater.”

The suggestion is a concerning one, however. There is a history of GOP poll watchers engaging in voter intimidation — one that led to a since-expired federal consent decree curbing such activity. With instances of armed Trump supporters engaging in pseudo-law enforcement vigilantism, there’s reason for concern that poll watching could lead to further voter intimidation in November...

there are several things at play here. trump above all is projecting, accusing the other party of being the cheaters when it's been him and the Republicans caught cheating both in 2016 and now. trump is also trying to create a Narrative to sell to the Beltway media, as a means of beating it into their heads early and often to the point they will parrot it as fact.

Above all, trump is sowing chaos, creating an environment where he can abuse the powers of the office and refuse to accept a possible outcome of not only losing the popular vote to Biden, but also enough states to lose the Electoral College as well.

This is an attempt by trump to intimidate voters into not even trying to vote, of depressing turnout so that only his true believers show up and skew the results again like in 2016.

There is a solution to this, Democrats.

TURN THE VOTE OUT. Everyone registered to vote, get the fck to the polling booths. Mail in your ballots. Show up for Early Voting, show up in such numbers that trump can't claim early leads.

VOTING MATTERS. You have the numbers, Democrats. You have allies among Independent voters sick of trump's incompetence. You need to counter trump's lies with a clarion call to every voter who supports you to get the ballots in and make every person count.

September 11 2020 So Many Years Ago

Some days you just look at the blue sky and it reminds you of how clear and blue that Tuesday morning was so long ago.

There will be services and memorials throughout the day across New York, DC, and Pennsylvania. With this being an election year, don't be surprised if the partisan spins come out (and someone accusing Biden of being in charge of the Presidency back in 2001 when it was Dubya and his crew who screwed up).

And yes, I am angry and afraid and upset. If trump steals away the 2020 results with his voter suppression and Russian aid (and any other "legal" trickery he'll encourage) we are facing the nightmare of having THAT Shitgibbon in the White House when the 20th anniversary rolls in next year.

For the LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, AMERICA, do NOT let that Shitgibbon be there to twist what should be a solemn memorial into his personal ego-stroking. /headdesk

Red Skies in 2020

Should have taken warning, it's just\
People mourning\
Running, hiding, lost\
You can't find\
Find a place to go\
So it's...

Red skies at night\
Red skies at night\
Oh oh...

- "Red Skies," The Fixx

This is not good (from Astig Magaling's channel):

(from BOSSCARS channel):

This one has better music but is more unsettling:

This isn't Blade Runner. This is Real Life.

Right now, the West Coast is shrouded in the smoke of dozens of wild fires from Washington to Southern California, all part of an ongoing cycle of bad weather and hotter-than-normal conditions. To quote from Jane Hu at Slate:

In case you’re wondering if this is normal: It absolutely is not. Historically, fire season in California peaks in October, and Denver hasn’t gotten snow in September for two decades. Often, vacationers in San Francisco complain that the weather isn’t as warm as they were expecting for California—“the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco,” people like to say—but the Bay Area hit 100 degrees this weekend. And these aberrant patterns aren’t the only extreme weather we’ve seen across the U.S. lately: Hurricane Laura pummeled the Louisiana coast less than two weeks ago, and a couple of weeks before that, a derecho whipped through Iowa, where winds over 100 miles an hour damaged more than 800 buildings and up to 43 percent of the state’s soybean and corn crop, according to Radio Iowa...

Hurricane Laura was two weeks ago and there's barely any talk about the damage done there. The storm that hit Iowa was a freaky thing called a derecho and the scale of it has wrecked the state for years to come.

And we've already forgotten as a planet the devastating wildfires of Australia that opened this annus horribilis of 2020. We're talking an environmental disaster that will take decades for humanity to recover and that may wipe out the natural wildlife forever.

Back here in the U.S., all of this is taking place with a Republican-led federal government that has said little and doesn't seem to be doing anything to help with resolving the climate change woes that are fueling the extremes in national and global weather.

None of this is normal weather. None of this is getting fixed as long as the Republicans drag their feet on any action that might dare cut into CEO bonus pay.

And it's still red skies tonight on the West Coast...

trump Lied, We Died. DO SOMETHING TO STOP HIM, America

So this dropped today (via Adam L Silverman at Balloon Juice, but seriously this should be on all the major Non-Right Wing news sites by now):

Lordy! There Are Tapes! Bob Woodward’s Rage Has Leaked To CNN & By Leaked I Mean Bob Woodward Gave CNN the Book and the Tapes

Whenever anyone tweets "Lordy" on Twitter it means someone has tapes of trump tripping over his own ego to expose his sins (we still haven't seen a hair of the reported Pee Tape though). When I saw it trend, I knew it was bad, but I had to find out how bad (from here Silverman reports from the original CNN source):

President Donald Trump admitted he knew weeks before the first confirmed US coronavirus death that the virus was dangerous, airborne, highly contagious and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus,” and that he repeatedly played it down publicly, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward in his new book “Rage.”

"This is deadly stuff," Trump told Woodward on February 7.

In a series of interviews with Woodward, Trump revealed that he had a surprising level of detail about the threat of the virus earlier than previously known. “Pretty amazing,” Trump told Woodward, adding that the coronavirus was maybe five times “more deadly” than the flu.

Trump’s admissions are in stark contrast to his frequent public comments at the time insisting that the virus was “going to disappear” and “all work out fine.”

The book, using Trump’s own words, depicts a President who has betrayed the public trust and the most fundamental responsibilities of his office. In “Rage,” Trump says the job of a president is “to keep our country safe.” But in early February, Trump told Woodward he knew how deadly the virus was, and in March, admitted he kept that knowledge hidden from the public.

“I wanted to always play it down,” Trump told Woodward on March 19, even as he had declared a national emergency over the virus days earlier. “I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic...”

Well, we still had a national panic. And then the nation split into two factions: One faction that believed every word from trump that the panic was overblown and the whole thing was a hoax to make trump look bad; the second faction that realized real quick that trump was LYING as usual and did everything they could to self-quarantine and wear masks everywhere they had to go.

And because trump downplayed the crisis, because trump added confusion to the public awareness rather than giving honest warning to the hazards of COVID, because trump lied to the press and the public and everyone else, the United States is facing one of the highest death totals the planet will witness (nearing 200,000 total COVID-related deaths this September).

We're nearing the death count of our major wars, far higher than any terrorist attack or natural disaster.

Because trump lied. Because trump knew the virus would strike at people he did not have to care about, even though his OATH OF OFFICE should compel him to defend this nation from all threats.

There's a word for that.

Genocide.

And trump is doing everything in his power to cheat his way to another four years of this insanity, with an entire Republican Party willing to commit every sin to help him.

Gods help us.

Voting him and every GOP official out of power is the only way we're going to survive, for the LOVE OF GOD every honest American wishing to protect their loved ones need to understand that.

A Second Chance To Restore the Long Arc Towards Justice

I just want to post a link here to an important, must-read essay by Adam Serwer at The Atlantic, regarding our nation's poor civil rights history, and the chance we face today of making good on the promises of the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era:

Trump was elected president on a promise to restore an idealized past in which America’s traditional aristocracy of race was unquestioned. But rather than restore that aristocracy, four years of catastrophe have—at least for the moment—discredited it. Instead of ushering in a golden age of prosperity and a return to the cultural conservatism of the 1950s, Trump’s presidency has radicalized millions of white Americans who were previously inclined to dismiss systemic racism as a myth, the racial wealth gap as a product of Black cultural pathology, and discriminatory policing as a matter of a few bad apples...

The conditions in America today do not much resemble those of 1968. In fact, the best analogue to the current moment is the first and most consequential such awakening—in 1868. The story of that awakening offers a guide, and a warning. In the 1860s, the rise of a racist demagogue to the presidency, the valor of Black soldiers and workers, and the stories of outrages against the emancipated in the South stunned white northerners into writing the equality of man into the Constitution. The triumphs and failures of this anti-racist coalition led America to the present moment. It is now up to their successors to fulfill the promises of democracy, to make a more perfect union, to complete the work of Reconstruction...

You need to read the whole thing. It's arguably one of the most important works on modern racism - and its long deep roots to a failed Reconstruction - since Ta-Nehisi Coates' tenure - especially his brilliant argument "The Case For Reparations" - at that magazine.

Disrespect Is Everywhere In the World of trump

Over this weekend, no other report about trump has been as damning as Jeffrey Goldberg's article in the Atlantic about trump's consistent disrespect for the men and women of the armed forces. I could quote bits and pieces from it, but you SHOULD go and read the article in full. If I should quote any passage, it's this:

On Memorial Day 2017, Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery, a short drive from the White House. He was accompanied on this visit by John Kelly, who was then the secretary of homeland security, and who would, a short time later, be named the White House chief of staff. The two men were set to visit Section 60, the 14-acre area of the cemetery that is the burial ground for those killed in America’s most recent wars. Kelly’s son Robert is buried in Section 60. A first lieutenant in the Marine Corps, Robert Kelly was killed in 2010 in Afghanistan. He was 29. Trump was meant, on this visit, to join John Kelly in paying respects at his son’s grave, and to comfort the families of other fallen service members. But according to sources with knowledge of this visit, Trump, while standing by Robert Kelly’s grave, turned directly to his father and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly (who declined to comment for this story) initially believed, people close to him said, that Trump was making a ham-handed reference to the selflessness of America’s all-volunteer force. But later he came to realize that Trump simply does not understand non-transactional life choices.

“He can’t fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself,” one of Kelly’s friends, a retired four-star general, told me. “He just thinks that anyone who does anything when there’s no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker. There’s no money in serving the nation.” Kelly’s friend went on to say, “Trump can’t imagine anyone else’s pain. That’s why he would say this to the father of a fallen marine on Memorial Day in the cemetery where he’s buried.”

We need to remind ourselves that this report of trump's incomprehensibility is actually old news. trump has been disdainful of military service and the people who signed up for it even years before he started campaigning for the Presidency. he's been caught bragging about getting out of the 1960s draft and comparing service in Vietnam to his trying to avoid STDs in the 1980s.

Goldberg's article rehashes the reality of trump's failed trip to honor the fallen of World War I back in 2018. trump's people denied the reports then, but it comes up again with sources confirming trump labeled the Belleau Wood Marines as "losers" and "suckers".

It's been documented that trump views the world as "winners" and "suckers" and that he himself should never be seen as a sucker. The implication there being: the rest of us should be suckers, to his con games.

It's been documented that trump wants everyone else to respect him - and be loyal to the point of sacrifice - but cannot in any way show respect to any of the people who work for him. To any of the people he views as beneath himself. You know, the people he views as suckers.

The warnings are there, have always been there, big red flags getting waved with giant easy-to-read letters printed on the banners screaming "TRUMP IS A SELFISH UNTHINKING MONSTER".

trump keeps showing us his character, a character wallowing in greed and cruelty and vulgar lusts.

None of this is surprising anymore. It just keeps hurting. And hurting. And the pain is not going to stop until trump is gone, gone from power and gone from public view.

Gods help us. We need a Blue Wave this November to wash all trumpian sins away.

It's September 2020 and All Is NOT Well

Our situation on the streets of America isn't getting any better with trump actively stirring unrest as a means to win re-election in November. Via Aaron Rupar at Vox.com: 

On Monday afternoon, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden addressed unrest in cities like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon, saying that President Donald Trump “long ago forfeited any moral leadership in this country.”

“He can’t stop the violence, because for years he’s fomented it,” Biden added during his speech in Pittsburgh. “You know, he may believe mouthing the words ‘law and order’ makes him strong, but his failure to call on his own supporters to stop acting as an armed militia in this country shows how weak he is.”

Within hours, Trump proved Biden right, delivering a press conference in which he stoked unfounded fears about “left-wing political violence” while refusing to condemn right-wing vigilantes — including a 17-year-old supporter of his who has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two protesters in Kenosha...

...Not only does Trump habitually refuse to acknowledge that police violence and right-wing violence are problems in the US, but he goes out of his way to justify it.

Asked by Ingraham if he wants his supporters to confront protesters, Trump said, “I want to leave it to law enforcement, but my supporters are wonderful, hardworking, tremendous people, and they turn on their televisions and they look at a Portland or a Kenosha ... they can’t believe it.”

About that teen gunman:

You might think that condemning this type of vigilante-style violence would be an easy thing for a president to do — but not for Trump. Asked about the case during Monday’s news conference, Trump defended the shooter.

“That was an interesting situation. You saw the same tape that I saw, and he was trying to get away [from protesters], I guess, it looks like, and he fell, and then they very violently attacked him,” Trump said. “I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would’ve been killed.”

Never mind the reality that the teenager traveled across state lines with that rifle, never mind the reports that he shot someone first, and the other two were shot trying to stop him from shooting any more people. To trump, the gunman is the hero and the protesters are "Antifa terrorists" (You might notice the Far Right refuse to spell that out as "Antifascist" because the full word makes it damn clear those protesters are the good guys).

Amid all of this, trump and his campaign handlers have been trying to spread the crazy conspiracy that the current round of protests and all the violence - a lot of it caused by Far Right counter-protesters trying to frame the anti-fascist groups - are all coming from "Biden's America" and that's how things will get if Joe wins the election this November. Never mind the reality that all of this is happening today under trump's mismanagement of everything, and under trump's unwillingness to lead a united America.

If there's any good news, it's that the current post-convention polling still shows Biden with a healthy national lead in the popular vote and decent leads in key battleground states for the Electoral College.

The bad news is: trump is going to make things worse because it's the only way he knows how to survive.

Gods help us.

The Divider In Chief Goes Rabid

Whatever I posted earlier on the protests in Portland, it's gotten worse. Via Kanishka Singh at Reuters:

One person was shot dead in Portland late on Saturday as protesters from rival groups clashed in the northwest U.S. city, which has seen frequent demonstrations for months that have at times turned violent...

Sounds of gunfire were heard in the area of Southeast 3rd Avenue and Southwest Alder Street, according to the spokesman’s statement.

The police said they were not currently releasing suspect information.

When asked by Reuters if the shooting was related to clashes between rival protesters in the same area, the spokesman said "it is too early in the investigation to draw those kinds of conclusions..."

The New York Times and the Oregonian newspapers reported that a large group of supporters of President Donald Trump had traveled in a caravan through downtown Portland, with a pro-Trump gathering drawing hundreds of trucks full of supporters into the city.

The Times cited two unidentified witnesses as saying a small group of people got into an argument with other people in a vehicle and someone opened fire.

The man who was shot and killed was wearing a hat with the insignia of Patriot Prayer, a far-right group based in Portland that has clashed with protesters in the past, according to the New York Times. Reuters could not independently verify this...

The New York Times reported that Trump supporters and counter-protesters clashed on the streets, with people shooting paint ball guns from the beds of pickup trucks and protesters throwing objects back at them...

trump is tweeting out praise to the shooter(s) who went in that pro-trump caravan with paintballs and then real guns. he's been attacking the Portland, OR mayor for being weak and allowing the violence to continue in order to make trump "look bad" (when it's trump's own people making things worse). trump hasn't said much about the teen shooter in Kenosha but trump's media allies sure have.

trump has been bashing Black Lives Matter protesters and praising Far Right militias with equal fervor, pushing for division and making calls to violence more frequently, especially as the 2020 election campaigning enters the final round toward November.

What trump is doing is horrifying. In my lifetime, I cannot recall any of our Presidents actively sowing dissension in our own streets (worse, doing so for political points with his rabid base). Whenever there were protests going on, be it under Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Lesser, Obama, the White House message was usually along the lines of "we do not agree with what the protesters are claiming but we respect their right to march as long as they're respectful of the public peace" (There were protests during Reagan's tenure I recall but usually about apartheid and divesting from South Africa and usually too small to make the headlines, I can't recall anything more large-scale). Under trump, every BLM protest is a violent riot and every White Pride riot is a protest.

One of the job duties of a President - along with Commander-in-Chief and Chief of State - is being a Uniter figure, a Mourner-in-Chief in moments of great tragedy (like Reagan with the Challenger disaster) and a Rallier-in-Chief in moments of dark times (when Dubya offered words of condolence and strength - genuine or not - after 9/11).

It is telling that trump has failed since DAY ONE in the White House in the duty of being a Uniter. It requires traits - empathy above all - that trump never had in his soul.

trump can only appeal to the emotional states of greed, rage, and cruelty. Those are the only tools he really has when it comes time to stand at a podium and speak to the nation at large. And it's why when given the chance, trump will always fail to speak to the nation and speak instead to his base of angry voters who care not for empathy, sharing, or compassion.

For all that trump tries to compare himself to Lincoln, trump is actually the polar opposite. Where Lincoln - even in the throes of the civil war where our nation was at its most divided - spoke to the better angels of our nature, trump instead wants that civil war in order to maintain his corrupt hold on power and thus speaks to the worst demons of our nature.

Let me refer to David Frum at the Atlantic, who also got to the same point of realization about trump's crossing of the moral event horizon:

...The Trump campaign probably broke the law—and certainly trashed norms of republican constitutionalism dating to the very origins of the United States—when it made a campaign prop of the White House. But was Trump troubled? Absolutely not. He basked in the moment. He invited his supporters to bask with him. Bask they did.

Donald Trump is a dreadful public speaker, but a master communicator.

When he chooses to deliver a formal oration, as he chose to do on the fourth night of the convention, he visibly bores himself. He comes alive only when he can free-associate onstage about his grievances, bigotries, and hatreds. And while those speeches may seethe with dark energy, they are hemmed in by his shrinking vocabulary and egocentric content...

Mid-speech, Trump expatiated on the greatness of the American past. “Our American ancestors sailed across the perilous ocean to build a new life on a new continent,” he began. Almost any other candidate, even any other Republican, would feel some need to acknowledge the experience of Native Americans and enslaved Africans, to place a question mark over the concept of wild frontier and open range—the literal phrases in his text. But Trump knows that millions of his fellow Americans are sick and tired of having to pretend to care about Black and Indigenous people. He wants them to know that he doesn’t care either. That’s what they love about him.

The night before Trump’s acceptance address, a Trump supporter shot three people, killing two, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The 17-year-old crossed state lines to carry his AR-15-style rifle to a scene of confrontation that ended in death. Some presidential nominees might have felt obliged to say something about that. Again: not Trump. “In the strongest possible terms, the Republican Party condemns the rioting, looting, arson and violence we have seen in Democrat-run cities like Kenosha, Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and New York,” he said. Trump spoke not a word to his followers urging them to put down their guns and quit the provocateur tactics that have so often accelerated disorder into violence. He knows that millions of his fellow Americans regard an armed white vigilante as an honorary law-enforcement officer. He wants them to know that he agrees. That’s something else they love about him...

Trump is a secessionist from the top. As my colleague Ron Brownstein often observes, Trump regards himself as a wartime president of Red America against Blue America. That’s how he can describe riot and disorder as happening in “Biden’s America,” even when it happens under his presidency. In his mind, the majority of the country is already “Biden’s America,” even before Biden enters office—and the remainder of it will continue to be “Trump’s America,” even should Trump leave office.

Since we are two countries, we can have two sets of laws and rules: one for friends, another for enemies. That’s why so many prominent Trump supporters can look at the shooting in Kenosha and perceive the gunman, who went to a city where he did not live with an AR-15-style rifle in hand, as acting in self-defense. The gunman had legitimate rights that must be respected. The dead men did not, and neither did all the many victims this year of police shootings. If those victims had criminal records, then they were criminals—unlike, say, Michael Flynn, who remains a rights-bearing American despite his criminal record. Two countries, two classes of citizen, two systems of law...

One of the points about America is that we're supposed to be The United States of America. Under trump, we are no longer united. As Divider-in-Chief, trump has separated us into a Red America and a Blue America, and he's given the okay to Red America to open fire on the Blue America.

We're in the middle of the Second Civil War, not the beginning. It's just that now we don't have a President in the White House working to save us, it's a Loser of the Popular Vote fighting hard to keep us divided so he can stay in power.

Gods help us.

Superheroes Shouldn't Die 2020 Edition: Wakanda Forever

(Update 8/31: Thank you again Batocchio for the link to Crooks&Liars Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please do click on the link below to John Lewis' eulogy as well, thank ye)

2020 is starting to suck in ways that even 2016 never thought of.

T'Challa died! (well, the actor):

...(Chadwick) Boseman is well known in our realm for playing T’Challa the Black Panther in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but famously also played Jackie Robinson in 42, along with roles in Draft Day, Gods of Egypt, Marshall, and more...

I just wrote this last month, covering the passing of Civil Rights icon John Lewis:

There's a saying in pop culture: Representation matters. It's why little girls look up to giant posters of Wonder Woman and cry when running into Gal Gadot (it's why getting a Wonder Woman movie made period since the superhero movie boom of the late 1980s was a big f-cking deal). It's why not just African-Americans but Africans looked to Black Panther as a role model since the 1960s when Lee and Kirby created his character. It's why the push for Asian heroes to get introduced into the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is front-page news.

After Black Panther movie came out, there were serious efforts to get the Wakandan salute done properly in the real world:

photo from Jose Luis Magana (AP Photo)

Comic books, it should be noted, is a place where legends are formed and cultures shaped. The best tales, the best heroes, become larger-than-life figures who can inspire and motivate. It's not that Superman can lift cars over his head, it's that Superman can show up on a ledge next to a teenage girl and talk her down from suicide. It's that Captain Marvel can stand up after all these men knock her down with the awareness she doesn't have to prove a damn thing to them. It's that Black Panther can defend an African nation - all of Africa in some stories - from the scars and damage of colonization to build a better future.

This is a huge passing. Boseman was poised to carry the Marvel Cinematic franchise into the 2020s, playing a character whose legendary status is on par with Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, in some places even Superman. Representation matters. Black Panther is a global hero, and the actor playing him helps build that identity in ways that any replacement actor will struggle to achieve (look to how hard it is to find someone to fill Christopher Reeve's iconic take on Superman, or filling Leonard Nimoy's role as Spock).

Also lost in this passing is a good person, who had been fighting colon cancer (stage 3, which is serious) while starring in a string of movies - not just Black Panther and the Avengers movies, but played Thurgood Marshall in a biopic and in a Spike Lee Da 5 Bloods Vietnam War tale - since 2016. Boseman was an actor with range, pathos, and wit.

If anything, Boseman helped confirmed the folly of white people and potato salad forever:

"Ah Hell Naw, Karen, keep your bland-ass potato salad to yourself!" "In the face!"

/crying

In Memoriam: Thirty Years Later from Gainesville

I wrote this five years ago, about what happened in Gainesville at University of Florida:

We shouldn't forget the lives taken that didn't need to go.  There are so many of them taken from us every day across the globe, and the sorrow of it is how much waste and loss and pain there is when that happens.

If the killer had never been, right now Sonja or Christina or Christa or Tracy or Manuel would be my age or close to it, in their 40s.  Likely married or with kids of their own.  Kids old enough to be attending UF themselves by now, twenty-five years later.  All five of them could be working somewhere, as doctors or engineers or teachers.  Writing books, or painting, or composing music.  Creating, adding to the world.

We are them and they could have been us.  Maybe doing better, maybe not.  But we'll never know, we'll never see.  

All that loss during a cold week in August 1990.

In memoriam.

The anniversary didn't make a lot of national news and the pandemic forced any public gathering to cancel, but the local paper Gainesville Sun covered the look back in sorrow (by Cindy Swirko):

...At other anniversary points of this pivotal tragedy, the Gainesville community has gathered for vigils or services of commemoration. This time, with the coronavirus pandemic preventing that, the anniversary might seem overlooked.

The University of Florida stopped anniversary recognitions such as tolling the carillon bells of Century Tower five times after the 25th anniversary. There are lasting reminders on campus, however. There are also five palm trees planted in the median near the wall in memory of the students, as well as five trees on campus near Library East...

New students to Gainesville might see the memorial of trees and placards in the median of Southwest 34th Street south of Second Avenue and not realize who it’s for.

Or they might see the center panel on the graffitied wall beside the road and not realize it is a sacred spot...

Photo by Sam Thomas for the Sun

The locals defend that spot. Anybody tries to paint over it, within hours the spot is repainted so the five names - Sonja, Christina, Christa, Manuel, Trudy - and the hearts are put back up.

The sin and sorrow of murder is the void we endure when the lives are gone. They could be doctors, teachers, parents, artists, travelers, thinkers, dreamers... All that potential gone.

And it's just these five lives. There are so many others killed in acts of rage and lust all across the world, all that pain and sorrow to endure more and more.

Just want to live in a stronger loving world, can't we just have that, someday...?

The Only Thing You Need To Know About trumpCon's Debasement of The Presidency Tonight

trump is going to give his big convention speech from the South Lawn of the White House... which is a violation of the Hatch Act. Along with a number of other things trump did to break that law. Via Sam Gringlas at NPR:

The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in most political activity inside federal buildings or while on duty. Though the president and vice president are exempt from the civil provisions of the Hatch Act, federal employees like Pompeo, Wolf and any executive branch employees who helped stage the events are not.

Ethics watchdogs harshly criticized Trump's merging of official and campaign acts during the Tuesday night telecast.

The horrifying thing: It seems like the only ones who can investigate trump's criminality here is a Department of Justice that's totally in trump's pocket:

On Tuesday, House Democrats opened an investigation ahead of Pompeo's speech, but it's unlikely that any Trump administration officials will face reprimand for using their office to promote the president's reelection.

The Office of Special Counsel can investigate allegations of Hatch Act violations and weigh in on them, but in many cases, it's up to the employee's supervisor to act on the advice...

And trump has made it clear he's the supervisor and he doesn't give a rat's ass about the Hatch Act.

So just try to remember this, every non-Republican voter out there, and even some of you Republican voters who still give a damn about the law: The only way to hold trump accountable for all these law-breaking acts he's done is to vote the Shitgibbon out this November 2020.

As Chaos Reigns, More Blood In The Streets

There is chaos across the globe. Not just with the Pandemic, not just with nations wrapped in a decade's worth of civil wars, not just with the caging and pain of minority groups in both China and the United States...

There's a Category 4 Hurricane about to hit the coast of Louisiana, we're about to get another replay of 2005's Katrina, and it's not even in the top five stories tonight.

This weekend saw yet another Cop-on-Black shooting, this time in Kenosha Wisconsin, prompting a fresh round of protests because the cops are still abusing their power and still piling up a body count of unarmed victims.

Only this time, the cops in Kenosha allowed a number of Far Right white supremacists with their own firearms to show up and confront the Black Lives Matter protesters, and things got bloody. Via Adam Mahoney, Julia Wong, and Victoria Bekiempis in the Guardian:

Hours before a 17-year-old white man allegedly killed two people and injured a third at protests over a police shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a local militia group posted a call on Facebook: “Any patriots willing to take up arms and defend our city tonight from evil thugs?”

It’s not yet clear if Kyle Rittenhouse, the Illinois teenager arrested on suspicion of murder after last night’s shootings in Kenosha, was among the people who responded to the call the militia group had posted, which was later featured on the conspiracy theory site InfoWars.

A Facebook account listed under Rittenhouse’s name included images of the young white man posting with a military-style rifle, as well as multiple posts expressing support for law enforcement.

It's been confirmed for years - Adam L. Silverman over at Balloon Juice has been writing about the Right-Wing terrorism that's been building in this nation since 2016 - that the Far Right militias have been spoiling for a fight, convinced they're at war with the librul commies and dark-skinned Others (encompassing Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, even Hindus and Greeks). The recent rash of law enforcement killings of unarmed Blacks has been their clarion call, and they've been rushing out to each protest eager to show off their AR-15 murdersticks.

Well, in Kenosha not only did the gun-toting wingnuts find protesters to threaten, they found a police force willing to look the other way regarding their efforts to destabilize peaceful protests... and worse. Back to the Guardian article:

Before the shooting, the presence of armed white men at the Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha on Tuesday night prompted criticism from protesters – and some support from law enforcement.

In a widely circulating video from Tuesday night, Kenosha police can be heard thanking and tossing bottled water from an armored vehicle to what appear to be armed civilians walking the streets.

“We appreciate you being here,” an officer is heard saying over a loudspeaker.

But David Best, the county sheriff, told media outlets after the shooting that people patrolling the streets in Kenosha were a “like a vigilante group”, and said that the shooting was evidence of why suggestions to deputize citizens to help law enforcement contain the unrest in the city had been a bad idea.

YA THINK?!

It's like the local law enforcement still hasn't grasped the idea that the best way to keep protests peaceful is to reduce the presence of weapons and means of vandalism, rather than encouraging trigger-happy extremists who WANT to start a fight and earn their blood-stripes.

This incident is more evidence that our police forces across the United States are in bed with - or at least comfortable hanging out with - a Far Right group composed of racists and neo-Nazis who want to increase violence (even against the cops who are all so chummy with them).

The wingnuts are presenting every sign of wanting to go to literal civil war with everyone they hate in America. Even the guys in Homeland Security on trump's payroll tried to warn him and the Republican leadership. Here's how Betsy Swan at Politico reported it:

For Neumann, her nightmare scenario of globalized white supremacist terrorism was coming to life. Meanwhile, the U.S. government was doing far too little about its own homegrown extremists — often "lone wolves" radicalized online by white supremacist websites and fueled by hostility toward immigrants and minorities. But White House officials didn’t want to talk about the rising domestic extremist threat or even use the phrase “domestic terrorism.” The administration’s relentless, single-minded focus on immigration enforcement — coupled with nonstop turnover on the National Security Council — constantly pulled senior DHS leadership away from everything else. And her ultimate boss, President Donald Trump, was part of the problem...

Trump often expressed irritation when he saw the DHS secretary anywhere other than the border. Miles Taylor, who was Nielsen’s chief of staff, told POLITICO Trump used to lambaste her if she didn’t physically spend enough of her time there...

Early in Nielsen’s tenure as secretary, she and Taylor discussed the domestic terror threat at length. In the months before her confirmation, a far-right extremist named Jeremy Christian had murdered two men on a train after harassing two Black teenage girls. One of the girls wore a hijab, according to news reports, and Christian yelled “fuck Muslims” at them. Just days after Nielsen was confirmed, a man with a swastika marking on his leg murdered two students at a high school in New Mexico before killing himself.

“I said, ‘Look this is a pretty big deal right now, it’s getting serious, a lot of it’s racially motivated,’” Taylor recalled telling Nielsen. “‘I don’t think we are well positioned against it. We’ve got to do more, but it’s really got to start with the president.’”

At the time, then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster was overseeing the drafting of a new national counterterrorism strategy. The document would lay out priorities for using resources from across the U.S. government to combat terrorism.

Taylor wrote a “dream draft” emphasizing everything DHS would want from the strategy document — including a focus on domestic terrorist threats, along with threats from radical Islamist terrorism and other foreign actors. Four months after Nielsen started as DHS secretary, Trump replaced McMaster with John Bolton. The process of drafting the counterterrorism strategy continued under Bolton’s leadership.

“What ended up getting significantly dropped was all the stuff we talked about on domestic terrorism,” Taylor said. “We got a draft back from John Bolton that barely referenced domestic terrorism...”

Part of this is the Republicans' obsession against immigration - which is racially-tinged to begin with - blinding them to the problems of domestic violence, and a lot of this is the Republicans' refusal to clean their own house of Far Right extremism they rely on to keep their voting base happy. There is no other way to explain this inaction.

And it's this inaction that keeps ending up with more American blood spilling into our American streets. The wingnut in Kenosha left behind two dead and one severely wounded, and more than just that community torn apart by the escalation of hostilities.

This is not going to end well, not even if Biden wins this November.

And yet, we dare not let the gun-toting militia extremists win. Damn them. We have better things to live for than their goddamned rage and fear.

Republicans Without A Plan

There's a thing on Twitter about #WAP that's not exactly safe for work but it's out there and well-known.

What's also out there now is another WAP and this abbreviation stands for Without A Plan because that's where the modern Republican Party has led itself (via Annie Lowry at the Atlantic):

The GOP in general is remarkably quiet on how it would govern and what it seeks to accomplish in the coming years. Breaking with precedent, the party decided against producing an original platform for the 2020 convention. (Put differently: It no-platformed itself.) And Republican leadership has gone dark on a huge swath of issues: balancing the budget, reforming entitlement programs, tackling climate change, improving public education, reducing student-loan debt, and ameliorating racial inequalities—as well as getting the country through the pandemic and out of the recession.

With the planet burning, the virus killing, the economy collapsing, and millions of Americans preparing to vote, the country’s leading political cabal has moved into a queasy post-policy space: Its aperture has narrowed to just a few issues; its desire to try to pass major, proactive legislation has withered. This is not just proof that a man as interested in his own image as he is uninterested in briefing books should not be president. It is also a sign that American democracy is in peril...

What the Republicans did was posit a party platform that was copied and pasted from the 2016 agenda, and edited most everything out except for a new paragraph: RESOLVED, That the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda. Without clarifying exactly what trump's agenda really means.

Basically, the Republican Party is saying "We're gonna do whatever Our Lord and False Idol donald trump tells us what to do."

This is both refreshing and horrifying. Refreshing in that at least the Republicans have stopped pretending outright that they care about issues. Horrifying in that they're demonstrating they care only about appeasing a despotic wannabe who lusts after the money and the power.

Also horrifying is the implication that the Republican voting base is not expecting anything more out of the party leadership than the ongoing pandering to their partisan identity... and worse, pandering to the fears and racism that trump offers them in lieu of effective policies. Back to Lowry:

For the many Republicans who don’t benefit much from tax cuts, and never received the promised populist policies, identity politics and racial resentment are strong enough forces to tie them to the party. A study by the political scientists Alan Abramowitz and Jennifer McCoy, for instance, showed that Trump’s dog-whistling worked. In 2000, George W. Bush won two in three working-class white voters who evince considerable racial resentment, measured by asking them whether or not they agree with statements such as “If Blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites.” Trump got nine in 10 of them.

Trump electrifies the party’s broader base with revanchism, nativism, and white nationalism, catering to the anxieties of a historically hyper-dominant group fast becoming a minority. Just take a look at who is speaking at the GOP convention to see what red meat looks like for red America: the couple who brandished guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in St. Louis and Nick Sandmann of Covington Catholic High School, whose interaction with the Native American activist Nathan Phillips in front of the Lincoln Memorial went viral in 2019. Or, in the absence of a national 2020 manifesto, take a look at the Texas platform: Delegates picked top priorities including banning gender-confirmation procedures, protecting monuments, purging the voter rolls, and preventing teenagers from getting abortions or obtaining birth control without parental consent, all potent fronts in the culture war. “Policy doesn’t matter much” to winnable conservative voters, Brent Buchanan, a Republican pollster, told me. “It’s more about personalities and principles.”

This is, in many regards, the final victory of Roger Ailes and Harry Treleaven, campaign handlers for Richard Nixon back in 1968. If you read The Selling of the President, which chronicled the rise of television-based marketing of elections, you might remember the breakthrough Treleaven developed regarding the electoral process. It's not about the issues - although they matter - it's about the emotional appeal a candidate or party offers to potential voters. Lemme quote:

It was Treleaven, working on a 1966 Congressional campaign in Texas for this businessman named George HW Bush, who noted that "logical persuasion" was difficult to sell because he found "probably more people vote for irrational, emotional reasons than professional politicians suspect." (p.45)  He found that image worked wonders, as long as he presented Bush as likable, hard-working, and expressing empathy for the voter...

The issues may be things that a party can rally around, but the driving force behind voter interest and voter turnout are the emotional and irrational appeals to that interest. The Beltway pundits may demand the candidates talk about "the issues" but when you watch and read how they cover the campaigns they almost always discuss non-issues about the candidates that cover personalities, follies, and worse.

When I look back at the Presidential campaigns I've witnessed, I've noticed the issues only mattered to a point: What mattered to the voters seemed to be the beliefs - based a lot on gut feelings - of which candidate appealed on an emotional level. It mattered if the voters had an irrational perception of the candidate, not the rational. A rational voter base would have swarmed to Hillary due to her experience and stances on issues that did resonate with Americans... but she couldn't achieve a majority vote because of the irrational fearmongering that had followed her for decades. Biden isn't as strong a candidate on paper when it comes to the issues... but his public persona is so likable he could (and did) make a few gaffes and still see his popularity polls go upward.

So it makes some sense, to be fair, that the parties find ways to appeal to not only their own bases on an emotional level, but also as many Americans as possible. It's a lesson learned from the 1970s, and it all depends - like the Republicans in 1980 with Reagan, with the Democrats in 1992 with Clinton - if the gamble pays off.

The problem is that since 1992 when Bush the Elder was losing control of the coalition that won them the 1980s, the Republican Party decided to pursue emotional prodding not through empathy or likability - although they'd LOVE to have another Reagan to come along and seduce the masses again - but through demonization of the Other. It had been there with the dog whistles on race and abortion under Reagan, but when Bush signed off on battling Dukakis with the Willie Horton ad, it was like a dam bursting loose.

The Republican turn to mudslinging (also known as Swiftboating when it was Kerry they insulted in 2004) came at the same time the Republicans were losing ground with their actual agendas of gay-bashing, tax-cutting, deregulating, and more. The views of the voting base shifted from conservative to liberal, even as the Republicans clung harder to their tax-cut Utopia ways. By 2012, their own strategists were warning the party that the younger more Progressive voters were going to outnumber the older more Republican voters by 2024 (2028 at the latest) and that no amount of irrational campaigning was going to win them over.

Instead, the Republicans doubled down. They focused on suppressing the voters they can't control - minorities, women, college-age blocs - and allowed their more racist leanings - expressed with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim fervor - to dominate their agenda in 2016.

That lead to trump winning.

And it lead to the Republicans realizing that, even as they race towards that demographic brick wall in 2024, this is the only way left for them to win.

It's not much of a plan: Stoke outrage and let Overlord trump reap the benefits.

The horrifying thing is if they can drive enough Americans insane to make it work again in 2020.

We dare not let them.

Four Nights of donnie's... Ugly Face

So now that we've endured the long week of a Democratic national convention - where we didn't see enough AOC or Julian Castro but watched a beautiful state-by-state roll call and witnessed Joe Biden use his best skill set (empathy) - we now have to endure the long week of the Republican party host their own convention to renominate trump and push their platform to a global audience.

It's not gonna be pretty (hat-tip to Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice):

Trump is micro-managing the shit out of the event because of course he is. He will go to his grave believing he’s a media genius because venal media types propped him up and wiped the racist drool off his chin so they could first sell a serially bankrupt fraud as a successful businessman on a reality TV show and then sell that same buffoon as a presidential candidate.

But the truth is, the network professionals aren’t running this shit-show, Trump is. And he scraped clean through the bottom of the barrel early in his administration, so the hires executing this event are decidedly of the lowest quality...

Betty then quotes from the NY Times:

Republicans involved in the planning admit that anxiety began to set in two weeks ago. But on Saturday, they said that they were now confident that a fully realized lineup was in place — and that in contrast to the Democrats’ virtual event, voters could expect something more akin to a regular convention, with a focus on live onstage moments featuring Mr. Trump, whom aides described as the week’s “talent in chief.”

Typically, the nominee makes a mundane appearance early in the convention — waving or watching from the wings — before a major speech at the end. Mr. Trump has dismissed that model and now plans to directly address the nation in prime-time on each of the convention’s four nights. The president wants the opportunity to rebut charges made against him throughout the Democratic program, aides said, particularly on his handling of the coronavirus crisis...

trump is basically hijacking the 10PM prime time pundit slots on the major cable networks - if not the regular networks (who I hope redecide to air Agents of SHIELD reruns instead) - to do his craven rally stump speeches for four straight nights.

This is unprecedented in the modern political convention era, if not ever. Most early - pre-Primary (1970s) - conventions didn't even have a confirmed nominee (even incumbents weren't safe back in the 1800s) until the final ballot of attendees, so nobody spoke all four nights. Once we got into the era where the nominee was set by March-June thanks to the state Primaries, it became custom for the convention week to promote up-and-coming fresh faces (like Bill Clinton in 1988 or Barack Obama in 2004) in the prime time slots to keep their future bright and shiny to motivate the party faithful.

Not this time. trump's ego is overriding party needs and he's going to be shilling himself four straight nights, both to keep his own energy up - like an emotion vampire, he thrives on the rage and sadism of his crowds - and to make sure the whole thing is about him him him.

Problem is, there's a good reason you want to keep your Presidential nominee to just one big night to give The Big Speech: You reduce the odds of your nominee laying a stinkbomb of an egg on national television. You'll notice the acceptance speeches of every candidate in the modern era is a rather boring, push-the-buttons, avoid-the-gaffes affair. And they only do it one night, hit-or-miss: But they've gotten the speech-making part down to a science, so it's usually a hit (even trump's ode to his own ego - "I alone can fix this" - hit all the right notes in an acceptance speech). trump is tempting fate here: he is multiplying the risks of a badly received speech by a factor of four.

And trump is threatening to use these four nights to rebut the Democratic party accusations of how trump has 1) mismanaged international affairs, 2) mismanaged the coronavirus response, 3) mismanaged the government, 4) mismanaged the economy. We are going to get a combination of gaslighting, lies, projection, and self-grievance on a scale rarely seen at an official party convention.

Going negative this early - and the odds of it happening have gone up now - on the national stage is a recipe for disaster. Yes, it will embolden the party base of Republican voters who are already wolfing down the rage and hate that trump's been selling them the last four years along with the rage and hate the GOP's been selling since 1992. But you run the serious risk of alienating the independent, still-on-the-fence voters who look for a broad sense of unity, national spirit, and call to empathy (and yes, these voters do exist). 

Reagan won big in 1980 (and even moreso in 1984) by making such broad appeals even when his actual agenda was more hardline conservative and harsh. It's why Biden and the Dems hosted this year's convention as a call to Big Tent unity with appeals to centrist Republicans (inviting John Kasich in an effective "Crossroads" presentation to bring those "Reagan Democrats" back) and lofty displays of families and teens calling for a better America.

trump's potential Four Nights of Airing Grievances is going to rub a lot of Americans the wrong way.

It's gonna look like the Rose Garden Melania just bulldozed into a grassy bikepath: flat and grey and MY GOD WHAT THE FCK DID THEY DO TO THE TREES.

The article title, by the by, is a reference to a Survival Horror game series called "Five Nights At Freddie's" which is mostly a set of jump scares you have to endure.

trump's Carnie show is going to be worse than that.

The best fcking move America can do is not watch this train wreck. Don't give trump and his cronies any viewing numbers to crow about. Look away. WALK AWAY. Run if you have to.

Just think of the Chernobyl supervisors who thought to themselves "What could POSSIBLY go wrong?" Think of everything that can go wrong with a hasty, last-minute, what-the-hell-are-we-doing national spectacle micromanaged by the worst boss in modern history.

Just don't watch, people.