Human Rights, a polarized country, a Woke Bank & Sir Mix-A-Lot provide fresh perspectives for your Thursday

The Senate filibuster used to be an effective way for a party with less than 50% of the Senate seats to block unwanted legislation. And from Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 until Leonard Leo and other religious extremists hijacked the Court Formerly Known As Supreme, we could also rely on it to block the most noxious legislation.

There are a few lonely outposts where the filibuster still exists. In Nebraska, State Senator Machaela Cavanaugh has spent the past 3 weeks wielding it to slow and block most state legislation.

Via AP:

---

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — It was a mundane, unanimously supported bill on liquor taxation that saw state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh take to the mic on the Nebraska Legislature floor last week. She offered her support, then spent the next three days discussing everything but the bill, including her favorite Girl Scout cookies, Omaha’s best doughnuts and the plot of the animated movie “Madagascar.”

She also spent that time railing against an unrelated bill that would outlaw gender-affirming therapies for those 18 and younger. It was the advancement of that bill out of committee that led Cavanaugh to promise three weeks ago to filibuster every bill that comes before the Legislature this year — even the ones she supports.

“If this Legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful — painful for everyone,” the Omaha married mother of three said. “I will burn the session to the ground over this bill.”

True to her word, Cavanaugh has slowed the business of passing laws to a crawl by introducing amendment after amendment to every bill that makes it to the state Senate floor and taking up all eight debate hours allowed by the rules — even during the week she was suffering from strep throat. Wednesday marks the halfway point of this year’s 90-day session, and not a single bill will have passed thanks to Cavanaugh’s relentless filibustering.

---

I’ve heard some analysts ask “is this the hill Democrats wish to die on?’ implying that it’s nothing more than a political choice and one so marginal that there’s more worthy and useful fights to focus on.

But with a report indicating 58% of transgender and non-binary Nebraskan minors seriously considering suicide in the previous year, and more than 20% attempting suicide, Cavanaugh considers the medical care to be essential in saving lives.

Legislators trying to prevent that care typically cite the fact that some transgender kids grow up and regret any prior surgical decisions made, which is true. But the medical care doesn’t always include surgery, there’s lots of steps to go through before that, often including years of counseling. And citing the regrets of less than 1% of those who ultimately choose surgery overlooks the needs and longterm satisfaction of 99%+ of the minors pursuing treatment.

Why has it become paramount for the GOP to make this a cornerstone issue? Why is it always human rights issues that the GOP chooses to counter for its cornerstones, as it’s done for the past 56 years? Racial desegregation, Title IX gaining women’s inclusion in athletics funding, the ERA, reproductive health care, fighting the AIDS epidemic, economic equity for LGBTQ citizens and gay marriage…. why does the GOP continually oppose equal rights?

It’s evident in foreign policy issues too. Lately it’s been aid to Ukraine they’ve fought against, proposing isolationism in the face of Putin’s aggression and war crimes. Which has never historically worked against major global military powers.

Why appease the strongest, most violent and most discriminatory, foreign and domestic?

That’s the bigger and more important question that political analysts should ask.

Yes, humans are creatures of habit so accepting changes in the status quo always takes some adjustment time, but why do Republicans want to fight to preserve the old ways that discriminate, exclude and very visibly harm more people than change will permit? There are far more people who’ve experienced actual early death on that hill.

Certainly that question can get sidetracked by pointing out that Democrats have been on the wrong side of human rights issues before. But “Johnny Dem used to be an asshole 55 years ago” is a pretty lame point to be making as a defense against ongoing bigotry today.

The extra effort that lawmakers like Cavanaugh are using deserve the support of people seeking to make human rights universal because that’s the direction that has gained the most for human beings. We’re better fed, better trained, more comfortable, living longer and experiencing fewer wars on the planet than we were in the 20th century precisely because of the expansion of human rights. Hanging onto past practices of exclusion slow that progress.

And can reverse that progress. Why do Republican lawmakers keep doing that?

---

Interesting numbers emerged from a Quinnipiac Poll that was published yesterday. It indicated that Republican and Republican-leaning voters preferred Trump (46%) over DeSantis (32%).

Many Americans are baffled by that much support for Trump still. And looking at the larger picture, we’re regularly inundated with the message that Americans are so polarized that conflict - even armed conflict - is inevitable. But the actual percentages to define that polarization tell a different story.

Take a second look at the reality of the 2020 election:

34.34% of the adult citizens in the US voted for Biden
33% didn’t vote
31.36% voted for Trump

Which means more than 2 out of 3 adult citizens did not support Trump in 2020.

Some variance in Republican (and R leaning) versus Democrat (and D leaning) has likely occurred in the 28 months since the last presidential election that can’t be fully quantified yet. But if we utilize those numbers, this Quinnipiac poll means

31.36% x 46% = 14.43% of all adult American citizens want to vote for Trump
31.36% x 32% = 10.04% of all adult American citizens want to vote for DeSantis

There. That provides a better perspective of how polarized the country actually is. And notably, of the Republican (and R leaning) voters:

46% support Trump
32% support DeSantis
22% want someone else or are undecided.

In short, there’s a lot of polarization between adult Americans who voted in 2020 but in the entire adult population of US citizens, there are more indifferent than there are who voted for Trump.

I find that more reassuring.

---

Before expounding more on the importance of looking at actual numbers and percentages to get a realistic picture of how people think and who or what they support, take a trip down memory lane 31 years ago.

How does this relate to numbers?

This demonstrates that Sir Mix-A-Lot is 100% attracted to the extreme right wing members of the Claremont Institute. That’s right, the now 59 year old rapper and record producer gets hot when he thinks about Claremont leaders like Michael Anton.

Sir Mix-A-Lot gets sprung by this Claremont guy, too.

As Eastman currently faces 11 disciplinary counts by the State Bar of California, has spent months trying to conceal his key role in the January 6th insurrection and - if Trump is indicted for that, Eastman definitely will be too - you have to be wondering why Sir Mix-A-Lot is so horny for him.

Well, over at Talking Points Memo, head honcho Josh Marshall decided to review the latest claim that had social media all abuzz yesterday. He wrote:

And about the Silicon Valley Bank specifically, here’s what Marshall found.

That was his starting point. He checked on the claims about other corporations being ‘woke’ with their massive donations to BLM, including 3M, Chevron, Abbott Labs, Costco, Campbell Soup, Boeing, Bank of America, Walmart and Cargill.

He didn’t find any donations going to BLM but the Claremont database considered anything going to any organization that could be construed as related to minorities - even Asian American orgs, that was misidentified as BLM. It could be a group promoting education or building affordable housing and that’s the only way the database numbers make any sense at all.

Most recipients were well established orgs that have been around decades before the BLM movement began.

So it should be clear by now that the long established bigot John Eastman - who asked Trump for a pardon after the insurrection - is likely to lose his law license and will soon face charges that rhyme with ‘edition’. And his peers and associates at the Claremont Institute are pulling massive numbers (millions & billions) out of their ass.

Which makes it the biggest, most prodigious ass of all time.

Sir Mix-A-Lot has to be attracted. He differs in one way. He likes big butts and cannot lie. Claremont’s Board supports a big asshole and can only tell lies.

And that concludes today’s math lesson.