New Hampshire Speaks, a Jury Speaks Louder. Now have a taste of some good expertise.
The extreme rightwing anti-civil-behavior squad has been busy attacking the musician Taylor Swift because she’s dating a NFL player and getting more attention than they can get. So some of them recently posted Artificial Intelligence porn pictures simulating her getting raped.
Rightwing evangelical terror ministers are happy to make these psychos allies, promising them they can act like little Charlie Mansons as long as they say ‘Jesus save me’ with their final breath and then the Redeemer will kick them through the uprights before the clock runs out. That’s not what the real Bibles say.
Meanwhile, Dilbert is still Dilberting. From Thursday:
The comic strip creator continues his long habit of racial and ethnic bigotry, consistent with the extremists in the GOP who keep ginning up a baseless threat of an increasing illegal invasion of brown skinned migrants that isn’t supported by that thing they hate even more: facts.
Adams is also another Brand X misogynist dismissing the knowledge of women as if they’re incapable of understanding men. It helps explain why his second marriage only lasted 27 months before it ended less than 2 years ago.
Contrary to his assertions,there are plenty of men in governmental positions who are fully supportive of starting a civil war. People pursuing political solutions should consult a wide variety of trained and well educated political analysts instead of listening to failing cartoonists with increasingly toxic views.
And please don’t line your birdcages with Dilbert cartoons as the birds have done nothing to deserve such misuse of their droppings.
Early primary results are in and the GOP leader can’t handle his decline in popularity. On the Democratic side, President Biden wasn’t even on the New Hampshire ballot, yet as a write-in, he won that contest by a much larger margin than Trump achieved versus Nikki Haley.
So of course DJT has doubled down on his attacks on Nikki. He’s trying out new insulting nicknames for her (Birdbrain) as he’s long ago convinced himself that middle school taunts are the path to victory. A proposal has been floated for days within the RNC to cut the primaries short with a total endorsement of DJ Trump because it’s clear that support by GOP voters is being frittered away by his legal losses. They’re starting to fear massive losses of GOP seats at federal and state levels.
But as soon as this proposal was reported on Thursday, the proposal was reported as ‘shelved.’ Republican voters are sick and tired of being sidelined and silenced in these selection processes.
GOP election planners well understand that their violent extremism makes it impossible to win the all important presidential race on popular voting results. They’ve only achieved that once in the past 35 years, in 2004. So they’re playing the old electoral college game, well aware that only 12 to 15 states are in play with at least 35 others so heavily Republican or Democratic that they can’t be flipped.
Using false claims about immigrant ‘invasions’ is intended to keep Texas from flipping and might get Arizona back to the GOP fold. The GOP wishful thinkers hope this strategy will even convince Nevada and Colorado voters, but it won’t. So that false narrative about an expanding immigration threat is really just directed at two states. If Trump can hold onto the swing states that voted red in 2020 and regain Arizona’s electoral votes, they only need one more swing state to flip their way to win the White House back. That would grant them greater control over 2 of the 3 branches of government: the executive and the judiciary.
Senate Republicans had reached a compromise with Democrats this past week on immigration reform that’s been stalled since the 1980s, when Trump and House Speaker Mikey Johnson demanded it be stopped. Republican Senator Mitt Romney responded:
“I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump,” Romney, the Republican senator from Utah, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Thursday.“And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame [Joe] Biden for it is … really appalling.”
The RNC has utilized multiple cheats to better their odds in the electoral college this time. Via corrupt gerrymandering efforts in WI, NC and VA, they hope to flip WI or VA for the big win while holding on desperately to NC’s electoral votes. They’ve tried to purge the rolls of Black voters in multiple states, have shut down voting sites in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and are certain to spread November disinformation again that tries to keep Democratic voters from voting entirely. They also continually try to shut down or minimize mail-in ballots, which has proven to be the most accurate voting method ever utilized.
The ‘bad info, limit voting, win 2 state plan’ is all they have. Lies, creating divisions and limiting access to voting are the old school methods that can sometimes succeed.
But the danger this time is the stated intentions of their leading candidate. He’s made it clear he wants to be a dictator, exact retribution on all political foes, kill freedom of the press and launch an even greater assault on human and civil rights. He wants to create fresh alliances with foreign brutal dictators who’ve harmed and threatened our country while abandoning longtime allies.
With most of the GOP ammo this year being directed at AZ, GA, WI and MI, they also have to hold onto ME and NC. They’ll aim for PA, CO and NV as well, but the odds are good that they’ll fail with that trio. Some analysts claim FL, OH and IA are swing states, too, though the past decade’s trends in those states make that doubtful.
So of those critical swing states, Republicans have to defend 2 and win 2 of the remaining 5.
They’ll certainly continue to create or expand these divisions:
a) White voters vs people of color
b) heterosexuals vs all non-hetero voters.
c) men vs women
d) evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics against all others
e) seniors (55+) vs people (30-54) while trying to convince the 18-29 yr olds to skip voting entirely.
f) labeled generations, such as boomer vs millennial
These tiresome efforts aren’t new except the one to exploit generational divides. But boomers aren’t gonna fall for it.
Most boomers have clear memories of another extremely divided time for this country. In the late 50s and the 60s, it was civil rights for our fellow Black citizens and in the 1960s through about 1975, the women’s liberation movement won a lot of rights victories for women. From the side effects of thalidomide (deformed babies) and Rachel Carson’s book ‘Silent Spring’ an environmental movement has grown that has made most everyone aware that we have to become better stewards of this planet before we poison ourselves into extinction. From the Stonewall Riots (1969) through the highly publicized murders of Harvey Milk (1978) and Matthew Shepard (1998) many LGBT folks were murdered, and that has continued through last year. From 1969 to 2023 there have been at least 135 people murdered because their attackers hated gay, lesbian or trans people, with hundreds more injured and quite a few suicides that occurred after being attacked.
And initially because of the War against Vietnam, there was another 9 years (1966-1974) of sharp divisions creating more casualties, protests and killings by police. So 1955-1975 was just as violent and polarizing as the past dozen years have been.
The pre-Boomer generation (oft labeled as the ‘Greatest Generation’) had to deal with a number of economic class abuses during the 1930s, followed by the atrocities of WWII.
Younger generations are likely to get one or two major wake-up calls like these caused by bigots and people promoting division because they were greedy for power. In every generation, there will also be heroes and villains, activists, fact deniers and people who don’t want to get involved. It’s too common a mistake to assume that everyone in a labeled generation were neglectful, brutal or stupid as history demonstrates otherwise.
People who live in certain areas of the country often can’t see the attitude differences and violence potential of different regions of the US that are more apparent to people who’ve traveled through many states. Those travelers and historians have seen enough to anticipate intermittent periods of violence in this country. Happily, most of us elders have seen rights hard won that have sharply reduced or eliminated many inequalities and brutalities and we fully expect younger generations to make further gains shead.
The rise of DJ Trump and his MAGA base isn’t as surprising as some people under 30 think. It’s infuriating across every generation when cultural, political or economic conditions cause violence, greed, conspiracy theory and stupidity to unite, creatimg fresh dangers & atrocities like we see today.
The simplest remedy of all is to reject divisions and dividers and encourage or teach others to do the same. Many legit reasons exist to justify some divisions but creating more division has never yielded a cure.
Remain skeptical towards divide promoters in every generation. It can be hard to reach certain compromises but it’s how the fittest survive: cooperative learning to adapt.
One last note: we may experience events at times where it seems division is rational. At a personal level it can make sense to separate from certain people or groups of people. But even then I’d caution to avoid dehumanizing anyone. All but a small percentage of sociopaths are likely to gain wisdom and pursue positive changes in themselves and in their neighborhoods as they age. Dehumanization too often leads to atrocities.
(An exception can be made for insurance agents who I suspect are intergalactic cockroaches, always trying to get up in our business.)
There’s also a significant danger presently from poorly performing news media. With Twitter headed to the Xitter, it’s quite apparent what happens when the number of media sites is undergoing a period of contraction. Our technological advances have created economic chaos for that profession and fresh funding approaches have to be developed to grant further expansion. Because media in fewer hands is ripe for abuse-by-wealthy-propagandists.
At the same time, there are more and more media analysts calling for fresh approaches in the coverage of businesses and politics. Being balanced and objective in times when freedom of press is under large scale attacks is not necessarily the best course. When one’s under attack from a grizzly bear, it’s really not noble or helpful to say “lunch is on me; take another bite.”
So I’ll continually point to media analysts like Dan Froomkin and Jay Rosen (more current work here) and H. Iris Chyi (H is for Hsiang) as recommended regular reads.
—————————-
A good friend recently asked me about my favored experts and analysts relevant to today’s politics. I responded that there’s way too many to provide a complete list, but here’s my short list.
For top notch critical reporting on Politics (some in abbreviated form) my recommended reads include:
RightWing Watch
Patriot Takes
Ron Filipkowski and his Meidas Touch Network
Michael Harriot
Attorney Marc E. Elias and his Democracy Docket
Journalist Judd Legum’s political coverage in Popular Information never disappoints.
Do check in on all of them at least once per weekl.
History experts
As my readers are well aware already Heather Cox Richardson is a principal referral for historical context to current news events. With her latest a comparison of Trump and Biden economic policy, plus the hypocrites of Texan and Louisianan election gamers and a reminder how deadly wars can be started, it’s my biggest current must -read.
Her interpretation of the New Hampshire primary and the threats Trump is making to Congressional Republicans is also important. As is her detail about abortion in this country; the reversal of Roe has only increased support for abortion access to a new high. Professor Richardson is the closest to a daily read for me.
I also find Ida Bae Wells to be very informative due to her extensive research that goes back through some of our earliest explorers and settlers, Black Americans.
As an obvious aside I also foresee a bright future for Eric Willoughby as a critic if he chooses that career as he’s clear, direct and concise.
Legal Analysts
For legal history and analysis, the law and history professors at Lawyers, Guns & Money provide plenty. Scott Lemieux’s coverage of the cruel & unusual punishment extremes Alabama just used to torture an inmate twice in their execution efforts was gripping, especially the context that only 1 of 12 jurors thought the inmate should receive that penalty.
Dahlia Lithwick is - in my estimation - one of the two leading experts on anything involving the SCOTUS and federal courts. In her latest Amicus podcast (about the E. Jean Carroll trial) she and Molly Jong-Fast spoke of Trump’s long record of sexual violence and misogyny, full of reminders that Carroll is now 80, and that Trump’s lawyer in the case was outside of her sphere of expertise (she’s a real estate and family lawyer). And they also spoke of the latest peer reviewed study estimate that since Roe v. Wade was overturned 18 months ago, more than 64,000 women have been forced to undergo full term rape-related pregnancies, with more than 26,000 in Texas alone.
On a related note: Texas Governor Abbott’s anti-Constitution challenge to federal control of the border utilized language from South Carolina’s secession statement that led to the 1860s Civil War and it’s really not funny at all that it looks like 4 of 9 SCOTUS judges lean towards favoring Abbott’s idiotic traitorous position.
The attempt by Abbott to break the law granting the power to control our national borders solely to the feds does have some precedence. In his official statement of his intent to wrest that control away illegally, it looks like he lifted certain assertions from South Carolina’s secession statements that triggered the Civil War of the 1860s. It’s not clear why he’s retreating to failed reasoning from 160 years ago. It’s not like treason and massive civilian casualties has suddenly had an upswing in popularity. It’s grandstanding, but it plays with the same volatile sentiments as the failed ex president instigated on January 6th three years ago.
Every promoter of treason and civil war should be voted from office and banned from future elective office contests unless a popular majority agrees to abandon the advance of enlightened civilizations and approves the surrender and retreat that can only lead to the return of Neanderthalism.
The law professor Garret Epps is the leading law scholar in all the land - in my opinion - and he typically publishes once or twice per month at Washington Monthly.
Tristan Snell is also a law expert. He was on the legal team that won the biggest sum of money against Trump for his fraudulent Trump University until E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers set a new record yesterday. And the NY business fraud case against Trump is likely to set another fresh record this coming week.
Another aside: It’s a shame that one of the best Congressional questioners resigned because he goofed around as a comedian on a USO tour. I miss his talent at exposing liars.
This Mobster Clown honking his mental midget horn again on this Saturday morning…
The real truth begs to differ
In Trump’s 4 years there were 20 terror attacks in this country. Only one was committed by a foreigner. The final one was the Jan 6th insurrection attack that Trump instigated.
Under Biden’s presidency, there have been 4 terror attacks in 3 years. Only one attack was committed by a foreigner. That’s the fewest attacks under a US president since George HW Bush (2), Jimmy Carter (3), Gerald Ford (4 in 29 months), and JFK (2 in his 34 months with one his assassination). Put another way, from Late November of 1963 when LBJ took office, through today, 60 years and 2 months have passed. Only Carter 1977-80) and the elder Bush (1989-92) saw fewer terror attacks than have occurred under Biden.
A pair of nostalgic covers sandwich a big move…