Hope in the Bottom of the Box

This year's Jon Swift Memorial Round-Up.

New Year Strikes at Midnight

Driftglass.

Hullabaloo.

Indomitable.

That blasted bell is tolling.

Happy New Year.

Boxing Day Lutefisk Cider with Pickled Herring

• Down With Tyranny dissects the Democrats.

  Jack Fitzpatrick lays out a scenario which-- if we had a remotely competent DCCC that wasn't utterly crippled with conservative notions and self-serving corruption-- would be considered a reasonable case for the Democrats winning back the House. There's no chance anything like that can happen while the recruiting and messaging precepts put in place by Wall Street puppets Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen and Steve Israel dictate everything the DCCC does.

• Politifact prevarication poll:  Who lies the most.  (Slideshow/gallery.  Featuring two non-candidates and the current and former President, who cannot run for that office again.  Via sfgate.com.)
• Understanding markets, their history, values, and flaws.  (Prof. Richard D. Wolff, guest-posting at naked capitalism.)  A taste:

  Markets were and are just one mechanism for distributing resources and products among people and enterprises. In markets, prices allocate scarce commodities to the highest bidders for them, to those who can pay the most. Markets differ from many other, non-market mechanisms that human beings, past and present, have used for those distributions. Religious authorities, community elders, local or regional state authorities, democratically composed collectives, kinship and gift-based organizations developed different, non-market, price mechanisms for distribution. Because recent history exalted markets hysterically, it is time to expose their mixed and often horrific results.

  There are matters, values, and things that cannot be priced; assigning a monetary value to some things paradoxically cheapens them.
• Has anyone done "A Christmas Carol:  30 Years Later?"  Because that might explain things...

Merry Mary, Marry Murray

Christmas if  you celebrate; Festivus, Yule, Solstice, Kwanzaa, Boxing, any I've missed if you don't.

(Hogmanay is next week.)

Pre-Road Downs

• From the Mary Sue, via Shakesville:  Japanese women want to keep their original names post-wedlock.  At last!
• Hullabaloo is loading so slowly that the graphics give up.  Seriously.
• Trump.
• Guns.
• Combatting terrorism.
• Litmus testing.
• Cracked.com is a time sink.
• ETA:  It turns out that Dr. Grumpy in the House has been active all year but the blogroll entry refuses to update.  Have the gift guide to Star Wars merchandise that gives one pause.

"I Thought the Woo-Woo Crew Came Out at the Full Moon!"

Some of the local bus drivers used to say that they observed strange behavior and were extra cautious during the full moon--and the two weeks on each side.

• Myself, I'd get boots and a sou'wester.  Talk of Republican convention alternatives.
• "Terrible Ideas" from the Daily Irritant, with bonus:

  You know, if Ronald Reagan couldn't make Reaganomics work, what the hell chance do you think you have?

Not an Onion Headline

"Nazi Party Leader:  Trump's Anti-Muslim plan is ill-conceived."

It's at SFGate.com as of this morning.  (Full email communiqué at Buzzfeed.)

No, really.  (The rest of said chairman's statement is "right-wing" jargon that would embarrass the crew at a Tea Party website.)

I'm trying to be an adult, so I'm not going to snark on said chairman's name.

Thrust, Parry, Riposte

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia had Foot Sandwich the other day (Crooks and Liars).  Andy Borowitz (The New Yorker) serves up horseradish, no chaser.

Ever notice that all of Ronald Reagan's "gifts" tend to include rattlesnakes?

Cannot Brain. I Have the Numb

• No, this is not supposed to be a weekly.  
• Now that it is slightly more seemly (Iowa caucuses now being a month away rather than six months out) to yammer about the primary season, have Jill Stein's campaign page.  The Green Party has also posted an article by Maggie Lee from Creative Loafing, which has interesting (at least for now) comments.  If I have to read about the Republican candidates (and my brain has been holding its nose almost to the point of asphyxia) and the Democratic candidates (who are annoying me on a different axis), then I'd like to read someone who is at least not shouting at me.  (You don't want to see my email inbox.  Cue Joel Grey and Liza Minelli singing "Money" on repeat at maximum volume.)
• So this is midpoint of three consecutive days of tragedies:  Yesterday was the anniversary of the murders at École Polytechnique, today we remember Pearl Harbor, and tomorrow we commemorate the death of John Lennon.  Yeah, OK, not a nice guy, but he didn't deserve that.
• We are expecting rain in a couple of days, in time for an appointment.  Of course.  Northwestern England apparently got a cloudbuster sufficient to restore a waterfall.  (Via legionseagle on Dreamwidth.)
• Well!  Back to work!

But the Fairness Doctrine Was Such a Burden!

• Driftglass:

  He [Donald Trump] pays no price because you and your colleagues decided that it was more profitable to spend the last 20 years playing footsie with the American Fascist Party than reporting on what they were really up to. And once they buffaloed you into selling out honest journalism in order to appease them -- into giving up on the truth altogether and playing the Both Sides Do It Russian roulette with your own profession instead -- they owned you. They could name any price and you would meet it, including mainstreaming their madness by pulling out a chair at your Meet the Press table for conspiracy mongering Conservative crackpots.
  
  [...]
  
  As I have written before, periodically we Liberals chase off the Wingnut Eaters of Worlds for a little while. We run them back off into the angry Confederate mud. Back into the gnawing belly of hate radio. Back into the Armageddonist wet dreams of their Christopath spider holes and morally deformed gospels.
  
  And then some secret signal goes out among the Beltway Media. Wagons are circled. Both Siderist myrmidons are deployed in force. Any dirty hippies who would dare point out that the Beltway clowns are once again restarting the nightmare that almost wrecked the country last time are muzzled and cast out.
  
  Then -- surprise! -- the Wingnut Eaters of Worlds come roaring back, twice as loud, twice as well-funded and twice as immune to factual reality.

• Crooks and Liars:

  The guardians of the media may have thought it was a good compromise when they first capitulated, way back in the Age of Reagan: Back off from the facts whenever pressed by the organ players of the Mighty right-wing Wurlitzer, while hinting at the actual truth in vague, arcane fog speak that convinces no one but those who already know. Problem solved!
  
  No better example than the way they treated the fake Planned Parenthood videos that made such a strong impression on one Robert Lewis Dear Jr.
  
  See, they framed the news stories as if the videos were proven fact. It took all of an hour or so for bloggers who are already familiar with this kind of crap to track down the extremist origins of the videos, and to debunk the videos themselves.
  
  Yet media types refused to use the information as anything but a footnote -- if they even bothered to do that.
  
  You can see the problem: Anyone who knows how to doctor a video can inject any crazy story at all into the corporate media, and it spreads like avian flu. So even if media outlets back off and say the story was "wronnng" (a la Fonzie), it's too damn late.

(Yeah, that's probably too much to quote without explicit permission. My apologies.)

 The dirty secret of "Both Sides Do It," by the way, is not that both sides do bad or even evil things. There are no [living] saints in politics. The dirty secret is that the unspoken implication is that both sides do it equally, and that is Not True.  To go full Monty Python:  "Conservatives" lie, distort, proclaim one value that they violate privately, and Make Stuff Up.  "Liberals" might do the same (remember Anthony Weiner?), but exponentially less frequently than "conservatives."  I mean, really.

Quick glimpses of the Dark Side of the Force prominent Republicans responding to the current latest shooting.  (Yes, it's Shakesville.  Deal.)  Side order of Poor Poor Pitiful Us, posted by Southern Beale.

The Actual Icy Decline

• A boot to the head rebuttal to "rational racism," from Indomitable's Chauncey deVega (I've changed the name in the blogroll), because that stuff needs calling out.  A sample:

  While people of color are the prime targets of such policies as “stop and frisk” and racial profiling, it is in fact white people who are far more likely to be both drug users and to be in possession of narcotics at a given moment. This reality signals to a larger social phenomenon: black individuals who commit crimes are representative of their whole communities, crime is racialized, and there is no qualifier of individual intent. All black people are deemed suspicious and guilty because of the deeds of the very few.
  
  In contrast, white people who commit crimes are unique individuals: the criminals who destroyed the global economy, a group of white men, were not taken as representative of the entire white community. There is a long list of crimes such as domestic terrorism, serial murder, child rape, sedition, treason, and financial fraud that are almost exclusively the province of white people. But again, whites as a group are excluded from suspicion or indictment as a “criminal class.”

• American Christianity's blind spots:

  One of the oddest characteristics of much American Christianity is that we don't think of our country as a place where oppression occurs in any serious way. We read in the Bible about oppression and injustice but we don't make the obvious connection. This is in part because so many American Christians are nationalists at heart. Nationalism is not a Christian value, but many have made it an integral part of their faith, bolstered by the false and offensive myth that this country is or ever was a Christian nation. Our failure to apply Christian notions of oppression to an American context also has a lot to do with our Whiteness. But many Christians are so invested in it they don't even know it's important to them. They just think it's "Christianity."
  
  [...]
  
  For Christians, such reasoning is an abdication of our responsibility. This is another oddity of American Christianity: many of us think we can have conventional White American opinions about racial issues and be faithful to Christ at the same time. We're deluding ourselves.

• Robert Kuttner, Huffington Post via AlterNet:

  A lot of the people who stay home would vote for Democrats if they bothered to vote at all. This problem goes far deeper than better techniques for getting out the vote. It reflects a massive decay of civil society, a deep disinterest and contempt for government and politics, one that often seems richly earned.
  
  This is also the soil in which fascism grows. As political scientists have demonstrated for more than a century, it is mass society, in which people are disconnected from the "little platoons" beloved of Edmund Burke and the local associations celebrated by Tocqueville, where a strongman can suddenly seem the solution to people's inchoate frustrations with their own lives and the irrelevance of politics.

I really try not to think poorly of my fellow passengers on Spaceship Earth, but I deeply resent the efforts they make to return everyone to the trees to the eighteenth century.


([ETA:  Is there a DDoS going on at Hullabaloo?  I haven't been able to read the site in two days.])

"'Cause my hair is curly..."

Mr. Scalzi:

Donald Trump: The GOP establishment would like you to believe Trump was their summer fling, who in September didn’t take the hint that it was over, followed the GOP back home, and now drives by its house every hour to peer through the window, and texts at 4am asking if the GOP wants to go to the local Waffle House just to talk.

And the other candidates are dispatched as befits their public personas.

Because when I look at the pronouncements of the front-runners--Zandar picks up Mr. Rubio's statement--Stephen King's novels just leap to mind.  Specifically, the arc of Greg Stillson in The Dead Zone and the statement in IT that Pennywise the clown did not bother disguising itself when at home.

"Well, It's Certainly Uncontaminated By Cheese."

• Blue states turning red (weirdly, the source website (propublica.org) won't open; fortunately Zandar excerpted a chunk).

  The poorest Americans are least likely to vote, and least likely to be organized to vote. Meanwhile, the second lowest quintile of Americans have become sharply Republican. The result, in Southern and Midwestern states, has been catastrophic.

• Driftglass links to the same article in the New York Times.  There are charts.

More Stops. I Blame AlterNet.

• "New Jersey Mayor Risks His Life Delivering Aid to Syria and Unlike Tough Guy Chris Christie, He's Not Scared of 5-Yr-Olds" Ahem!
• Via Salon, "The Shadows of a New American Fascism: Why Our Surging Xenophobia Could Have Some Very Dangerous Consequences"
• Why am I not surprised?  Via Raw Story.
• Janet Allon summarizes some Paul Krugman on the tendency toward panic among conservatives.
• ISIS Wins If You Block Refugees.  Via Raw Story.

I Have 20 Open Tags and I Must Scream Have to Close at least 15 Before Midnight

• I try to post this annually. I usually fail. I'm still a fighting liberal, and Steve Gilliard's fine essay is my credo in this matter.
• Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.  
• There was a 6 part documentary on the Spanish Civil War that I happened upon via Comrade Misfit, who noted that Franco was still dead 40 years later.
  
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
  • Part 4
  • Part 5
  • Part 6
  Some of this may remind one of Star Wars. This may not be an accident.
• From Mercury Rising:  The New York Times admits error in supporting increased surveillance.  And about time.
• Too much of the bleatings of politicians leads to *headdesking* and the cri de coeur "What is wrong with those people?"  Did none of these people study World War II, if only to play games?  I've long thought that there should be an examination for candidacy at least as rigorous as the citizenship test given to immigrants.  Hello!  At least know what went on in this country prior to 1990!  This may be why "conservatives" want to abridge the study of history.
• Susie Madrak (Crooks & Liars) notes CNN's suspension of a foreign-affairs journalist for alluding to an Emma Lazarus poem.  Yes, that Emma Lazarus poem.
• Driftglass reports on Donald Trump's real face.  
• John Scalzi cites the Cato Institute.
• George Takei (who was interned with his family during WW2) rebukes the mayor of Roanoke, VA, who apparently had never heard of the history of internment in this country.  (I'm afraid I find the word "clueless" too kind.)  By Mike Moffitt, sfgate.com.
• Southern Beale anathematizes her Congressperson.

  Jim Cooper voted “aye” on the “American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act,” AKA the Let’s-punch-Syrian-and-Iraqi-refugees-because-we’re-scared-and-crapping-our-pants-and-also-we’re-ignorant Act.

• Boko Haram. Remember Boko Haram? Boko Haram is worse.
• What's going on with the working class?  

  Here’s a possible explanation that takes us back to economic factors. Beginning in the 1980s, the U.S. economy started trending toward greater inequality. The less-educated lost the semi-skilled jobs that they had held in previous decades. The uneducated class became a floating low-skilled labor force, which decreased the marriageability of white working-class men. That impaired family formation. A couple of decades later, the lack of family support started to take a big bite out of the emotional health of working-class whites, causing them to turn to alcohol, drugs and suicide once they reached middle age.

  Warning: It's Bloomberg.  Via skippy the bush kangaroo.
  
• Meanwhile groundwater takes a long time to replace, and we can't drink oil.

In Memoriam

P. F. Sloan, songwriter.

It's an interesting story.

Oh, And...

The other kind of voter fraud.  Note the silence.

A Different Debate

As you recall, I liked Sady Doyle back when she was part of Tiger Beatdown.  It has apparently taken this long (two years!!) to run across her again but Ampersand of Alas! a Blog had a nice mess o' links today and there's Sady Doyle, explaining her reasons for preferring Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, followed by 1kidsentertainment's rebuttal, and Doyle's response.

Thought, analysis, and evaluation.  Be still, my heart.

(The Outrage Hat is put aside because wearing it stiffens my neck, back, and shoulders and cramps my legs and just plain exhausts me.  Later.)

Beans, Hill of

• Thoughts about ISIL/Daesh terrorists.
• One of the links mentioned, with bonus comments rehashing a briefly-mentioned point in the essay.
• One of the links in the above article, which does eventually get to the subject.

Veterans Armistice Remembrance Day

Batocchio reposts a poem by Wilfred Owen.  (Many people commemorated today with poetry.)

I thank all veterans, particularly those whose countries did not quite consider them human beings, for their service.

Yes! Yes!!!

Workers flood the streets.

The "War" on That Day in December--Other Angles

• Driftglass has the appropriate title for this post, but it's a bit long:

  Then He took the venti, half-whole milk, one quarter 1%, one quarter non-fat, extra hot, split quad shots, no foam latte, with whip, two packets of Splenda, one sugar in the raw, a dollop of vanilla syrup and three sprinkles of cinnamon, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying...

• Alison Leigh Lilly, "War on Christmas: Starbucks Cups Are Christian Propaganda" [ETA:  via supergee on Dreamwidth]:

  Would a company that hates Jesus roll out their winter holiday-themed cups literally the very morning after the biggest Pagan holy day of the year? I don’t think so!

• Golden Oldie from 2008 which now loads very very slowly if it loads at all but is worth it:  Minstrel Boy at Group News Blog, "Coyote Goes Shopping."

It's not even Thanksgiving yet, and I refuse to deal with that season until then.  So there.

In Memoriam

Allen Toussaint, New Orleans musician/composer/songwriter.  (Not to be confused with Alvin Poussaint, who is still alive.)

In No Particular Order

Because my brain is either howling mad or gone out for pizza.

• Goblinbooks:  Why waiting for haters to die off is going to take a long time.  With bonus unpleasant simile.  Maybe not while you're eating.

  Don't ever think progress just happens. Not here. People fight wars and they lynch whole populations to make sure progress doesn't happen. And they can beat back tolerance, kindness, and enlightenment for a long, long time, before old age and irrelevance claim them.

• In case you thought I was exaggerating the other day,  Republic of T's "Wingnut Week in Review:  'Diva Demands' for the GOP Debate" lists the demands (with snark).  And Dr. Ben Carson (in video) tries to revive old conspiracy theories (and reminds me that I am actually three degrees of separation from President Obama).  How The Onion keeps up is a complete mystery.
• Noam Chomsky at AlterNet.  'Nuff said.
• WiredSister's thoughts on conscientious objection at Noli Irritare Leones.

  When I read about Kim Davis, I am almost irresistibly drawn to sarcasm. That impulse lasts about five minutes, until I remember my own war resister/draft counselor past. And then I want to ask the people who were out there with me, in the same struggle: Aren’t we the people who struggled for the rights of conscience against military service and payment of war taxes? Didn’t some of us go to jail for it? Now, suddenly, conscientious objection is making a comeback. Can’t we just enjoy the new-found fashionability of our earlier commitments? If we are to be serious about the relationship between law and conscience, don’t we have to look at it honestly and without snark? If we can’t do that, don’t we have to accept the possibility that we support the conscientious rights of only those people whose consciences agree with ours, or, worse still, that conscience is merely a childhood disease to be outgrown in adulthood?

• "Heckler's veto" case.  [ETA:  Ken White, Popehat.]

There are other readings, but I've mislaid them.  Besides, this slice of pizza is getting cold.

In Memoriam

• Melissa Mathison, screenwriter (E.T., et al.)
• George Barris, custom (ahem.  "Kustom") car builder (as it says in the obit, the Batmobile).

Making Republicans Look Ridiculous, Not That That is Hard

1. "Ben Carson Whines That 'Secular Progressives' Are Ridiculing His Pyramid Theory." With video.  By Heather at Crooks and Liars.
   
   No, really.
2. "Republicans have demands!"  Professor Chaos at The Daily Irritant, extrapolating from the hissy fit thrown by the Republican National Committee after the most recent debates, in which a few almost-substantial questions were lobbed at the candidates.
   
   A wee bit for flavor:

   How are you going to stop a candidate from making a pledge? One of these guys starts saying "and if I'm elected I pledge to you that I will . . ." and you're going to jump in and say "woah, governor, I thought we agreed? No pledges? Remember? We said no pledges tonight and then after the debate we'll have ice cream, remember? And we said we were going to use our inside voices, and not bother the other nice candidates with our questions? And remember we said that props are for playtime? Not for during the debate? Remember?"

Mrs. Robinson Was Right!

No, not that one.  Sara Robinson, the futurist.

[I went to find the link(s) I needed for this.  That was an hour ago.  We were all more passionate, prolific and better written then, weren't we?  *deepsigh*]

Back in 2009, Sara Robinson wrote a long article posted at Orcinus titled "Fascist America:  Are We There Yet?" setting forth the path toward that political system and how far down it the USA was.

Now, the guessing game is over. We know beyond doubt that the Teabag movement was created out of whole cloth by astroturf groups like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips' Americans for Prosperity, with massive media help from FOX News. We see the Birther fracas -- the kind of urban myth-making that should have never made it out of the pages of the National Enquirer -- being openly ratified by Congressional Republicans. We've seen Armey's own professionally-produced field manual that carefully instructs conservative goon squads in the fine art of disrupting the democratic governing process -- and the film of public officials being terrorized and threatened to the point where some of them required armed escorts to leave the building. We've seen Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress."

This is the sign we were waiting for -- the one that tells us that yes, kids: we are there now. America's conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country's legions of discontented far right thugs. They have explicitly deputized them and empowered them to act as their enforcement arm on America's streets, sanctioning the physical harassment and intimidation of workers, liberals, and public officials who won't do their political or economic bidding.

This is the catalyzing moment at which honest-to-Hitler fascism begins. It's also our very last chance to stop it.

Today Naked Capitalism's Yves Smith posts a long article called "Mussolini-Style Corporatism, aka Fascism, on the Rise in the US."

The muddying of meaning is a neo-Orwellian device to influence perceptions by redefining core concepts. And a major vector has been by targeting narrow interest groups on their hot-button topics. Thus, if you are an evangelical or otherwise strongly opposed to women having reproductive control, anyone who favors womens’ rights in this area is in your vein of thinking, to the left of you, hence a “liberal”. [...]

Another way of limiting discourse is to relegate certain terms or ideas to what Daniel Hallin called the “sphere of deviance.” Thus, until roughly two years ago, calling an idea “Marxist” in the US was tantamount to deeming it to be the political equivalent of taboo. That shows how powerful the long shadow of the Communist purges of the McCarthy era were, more than a generation after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Similarly, even as authoritarianism is rapidly rising in the US and citizens are losing their rights (see a reminder from last weekend, a major New York Times story on how widespread use of arbitration clauses is stripping citizens of access to the court system*), one runs the risk of having one’s hair on fire if one dares suggest that America is moving in a fascist, or perhaps more accurately, a Mussolini-style corporatist direction. Yet we used that very expression, “Mussolini-style corporatism,” to describe the the post-crisis bank bailouts. Former chief economist of the IMF, Simon Johnson, was more stark in his choice of terms, famously calling the rescues a “quiet coup” by financial oligarchs.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmmmm...  We used to know that fascism was Bad Stuff.  But humans refuse to maintain institutional/historical memory for more than two generations.  Which is good for some things, but not really the smartest thing in governance.  You do understand that the "libertarian paradise" only works well if you're a pirate?

(I'm compressing a few things.  Read the articles.  Thanks!)

(Extra credit:  "None Dare Call It Sedition," Sara Robinson, Orcinus (4/6/2010); "The New Totalitarianism:  How American Corporations Have Made America Like the Soviet Union," Sara Robinson, AlterNet (7/15/2012); "Get The Hell Out and Vote Today," Susie Madrak, Crooks and Liars (11/3/2015).  There are things that have aged out, become arguable, or unconscously biased.  Noticing these things are part of critical thinking.)

In Memoriam

Fred Thompson, actor, Senator, candidate for President.

(Accidental clicking at New York Times.)

Almost Hallowe'en

1. First and foremost:  Welcome to the folks from Crooks and Liars' Mike's Blog Round Up.  I am honored.  Warning:  I do snark.  All the time.  You may have noticed.
2. Whistleblower punished for connecting Hive Collapse and pesticides.  Because bees don't make campaign contributions the USDA doesn't want to get in trouble with large corporations and large corporations don't need food.  By Susie Madrak in Crooks and Liars; longer article at the StarTribune.  Dr. Kelsey is spinning in her grave.
3. Whenever I read or hear about the Republican debates, two thoughts float to the surface:
   
   1. When listening to professional liars politicians, my mental mendacity meter has three levels:  Largely true/what I remember as true; true-ish but exaggerated; poppy seed of truth surrounded by prevarication and weaselling; and bullshit.  Four levels.
   2. Six Characters in Search of an Author
   Also, why aren't the candidates also publishing a Republican version of The Onion? That would actually be funny.

Lenny, Lenny, Lenny...

He's claiming to have spied on and blackmailed umpires.  No, really.

Take him to church.

In Memoriam

• Maureen O'Hara, actress
• Princeton Univerity honors the memory of John Nash.  (Obit here)

Jaundiced Eye

• Marty Ingels, comedian.
  
• Driftglass is keeping a running account of the "Pillory Clinton" hearings.  (Note:  SATIRE EXAGGERATED FOR EFFECT. ETA: Actual transcript of hearings.)
• Trey Gowdy insists there's something to it.
• Star, destroying planet.

You Can Hear Them Laughing Across a Crowded Room*

• So-called "crisis pregnancy centers" required to inform clientele of all options.  They don't like that and they're suing.
• Justin Trudeau was elected prime minister of Canada.  This is good news.
• Joe Biden will not be running for President.
• Myths of fluency, or myriad ways languages get used.  (Babbel.com magazine.)

* Sam and Janet Evening, of course.

In Memoriam

• Ken Taylor, former Canadian ambassador to Iran. Yes. That former Canadian ambassador to Iran. (Broad outlines of story in Argo.)
• ETA: Joan Leslie, actress

Good Question

• Bernie Won All the Focus Groups & Online Polls, So Why Is the Media Saying Hillary Won the Debate?
  

  Firstly, it’s important to point out that online polls, and to a lesser extent focus groups, are obviously not scientific. But it’s also important to point out that the echo chamber musings of establishment liberal pundits is far, far less scientific. It wasn’t that the online polls and focus groups had Sanders winning, it’s that they had him winning by a lot. And it wasn’t just that the pundit class has Clinton winning, it’s that they had her winning by a lot. This gap speaks to a larger gap we’ve seen since the beginning of the Sanders campaign. The mainstream media writes off Bernie and is constantly shocked when his polls numbers go up.

  Adam Johnson, AlterNet.
• Jurassicpork's imagining of President Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby as written by a selection of modern Republicans.  (Letter linked to in article, but you might want to see it first.)

In Memoriam

Dean Chance, pitcher.

Of Course It's Alabama

Via Avedon's Sideshow, voter suppression under another name, not to mention large numbers of unlicensed drivers having accidents, and huge lines at the Alabama DMV's remaining offices, because did the legislators and bean counters really think that making it difficult to get a driver license would prevent people from driving in a largely rural state?  (To those who believe that people who drive without a license tend to be more cautious to avoid police attention:  Are you kidding?)

Also, possibly the schools or churches or local organizations or whoever with transportation might want to arrange to bus or otherwise transport people, preferably in batches, to the DMV offices that remain open, rather than wait for the outcome of the inevitable legal maneuverings that should be happening right now.  (It could be a junior-to-senior rite of passage if high schools take it up.)  Yes, the later the injunction (or whatever) happens, the less likely countermeasures can be brought into play, but there's probably a deadline on registering to vote, and why register if you lack ID to be able to vote?

In fact, I'm in favor of organizing efforts to thwart disenfranchisement.  And I'm in favor of starting yesterday.  State political groups should be helping their poorer and/or older constituents obtain documentation or duplicate documents in order to get what will be accepted as voter ID, or should be making that information available.  Students could access that information through their schools, especially those attending out-of-home-state institutions.

To sort of quote Joe Hill:  "Don't mourn.  Organize."

Because those folks allegedly chewing their fingernails about voter fraud (you could put all the voter fraud committed in the last ten years, usually by those people "concerned" about voter fraud, onto the head of a pin and still have room for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim baseball team to do the Lindy hop) are organized.  And they don't mean us well.

This, by the way, has been a rant.

In Memoriam

• Paul Prudhomme, chef (Cajun cuisine).
• Billy Joe Royal, singer

We Can't Keep Up Those, Those Roads and Aqueducts!

I'm a little late to this party:

[...] everyone knows that American infrastructure—what used to be called our public works, or just our bridges and railways, once the envy of the world—has now been stripped bare, and is being stripped ever barer.

What is less apparent, perhaps, is that the will to abandon the public way is not some failure of understanding, or some nearsighted omission by shortsighted politicians. It is part of a coherent ideological project.

"The Plot Against Trains," Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, May 15, 2015.  Because it's emblematic.

(This is the same strain of "conservative" that goes into spasms about "anarchists.")

Oh, And...

• The Jill Stein for President website has probably been live since June.
  
  (My current favorite candidate for President is Ta-Nehisi Coates, who [as you remember] is not running.)
• California Lawyer has ceased publication.  It was published by Daily Journal Corp., which publishes legal newspapers in California.  The website will probably continue.  I'd hate to miss articles like the one about e-discovery:

  In its recent Formal Opinion (No. 2015-193), the State Bar of California Standing Committee On Professional Responsibility and Conduct concluded that “a lack of technological knowledge in handling e-discovery may render an attorney ethically incompetent to handle certain litigation matters involving e-discovery, absent curative assistance under rule 3-110(C), even where the attorney may otherwise be highly experienced.”

  I spent a couple of years poring through legal newspapers (job); this stuff interests me even though I don't have that legal twisty mind.
  

"'Old Spice Means Quality,' Said the Captain to the Bo'sun"

"Look for the package with the ship that sails the ocean!"

• In the "an honest politician is one who stays bribed" department, wealthier donors to political campaigns want more clout.  Particularly, those giving money to presidential candidates want more fanservice say in the campaign.  (I got the link from Comrade Misfit, but it's been no secret since the Citizens United case.)

• Speaking at a Democratic Party fundraiser, Obama said it's important to recognize that some parts of the country remain uncomfortable with same-sex marriage and that it will take time for them to catch up to the majority of Americans who support such unions.
  But while Americans hold dear the constitutional right to practice their religion free from government interference, he said that right can't be used to deny constitutional rights to others.
  "We affirm that we cherish our religious freedom and are profoundly respectful of religious traditions," Obama said during remarks that were interrupted by repeated applause and cheers. "But we also have to say clearly that our religious freedom doesn't grant us the freedom to deny our fellow Americans their constitutional rights."
  "And that even as we are respectful and accommodating genuine concerns and interests of religious institutions, we need to reject politicians who are supporting new forms of discrimination as a way to scare up votes. That's not how we move America forward," he added. That was an apparent reference to some of the Republican presidential candidates.

   I remember mumbling something about "conservatives" getting elected or appointed to county clerk/justice of the peace jobs and blocking or attempting to block marriage equality there, but maybe I was wearing my satirist hat that time. 
• In the interest of reminding people that there is another candidate:  Tavis Smiley interviews Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party presidential candidate.  (Video with transcript at Read the transcript link below the player.)
• The headline says it all.

  As Speaker of the House John Boehner was often the only grown-up in the room, compared to the rest of his caucus. Eugene Robinson compared John Boehner to “a hapless substitute teacher whose unruly class refuses to come to order.” Now, Boehner’s exit leaves his chaotic caucus entirely without adult supervision.

  Republic of T, right on the money.

In Memoriam round-up:

• Yogi Berra, catcher and aphorist (if you've ever heard or said "It ain't over till it's over," you can probably blame Mr. Berra)
• Frank E. Petersen, Jr., Marines' first black general
• Frank D. Gilroy, playwright (The Subject Was Roses)
• Daniel Thompson, bagel machine
• Judy Carne, actress
• Jack Larson, actor/playwright
• Martin Milner, actor
• Candida Royalle, erotic filmmaker
• Dean Jones, actor
• Paul Royle
• Wes Craven, horror filmmaker
• Jackie Collins, novelist
• Dickie Moore, child star and businessman
• Rev. Everett C. Parker, landmark media bias case
• ...and Adrian Frutiger, type designer

Sorry; got out of the habit last month.  Also, the Los Angeles Times limits one to 5--5--articles now.

Yahrzeit

Yahrzeit.

Tenth.

If You Had "Today" in the Pool, You/ve Won!

Mostly esteem and Marvel No-Prizes, though.

• Zandar on opposition to Black Lives Matter:

  And let's not forget that crime involving white Americans still encompasses the majority of violent crimes in the US, but anything and everything has to be done to paint BLM suppoerters are thugs, criminals, radicals and dangerous lunatics for daring to say "Hey, in 2015 America still has structural racism issues that are leading to the execution of black people at the hands of our government."
  
  The only reason any of us black folk exist is because we haven't been killed yet.

• The incident of the retired tennis player waiting for a car in front of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.  Response of the Commissioner.
• Reasons for and purpose of drug violence, Johann Hari, AlterNet.

• Those dead horses won’t just beat themselves, you know.

  Laura Resnick, comment at File 770.  (You may need to scroll down a bit.)
• More research is always needed.

Stuff Waiting a Week [or More] to Get Posted

It's the low-level despair.  It's the kerfuffle, it's the Trump campaign, it's some family stuff, it's the general life situation.  It was probably the earthquake Monday, which was much too close for comfort.

I'm looking at a lot of posts and sighing "You want to write about that?"

• Anthony Vicino (SF Signal) wanted to know why where are all the People of Color (PoC) in science fiction and fantasy is still being asked.  Tobias Buckell responds in a comment there and expands on the subject.
  
  All I'm going to say here is that:
  1. A piece of this is marketing "wisdom" which is actually a lot of ossified "rules" from the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, usually couched in "tend to" language.  Survey results sometimes budge a few of the assumptions of marketing a millimeter or so, but the process takes years and meantime the old "guidelines" are in effect.  Marketers tend to (see what I did there?) prefer highly stratified markets because it is easier to "tailor" the message of "You wanna buy this for [emotional or status reason]" rather than actually extolling the product.  For example, cigarettes.  Nobody born after 1975 has any reason to believe smoking makes one "cool."  Very few people would respond to "Cigarettes!  Because respiratory/pulmonary ailments are so much fun!"  But because humans have a basic bias toward not doing what we're told, cigarettes are currently touted as A Choice one can make as an adult,  knowing the dangers.  You know, like suicide bungee jumping.  And that message is subtly tailored to various demographic groupings, including the teenagers that are not supposed to be targeted because underage and illegal. (Whooops! Rant!)
  2. Spend a day on the New York City subways and then tell me PoC don't read sf/f.  (Of course the people who need to do this won't.  Cowards.)
• When I saw this item, my first thought was Purple Rain.  Guess it's time for a rewatch.  Let's get nuts!
• Cerberus at Sadly, No! on a reaction to the Boy Scouts' decision to allow gay adults to serve as leaders:

  And we end with the usual Scott Lively bullshit and calls for violence, but yeah, it runs a little hollow when you try to claim the moral high ground after claiming it is only “natural” for you to lust after some 12 year old girl, because that’s “not really pedophilia”. I’m sorry, you can’t spout that shit and then expect to come off like the sober defender of values. You just can’t.
  
  And it is amazing that losing so many battles against feminists and queer rights activists is revealing you “traditional culture enthusiasts” for what you are and burning away the little pockets you like to hide in to cultivate your victims. And so, I say shine the sun bright into your little troll holes and kill traditional culture so dead that no other child needs fear some fucker who thinks “sexual urges” are so powerful that the natural result of an adult and a child together must be rape.
  
  And then let us cleanse it all with fire.

• Scott Lemieux on John Roberts (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, that is) efforts to hollow out the Voting Rights Act.  Lauren Kelley at Rolling Stone interviews Ari Berman on his new book which traces the history of the Voting Rights Act.  (PS:  There are more unicorns in Nebraska than there is voter fraud in the United States.)
• Zandar on Democratic party internals.

  The really weird part is that nowhere in the entire piece do I see the words “Debbie Wasserman Schultz” who, as chair of the DNC, would ostensibly be the person in charge of the election strategies and GOTV tactics that Greenfield is complaining about, but I guess Greenfield has never met her or something.
  
  Also, there is the small matter of the impressive number of Democrats who lost by running as far away from Barack Obama as possible in 2010, 2012, and 2014 but no, the problem is of course Obama.
  
  That’s the Beltway wisdom, and it will be for a very, very long time.

  And of course I have to wonder why that is.
• Avedon's Sideshow's latest is chock-full of informative links, so just go there.  You should do that anyway.

Weekend With Bernie

Video of Senator Sanders at the Iowa State Fair.  With summarizing article above by Bethania Palma Markus, from Raw Story, at AlterNet.

Yes, I do have to get a link to the Greens.  There are months of this ahead of us.

In Memoriam

Julian Bond.

Civil rights leader, legislator, real social justice warrior.

The world is very much poorer today.

Wreaking Crew (Wrecking Crew, Too)

• Republicans still want to abolish Social Security.
  

  From Rand Paul to John Kasich, from Marco Rubio to Rick Perry to Lindsey Graham to Ted Cruz to Jeb Bush to George Pataki, all agree that Social Security should be privatized. And with the possible exception of Mike Huckabee, all agree on undermining the only program that keeps millions of older Americans from ending their lives in poverty rather than dignity. Chris Christie, robber of public employee pensions, would swiftly raise the retirement age to 69, threatening grave hardship for blue-collar, lower-income Americans. Carly Fiorina would inflict similar suffering on workers who weren't fortunate enough to snag an undeserved $40 million "golden parachute," like she did.
  
  Behind Republican warnings about the solvency of Social Security -- and their enduring desire to privatize -- are major financial interests that would like to seize the system's revenue streams for their own profit.
  
  

  Joe Conason at AlterNet
• Bonus: Mr. Trump as American authoritarian (he's increasingly reminding me of a cross between Greg Stillson [The Dead Zone] and Pol Pot.  Not my idea of fun times, if you catch my drift).  And there are journalists and pundits who absolutely love that sort of thing.  You don't want to live under authoritarian rule.  (We used to know that.)  And you don't want to have to find that out first hand.  Capisce?  (John Dean at Justia.com, reprinted at AlterNet.)

Plus and Minus

• Via Mercury Rising, the Digital Bodleian (Oxford) Library collections.  (I don't know how accessible it is because I haven't figured out how to use it yet.  Also, the links are a bit slower than their appearance, if that makes sense.  Also also, it continues to crack me up that Hebrew manuscripts are classed as "Oriental.")
• Zandar excerpts a long piece from the Washington Post on the gradual dismanatling of public education in North Carolina.  It's ugly.

  That’s right–our state government has maimed public schools so it can offer tax dollars to for-profit charters and private schools with totally inadequate government oversight from the same systems that declared public schools inadequate in the first place.
  
  [...]
  
  ... With an unassailable, veto-proof majority, North Carolina Republicans seized control of this state and unleashed a devastating blow to public schools.
  
  They have systematically pared budgets to the bone. They have insulted, antagonized, and demoralized teachers through stingy salary offerings–and they’ve muted the organization that had for many years protected them.
  
  As a result, public schools have suffered, and Republicans went the extra mile to design a new school rating system that exploited every weakness. It became the perfect excuse to bring private schools and for-profit operators into the mix, diverting critical taxpayer dollars from public schools into the deep pockets of companies like Pearson, sometimes without even a competitive bid process.
  
  And now? What’s happening today?

  Research Triangle slowly becomes an island?
  

Creepy Crawly Creepy Crawly Creepy Creepy Crawly Crawly Creepy Creepy Crawly Crawly Creepy Creepy Crawly Crawly Creepy Crawly Creepy Creepy

• There are reasons for separation of church and state.

  This is what freedom of religion really means in America: the freedom to inflict Christianity by law upon the rest of the people, but any other religion (or distinct lack of one) is not tolerated. I'm glad that Lincoln County finally got rid of the prayer sessions, but the journey to get there was spiteful, ignorant, and discriminatory to say the least.

  Zandar Versus The Stupid.  For the win.
• Margaret and Helen, specifically Helen, pointing out the realities of Planned Parenthood, rather than the falsehoods and lies the Republican candidates for president would like people to believe:

  Millions of women have been going to Planned Parenthood for nearly 100 years. We all remember the exceptional care and the quality of the information we received from the staff at those clinics. We remember when Planned Parenthood staff held our hands and comforted us during some of our scariest moments. We remember the relief we felt when they provided us with medically accurate information that we so desperately needed. And women of my age also remember what it was like when safe, legal abortions were not available.
  
  Contrary to what Republican men think, none of us ever went into a Planned Parenthood for a well woman exam, cancer screening or birth control and mistakenly had an abortion instead.

  No one not in possession of a uterus should have anything to say whatsoever about what possessors of uteri do with said uteri. This is the sort of thing that makes me regret that there is not nearly enough solidarity among women to pull off the Lysistrata strategy.
  

In Memoriam

Robert Conquest, historian (via File770.com)

Mr. Conquest, a poet and science-fiction buff, turned to the study of the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s out of dissatisfaction with the quality of analysis he saw at the British Foreign Office, where he worked after World War II in the Information Research Department, a semi-secret office responsible for combating Soviet propaganda.

“The ambassadors varied between people who were interested in politics and people who were interested in music,” he told The Guardian in 2003. “I wanted to study the evolutions at the top in Soviet Russia.”

Fascinating.

There Was a Crooked Man

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been booked at a Dallas-area jail on felony charges alleging that he misled investors before becoming the state's top lawyer.

Paxton arrived at the Collin County jail Monday to be processed on two counts of first-degree securities fraud and a lesser count of failing to register with state securities regulators.

From sfgate.com; the article is only a little longer.

Mentioned here exactly 1 month ago.

Because "Conservatism" Depends on Not Remembering Anything Happening Over a Day Ago

Why the Iranian government doesn't trust the U. S. (Paul Bibeau, Goblinbooks)

6. Our highest-level officials call for the destruction of their government. We know that Iranian officials are targeting US troops and calling for "death to America." But people in the most powerful positions in Washington have spent decades looking for ways to destabilize and topple their government.

(Links in article.)

It's a funny thing. People in positions holding power almost always demand total trust and almost never deserve it. But suggesting caution or skepticism or even out-and-out distrust on the part of the less powerful group or individual toward the more powerful usually yields accusations of impugned honor, whining about hate, or displays of hurt feelings.  And usually the less powerful group or individual backs down until the next reminder that caution, skepticism, and out-and-out distrust are in fact the correct response to the provocations of power.

In Memoriam

• Ivan Moravec, pianist
• ETA:  "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, wrestler

I Need To Be Out of Here in 6 Minutes

So.

• Terrance, Republic of T, on Sandra Bland and The Talk.
• Echidne of the Snakes, quoting someone very astute about Camille Paglia, in lieu of writing about her.
• The New Yorker finally discovers Samuel R. Delany.

"Standing in the Slide Zone"

• You're not hearing about the lawsuit against Monsanto for Reasons.

  You would think that coverage of something the whole world wants to see – the first step toward the successful downfall of Monsanto –would be a hot news item; a newsworthy tidbit that every paper, radio station, and blog would want to spread across their pages with double bold headlines. But wait. . . just six corporations own ALL of the media in America, so there isn’t much luck there.
  
  That’s why you have to go to sites like Russia Insider or Al Jazeera to find real news outside of certain alternative news channels in the US, and even those are white-washed from Facebook pages, and given secondary ratings on Google pages.
  
  Matthew Phillips, the attorney suing Monsanto in California for false advertising on Roundup bottles, has asked the LA Times, New York Times, Huffington Post, CNN, and Reuters, one of the world’s largest news agencies to report on the lawsuit (Case No: BC 578 942), and most enforced a total media blackout.
  
  When I spoke with Phillips over the phone, he said that he has tried posting the suit in Wikipedia’s Monsanto litigation section, but it keeps ‘disappearing.’ He says that he has also noticed posts on Facebook about this lawsuit get removed.
  
  Phillips points out that as long as Monsanto can keep this lawsuit off of most of America’s radar, then his client base would be relegated to just the citizens of California.
  
  If other attorneys were to follow his template-style lawsuit, which he wrote in English, devoid of extraneous legal-speak to encourage others to also take action against Monsanto, then suddenly the plaintiff count could be closer to several million.

  We shall see. (via skippy)
• Why the Republicans are unfond of the Iran deal:

  The chain of events inside Fantasy Iran Deal is actually pretty simple: Brave Republicans talk enough Democrats into abandoning the deal, it goes under, and Iran shows its "true colors" and the American people demand war and regime change. And in 2017, under a Republican president and Congress, they get that war against God's enemies, because Onward Christian Soldiers. That war is magically won in six weeks and the US, having disposed of a terror state, suddenly has everyone falling in line to appease our might.
  
  It's total lunacy, of course. They can't say it because of precisely that reason. But we know exactly what will happen should Republicans win the White House and keep Congress: war, plain and simple.

  And a war they themselves won't be fighting.  And you know why.  (via Zandar)
  

In Memoriam

Anne Rule, true-crime chronicler.

In Memoriam

• Bobbi Kristina Brown, only child of famous parents
• Peg Lynch, writer (and radio star), who I knew about because every Friday musical cues from her show were posted at The Bleat, an old blog that used to be funnier than it is now.

"Remain Calm! All Is Well!"

You might want to take a quick look at this stuff:

• The Candidate Mendacity Index as compiled for each candidate, via Paul Bibeau of Goblinbooks.  (From Politifact.com, which broke out the aspirants individually.)
• Why you don't want Scott Walker as President.  (Terrance Heath, Republic of T)
• Why you really don't want Scott Walker as President.  (Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet)
• Unravelling the safety net.  (Alex Henderson, AlterNet)
• Some good news from Echidne of the Snakes.
• Zandar Versus The Stupid:

  The problem isn't race relations. The problem is the reality of black America in the era of social media is coming into the homes, the TVs, the PCs, and the tablets of white America, and frankly white America doesn't know what the hell to do about it other than to lash out.
  
  We're seeing the results of that now.
  
  I'm sorry that existing as a black man in America in 2015 upsets you so.
  
  Naah, I'm not sorry. You needed your bubble popped a long damn time ago.

• Saying "Black Lives Matter" without weasel-wording.  (Jesse Curtis, walk on)
• Faked "scandals" and Donald Trump.  (Driftglass)

Annual Amnesia

• skippy the bush kangaroo celebrates 13 years in blogtopia, and yes, they coined that phrase.
• Which reminded me that 7 years (and some weeks) ago, I tapped the mike and proceeded to blather.  Time to accessorize re-energize.

In Memoriam

E. L. Doctorow, novelist

In Memoriam

Theodore Bikel, polytalent.

ETA:  Via File 770, though I am using a different obit.

My Hat Has Superpowers

• Hullabaloo features an article by Gaius Publius, "Serena Williams, racism [and] the subjugation of women," with excerpts from a piece in The Nation.  Gaius Publius says:

  There's much that's scary to confront in an image like this, in behavior like this. Couple that with what's known about her greatness (the correct word for her athletic accomplishments; 21 grand slam victories is a near-unbreakable record), and even ignoring what's known about her politics — more below — this is a challenging woman.
  
  I would even say this: A very frightening woman for two groups, those who fear blacks (they are many) and those who fear woman (there are a great many more). In fact, this could almost be more about fearing and attacking a woman who happens to be black than it is fearing and attacking a black person who happens to be a woman.

  I had heard she'd won her 21st Grand Slam; I missed the vilification, but then I don't poison my mind with right-wing data sources.
  
• Satanist jiu-jitsu.  Doing the rest of us a service.  Article by Amanda Marcotte at AlterNet.  Yes, I know.
• Southern Beale smacks a Tennessee legislator.  (Ableist language used.  Just so you know.)

Broke the Streak!

Happy Bastille Day!  [ETA:  Via Making Light, Jacobin's explanation of the French Revolution and why Bastille Day is important.]

• Why the plane fares have gone up.  (They swear it's not the consolidations.  The ghosts of the pirates of Standard Oil are shaking their heads ruefully.)
• Driftglass goes full Driftglass.
  

  The problem, of course, is that a long time ago the fairy tale stopped being convenient narrative hammock in which lazy media grifters could repose in comfort and instead became their basic input/output system. The thing that boots them up every day. The thing that tells them who they are, what their function is and how they should treat all the other devices to whom they are attached.

• Greece.  Greece.  Greece.
• Avedon's Sideshow features a good bunch of links for further exploration.

Tiny Purple Fishes

• Serious and not-so-serious presidential candidates, one of whom is dead.
• Greece, Macedonia, Kurdistan, and pacifism:  Why the "left" might not be into fighting.
• Obamacare seems to be working so far, so Republicans are chewing tinfoil.  Also:
• The "right" attempts civil disobedience.  Co-optation-wise, that is.
• In memoriam:  Jon Vickers, tenor,  Via Iron Tongue of Midnight.

Before the Blues

• Yes, three days in a row.  So exhausting.
• Via Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I and AlterNet:  "Psychologists' Collusion With US Torture Limited Our Ability To Decry It Anywhere" related to "US torture doctors could face charges after report alleges post-9/11 'collusion.,'" both from The Guardian for obvious reasons.  (Links to older references to articles on torture here.  Along with occasional statements of opinion.)  Humans do much rationalizing, some of it twisty, in the service of evil; oath-breaking tends to be frowned upon, but oath-worming-out-of is the mark of intelligence (spit).
  
  Torture is still immoral. And wrong. And evil.
• The Pope's a Christian!  Who'd have thought?

Not Anyone's Friends

• Janet Allon at AlterNet summarizes Paul Krugman on conservatives' economic desires.
• What conservatives expect to happen now that marriage equality is law (via AlterNet):
  
  1. Brian Tashman of Right Wing Watch lists 10 predictions.
  2. Evan McMurry quotes a variety of people who are not being rational.
  These folks will be embarrassed to have said this stuff in five years, and in Europe may ask Google to delete references to it. Also, they're not getting the good drugs.
• Back in the day, Brian Epstein ensured placement of the first Beatles single in the Top 20 (British charts) by buying 10,000 copies of "Love Me Do."  (It's in Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation, Philip Norman, Simon & Schuster, 1981, which may still be in print for all I know.)  Apparently "right-wing" organizations have been doing the same sort of thing with books authored by conservatives/Republicans.  (It's called "strategic bulk sales" and is slightly subtler.)  Apparently the New York Times bestseller list people finally figured this out, and disallowed Ted Cruz's new book.  Predictably conservatives are up in arms.  Talking Points Memo for the win.
  
  (Did I mention going into Border's a week or so before it closed and seeing pallets of S. Palin's tome? And that no one seemed to want a copy, even at steep discount?

In Memoriam

• Omar Sharif, actor and bridge expert
• Ken Stabler, football player (that is, Raiders QB.  I only know about football by osmosis)

Paper Like Kudzu

• Yes, I know.  And I accidentally closed about 6 relevant tabs.  So more potpourri.  Deal.
• 'Twas the week before the All-Star Game, and all through the house, both local teams fighting for .500 won-lost stats.  
• So:
• First and foremost, Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Letter to My Son" should be required reading (yes, I know I have a bad reaction to the words "required reading," and probably so do you.  Bear with me) for every American, particularly (1) those who might think they might run for office and (2) every sociologist, social worker, and bureaucrat.  And everyone entering a police academy of any kind.
• Terrance, at Republic of T, on the Confederate flag, its meaning, and the "shared history and heritage."

  Slavery is inseparable from the Confederacy and its cause. It was essential to the south’s economy. In 1860, one in three people who lived in the South were owned as property. Their collective value was about $3 billion. The farmland they worked was worth much more, and only unpaid slave labor could work it so cheaply. Confederate president Jefferson Davis reminded his Congress in 1861, slavery was “indispensable” to the southern economy.
  
  Segregationists and white supremacists like Roof do not distort the true meaning of the Confederate flag by adopting it. White supremacy and the subjugation of black people were the cornerstones of the Confederacy and the “way of life” it sought to defend.

• Daisydeadhead on Confederate Memorial Day.  (Tumblr blog, rather than Daisy's Dead Air.)
• Jesse Curtis, confessing to confederacy-related blind spots.
• Not only the flag:  Dave Ettlin on Maryland's state song.
• Chauncey DeVega on the bigger picture, economically.
• The enemy of my enemy, or what's going on in Ukraine. (via Mercury Rising.)

  The regime has shown little concern about widespread reports of “death squad” operations targeting suspected pro-Russian sympathizers in government-controlled towns. But such human rights violations should come as no surprise given the Nazi heritage of these units and the connection of the Islamic militants to hyper-violent terrorist movements in the Middle East.
  
  But the Times treats this lethal mixture of neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists as a good thing. After all, they are targeting opponents of the “white-hatted” Kiev regime, while the ethnic Russian rebels and the Russian government wear the “black hats.”

• Naked Capitalism no longer allowing comments on most postings.  
• Nathan Tankus at Naked Capitalism on the economic situation in Puerto Rico.
• Sappho (Non Irritare Leones) on the Greek referendum and the "No" vote.
• "Conservatives" assert that marriage is about duty, not love or happiness.  Amanda Marcotte (yes, I know) reports.  (My own suspicion is that conservatives believe that no one would marry them without coercion, which may be true.)  
• Conservatives also believe that marriage is a cure for social and economic problems, which... may not be true.  (Rachel M. Cohen, The American Prospect, reprinted at AlterNet.)
• Echidne of the Snakes on Jeb Bush's idea of productivity.

Isn't that enough?

[crossposted]

To One Side of the Law

Via Zandar Versus The Stupid and Crooks and Liars:  Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, is in trouble.  Specifically, felony securities fraud trouble.  Mmmm-hmmmmmmm.  The case against him is to be presented to a grand jury in upcoming weeks.

Apparently, marriage equality bad, but fraud good.

In Memoriam

• Chris Squire, musician (bassist and co-founder of Yes)
• Marva Collins, educator

Whooooooo-Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Supreme Court.  5-4.  Same-sex Marriage is legal in all 50 states.

Excuse me while I jump up and down with glee (not Glee) and joy amd thanksgiving to the Lord.  The Pride parade is going to be especially ecstatic this year.

Court Upholds ACA. Bears Discover Cars.

Yup.  Supreme Court okayed the health care subsidies that help the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare') to work.

Naturally, the conservatives are whining.  And apparently "banana republic" is code for the UK.  Well, no.  But the conservatives quoted, especially the ones "concerned" about the cost! Oh My God, have no similar qualms about sending troops to Syria or Iran.  Because it's dee-fense.  That seems to be the excuse, anyway.

To be entirely Fair and Balanced:

• Not all conservatives are stupid
• Not all conservatives are racist
• Not all conservatives are liars
• Not all conservatives are sexist
• Not all conservatives want me, personally, dead
• Not all conservatives believe the labor movement should return to the golden days (spit) of 1910
• Not all conservatives are whining losers
• Not all conservatives want to impose their religions on everyone
• Not all conservatives are in favor of restoration of the Bourbons
• Not all conservatives are ranting xenophobes
• Not all conservatives are ranting homophobes, and those who are are not necessarily in the closet (it's hard to remember that when they keep getting outed)
• Not all conservatives believe liberals are conspiring against them
• Not all conservatives sling cant about small government and then try to criminalize as many acts as possible
• Not all conservatives are thieves
• Not all conservatives are rich, or think they will be rich tomorrow morning
• Not all conservatives lack empathy except for relatives and friends.

...but some are and do, and those form the stereotype of The Conservative, which is repellent.  Forties movies had the cliché of the Cultured Nazi, but I found that repellent as well.

(This is a piece of the rant that is simmering on the back burner while I absorb Ta-Nehisi Coates' essays on Confederate flag and race in America (there are more; these are a taste) and various postings from the last month.)

In Memoriam

Gunther Schuller, classical and jazz musician and teacher.

In Memoriam

Phil Austin, member of Firesign Theater and voice of Nick Danger.

In Memoriam

• Kirk Kerkorian, rich guy.
• Blaze Starr, burlesque queen who knew politicians

62

62

In Memoriam

• Ornette Coleman, jazz innovator
• Christopher Lee, actor
• Ron Moody, actor

Actually, I Liked the Possibility of Hyperintelligent Bees...

Mr. Scalzi on not addressing every flare-up of ongoing kerfuffles.  (I've seen some of the comments he refers to.  Entitlement is not a river in E--well, it's not.  I had to listen to a lot of Fairport Convention and Marvin Gaye to regain my calm.)

Seriously, there are reasons I deeply distrust certain ideologies, entirely aside from the dislike of abstract me.  (The rant that would normally follow here was loud, high-pitched, and incoherent, although the martial arts movements were unmistakeable.)