Nits

Nits are the eggs of lice.

I swung by Eschaton this morning.  I think because The Rectification of Names's blogroll listed it as having something entitled "Everyone With A Name Match Will Be A Vote Fraudster," and as I wrote a couple of years ago:

Even 2,000,000 (that's two million; you wouldn't want to scan that data by hand) names are going to have duplicates and triplicates, not from fraud, but from the fact that people have names, not numbers. And get named after their parents and may live with said parent, y'know, at the same address. Or have common first names paired with common last names. Not everyone names the baby after characters in movies and operas, and some people legally change what they're called. And I seem to remember that an awful lot of people whose only crime, you should excuse the expression, was having the same names as convicted felons were stricken from voter rolls in Florida in 2012.

Mr. Kobach, who was the [pejorative noun] involved with Interstate Crosscheck, is now vice chair of the voter "integrity" commission and has called for states' voter databases.

In their letter, they request states provide "the full first and last names of all registrants, middle names or initials if available, addresses, dates of birth, political party (if recorded in your state), last four digits of social security number if available, voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward, active/inactive status, cancelled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information."

(Karoli Kuns, Crooks and Liars)  In the comments appeared a press release from Virginia's Governor McAuliffe refusing the request for data, which said:

“I have no intention of honoring this request. Virginia conducts fair, honest, and democratic elections, and there is no evidence of significant voter fraud in Virginia. This entire commission is based on the specious and false notion that there was widespread voter fraud last November. At best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate Donald Trump’s alternative election facts, and at worst is a tool to commit large-scale voter suppression.

“The only irregularity in the 2016 presidential election centered around Russian tampering, a finding that has been confirmed by 17 of our intelligence agencies and sworn testimony delivered to several congressional committees

(National Review believes Gov. McAuliffe is soft on voter fraud.  Consider the source.)

Shakesville points at the slippery slope to voter suppression.

It's the Bermuda Dodecahedron

I've been hunting wabbits accumulating links for a week.  Those things are indigestible.

• wendelah at dreamwidth has some links for the disastrous Senate version of a "healthcare" bill.
• Feministing supports saving the ACA before it gets destroyed.
• Echidne of the Snakes comments on the "free market religion" of conservatives and how that really doesn't help with healthcare.
• How "conservatives" are robbing you of health care and how "corporate media" have been "aiding and abetting."  (Adam Johnson, AlterNet)
• An actual shortfall problem which the Senate bill does not address.
• "Civic illiteracy" and how we got there. (Henry A. Giroux, Salon)

  I am not referring here to only the kind of anti-intellectualism that theorists such as Richard Hofstadter, Ed Herman, Noam Chomsky and Susan Jacoby have documented, however insightful their analyses might be. I am pointing to a more lethal form of manufactured illiteracy that has become a scourge and a political tool designed primarily to make war on language, meaning, thinking and the capacity for critical thought. Chris Hedges captures this demagogic attack on thoughtfulness in stating that “the emptiness of language is a gift to demagogues and the corporations that saturate the landscape with manipulated images and the idioms of mass culture.” Freedom now means removing one’s self from any sense of social responsibility so one can retreat into privatized orbits of self-indulgence, unbridled self-interest and the never-ending whirlwind of consumption.
  
  This updated form of illiteracy does not simply constitute an absence of learning, ideas or knowledge. Nor can it be solely attributed to what has been called the “smartphone society.” On the contrary, it is a willful practice and goal used to actively depoliticize people and make them complicit with the political and economic forces that impose misery and suffering upon their lives. At the same time, illiteracy bonds people: It offers the pretense of a community bound by a willful denial of facts and its celebration of ignorance.

• Senator Franken talks about the Senate "health care" bill (the header is a little misleading).  (Alexandra Rosenmann, AlterNet) on Morning Joe.
• Speaking of Morning Joe, he noticed the President has called the "health care" bill "mean."  (Travis Gettys, Raw Story at AlterNet)  "Jedi Mind Trick," indeed.
• Paul Ryan may be vulnerable (politically). (Capper, Crooks and Liars)
• Authoritarianism creeps in on little cat feet.  Time for the squirt bottle.  (MJ Stephan and T Snyder, The Guardian)
• In Memoriam:
• Glenne Headly, actress
• Bill Dana, comic
• Gabe Pressman, TV journalist
• Pete Flynn, Mets groundskeeper

In Memoriam

• Herman Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, Namibian leader and activist
• John G. Avildsen, director
• Anita Pallenberg, muse and actress
• Herma Hill Kay, UC Berkeley law school dean
• Stephen Furst, actor
• Helmut Kohl, German chancellor during reunification
• Rosalie Sorrels, folk singer

Mmmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Via Shakesville, Greg Sargent of the Washington Post:

House Republicans are now angry at this, Politico reports, because they stuck out their necks making the case for a bill that would leave many millions without coverage and gut protections for people with preexisting conditions. They “explained to their constituents” that the last-minute changes to the bill (adding all of $8 billion) would make it less destructive to that latter group. But Trump has now upended all of this, putting them at greater political risk.

But their anger over this is particularly galling, because Republicans themselves do not want their constituents to actually know what is in the bill they are set to pass. And they are taking active, extensive and possibly unprecedented steps to make sure they don’t. Trump merely made this harder for them to get away with.

[...]

Now Senate Republicans are urgently working to soften the bill, because a number of moderates can’t be seen embracing something that cruel. But, if anything, they are going further than their House counterparts to forestall any kind of serious public awareness of what they are doing. Two GOP aides recently told Axios that there are no plans to publicly release the Senate version well in advance of the vote, because, as one of them put it, “we aren’t stupid.” There have been no public hearings. Even some Senate Republicans have expressed befuddlement about what’s in the bill that they will be voting on.

Emphases added.

Sample scripts for calling Senators.

*cough* *cough* Termites in the Load-Bearing Timbers *cough*

• Susie Madrak, Crooks and Liars, this morning.

  Investigators found evidence that hackers tried to delete or alter voter data in Illinois. They also accessed software designed to be used by poll workers on Election Day, and in at least one state, accessed a campaign finance database.

• Brad Reed, Raw Story, at AlterNet, this morning.

  A new report reveals that Russian hackers breached voting systems in 39 different states, which means that Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election appears far more widespread than what has been previously disclosed.

Full report at Bloomberg (which does not like ad blockers).

Also, Driftglass comes down on both-siderism with both pies.

Call your Senators and tell them to vote NO on repealing and replacing Obamacare (ACA) with their Frankenstein's monster of a bill, and while you're at it, insist that they hold hearings, because they're trying to sneak this through without hearings or the report from the CBO with the actual cost.  Everyone knows or is related to someone this will affect personally.  Everyone.

ETA:

There is exactly one reason for Senate Republicans to do this [forbid filming interviews with Senators in hallways]: They're afraid to own the legislation that strips 24 million Americans of their healthcare. After witnessing the nightmare House Republicans endured at their town halls, the Senate GOP has clearly decided that secrecy and speed are necessary to force the immensely unpopular ACA repeal through. Do I even need to mention the almost unlimited hypocrisy of hiding what they're doing after Republicans spent years screaming the lie that Obamacare was crafted behind closed doors (they had over 100 public hearings)?

Justin Rosario, The Daily Banter. Further:

As of this writing, the official statement from the Senate Republicans says that no one authorized the ban but clearly someone put out the word.

Further corroboration at sfgate.com.

THE MASKS ARE OFF!  The Republican Senators refuse to release a draft of their bill.  They don't want anyone to know precisely what's in it.  Because, y'know, there might be OBJECTIONS!  (via twistedchick)

STEALTH AND SPEED ARE THE ANTITHESIS OF, DARE I SAY IT, THE AMERICAN WAY!

Yes, I am shouting.

Politicklish

(with acknowledgements to Those Who Came Before.  Hi!)

• Note to the "Marketing Community:"  If I really wanted optimized searching at this blog, I would mention the capital of South Korea a lot more often.  I don't.  Capisce?  Also, the fact that I have on occasion, especially before that last November election, mentioned Buttercup by name does not mean that I am in favor of Buttercup, his policies, his party, his people, or anything else pertaining to him whatsoever.  There are reasons I don't accept advertising for this endeavor, one of them being that I'd end up with pro-Buttercup-themed ads when I'm anti-Buttercup.  Also, there are over 700,000 blogs with a greater audience.  There are advantages to being small-time.  I don't have to pander.  
• Blinders and blinkered:

  Roberts asked [R-FL Rep. Francis] Rooney about Paul Ryan's lame excuse that Trump is just "new to government" and therefore didn't really understand that what he was doing.
  
  Here's how Rooney responded:
  
  ROBERTS: When it comes to James Comey referring to the president as a liar, do you think that that is accurate. Do you think that President Trump has ever lied to the American people?
  
  ROONEY: I haven't seen evidence of a lie yet, and I'm really surprised that the FBI Director would use that kind of language, especially after some of the things that he's done.
  
  Thomas Roberts just shrugged it off and moved right along to the next question. The only time he got even the least bit testy with Rooney during the interview or pushed back at him at all was when he attacked the media later in the same segment.
  
  The Washington Post has been tracking just how much Trump lies, and they're up to 623 lies just in Trump's first 137 days.

  Heather, Crooks and Liars. Including bonus chart of the lies in question.
• Echidne of the Snakes links to Katha Pollitt's article on "empathy, lack of, and who does and does not," and had a couple of questions:

  As an aside, two questions about this conversation fascinate me: First, why is it assumed that if I lean left politically I am not hard-working, self-supporting or resilient? In other words, why do many assume that the stereotypical left and right values cannot be held by the same person?
  
  Second, note the sleight-of-hand in the way the basic problem is so often defined by first constructing all of the left as "elitist" (and not the party of the poor, say) and then demanding that those "elites" -- because they now are viewed as elites -- must attend to the grievances of the down-trodden Trump-voters (who are actually in power)?

  The Pollitt article points out:

  Empathy and respect are not about kowtowing to someone’s cultural and social preferences. They’re about supporting policies that make people’s lives better, whether they share your values, or your tastes, or not.

  Seriously.
  
• And bloody about time!  (NYTimes link.)

In Memoriam

Adam West, actor

So Now They're Trying Stealth Speed, Redux

twistedchick pointed me to this tweet from Sahil Kapur:

It begins: McConnell initiates the "Rule 14" process of putting the House-passed AHCA on the Senate calendar for fast-track consideration.

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 7, 2017

[Embedded tweet.]

Gee, one would think that there must be something extremely smoky, smelly, and suspicious about the haste to get that bill passed.  The Congressional Budget Office's report was not favorable to the "American Health Care Act."  (See Shakesville.)  It's time to call Senators and ask them to vote No, or at least schedule hearings and read the thing.  Especially the 23 million that will be (re-)deprived of  health insurance.

Also, the House wants to water down the financial regulations put in place after the 2007 crisis, because they have learned nothing.

Kansas is ending its "experiment" with deep tax cuts (video).  It didn't work.

The Rude Pundit on Comey's conversations, and the video of the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing at C-SPAN (Flash needed; runtime 2:40.)  Zandar, citing Vox.com and the Washington Post:

The Trump Regime is in trouble, and badly so. Comey will help see to that. He flat-out said that he believed he was fired over the Russia investigation and Mike Flynn, period. What Congress chooses to do with that information, and what voters choose to do as a result, we shall see.

More on everything at Avedon's Sideshow.

Texas

...has had to modify their voter ID law.

The bill signed into law by Gov. Abbott on Thursday night mirrors much of this court order, making similar restrictions on the Texas voter ID law permanent.

Again, this is not a total victory for voting rights. The law still imposes an ID requirement on most voters, and some voters may be intimidated by the fact that they risk jail time if they make a false statement on their declaration of reasonable impediment.

Texas also filed court documents Thursday night claiming that its changes to its voter ID law should erase the federal court’s finding that the state acted with racially discriminatory intent. If the courts ultimately agree with this argument, that will limit the remedies available to voting rights advocates who want to ensure that Texas does not engage in additional voter suppression.

But the new Texas law also locks in place restrictions on the state’s voter suppression efforts that it could have just as easily fought in court.

ThinkProgress, via skippy

In Memoriam

• Jack O'Neill, surfers' wetsuits
• Jimmy Piersall, ballplayer
• Peter Sallis, voice actor (Wallace of Wallace and Gromet)
• Roger Smith, actor

Take Three

Because Yastreblyansky cuts to the heart of Will's bleating:

As I say, I've been preaching the unholy alliance forever, in terms as simple as Boo says: the gross part of conservatism is there because the elegant harpsichord-playing conservatives have to get votes from somewhere. Will can't bear being in the same room with the unlettered, ill-dressed, foul-mouthed yahoos who keep the Republican party alive, but without them conservatism is as dead as it was in 1950.

But the other side is: that college nostalgia has more in common with yahoo conservatism than you might think, because it's a nostalgia for a deeply stratified society in which the young men depend on an unquestioned capital income and an army of servants and attendants and seduceable low-class girls, bookies, drug dealers, musicians, and all that riffraff—while the young men remain cheerfully blind to their privilege.

[...]

Will's shock at the triumph of Trumpism is the shock of being forced to recognize what was there all along, the seamy underside of conservatism, the ugly mass on which his bow-tied, preppy polysyllabic world rests. The nostalgia was for the time before Trump when he could successfully pretend it didn't exist.

Two Takes on That Will Thing

George Will, who is irrelevant now that the Chicago Cubs have actually won a World Series, wrote a column lamenting the coarsening (the words "soiled" and "vulgarians" figure in the essay) of the conservative "movement" (which involves moving backward) and extolling the "brio" of William F. Buckley.  Booman Tribune reminds us what a reactionary weirdo Buckley was and then goes on to explain:

These new Republicans were the furthest thing from Bach aficionados and most of them had only seen yachts on television. But they served as the bodies that business interests needed to prevail politically and begin to beat back a New Deal that was no longer working as well as it had. Buckley and his allies didn’t give a damn about prayer in school or restricting abortion rights, but they needed an army that would back them on opposing federal regulations, high marginal tax rates, and strong antitrust enforcement.

Conservatism was always about raising an army of vulgarians to serve the interests of a new conservative elite in which folks like Buckley would “play the harpsichord.” That’s it. That’s all of it.

There's more. Driftglass contributes a filk quatrain:

Don’t let it be forgot
That once there was a spot
For one brief shining moment that was known
As Scam-a-lot.

Because conservatism has never been "cool" or particularly tasteful or highminded.  (I'm stopping here ahead of an impending rant.)

What Junction?

• Susie Madrak, Crooks and Liars (who probably didn't write the headline):  "Joe And Mika: Trump Like A Child 'Pooping His Pants'"  with video and partial transcript.

  If Joe and Mika hadn't applauded every day for an entire year every single time Donald Trump defecated (and thrown clumps of poo every time Hillary Clinton did or said anything), we might not be having this laugh fest right now.

• Mmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
• Addicts in West Virginia (via Just an Earth-Bound Misfit, I).
• Fraudster sued for fraud.  

  The Intercept reports that Democracy Partners has filed a lawsuit against O’Keefe and his organization Project Veritas, which it alleges falsified documents to get access to the group’s members.
  
  The suit accuses Project Veritas member Allison Maass of concocting an elaborate cover story and using forged documents to get an internship with the group, with the goal of secretly recording members’ conversations and using them in political propaganda videos.

  Brad Reed, Raw Story.  "Veritas," my foot.  Children, Mission: Impossible was a TV show.  You know, fiction.  Although I suppose since lies are their stock in trade, they probably feel more comfortable presenting false faces to the world.  What empty shells they must be.  By the way, what happened to all those tapes allegedly made at CNN?
  
• ETA:  Opera seized up and I'd forgotten about these:  
• Video about the Voter Fraud Lies, presented by Frances Langum at Crooks and Liars.
• Cutting anti-discrimination enforcement (Zandar Versus The Stupid)

  This is something Attorney General Jeff Sessions has wanted all his career, a federal government neutered on civil rights, without any personnel to deal with more than a handful of issues, while states decide what civil rights enforcement means because of course the feds don't have the resources to actually enforce anything.
  
  It's the tried and true Republican formula: destroy the federal government's ability to do its job, then declare it a failure and zero out the budget for it. The damage from this will be generational, but of course that's the point.