Glenn Kirschner – Trump’s unhinged rants about prosecutors Jack Smith & Fani Willis signal Trump knows what’s coming (and in other news, water is wet.)
Farron Balanced – Trump Goes Completely Nuts After Fox News Talked About Ron DeSantis
Yesterday, I got to see Virgil. I passed on greetings, and He said to tell y’all they are appreciated. Today he seemed to have grasped that he willnot be getting out of prison alive, but he asked me – and I know it wasn’t s much as every five minutes, but it was often – how long we had been married (39 years this May) and also, though much less frequently, how old he is (79 – will be 80 in July.) He didn’t appear at all frustrated by not knowing, at least. I left at exactly the right time – five minutes later and the glare would have been too much.Neither visitors nor inmates are allowed watches, but there are a few windows in the room, and they face roughly west, so that if there is sun the light hitting the floor (snd eventually the wall) acts like a makeshift sundial. Six stripes on the south wall means time to go. Once we get back to DST it shouldn’t be a problem – visitation ends early enough that I’ll be fine staying until it’s over – and that will happen for my next visit on March 12. Now, in November, it appears there may be what we called in the military a fire drill, but using an ethnic slur which I won’t repeat. My state has passed legislation to keep DST, as has Ohio. Missouri and Texas have not. California voters have passed a referendum, but the legislature has yet to act. Needless to say, Australia will not be affected by us. For anyone in the US, I highly recommend a bit of research on your state between now and November.
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Short Takes –
Crooks & Liars – Beltway Media Still Doesn’t Understand Where Right Wingers Get Their Ideas
Quote – In 2016, Stephen Gossett of Chicagoist recounted the history that these Times reporters don’t seem to know: “There is a very simple two-part explanation as to why this happened: President Obama’s adopted hometown is Chicago; and Chicago struggles with gun violence. So its not surprising to find an example that stretches all the way back to Obama’s first presidential campaign.” Click through for article. Yes, Obama is still the bogey-an for way too many people, and probabloy some arenot even MAGAs.
Medium – 5 Reasons Why White People Are Afraid of Disposing of Their White Comfort
Quote – White comfort shows up everywhere, for instance, in the workplace when keeping Black people a way from senior positions, discriminatory hiring practices. Also, in schools that refuse to teach Critical Race Theory, states that ban books, and the way white people avoid discussing race relations and racism. All of these instances, are sensitive to white people because it pricks them into their skin like a needle; they feel like they are being attacked because they are being asked to be held accountable, and face the reality of the changing world that is being inclusive of everyone but them for once. Click through for article. White privilege, white fragility, white comfort – they are very similar, though there are subtle differences. All are so subtle yet all-pervasive that many white people don’t know they exist, and often actively fight the idea that they exist. People of color know that if they say or do anything which distirbs white comfort, even someting as innocuous as being in a particular place, their risks extend all the way up to death.
Yesterday, It warmed up above freezing and the snow is mostly gone from where it needs to be gone. Today (and tomorrow) should be warmer. I did listen to the concert “For Ukraine: A Concert of Rememberance and Hope.” It began with a video message from Olena Zelenska (Debra Lou Harder read out the English subtitles.) I was choked up before the first note (which was the first note of the Unkrainian National Anthem, BTW.) If you saw “Amadeus,” you’ll remember several chunks from the Mozart Requiem, and of course everyone recognizes Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. They are actually less familiar to the performers than to the audience – opera orchestras don’t generally play sumphonies, and opera choruses seldom sing Requiems, though top rank vocal soloists do, at least on occasion. The “Prayer for Ukraine” was part of the first Met concert for Ukraine. Yes, this is alot of music analysis. But as someone cited from Heine, (it may have been the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, or one of the two Ukrainian soloists), “When words leave off, music begins.” They posted the program on line (part of it – they cut out the advertising.) And – speaking of Ukraine and music …
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Short Takes –
The Daily Beast – Broadway Star Ben Platt Condemns ‘Evil’ Neo-Nazis After ‘Parade’ Protest
Quote – The show, a Broadway transfer from the Encores! concert series, is based on the true story of a Jewish factory superintendent, Leo Frank, who was falsely convicted of killing 13-year-old employee Mary Phagan in 1913, and who was kidnapped from prison and lynched two years later…. [A] masked activist from the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi hate group, tried to leaflet theater-goers outside the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre so they could “find out the truth” about the ADL (Anti-Defamation League), as well as Parade. “You’re paying 300 bucks to go fucking worship a pedophile, you might as well know what you’re talking about,” the masked person said. Click through for article. This is bad enough – but the same people who staged this outrage have also designated today as a “National Day of Hate.” At least in many large cities, it’s being reported that law enforcement is providing extra protectio to synagogues.
Letters From An American – February 19, 2023
Quote – Today is the anniversary of the day in 1942, during World War II, that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 enabling military authorities to designate military areas from which “any or all persons may be excluded.” That order also permitted the secretary of war to provide transportation, food, and shelter “to accomplish the purpose of this order.” … On March 2, 1942, General John DeWitt put Executive Order 9066 into effect. He signed Public Proclamation No. 1, dividing the country into military zones and, “as a matter of military necessity,” excluding from certain of those zones “[a]ny Japanese, German, or Italian alien, or any person of Japanese Ancestry.” Click through for Letter. There is Nick Anderson the basketball player, and there is Nick Anderson the cartoonist, but the Nick Anderson to whom Heather refers is neither of them. He is a young reporter for the Washington Post. I can’t provide a gift link – my cousin is all out of them for this month. Here’s the paywalled link. But hHeather does a gret job and you may not need or want it.
Glenn Kirschner – Prosecutor Mark Pomerantz pursued racketeering indictment of Donald Trump, DA Alvin Bragg said “no.”
Meidas Touch – MAGA Governor UNLEASHES HELL on Her Own State as it CRUMBLES (did anyone listen to her response to the State of the Union address? I couldn’t. I was actually pretty wrung out after the SOTU.)
Politics Girl – To My Fellow White Americans… (I don’t know why she soometimes posts twice – I’ve been reposting the newer one.)
Liberal Redneck – State of the State of the Union
Guy Who Only Liked Dogs Cat-sits For The First Time
Glenn Kirschner – House Republicans FINALLY focus on what’s important to ordinary Americans – Hunter Biden’s laptop?! (I’ve seen the suggestion that it tells us they are trying to get Hunter to suicide. Let that sink in/))
NBC News – U.S.-China situation isn’t ‘1:1 comparison’ with last Cold War: Buttigieg
Twitter (shared by PoliticsGirl) White Comfort
This TikTok from @highlyvibey really got me thinking about how our society has socialized us to prioritize “white comfort”. A term I’m not even sure I’d heard before. pic.twitter.com/wgMdkBNJxC
Yesterday, it was pretty quiet – until late last night, when there was (literally) earthshaking news – from Turkey ans Syria. To quote Heather Cox Richardson, ”
A deadly 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Turkey late tonight has caused damage in Syria, and was felt in Lebanon, and Israel, as well. It has collapsed buildings, sparked fires in ruptured gas lines, and prompted Italian authorities to warn of potential tsunami waves. Aftershocks, including one of 6.7 magnitude and another of 5.6, have continued to hit in the wake of the first quake. Millions of refugees from Syria’s civil war and internally displaced persons live in the region of the epicenter, in tents and other temporary housing. It is winter there.” Winter in the Mediterranean is not the same as winter in the Colorado Rockies, but it is still no picnic. At least our President is on top of it.
The 19th – Two years in, Biden has prioritized nominating women of color as judges
Quote – While Jackson’s historic confirmation was the most visible sign of systemic change in the judiciary, the president has prioritized diversity throughout the federal court system. Biden’s judicial appointees are the most diverse of any U.S. president to date in terms of race, gender and professional background. Of the judges appointed by Biden in the past two years, 75 percent are women, 47 percent are women of color and 67 percent are people of color. Click through for details. Few white people are in a position to make Blck History – and of those few, most don’t (or do it wrong.) I’m pretty sure Joe doesn”t expect (or care about) being named in Black HIstory. He’s just doing the right thing.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
Sometimes those who are the most engaged in political activism can also be the most naive. I don’t know how otherwse to explain how those of us who have been working on civil rights, civil liberties, and voting rights since the 50’s, and gained so much, have also lost so much. Did we fail to watch our backs? Did we miss the signs? Or did we see the signs, but were unsure of how to respond? Now it appears we need to do it all over again – or our kids and grandkids do, those of uswho have any. We and/or they will need to come up with better plans for how to keep what has been won. I know, it sounds tiring. I feel exhausted myself. But it’s that or slide into fascism.
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Civil rights legislation sparked powerful backlash that’s still shaping American politics
A group of voters lining up outside the polling station, a small Sugar Shack store, on May 3, 1966, in Peachtree, Ala., after the Voting Rights Act was passed the previous year. MPI/Getty Images
For nearly 60 years, conservatives have been trying to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. As a scholar of American voting rights, I believe their long game is finally bearing fruit.
In that case, the court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act that supervised elections in areas with a history of disenfranchisement.
The Supreme Court is currently considering a case, Merrill v. Milligan, that might gut what remains of the act after Shelby.
Conservative legal strategists want the court to say that Alabama – where African Americans make up approximately one-quarter of the population, still live in concentrated and segregated communities and yet have only one majority-Black voting district out of seven state districts – should not consider race when drawing district boundaries.
These challenges to minority voting rights didn’t emerge overnight. The Shelby and Merrill cases are the culmination of a decadeslong conservative legal strategy designed to roll back the political gains of the civil rights movement itself.
A number of Southern states had a poll tax that was aimed at preventing by Black people, many of whom couldn’t afford to pay it. This is a receipt for a $1.50 poll tax paid in 1957 by Rosa Parks. Library of Congress, Rosa Parks Papers
Victory – and more bigotry
The realization of civil and voting rights laws during the 1960s is often portrayed as a victory over racism. The rights revolution actually gave rise to more bigotry.
The Voting Rights Act criminalized the use of discriminatory tests and devices, including literacy tests and grandfather clauses that exempted white people from the same tests that stopped Black people from voting. It also required federal supervision of certain local Southern elections and barred these jurisdictions from making electoral changes without explicit approval from Washington.
In fact, the VRA worked so well that it gave rise to another seismic political shift: White voters left the Democratic Party in record numbers.
As Washington protected Black voting rights, this emerging Republican majority capitalized on fears of an interracial democracy. Conservatives resolved to turn the South Republican by associating minority rights with white oppression.
In 1981, conservative political consultant and GOP strategist Lee Atwater recognized that Republicans might exploit these fears. He argued:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger” – that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.“
‘Retard civil rights enforcement’
It wasn’t just Southerners who aimed to undo the revolution enabled by the Voting Rights Act.
Conservative political consultant and GOP strategist Lee Atwater, center, at the GOP National Convention in Dallas, Aug. 23, 1984, recognized that Republicans might capitalize on white people’s fears of rising Black political power. AP Photo/Ed Kolenovsky
Reagan’s administration, according to voting rights expert Jesse Rhodes, used executive and congressional control to reorganize the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department and the Supreme Court.
The objective?
To undermine how Washington enforced the Voting Rights Act – without appearing explicitly racist.
One of the Reagan administration’s strategies was to associate minority voting rights with so-called reverse discrimination. They argued that laws privileging minorities discriminated against white voters.
Undoing progress
Here’s the background to that strategy:
The years following 1965 were characterized by the dilution of Black Southerners’ voting power. Realizing that they couldn’t keep African Americans from voting, Southerners and segregationists resolved to weaken votes once they’d been cast. They gerrymandered districts and used other means that would dilute minority voting power.
Conservatives during the early 1980s had become increasingly alarmed by the Supreme Court’s and Department of Justice’s preference for drawing racial district boundaries to give minorities more influence in elections in such ”majority-minority districts.“ These districts aimed to guarantee that minorities could elect candidates of their choice free from machinations such as vote dilution.
With little regard for vote dilution itself, conservative politicians and their strategists argued that majority-minority districts discriminated against whites because they privileged, like affirmative action policies, equality of outcomes in elections rather than equal opportunity to participate.
Edward Blum, a longtime conservative legal activist, has brought and won many cases at the Supreme Court rolling back civil rights gains. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
By the 1990s, conservatives replaced federal officials who might protect the Voting Rights Act. In time, these developments, and growing conservatism within the courts, prompted conservative litigation that continues to shape civil rights laws.
A tidal wave of anti-civil rights litigation, led by a well-funded man, Edward Blum, flooded the court system. Blum sought to undermine the Voting Rights Act’s supervision of local elections and undo racial quotas in higher education and employment.
These cases, at their core, attacked the rights revolution of the 1960s – or rights that privilege minorities. The argument?
These protections are obsolete because Jim Crow segregation, especially its overt violence and sanctioned segregation, is dead.
New claim, old game
Nearly 30 years of Republican or divided control of Congress and, to a lesser degree, the executive office gave rise to increasingly conservative Supreme Court nominations that have not just turned the court red; they all but ensured favorable outcomes for conservative litigation.
These include the Shelby and Merrill cases and, more recently, litigation that seeks to remove racial considerations from college admissions.
In the Shelby case, the court held that the unprecedented number of African Americans in Alabama – and national – politics meant not merely that racism was gone, it meant that the Voting Rights Act is no longer relevant.
In fact, the rise of voter fraud allegations and contested election results is a new iteration of old, and ostensibly less violent, racism.
The Voting Rights Act was not only effective; Washington was also, initially, committed to its implementation. The political will to maintain minority voting rights has struggled to keep pace with the continuity of racist trends in American politics.
The work of protecting minority voting rights remains unfinished.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, what wouldn’t I give to see you, in your most terrifying appearance, swoop into the House and carry off Jim Jordan (and others, but if I started naming all the names we’d be here all week.) I know that’s not going to happen. But it does seem it will take something about that drastic, and at least that effective, to make any inroads. But it felt like that in the 50’s too. Maybe I’m just getting too old.
