The Next Step

Toward Donald Trump, President for Life. After all, he's already claimed victory in the election; how better to make sure that it happens?

As ongoing vote tabulation in several key battleground states continues to slowly narrow President Donald Trump’s path to reelection, the New York Times reported late Wednesday that the Justice Department has told federal prosecutors that U.S. law permits armed federal agents to enter ballot-counting locations to investigate alleged “fraud,” heightening fears of possible intimidation efforts by the Trump administration. . . .

The Times noted that the Justice Department’s email, authored by Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, “created the specter of the federal government intimidating local election officials or otherwise intervening in vote tallying amid calls by President Trump to end the tabulating in states where he was trailing in the presidential race.”

While U.S. law bars the stationing of armed officials “at any place where a general or special election is held,” Donoghue claimed in his email that the statute “does not prevent armed federal law enforcement persons from responding to, investigat[ing], or prevent[ing] federal crimes at closed polling places or at other locations where votes are being counted.”

What better way to insure the vote goes your way -- I mean, is fair and accurate?

And you can bet real money that they will find fraud, if they have to invent it themselves.

I think, if I were the governor of any of these states, I would have these federal agents met by armed state troopers.

It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

Yes, Election Day was yesterday and we still don't know who is going to be president for the next four years. Trump, of course, has claimed victory, based on the voices in his head, but they're still counting votes -- millions of mail-in ballots. For some reason, only a few states allow absentee/mail-in ballots to be counted before election day. The thinking behind that eludes me.

This is going to wind up in the courts. It's already been there, and that's going to be a big problem, now that the GOP has stacked the Supreme Court with Republican hacks. Digby has a post quoting extensively from an article by Ian Millhiser examining the legal landscape -- or at least, part of it:

Two significant legal events occurred last week that could determine whether the winner of the 2020 election actually becomes president. They could also shape American elections for years to come if the Supreme Court’s 6-3 Republican majority remains in place. The first was the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which not only gave Republicans a supermajority on the Supreme Court, it also most likely made Justice Brett Kavanaugh the swing vote in election cases. While Kavanaugh’s approach to election law is extremely conservative, he’s staked out a position that is slightly more moderate than the views of his most conservative colleagues Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch.

The second event is that, last Monday, just minutes before Barrett was confirmed, the Supreme Court handed down a decision that prevents ballots that arrive after Election Day in the state of Wisconsin from being counted. Kavanaugh joined that decision, and he also wrote a separate concurring opinion that endorsed a radical reading of the Constitution that would upend at least a century of established law.

Briefly, Kavanaugh signaled that he wants to give federal courts — and his Court in particular — an unprecedented new power to overrule state supreme courts and to potentially rewrite state election law. Some of the implications of this view are discussed below, but the upshot is it means that Kavanaugh appears ready to change longstanding rules that have governed elections for a very long time.

That's bad enough, but it gets worse:

There is, however, a crucial question that the Supreme Court has yet to resolve. If the courts change the rules governing an election after voters have already cast their ballots, are voters who did not comply with these new rules disenfranchised, even if they followed the rules that were in place when their ballot was cast?

Three justices, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch, have all claimed that voters who followed the rules that were in place when their ballot was counted can have their ballots tossed out anyway if a court later changes the rules.

ANd how long, do you suppose, before we dispense with holding elections at all, and just let the courts decide who our elected officials are going to be? American democracy -- it was fun while it lasted.

Today's the Day

Actually, it's not, really -- that will be when all the votes have been counted and totals certified -- after all the lawsuits and delaying tactics from the GOP. (This is a sample of what we can expect. And if you think the Trump regime is going to stick with lawsuits, get a load of this -- and click through and check out the locations that are being "monitored".)

But, when all it said and done, today is Election Day. I fully expect Trump to declare himself the winner as soon as the first results are in, no matter what they show.

No, I am not going to hover over the TV or Internet as the results come in and watch all the pundits make fools of themselves. I'll watch a movie or something. And try not to think about things like this:

(

With thanks to John Cole at Balloon Juice.)

It's a Strategy, Of a Sort

A couple of stories I ran across that resonated with each other. First, the blowhard himself:

President Trump has told confidants he'll declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he's "ahead," according to three sources familiar with his private comments. That's even if the Electoral College outcome still hinges on large numbers of uncounted votes in key states like Pennsylvania.

Somehow, I suspect he'll declare victory no matter what the numbers are:

Speaking to reporters on Sunday evening, Trump denied that he would declare victory prematurely, before adding, "I think it's a terrible thing when ballots can be collected after an election. I think it's a terrible thing when states are allowed to tabulate ballots for a long period of time after the election is over."

He continued: "I think it's terrible that we can't know the results of an election the night of the election. ... We're going to go in the night of, as soon as that election's over, we're going in with our lawyers."

"We don't want to have Pennsylvania, where you have a political governor, a very partisan guy. ... We don't want to be in a position where he's allowed, every day, to watch ballots come in. See if we can only find 10,000 more ballots."

And in line with that, here's Trump loyalist and henchman Corey Lewandowski:

You know, Chris, what the president’s real concern is and the Supreme Court has made some rulings on this, is trying to get as many votes in by Election Day as possible. The concern is when you have some states that don't require a postage mark on theirs, so we don't know when they were filled out, they don't require signature verification, and some states they'll be counting nine or ten days after the election. I think that as the most industrialized country in the world we can do better than that, Chris.

We know that people can vote, we know how to count quickly, so let's get it done because I think this election is going to be won on election night with Donald Trump carrying in Florida and North Carolina and Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and if that's the case, there will be no need to continue to count because it will be a resounding victory.

So there is it -- just stop counting votes when it looks like the Don has won. And just in case:

If you speak with many smart Democrats, they believe that President Trump will be ahead on election night, probably getting 280 electoral [votes] somewhere in that range, and then they’re going to try to steal it back after the election. We believe we will be over 290 electoral votes on election night, so no matter what they try to do, what kind of hijinks or lawsuits or whatever kind of nonsense they try to pull off, we’ll have enough electoral votes to get President Trump re-elected.” – Senior Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller, speaking today on ABC News.

It's all of a piece with the barrage of lawsuits aimed at not counting ansentee/mail-in ballots, the repeated mantra of "vote fraud" that the GOP has been chanting for years (and in case you need to be reminded, every case of actual fraud that has been discovered has been perpretrated by Republicans), and the media blitz, led by Fox and enabled by our "free, independent press", and straight out of the Josef Goebbels manual.

Tomorrow night should be a real spectacle.

(All via Joe.My.God.)

What's New at Green Man Review

It's been two weeks, and sure enough, there's a new bunch of reviews at Green Man Review.

A Space Opera That’s Not, Earthsea Illustrated, Rhubarb, A Zombie Romance, Live Tull, Live Fiddles, and more. . . .

You know the drill. Get yourself a nice warm drink (if your weather is anything like ours today) and settle in for some really interesting reading.

The Press in Action

I've been critical of the press recently, and I think with good reason. This story only points up one of the major problems:

Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris didn’t hold back when confronted by a CBS News reporter asking if she’s pushing a socialist agenda. She laughed out loud at the reporter’s suggestion.

“What I will do, and I promise you this, this is what Joe wants me to do,” the California Senator, speaking about her running mate, told “60 Minutes” correspondent Norah O’Donnell.

“This was part of our deal. I will always share with him my lived experience as it relates to any issue that we confront. And I promised Joe that I will give him that perspective and always be honest with him.”

O’Donnell’s response, which was panned on social media, forced Senator Harris to laugh in her face.

“And is that a socialist or progressive perspective?” O’Donnell asked.

I don't know much about O'Donnell, but from this it's obvious she shouldn't be left unattended near a microphone. This is a prime example of our "free, independent press" buying into pre-fab memes, provided by the right wing, without question. It also looks as though O'Donnell is trying to put words into Harris' mouth. Fortunately, Harris is too smart for her:

“No,” Harris replied, breaking out in laughter suggesting she thought the question was absurd.

“It is the perspective of a woman who grew up a Black child in America, who was also a prosecutor, who also has a mother who arrived here at the age of 19 from India, who also like hip-hop,” Harris continued, still laughing. “What do you want to know?”

You have to love it.

Saturday Science: Earth: A Biography: A Sidebar: Autumn Color

Those of us who live in the north temperate zone are treated every fall to autumn color, when the leaves on the trees turn from green to red, orange, yellow, and everything in between. This is because the chlorophyll in the leaves, which gives them their green color, breaks down, exposing other pigments that have been hiding under the surface.

Chlorophyll is one of a class of photoshymthetic pigments that first made their appearance roughly three billion years ago. There are others -- look at any number of decorative plants and shrubs, which show red, yellow, orange and various combinations of color. And they all enable photosynthesis, which not only allows plants (and some bacteria) to make their own food, but produces as a byproduct the oxygen in the air we breathe.

No one is quite sure how some bacteria -- known officially as "cyanobacteria" -- first made use of photosynthetic pigments, but they did. One of the immediate results was oceans full of rust, which sank to the bottom and created what are nown as "banded iron formations" -- the source of mose of our iron ore. Once that was accomplaished, the oxygen that these bacteria were producing escaped into the atmosphere -- which at that point was composed of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water vapoor - and created the ozone layer, which proved to be of great significance: the ozone layer filters out most of the harmful radition from the sun and enabled life to move from the oceans to the land.

Scientists believe that land plants are descended from green algae, mostly because they contain the same kind of chlorophyll. It actually makes a lot of sense -- who has not seen a clump of algae on a shore, periodically left high and dry as the tide goes out. And the first land plants were mosses and selaginellas, which require a moist environment.

But back to fall color: What we're seeing after the chlorophyll breaks down is the other pigments, which will last until the leaves fall. There's even an order in which this all happens, at least as far as the trees themselves are concenred: here in Chicago, the firt to turn are the locusts and ashes, followed by maples and basswoods. Mixed in there are birches, ginkos, and the various others that get planted in the city. Oaks are notable for having prsisent leaves -- they turn color and die, but they don't fall. That's probably why squirrels pefer them for nest-building: the leaves hold to the twigs so you bedroom isn't constantly falling apart.

So that's all I have to say for now about fall color and how it fits in which the scheme of things.

The Pope Puts His Foot in It

I'm doing a little catching up on this one (it's been one of those weeks). You may have run across a story on the Pope's comments on legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples:

Pope Francis is calling for same-sex couples to be “legally” protected by civil union laws.

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family,” the Pope says in a new documentary, Catholic News Agency reports. “They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”

Later, Pope Francis defended his remarks in the film, saying, “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.”

As you might imagine, the reaction has been less than positive among the "faithful".

Franklin Graham's response (not that anyone asked him to respond) is noteworthy for its lack of -- well, call it Christian compassoin:

Graham sees the Catholic Church’s new regard for supporting LGBTQ people in law – not religion – as so dangerous to the Christian faith he says it would mean Jesus died for nothing.

“For Pope Francis to attempt to normalize homosexuality is to say that Holy Scriptures are false, that our sins really don’t matter, and that we can continue living in them,” Graham told his nine million Facebook followers. “If that were true, then Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection wouldn’t have been needed. The cross would have been for nothing.”

Apparently, in Graham's eyes the whole point of Jesus' life was to deny gays and lesbians the right to live with dignity and self-respect -- to be treated like normal human beings.

The response from the Catholic hierarchy is no less scathing. Here's Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano:

Bergoglio is a candidate for ‘pontiff’ of a new religion, with new commandments, new morals, and new liturgies. He distances himself from the Catholic religion and from Christ, and consequently from the Hierarchy and the faithful, disavowing them and leaving them at the mercy of the globalist dictatorship. Those who do not adapt to this new code will therefore be ostracized by society and by this new ‘church’ as a foreign body.

Vigano doesn't seem to have twigged to the fact that the "faithful" are already being ostracized. (And as Joe notes in his comment, Vigano uses the Pope's birth name, not "Pope Francis" or any of the honorifics normally used to refer to the pontiff.

This one's choice. From Bishop Thomas Tobin:

“The Holy Father’s apparent support for the recognition of civil unions for same-sex couples needs to be clarified.

“The Pope’s statement clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the Church about same-sex unions.

“The Church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships. Individuals with same-sex attraction are beloved children of God and must have their personal human rights and civil rights recognized and protected by law.

“However, the legalization of their civil unions, which seek to simulate holy matrimony, is not admissible.”

The part about "objectively immoral" relationships is, as far as I'm concerned, a real howler. Given that the basic moral dictum is "take care of each other", all these arbitrary rules cherry-picked from the tribal taboos of Bronze Age Middle-Eastern nomads can hardly claim to be any sort of standard for moral behavior. (In that vein, Tobin is credibly accused of ignoring child sexual abuse complaints when he was auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh.)

There are other resonses, of course. What's most noteworthy of the lot is that their reference is to Catholic dogma and not to the teaching of Christ -- who had nothing at all to say about homosexuality or same-sex relationships.

Burn-Out

I've gotten to the point where, skimming the headlines in the morning, if they mention Trump, the latest polls, the election, etc., I skip the story. I'm not wishing for it to be November 4 -- that won't be the end of it. I'm wishing for it to be January 21, 2021, when President Biden is safely installed in office and the current resident is trying to find some dictator to take him in.

What's New at Green Man Review

Finally! Our second biweekly edition, and it's all about Halloween -- well, some of it is.

It’s Late October So Some Halloween Matters and Not So Halloweenish Matters as Well

So click on over and hunker down -- there's a lot there.

I'm Going to Say This Once

Amy Coney Barrett is a nightmare. I keep seeing headlines about how this Democratic senator called her out on something, while that one backed her into a corner, and yet another asked questions she couldn't -- or wouldn't -- answer.

It does matter. The Republican majority will vote to confirm her, she will be sworn in at the earliest opportunity, and with a majority of neo-fascists on the Court, you can kiss civil rights for anyonbe who's not a white, cis-gendered, Christian, heterosexual male good-bye.

The Season Turns

We went from a week or two of summer in late September/early October, to autumn over the past few days, and it seems as though overnight, the leaves started turning. It's mostly locusts and ashes*, which are the first to turn. There are whole stretches of streets lines with bright yellow locust trees, although, typically, there are places where they are still green.

The maple across the alley is bright flaming red-orange, although the maple next to it is still green. Ditto a pair of basswoods at one of my regular bus stops -- one is mostly that dark bronze-red that basswoods turn in the fall; the one next to it is still green. I haven't figured out the mechanism here -- it's got to be a combination of day length and exposure: it seems that trees in more sheltered locations turn later -- not always, but then nothing in nature is 100%.

At any rate, fall is here. Nice to look at, but I'm not as cold-proof as I used to be, so it's a mixed bag.

* Those ashes that are left. The emerald ash borer, which somehow got here from Asia, has wreaked havoc on the native ash trees. I can't find a count on the number of trees destroyed, but it's in the tens of millions.

Birds of a Feather

And so forth. Actually, I think this is pretty funny:

President Trump's reelection bid received a vote of support Friday from an entity most in his party would reject: the Taliban. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News in a phone interview, "We hope he will win the election and wind up U.S. military presence in Afghanistan." The militant group expressed some concern about Mr. Trump's bout with the coronavirus. "When we heard about Trump being COVID-19 positive, we got worried for his health, but seems he is getting better," another Taliban senior leader told CBS News.

The Trump camp's reaction is about what you'd expect:

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Saturday that they "reject" the Taliban support. "The Taliban should know that the president will always protect American interests by any means necessary," Murtaugh said.

"American interests" in this context being Trump's bank account. And don't forget -- he only likes white terrorists.

Via Joe.My.God.

Critter Chronicles: A Symbiote

I've decided that, for the purposes of this blog, "critter" includes anything alive -- animals, plants, and those that are somewhere in between.

While waiting for buses yesterday, I was noticing the lichenbs growing on trees by the bust stops. One in particular, a locust, had three different types of lichens growing on it, one green, one gray, and a couple of small patches of golden orange.

And what, exactly, is lichen? you may ask. From the U.S. Forest Service:

Lichens are a complex life form that is a symbiotic partnership of two separate organisms, a fungus and an alga. The dominant partner is the fungus, which gives the lichen the majority of its characteristics, from its thallus shape to its fruiting bodies. The alga can be either a green alga or a blue-green alga, otherwise known as cyanobacteria. Many lichens will have both types of algae.

There are about 3,600 species of lichen, and they take various forms -- low-growing, crusty-looking habits, branching, filamentous, you name it. The Field Museum a while back, had a small exhibition on lichens that was very interesting. One of the examples was the door from an old pickup truck that was covered in lichen. They'll grow pretty much anywhere -- I've seen them on trees, on rocks, on old scrap metal that's been lying outside -- all sorts of places.

Fascinating critters.

At Last! Green Man Review for October 4, 2020

In case I didn't mention it before, Green Man Review has gone to a biweekly publication schedule. That means you won't see us as often, but when you do, there's lots and lots of stuff to enjoy.

Diverse Music including Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Warren Ellis Goes Graphic, Spider-Mans, Peanut Butter and Chocolate, A Cherryh’s Alliance-Union Universe novel and Other Pleasant Diversions

So, you can click on over and spend some time with your favorite subjects.

Yeah, I Know

I haven't been posting. The main reason is that the news is just mind-numbing. Now we're down to blaring headlines about who in the Trump regime is the latest to test positive for COVID-19. I guess next we'll be getting breathless "breaking news" updates about who's taking a dump.

Apparently our free, independent media thinks nothing else is going on in the world.

Antidote

This one speaks for itself"

Is there anything cuter than this ‘animal preschool?’ Zookeepers at the Australian Reptile Park had their hands full with baby Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, koalas, and more 🍼🦘🐨 pic.twitter.com/PKV6vScqtJ

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 28, 2020

Via Digby.

The Plan

The pieces of this have been floating around for a while, but this brought it all into focus:

President Donald Trump on Wednesday would not commit to providing a peaceful transition of power after Election Day, lending further fuel to concerns he may not relinquish his office should he lose in November.

"Well, we're going to have to see what happens," Trump said when asked whether he'd commit to a peaceful transition, one of the cornerstones of American democracy.

(Via Joe.My.God.)

This isn't the first time he's said it, but I started thinking about all those pieces:

1) Railing against voting by mail, since, because of the way he's bungled the federal response to the pandemic, it's going to be the only real option for millions of people.

2) Gutting Post Office operations, because #1.

3) "Fraud! Fraud! Fraud!" While pointing at Democrats. As it turns out, the very few cases of voting fraud and election tampering that have been discovered are almost all committed by Republicans.

4) Threatening to send federal troops to "protect" polling places.

5) Rushing through his nominee, either the Handmaid or the kiddie porn sympathizer, to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the Supreme Court, because he's covering all his bases: if he doesn't win, he'll challenge the result, with pictures of Bush v. Gore dancing in his head. And don't be surprised if Moscow Mitch dispenses with hearing and debate and just calls a floor vote: time is of the essense.

6) And the latest wrinkle, having state legislatures bypass the voters and appoint electors directly. Someone pointed out that this will only work in states that Trump would likely win anyway, but given the way his approval ratings have been dropping, even in so-called "battleground" states, I'm not sure that's the case.

7) And of course, there's always the white supremacists, neo-nazis and other assorted lowlifes to call to arms, just in case.

And the "free, independent, adversarial press" is not calling him out on any of it.

Good-bye, America. It was nice while it lasted.

Footnote: Under the heading "Great Minds. . .", this post from Mustang Bobby.

What's New at Green Man Review

Yes, the move to a new host is done (and the less said about it, the better) and we're back again with a new edition. Note: we're going to biweekly review editions, with the stories alternating, so needless to say, this edition is packed full of neat stuff. This is just the tip of the iceberg:

Autumnal Folkmanis Puppets, Demon Detectives, British Mysteries, Soundscape Designers, and more

So hop on over and enjoy.

In Memoriam

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1933-2020)

I think she would have appreciated the image, which is a collage by Ghillermo Rojo titled "Annunciation".

Damn!

There goes the Court:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas. The court, in a statement, said Ginsburg died at her home in Washington, D.C., surrounded by family. She was 87.

Moscow Mitch and the holy rollers are licking their chops, because you know McConnell will ram through some brain=dead Christian Dominionist, or worse, to fill the vacancy.

There's much more to the article -- go ahead and read the whole thing.

Via Joe.My.God.

Critter Chronicles: We Still Have Cicadas

Although the noise at twilight is not quite as deafening as it was. We have here, in addition to the world-famous seventeen-year locust, annual cicadas as well, so every summer we get serenaded. And it turns out that there's also a thirteen-year cycle for some species.

I suspect, because of the noise level, that we'be hit a congruence of broods, although I don't think the seventeen-year bugs are quite due.

Today's Must-Read: Our "Free, Independent, Adversarial" Press

Digby does a major take-down of a piece by Dan Balz at WaPo that I think illustrates one of our major problems. She sums it up:

This bland recitation of Trump’s corruption as if it’s just another tactic is as “norm-breaking” as Trump himself. The Village is alive and well.

Read the whole thing. It's devastating.

It's No Secret

That Trump will do anything to retain power, and it's no secret that Roger Stone is nuts, but this is over the top even for him

Roger Stone is making baseless accusations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election and is urging Donald Trump to consider several draconian measures to stay in power, including having federal authorities seize ballots in Nevada, having FBI agents and Republican state officials “physically” block voting under the pretext of preventing voter fraud, using martial law or the Insurrection Act to carry out widespread arrests, and nationalizing state police forces.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. While I would expect Trump and his minions to be a little more subtle -- although subtlety is not one of Trump's defining characteristics -- I can actually envision something like this happening, although I would expect Trump and the Republicans to try to tie the election up in the courts, since stacking the courts is the only thing Moscow Mitch and his pet Senators have done in the past three-and-a-half years -- aside from giving the richest a free ride. (On second thought, Stone's "recommendations" are really just what Trump's been threatening without the pretty wrappings.)

Read the whole article, but do keep in mind that it's Roger Stone speaking to Alex Jones, another certifiable loon.

Via Balloon Juice.

I'm Back

Being so fed up with Wordpress that I've decided to stick with the new, "improved" (hah!) Blogger.

Actually, it doesn't seem to be stalling my computer the way it was, so maybe something's corrected itself.

In other news, Green Man Review is back, and has a new edition up. Our Coda this time is a couple of songs by Cameron Hawthorne; you can see the videos at the link. Here's one I wanted to include, but that would have been overkill. It's a nice change of pace from the two in the Coda:

And, as you can see, in addition to being a talented musician, he's a real cutie.

Today's Must-Read: The DNC Kick-Off

Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. The whole thing is at Bark Bark Woof Woof. Here's the beginning:

Good evening, everyone. It’s a hard time, and everyone’s feeling it in different ways. And I know a lot of folks are reluctant to tune into a political convention right now or to politics in general. Believe me, I get that. But I am here tonight because I love this country with all my heart, and it pains me to see so many people hurting. I’ve met so many of you. I’ve heard your stories. And through you, I have seen this country’s promise. And thanks to so many who came before me, thanks to their toil and sweat and blood, I’ve been able to live that promise myself. That’s the story of America. All those folks who sacrificed and overcame so much in their own times because they wanted something more, something better for their kids. There’s a lot of beauty in that story. There’s a lot of pain in it, too, a lot of struggle and injustice and work left to do. And who we choose as our president in this election will determine whether or not we honor that struggle and chip away at that injustice and keep alive the very possibility of finishing that work.

Read the whole thing. It's a beaut.

What's New at Green Man Review.

Sadly, nohing. We're in between hosts and had expected to be up and running before now, but there have been complications. As for this site, I really am going to have to move over to Wordpress or something. Aside from being user-hostile, Blogger is now causing my computer to stall. I'm having to write posts on Wordpad and copy and past them in, which is a pain. I'll try to keep you posted.

Blatant

This will probably bemy last post fora while. Blogger has "updated", with the result that I'm finding it next to unusabe. I'll probably try moving everything over to Wordpress, but it may take a while. I'll try to post a link to the new blog once I've started setting it up. Trump and his allies have gotten to the poiont where they're not even pretending any more. Trump himself lets the cat out of the bag:

President Donald Trump said the quiet part out loud, admitting he’s intentionally withholding money from the U.S. Postal Service to undermine its ability to handle mail-in voting in the 2020 election. “They need that money in order to make the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said on Fox Business Thursday morning of the states that are implementing universal mail-in voting ahead of the November election. “But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”

What's New at Green Man Review

Our usual mix of this, that, and the other, with a couple of surprises:

Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Son, Hugo Award Winners, King Arthur Revisited, the Universe, a Graduating Class, and Other Cool Stuff

So, off you go to enjoy all the goodies.

Critter Chronicles: Pigeons Are Weird

Firsts off, they walk funny -- like wind-up toys -- their heads bob back and forth, and the faster they walk, the faster their heads move. It's a wonder they don't get whiplash.



And have you ever noticed how a flock of pigeons will take off from wherever they're roosting, fly around in circles for a while, and then light just where they were to begin with?

Culture Break: Penguin Cafe: 'Protection' for Erased Tapes

Penguin Cafe is the successor to Penguin Cafe Orchestra (reviews of their music are here and here. This piece was a new one for me, that I ran across quite by chance. I like it a lot:

I don't know if this has been released on an album, but you can find a review of their album A Matter of Life. . . at Green Man Review this coming Sunday.

They're worth checking out on YouTube, as well -- lots of nice stuff.

Nice Company You've Got There

Be a shame if anything happened to it. This broke a couple of days ago:

President Donald Trump said TikTok will have to close in the U.S. by Sept. 15 -- unless there’s a deal to sell the social network’s domestic operations to Microsoft Corp. or another U.S. company.

Trump also said the federal government will have to be paid a “substantial amount of money” as part of any deal.

“I don’t mind whether it’s Microsoft or someone else, a big company, a secure company, a very American company buys it,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “It’ll close down on Sept. 15 unless Microsoft or somebody else is able to buy it and work out a deal, an appropriate deal, so the Treasury of the United States gets a lot of money.”

Trump really has started to think of himself as the godfather. I can't see how the U.S. government can legally demand a cut of a business deal between two corporations. My own feeling is it's just Trump blowing gas again -- he announced originally, on Friday, that he would ban TikTok's operations in the U.S. on Saturday via his old stand-by, executive order. Nothing happened.

However, the reactions have been, predictably, not positive. The Chinese, in particular, are not pleased:

Chinese state media this week is blasting Washington for what it calls the United States' "nasty" treatment of TikTok — the wildly popular video-sharing app that has become emblematic of worsening US-China relations.

"The US' decoupling from China starts [with] killing China's most competitive companies," wrote the Global Times, a state-run tabloid, in an editorial published Monday. "In the process, Washington ignores rules and is unreasonable."

And as usual, Trump's own people have no idea how this is supposed to happen, if it happens (and that's a big if, but it's the press' latest shiny object):

White House officials on Tuesday could not say how the U.S. government would receive a portion of the proceeds from any sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations, one day after President Donald Trump called for a cut of the money.

“There’s no specific blueprint here,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Fox Business Network on Tuesday.

“It may be that the president was thinking, because the Treasury has had to do so much work on this, there are a lot of options here. I’m not sure it’s a specific concept that will be followed through ... Regarding fees or anything like that, all that remains to be seen,” Kudlow said.

This is revealing of Trump's thinking on this (among other things):

Experts have said the U.S. government generally does not have the authority to take a cut of private business sales. But Trump, a real estate developer and former reality television star who has touted his “art of the deal,” on Monday said “a very substantial portion” of any TikTok sale must go to the U.S. Treasury “because we’re making it possible for this deal to happen.”

That's a stretch, at best -- the only possible way we "allowed this to happen" is if it requires an OK from the Commerce Department, or DoJ, on anti-monopoly grounds, which wouldn't apply here.

The man's an idiot.

Oh, and if you're wondering why Trump is going after TikTok in particular, aside from the fact that it's a Chinese company, note this, from the Bloomberg story:

Teenagers opposed to Trump have also used the app to disrupt the president’s campaign activities, including signing up for tickets to his first rally since the beginning of the pandemic, in Tulsa. Attendance at the late June event was far below expectations, and Trump hasn’t held another rally since.

Bottom line: they're being mean to him.

All via Joe.My.God.

What's New at Green Man Review

Another Sunday, and more reviews. There's sort of a theme this week:

de Lint books and music, blatant self-promotion is a good thing, a boozy trifle and other good things

It's not all de Lint -- just mostly. Hop on over and see what else is waiting for you.

Catching Up: The Next Step

Toward what? you may ask. Why, toward a fascist authoritarian state, of course. This is from a couple of days ago (I don't seem to have highlighted it yet):

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020

He can't do that of course -- no matter what Mike Pompeo says. The date of the presidential election is set by federal law. Good luck with getting Nancy Pelosi to agree to a delay. But even the Republicans aren't jumping on this particular bandwagon:

Top Republicans on Thursday rejected President Trump’s suggestion that the Nov. 3 general election be delayed — something he has no authority to order. “Never in the history of the federal elections have we not held an election and we should go forward,” said Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, adding that he understood “the president’s concern about mail-in voting.”

Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, declined to answer questions on Capitol Hill, but dismissed Mr. Trump’s suggestion in an interview with WNKY television. “Never in the history of the country, through wars, depressions, and the Civil War have we ever not had a federally scheduled election on time, and we’ll find a way to do that again this Nov. 3,” Mr. McConnell said. “We’ll cope with whatever the situation is.”

Meanwhile, Trump's minions are doing everything possible to make voting by mail untenable:

The U.S. Postal Service is experiencing days-long backlogs of mail across the country after a top Trump donor running the agency put in place new procedures described as cost-cutting efforts, alarming postal workers who warn that the policies could undermine their ability to deliver ballots on time for the November election.

As President Trump ramps up his unfounded attacks on mail balloting as being susceptible to widespread fraud, postal employees and union officials say the changes implemented by Trump fundraiser-turned-postmaster general Louis DeJoy are contributing to a growing perception that mail delays are the result of a political effort to undermine absentee voting.

Of course, the Republicans have been wanting to kill the USPS almost as long as they've been trying to repeal Social Security.

Needless to say, the reactions to this ploy have been less than positive. A sample:

This is Trump's most dangerous Tweet ever. And I know that is saying something. It is not within his power to change the date of the election. But that he wants to try should set off alarms everywhere. He is publicly contemplating a dangerous, authoritarian power grab. https://t.co/QhOMi6AlTr

— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) July 30, 2020

We all knew it was coming to this. Make no mistake about it: Any announcement of a delay of the election will be a declaration of war against America by our criminal president. https://t.co/fIAE4spGWd

— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) July 30, 2020

I'm really starting to think we're heading toward a civil war, courtesy of Trump and the Republicans.

Today in Trump's America: A Quick Survey (Update)

There's just so much.

First, from the top attorney for Trump's re-election campaign, the Gospel according to your favorite theocrat (pick one -- they'ar all over the place in this regime):

The notion that the United States observes a separation of church and state is a lie, according to President Donald Trump’s senior campaign legal adviser.

“The left is going to tell you there’s this separation of church and state, and that’s just nowhere in the Constitution, nowhere in American law,” Jenna Ellis declared Monday evening during a Zoom event hosted by Asian Pacific Americans for Trump. “That’s nothing that our founding principles ever, uh, derived whatsoever.”

There's more at the link. Via Joe.My.God., who also has some of Ellis' past statements about gay people, just in case you were wondering.

Next up, Trump's Pentagon, which claims that American citizens are the "adversaries":

A new mandatory Pentagon training course aimed at preventing leaks refers to protesters and journalists as "adversaries" in a fictional scenario designed toteach Defense Department personnel how to better protect sensitive information.

The new course was recently launched as part of Defense Secretary Mark Esper's effort to improve "operational security," or OPSEC, and clamp down on leaks. The training materials are public and include a video message from Esper, as well as a July 20 memo outlining his concerns about operational security and directing all DoD personnel — military, civilian and on-site contractors — to take the course within the next 60 days.

The DoD spokesman gives a nice rationale for use of the term, but it still reveals a mindset that's pretty dismal.

Again, vie Joe.My.God.

And from Glorious Leader himself, a little racism to wash it down:

...Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020

There's more. I may update this one.

Update: Trump doesn't think he has to abide by Supreme Court decisions:

President Donald Trump though acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf (photo) will sidestep a Supreme Court ruling and move to drastically limit access to and limit the protections of the Obama-era program known as DACA.

The administration believes DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is still illegal, NBC News reports. Acting Secretary Wolf on Tuesday announced he will not accept any new applicants to the program that protects undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children.

Nice elections you have there -- be a shame if anything happened to them:

The Trump administration is planning to keep federal agents in Portland, Oregon, through at least mid-October, according to an internal email obtained by CNN.

Portland has been the site of ongoing protests for more than 50 days that have turned violent, sparking outrage among local officials who have faulted the federal presence for aggravating the situation on the ground.
But as protests persist, Customs and Border Protection -- part of the Department of Homeland Security -- is laying the groundwork for continued presence in the city on a rotational basis to relieve those agents who have been in Portland and who may be deployed in the near future.

At least mid-October? Like, into early November? And if it looks like it's working in Portland ("working" being a matter of viewpoint), why not try it in other cities?

About Those "Violent, Left-Wing Extremists"

Can you say "bullshit"?

A man seen breaking windows in a viral video of Minneapolis protests is suspected to be a known member of a white supremacist group, cops have alleged in a search warrant affidavit. The man in question, Mitchell Carlson, has not been charged with a crime.

The video, filmed on May 27, showed a man dressed in all black methodically smashing windows of an AutoZone in Minneapolis during racial justice protests over the police killing of George Floyd. The man also spray painted “free shit for everyone zone” on the building’s doors. The man appeared to be dressed as an anti-fascist, but was eyed as a possible infiltrator or “outside agitator” when protesters tried to question him over his activities. He became known as “Umbrella Man” on social media alongside debunked theories that he was a police officer attempting to discredit the protests.

Now, in a search warrant affidavit first reported by The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, police say they have received a tip that the man is Mitchell Carlson, “a full‐fledged member of the Hell’s Angels” and “a known associate of the Aryan Cowboys. The Aryan Cowboys are a known prison gang out of Minnesota and Kentucky.”

Via Joe.My.God.

And as for who started the violence, note this via Digby:

The New York Times reports today on how these troops were the instigators of the violence:

After flooding the streets around the federal courthouse in Portland with tear gas during Friday’s early morning hours, dozens of federal officers in camouflage and tactical gear stood in formation around the front of the building.

Then, as one protester blared a soundtrack of “The Imperial March,” the officers started advancing. Through the acrid haze, they continued to fire flash grenades and welt-inducing marble-size balls filled with caustic chemicals. They moved down Main Street and continued up the hill, where one of the agents announced over a loudspeaker: “This is an unlawful assembly.”

By the time the security forces halted their advance, the federal courthouse they had been sent to protect was out of sight — two blocks behind them. Eight weeks after the death of George Floyd, here’s a look at why longstanding protests in the city have recently intensified.

The aggressive incursion of federal officers into Portland has been stretching the legal limits of federal law enforcement, as agents with batons and riot gear range deep into the streets of a city whose leadership has made it clear they are not welcome…

Digby concludes with this warning:

I think we all knew on some level the moment they named the agency the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security, that we were building an internal police force. And if you build it, they will use it. They’re using it.

Remember, these troops were sent in by the man who had peaceful protesters teargassed so he could have a photo op holding a Bible upside-down in front of a church he doesn't attend.

Footnote: I saw a statement by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot that there is evidence that the looting on the South Side and in the suburbs during the first demonstrations was planned. You can bet it wasn't planned by BLM.

How to Turn a Demonstration Into a Broad-Based Movement (Updated)

Send in your brown shirts. Trump really screwed up this one:

First there was a Wall of Moms united to protect the peaceful Black Lives Matters protesters in Portland. The footage was absolutely amazing.

Now there is a "Wall of Vets" providing further backup. The group of military veterans joined the Moms and other groups on Friday night, standing united and in full force with signs showing support for the BLM movement. These veterans ranged in age from 20's to senior citizens to disabled.

This is what it's like in Portland, as of last night:

Portland right now. Stunning. pic.twitter.com/g2U5B8aFI3

— Joshua Potash (@JoshuaPotash) July 25, 2020

Those are not Proud Boys with tiki torches. Those are the good guys.

A short history:

Feds started abducting protesters and a wall of moms formed.

They gassed the moms, so dads brought leaf blowers.

They beat a Navy veteran who just wanted to speak with them, then a wall of vets came together.

They attacked volunteer medics, so nurses showed up in scrubs. https://t.co/cQBCjojxq2

— ACLU (@ACLU) July 25, 2020

And he wants to try the same thing in Chicago?

Update:

Via Digby, an article on a very interesting survey done in early June. This paragraph is pretty revealing:

The reasons persuadables moved from opposing to supporting the protests, Prull said, can mostly be attributed to the demonstrations growing and becoming largely peaceful by their second week, with human stories of everyday police brutality saturating the media environment. Trump’s strongman performance on June 1 did almost nothing to turn public opinion against the demonstrations. Instead it likely backfired. “Between those two dates, the big driver that I see is the protests becoming larger and even more peaceful each day,” Prull told me. “The story was being told by people who are being hurt by police every day, and the empathy with that, and frankly the reasonableness of that, was breaking through. And then the president tear-gassing protestors outside the White House lawn, I think, was a nontrivial part of this. You had the draconian response of the government, and then the protests just seemed even more reasonable when it was a bunch of regular people being tear-gassed in the middle of Washington D.C. for the sake of a photo op.”

Trump is playing to maybe 30% of the populace -- the same 30% that's been against everything since Independence. (They were probably against independence, as well.) The rest of the country is leaving him behind.

What's New at Green Man Review

It's Sunday again, and we've got more reviews -- as always:

Some things Tempest, A Worm In An Apple, a potato salad recipe, a new Le Guin story and other High Summer matters

Hop on over -- you'll notice the theme running through this edition, I'm sure.

Trump's War on America Continues (Updated)

But received a setback this week:

Federal police are now under a court order not to arrest or assault journalists and legal observers for doing their jobs, after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Thursday that the government said it would appeal.

“An open government has been a hallmark of our democracy since our nation’s founding,” U.S. District Judge Michael Simon wrote Thursday, citing precedent from the Ninth Circuit case Leigh v. Salazar. “When wrongdoing is underway, officials have great incentive to blindfold the watchful eyes of the fourth estate. The free press is the guardian of the public’s interests and the independent judiciary is the guardian of the free press.”

To that hallmark, he added: “This lawsuit tests whether these principles are merely hollow words.”

The government is claiming that "the chaotic atmosphere of Portland’s protests is too “volatile and dangerous” for federal police to differentiate between journalists and protesters accused of breaking the law." Somehow, that argument rings hollow:

Attorney Matthew Borden told Judge Simon at Thursday’s hearing that federal police had mounted “incredible and despicable attacks” against journalists and legal observers. “A 70-year-old man marked ‘press’ from head to toe. Multiple attacks on a 17-year-old girl who stood far from the front. They shot Jungho Kim right in the press pass [with less lethal munitions] and Lewis Rolland a dozen times in the back when he was standing under a streetlight so police could see the big block letters saying he was press.

“These are not accidents,” Borden continued. “These are not inadvertent shots. These are trained marksmen and these are the actions of a tyrant. They do not have a place in Portland, Oregon and they do not have a place under the First Amendment. If you do not have the press reporting on events first-hand, then you only have the version put forth by the government. And that’s what you have under a totalitarian state.”

A number of commentators are characterizing this as an attack on the free press. Well, yes -- but it's also a direct attack on the First Amendment and the Constitution as a whole.

This is Trump all the way: he doesn't like democracy. He likes strongmen and dictators -- look who among world leaders he considers admirable: Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Kim Jong-Un, Jair Bolsdonaro. He wants to be just like them.

We'll see if this order holds -- Trump's minions will appeal, and Moscow Mitch has been concentrating on stacking the courts rather than actually legislating. One can only hope that there will be something to salvage come January.

Via Joe.My.God.

Update:

Digby has a post on the plans to deploy brown shirts to other major cities, with reports of what's been happening most recently in Portland. Trump's comments are revealing.

Critter Chronicles: The Nightly Chorus

If I were living in, say, the mountains of North Carolina, I would probably be talking about frogs. Whoever first started the rumor of the peace and quiet of the country was never in the Appalachians at night.

However, I live in Chicago, where, among other things, we have cicadas, the seventeen-year variety and the annual variety. I was stuck last evening, just before sunset, by how incredibly loud they can be. We have a lot of big old trees in my neighborhood, and once they've hatched in the spring and early summer and molted into their adult forms, the singing starts. They can be deafening.

Here's a short course on cicadas -- it's geared toward school kids, but Jeff the Nature Guy relates a couple of things I didn't know.

His cicadas are very quiet. If you're outside in my neighborhood in the evening in summer -- well, they're loud.

What's New at Green Man Review

In spite of heat, storms, and pandemics, you can rely on us to come up with good stuff every week:

Oliver Cromwell, Harry Dresden, Animated Charlie Daniels, Dick Grayson Redux, Flash Girls, the Ultimate G&T, Lockdown Blahs,and more

You know the drill -- scoot on over and enjoy.

Hypocrite du Jour

This gem is from the acting head of DHS:

Our men and women in uniform are patriots. We will never surrender to violent extremists on my watch. pic.twitter.com/kG8w8kyw9E

— Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) July 17, 2020

He's referring to the BLM protesters in Portland, OR, where Bill Barr's gestapo is picking people off the streets without identifying themselves, and mostly without cause.

He goes on:

Here is what I saw in Portland yesterday. pic.twitter.com/B0xvTTYvIj

— Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) July 17, 2020

Meanwhile, on the other side of the country:

More than a dozen members of the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Movement (NSM), many of them armed, marched on Williamsport, Pennsylvania on Saturday and held a rally in the city’s Brandon Park.

Because these are very fine people.

Can you say "Heil,Trump!"?

Today's Must-Read: Nice Democracy You've Got There (Update)

or had. It's no exaggeration to say that Trump and the Republicans are aiming toward a fascist state. There's a lot of commentary that this is Trump showing he's a strong leader to energize his base because he's worried about the election. That's probably part of it, but the larger picture is that this is the next step in the Republican agenda: permanent rule, by whatever means necessary.

This story's been all over the place, but Digby has a good overview:

Trump has been saying over and over again since George Floyd was murdered, “if cities won’t deal with protesters, I will.” Bill Barr declared war on “Antifa” and blamed it for the violence and looting in the early days of the protests.

Guess what? They meant it.

The post is mostly a series of tweets, with videos, showing what's going on in Portland, OR. It's not pretty. And it's a blatant violation of Constitutional rights:

“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

That's the beginning of an opinion piece by Ruth Marcus at WaPo. It's behind a paywall, but Digby quotes it extensively.

There will be lawsuits, but given that the Supreme Court has already upheld a poll tax and blown a "religious freedom" hole in anti-discrimination laws. Just think of the fun Kavanaugh et al. will have with the right to assemble.

Update: Here's a follow-up story via Joe.My.God.:

The US Attorney for the Oregon District today requested an investigation into the masked, camouflaged federal authorities without identification badges who are arresting protesters in Portland. The request is aimed specifically at DHS personnel who have been captured on various videos arresting protesters and putting them in unmarked SUVs.

DHS is the last agency to be investigating -- well, the DHS. This goes back to AG Barr and Trump. This is the authoritarian secret police in action, courtesy of Barr.

And if you thought it was just Portland -- well, no:

Nonetheless, the administration has made it clear it intends to take these tactics nationwide. When asked about the arrests in Portland, Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli told NPR that “this is a posture we intend to continue not just in Portland but in any of the facilities that we're responsible for around the country.”

That's from this article by Heather Cox Richardson. (With thanks to commenter coram nobis.)

And a coda:

You think not?

Antidote: Hey, Those Are Mine!

Via Digby:

This cat discovering that it has ears is absolutely the best thing I will see today. pic.twitter.com/SDx80QOnAI

— Amanda (@Pandamoanimum) July 16, 2020

In Memoriam: John Lewis

Who died yesterday at age 80.

Representative John Lewis, a son of sharecroppers and an apostle of nonviolence who was bloodied at Selma and across the Jim Crow South in the historic struggle for racial equality, and who then carried a mantle of moral authority into Congress, died on Friday. He was 80.

His death was confirmed in a statement by Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Lewis, of Georgia, announced on Dec. 29 that he had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer and vowed to fight it with the same passion with which he had battled racial injustice. “I have been in some kind of fight — for freedom, equality, basic human rights — for nearly my entire life,” he said.

On the front lines of the bloody campaign to end Jim Crow laws, with blows to his body and a fractured skull to prove it, Mr. Lewis was a valiant stalwart of the civil rights movement and the last surviving speaker at the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.

I really don't have much to add, except that we need more like him.

Via Bark Bark Woof Woof.

Critter Chronicles: Squirrels and Rabbits

For some reason, I haven't been seeing squirrels in the park in the section between Foster and Melrose, where I've seen as many as a dozen and a half as I go by on the bus. I suspect it's because there are a lot more people in that part of the park than is normal -- or a lot more dogs being exercised. That section is normally pretty much people-free, but I guess a lot of people are still not working and the weather's been mostly pleasant, if somewhat hotter than usual. Maybe the squirrels are self-quarantining.

On the other hand, I've recently seen hordes of rabbits in the neighborhood -- well, four. The most I've ever seen at once before is three; it's usually one or two. I suspect these may be a litter that's all grown up and out exploring the world -- they seem rather playful, chasing each other around then stopping to crop the grass.

I haven't seen many rabbits at the Zoo or in the park around the Zoo lately. I don't know if they're just not coming out or if the Zoo staff have made an effort to thin the population. There used to be quite a few in the Zoo proper. I once saw a rabbit feeding at the base of a shrub at the south entrance; a squirrel was foraging on the other side of the shrub, and, inevitably, they ran into each other. The squirrel levitated about three feet, and the rabbit just disappeared -- they can move really fast when necessary. It was one of those moments.

Suhnap! of the Day

Betsy de Vos, who, like so many -- most -- of Trump's appointees, was intended to dismantle the department she was put in charge of, has pretty much stayed under the radar. Then she made the mistake of giving an interview. Ayana Pressley's reaction sort of sums up the general feeling:

.@BetsyDeVosED you have no plan. Teachers, kids and parents are fearing for their lives. You point to a private sector that has put profits over people and claimed the lives of thousands of essential workers. I wouldn’t trust you to care for a house plant let alone my child. https://t.co/Qs0Z7gCnMo

— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) July 12, 2020

Via Digby.

Karen of the Week

This one is almost beyond belief. From TMZ:

A radio host in New Hampshire went on a vile, racist tirade against a group of workers doing their job, because they dared to speak Spanish.

It's almost unbelievable ... Dianna Ploss saw the workers who were doing landscaping in downtown Nashua, and she just went nuts, screaming, "It's America. Speak English!"

Her ignorance is breathtaking ... she assumes they're working for the State of New Hampshire, as if that would justify her comments. For the record, there's no law in New Hampshire that we found prohibiting people from speaking languages other than English.

They correct her, saying they are a private company, but she's not deterred, hurling insults and making ridiculous demands.

An African-American man who happened to witness her tirade comes by and confronts her, and she barks back, "Because he's a black man. He's gonna protect the brown man from this white woman." Afterward, she posted on her Facebook page, "I'm not backing down."

There you have it -- all the arrogance and self-importance of right-wing so-called "Americans". I suppose it never occurred to her that it's none of her business what language people are speaking among themselves. And don't ignore the overt racism.

She wouldn't last two minutes in my neighborhood, where there's a taqueria on every corner, a corner store that advertises "Productos Latinos", even an apothecary that offers "Los remedios de la abuela". Oh, and there's an Eritrian restaurant a couple blocks down the street. And at the intersection where I change buses, you can hear Spanish, Russian, at least one Indian language, a couple of African languages, Arabic, Vietnamese, and who knows what else.

And somehow, we all get along fine. But then, we're a bunch of liberals here.

(My Lithuanian grandmother never did get a good handle on English; family get-togethers were always in Lithuanian; my generation never knew what the adults were saying, because none of us speak Lithuanian. Wonder how this Karen would have reacted to that.)

Oh, and according to an update at TMZ, she's been fired from her radio gig.

There's video at the link, which I can't embed. It's pretty appalling.

Via Joe.My.God., who has more background and a larger-format video.

Tweet du Jour

With thanks to commenter Joe Schmo at Joe.My.God.:

What's New at Green Man Review

It's that time again, and we're here with all sorts of neat stuff:

Lots of Mysteries, ‘Clue’ the Movie — and the Comic — Music, Traditional and Not So Traditional, Homemade Pot Pie, and more

And it's all right here waiting for you.

The Weather Forecast for Chicago

The National Weather Service says, and I quote:

This Afternoon: Scattered showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a steady temperature around 78. East wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

It is currently 95 degrees at O'Hare, there are a few wispy clouds that wouldn't dream of making rain, and the wind, what there is of it, is mostly from the south.

Sign du Jour

Sign in the window of Chicago Bagel Authority on Belmont Avenue:

With thanks to commenter fuzzybits at Joe.My.God.

Tweet du Jour

With thanks to commenter jixter at Joe.My.God.:

Thank God the 132,000 dead aren't embryos. The Republicans would be outraged.

— Sveta for Democracy 🇺🇦🇺🇸 (@SlavicLady88) July 5, 2020

What's New at Green Man Review

Lots of things, as you might imagine. Our header is pretty brief, and doesn't really give much of a hint as to what's in this edition, so you'll just have to pop over and see for yourself.

Today's Must-Read: Are We Great Yet?

I fan across this article by Robin Wright late yesterday. It's rather sobering. Wright starts off with a history of the Statue of Liberty -- not what you may have learned in school. Farther along, this struck me:

On the eve of America’s anniversary—our two hundred and forty-fourth—much of the world believes that the country is racist, battered and bruised. “Europe has long been suspicious—even jealous—of the way America has been able to pursue national wealth and power despite its deep social inequities,” Robin Niblett, the director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, in London, told me. “When you take the Acela and pass through the poorest areas of Baltimore, you can’t believe you’re looking at part of the United States. There’s always been this sense of an underlying flaw in the U.S. system that it was getting away with—that somehow America was keeping just one step ahead of the grim reaper.”

The flaw, he said, is reflected in the American obsession with the stock market as the barometer of national health—economically, politically, socially. The reaction to Floyd’s murder exposed the deep injustices in the American economic model, as well as in the police and judicial systems, Niblett said. Europeans, he added, are no longer so envious.

The Trump Administration’s ineptitude in handling the covid-19 crisis, as well as the President’s disdain for longstanding allies and international treaties, have compounded the damage to America’s image. A second poll, released last week by the European Council on Foreign Relations, reported that public perceptions of the United States are increasingly negative in virtually all of the European nations surveyed. In France, the country that backed the American Revolution and later donated the Statue of Liberty, forty-six per cent of the people polled said that their opinion of the U.S. has “worsened a lot.” The proportion of respondents who still view America as a key ally is “vanishingly small”—as low as six per cent in Italy.

As I was reading this I kept hearing echoes of Trump's slogan, "Make America Great Again". It occurred to me that greatness is not a quality one assumes for oneself -- it is a quality that is recognized by others. In that context, Trump and his enablers have taken what was once America's greatness and flushed it down the toilet. It will take a massive, sustained effort to regain that -- if we can.

Read the whole thing. Wright also notes the role of capitalism in the current state of affairs, which is itself an eye-opener.

Via Digby.

Today in Blatant Hypocrisy

And who but Tony Perkins, who is still bent out of shape by the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. Here's the whole diatribe, via Joe.My.God.:

The Fourth of July is a time of national celebration and commemoration. We rejoice in our liberty and remember those who won our freedoms and have preserved them at great cost. Yet underlying these things is a foundation that must remain strong for “liberty and justice for all” to mean anything.

It’s the rule of law. Law that is fair and impartial, consistent and understandable. Without allegiance to the rule of law, we become a nation where those in power can do what they want without accountability. And in this 244th year of our independence, I fear we are on the brink of that happening.

Last month, the court ruled in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia that the 1964 Civil Rights Act opposing discrimination based on the biological sex of an individual now must mean that “discrimination based on homosexuality or transgender status necessarily entails discrimination based on sex.”

Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote these words, even acknowledges in his decision that the meaning of “sex” in 1964 was not even vaguely connected to homosexuality or transgenderism. In his words, the court “proceeds on the assumption that ‘sex’,” in 1964, referred “only to biological distinctions between male and female.”

America has never been a perfect nation and never will be. But with all our problems, we have made tremendous progress in securing the God-given rights we too often take for granted.

But the exercise of those rights will be increasingly diminished and put in jeopardy if Congress refuses to safeguard them and, instead, allows the Supreme Court to rule however its justices prefer, regardless of the text of the Constitution and the law itself.

I don't know if I have the fortitude this morning to dissect this drivel. Let me just note, as a foundation, that, as usual, Perkins is speaking in code. In this case,"liberty and justice for all": given Perkins' record, we can safely assume that "all" is code for "white, heterosexual Christian men".

And of course, the rest of it bears that out, since it's Perkins' usual attack on gay and trans people, this tine hinging on the meaning of "sex". Perkins, of course, would like us to believe that we live in a world in which nothing changes, or should: attitudes remain carved in stone, and language always means what he thinks it should mean.

And of course, the real world isn't like that. Take, for example, attitudes toward same-sex marriage, one of Perkink's favorite bêtes noires. Pew Research has an instructive article about the change in attitudes on this subject over the past twenty years or so:

One caveat on this: this only notes changes over the past twenty years or so, during the time same-sex marriage was becoming a hot-button issue. It's worth noting that in the period covered by this chart, marriage was already being legalized in various jurisdictions, including the Netherlands (2001), Belgium and several Canadian provinces (2003), and by 2005 was legal in Canada nationally, as well as Spain -- and Massachusetts. If we went back another twenty years, the shift would be much more dramatic.

Perkin's major beef (this time) is with the Court's interpretation of the word "sex" as denoting a protected class in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He maintains that Congress intended it to mean biological sex and nothing more. (And have you noticed the reverence with which the evangelicals regard biological sex?) The Obama administration, which first included gay and trans people in the definition of sex discrimination, quite rightly interpreted "sex" to include characteristics normally associated with one sex or the other. Thus, if you can't fire a woman for marrying a man, you can't fire a man for doing the same. This is the reasoning that Justice Gorsuch included in his opinion. Does anyone think that the meaning hasn't changed in 56 years, with the progress made in gay rights and now being made in trans rights? Only Perkins and his ilk, apparently.

At any rate, that's the story on the latest bullshit from Perkins, one of the most mendacious people in the public sphere. I guess he needs money.

Critter Chronicles: Encounters with Rabbits

So, I saw one of our neighborhood rabbits this morning. He/she crossed the street to the bushes in our parkway, then hopped into the yard. As I came in the gate, he was sitting there on the sidewalk; we looked at each other for a while, then he sat up and washed his face. After another couple of minutes, he hopped toward me -- in stages -- and eventually, after many pauses, hopped past me and out the gate, then hopped down the middle of the sidewalk to the neighbor's yard.

I don't know if our rabbits are somewhat tame, or just used to people -- I suspect they don't get a lot of harassment, in spite of the number of dogs in the neighborhood. Maybe he just sensed, somehow, that I wasn't going to eat him.



Side note: I've been noticing a lot of very small dogs in the park. I mean really tiny. I've never noticed that before.

Culture Break: The Danish String Quartet: The Dromer

I don't know if I've posted this one before; it's one of my favorite cuts from their album Last Leaf, a collection of traditional tunes arranged for string quartet.

I reviewed the album here.