Today's Must-Read: Transactional Ideologies

Interesting piece by Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo that articulates a few points I've thought about but haven't really solidified. It starts off with an OpEd by Michelle Goldberg:

"A longing for validation is underrated as a political motivator," explains Michelle Goldberg, exploring the seamy side of political social climbing.

Exhibit A is the "tawdry, shallow memoir" of a Jewish former employee of the Christian right:

It’s not exactly a secret that politics is full of amoral careerists lusting — literally or figuratively — for access to power. Still, if you’re interested in politics because of values and ideas, it can be easier to understand people who have foul ideologies than those who don’t have ideologies at all. Steve Bannon, a quasi-fascist with delusions of grandeur, makes more sense to me than Anthony Scaramucci, a political cipher who likes to be on TV. I don’t think I’m alone. Consider all the energy spent trying to figure out Ivanka Trump’s true beliefs, when she’s shown that what she believes most is that she’s entitled to power and prestige.

(As regards Ivanka Trump's entitlement, see this. It's because she's special.)

The whole idea of political affiliation as a means of validation is more than apt: as more people than I have noted, Trump's GOP is no longer a political party -- it's become a cult, with membership proving you're one of "us". It also explains why appeals to reality don't work with Trump supporters -- reality is what their leader says it is.

What struck me most was this part:

His/their relationship with the law and the Constitution is also transactional, and more about social power and status than principle.

Immigration opponents’ insistence migrants seek asylum the “right” way (at an American embassy or consulate, they insist wrongly) echoes T-party howls from a 2012 recount a Democrat here won by 18 votes. T-partiers objected to counting votes of college students, even though Symm v. United States settled that question in 1979.

GOP activists argued students’ votes shouldn’t count because the students didn’t really live at their school addresses. The Board of Elections chair read them the statute aloud from the code book. They were unfazed. The law should be what they wanted it to be. What the law actually said didn’t matter.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services states (emphasis mine): “To obtain asylum ... you must be physically present in the United States. You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status.”

Immigration opponents do not care what the law actually says. The law is supposed to be what they feel it should be. The law carries weight only so long as it serves them.

That last short paragraphs sums up Trump's attitude toward the law -- the law should be what he wants it to be.

Sadly, the same applies to reality. If you don't believe me, ponder this:

Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway claimed Tuesday that President Donald Trump's warnings of violent migrants making their way toward the U.S. were vindicated over the weekend by clashes at the Mexican border, even though no U.S. law enforcement officers were seriously injured amid efforts to block crowds of migrants attempting to cross the border into California.

"Everything that was predicted by the president and Secretary Nielsen and homeland security and others has come true," Conway told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday. "There are violent elements in this caravan. The mainstream media only wants you to see the children, the families. They're not telling you that most of the caravan are males traveling by themselves."

It occurs to me that Conway's role all along, both during the campaign and in the administration, has been to rewrite reality -- "alternative facts".

At any rate, read Sullivan's piece in toto -- it's very interesting.

Today's Must-Read: Privilege in Action: A Twofer

Two posts at Hullabaloo on the ramifications of Thursday's Senate Judiciary hearings on the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh and the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

First, from Digby, some comments on how privileged white males react to having their status questioned:

I'm not a lawyer but I would imagine that if one has a client who has been accused of sexual assault it would not be an obvious strategy to have him angrily yell and cry in red-faced fury denying that he could ever do something so terrible. Neither would it seem to be a good idea for a man in such a position to arrogantly behave as if it's an affront that someone with his elite credentials should ever even be asked to answer to such charges. One would think that any good lawyer would want her client to present himself as a sober, thoughtful, empathetic person, willingly answering questions and submitting himself to whatever inquiries would clear his name.

She also looks at Lindsey Graham's tantrum. She doesn't even really have to say anything: he did it all himself.

And from Tom Sullivan, a broader perspective on the reaction to things like women acting as though they were actually people:

We stand at the nexus between the world that was and the world that will be, observed Eugene Robinson on MSNBC. The dying one will not let go without a fight.

Make no mistake: The drama in the Senate today was about power. On one side, the power of men who harass or abuse women and get away with it, the power of privileged white men to entrench their power on the Court, the power of men to take away a woman’s control of her own body.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) September 28, 2018

The privileged believe high status is theirs by birthright (or by virtue of highly superior genes, if one believes Donald Trump). The privileged rule according to race and gender. Challenged, they fight back. Viciously and loudly, as Brett Kavanaugh did through tears:

"This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election. Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons. And millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups."

That's privilege under assault speaking: how dare anyone question his right to have whatever he wants, whenever he wants it.

This is not the first time human society has undergone upheavals. This one, however, is aimed right at the root of the social structure. It's an assault that's implicit in our founding, by inference if not by outright statement: We are all equal.

Period.

Another Must-Read: But Who Gets To Be King?

Tom Sullivan, at Hullabaloo, with a summation of the urge toward -- not totalitarianism, exactly: he's casting it in terms of aristocracy:

There has always been a muted desire among some of our neighbors, as there was during the American Revolution, for rule by hereditary royalty and landed gentry. Holding onto our republic against that impulse has always been problematic, as Benjamin Franklin hinted it would be. A yearning for a return to the old ways never seems far from the surface. It has seemed a little bit closer lately.

I've written repeatedly of my theory that members of the fringe right, alt-right or whatever are simply acting out a traditional murder ballad with their country. Facing demographic and economic changes that threaten to upend the traditional political and cultural dominance of white Christians in America, extremists among them are pursuing the slow murder of their lover because if they can't have her, nobody can. Donald Trump is their hands around her throat. Those hands (insert your own joke here) got tighter last week at the G20 meeting.

But that frame applies more to the middle and working classes. For moneyed interests, what's happening could be the denouement of a decades-old effort to roll back the New Deal and Civil Rights era projects that strengthened and broadened the middle class, flattened American society, and brought the country closer to (although still far from) the ideal of a society in which all its citizens are not just created equal, but treated that way. For the Caledon Hockleys who see themselves as society's better or at least more productive half — 53 percent is surely not exclusive enough — that was never their ideal.

No matter what form it takes -- oligarchy, dictatorship, de facto monarchy -- this is the end goal of the ruling elite.

Again, a pretty thorough piece, and pretty sobering.

Today's Must-Read: "Onward Christians Soldiers" Edition

The influence of evangelical/fundamentalist "Christians" on the U.S. military has been a problem for a long time. Remember the problems with overt proselytizing a number of years back at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs? (Also home to a major anti-gay hate group, the American Family Association.) Since the election of The Hairpiece, it's apparently reached epidemic proportions:

Donald Trump’s election has led to such a steep rise in fundamentalist Christian evangelizing and religious bigotry in the U.S. armed forces that the matter is reaching the level of a “national security threat,” according to information shared exclusively with Newsweek by an organization that represents and advocates for secular and minority religious views in the military.

The number of complaints from servicemen and -women in the Army, Air Force, Marines and other service branches to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has doubled in number since November 2016, according to lawyer Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, a former Air Force officer who founded the organization.

Many of the recent charges are coming from members of minority religions, including Roman Catholics, Jews and Muslims, and from atheists. Among the complaints: military family and marital therapy programs are being infused with Protestant Christianity, which would go against the U.S. Constitution; open anti-Semitism; anti-LGBT statements, posters, symbols and bullying; openly anti-Muslim teachers and Islamophobic attacks; a rise in on-base evangelizing; and increased pressure on recruits or lower-level personnel and service members to convert to fundamentalist Christianity.

We're talking about the likes of Gordon Klingenschmitt being in the ascendant. Why they're picking Trump as their messiah is anyone's guess:

The Christian right’s willingness to see Trump as a savior for their cause—if not a messianic figure, despite his living as an urban libertine who has had three wives and a history of lewd acts and statements—continues to grow. His selection of an evangelical as vice president, plus the appointment of at least nine evangelicals to his Cabinet, have apparently soothed any concerns the religious right had with his personal life.

My guess is that they'll grab onto anything as a rationale for pushing their agenda: note that the "Christian" right has a history of blowing any little "victory" out of proportion, and claiming influence where they have none. (Just read any of Brian Brown's money begs, or Tony Perkins' press releases.)

And I think it's no surprise that this is happening along with the rise in hate crimes and the resurgence of the neo-Nazi and proto-fascist "alt right" groups: they share a mindset, and I'd bet that there's a lot of overlap in their membership.

Fasten your seatbelts -- it's going to be a bumpy ride.

The Trump White House: How It Works

This, I think, is symptomatic:

In an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said that he was able to convince Trump to slash the Appalachian Regional Commission and similar programs in his proposed budget because he had no idea what the program did.

“My guess is he probably didn’t know what the Appalachian Regional Commission did,” Mulvaney said of Trump. “I was able to convince him, ‘Mr. President, this is not an efficient use of the taxpayer dollars. This is not the best way to help the people in West Virginia.’ He goes, ‘Okay, that’s great. Is there a way to get those folks the money in a more efficient way?’ And the answer is yes. And that’s what’s we’re going focus on doing.”

Harwood then asked Mulvaney if Trump was aware that his budget cuts might hurt his own voters — and Mulvaney responded that the best way to help all voters was to spur higher economic growth.

“I think what the president will tell you is, ‘The best thing I can do for those folks, whether or not they voted for me, is to figure out a way to get 3.5 percent economic growth,'” he said.

That's it -- combine a president who has no idea what he's doing with a budget director who seems to believe his own bullshit, and you get another attempt to spur economic growth by taking money out of the economy. And that worked so well last time. (Remember the Republican Great Recession of 2008-2009? Yeah, that one.)

Today's Must-Read: A Case Study

The case study, in this instance, is the press and its coverage of politics.

Paul Krugman leads into this by disassembling Paul Ryan very neatly in this column:

Many people are horrified, and rightly so, by what passes for leadership in today’s Washington. And it’s important to keep the horror of our political situation up front, to keep highlighting the lies, the cruelty, the bad judgment. We must never normalize the state we’re in.

At the same time, however, we should be asking ourselves how the people running our government came to wield such power. How, in particular, did a man whose fraudulence, lack of concern for those he claims to care about and lack of policy coherence should have been obvious to everyone nonetheless manage to win over so many gullible souls?

No, this isn’t a column about whatshisname, the guy on Twitter, who’s getting plenty of attention. It’s about Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House.

I’m writing this column without knowing the legislative fate of the American Health Care Act, Mr. Ryan’s proposed Obamacare replacement. Whatever happens in the House and the Senate, however, there’s no question that the A.H.C.A. is one of the worst bills ever presented to Congress.

And if you're asking yourself how such an empty suit got to be Speaker of the House, Krugman has an answer:

You see, until very recently both news coverage and political punditry were dominated by the convention of “balance.” This meant, in particular, that when it came to policy debates one was always supposed to present both sides as having equally well-founded arguments. And this in turn meant that it was necessary to point to serious, honest, knowledgeable proponents of conservative positions.

Enter Mr. Ryan, who isn’t actually a serious, honest policy expert, but plays one on TV. He rolls up his sleeves! He uses PowerPoint! He must be the real deal! So that became the media’s narrative. And media adulation, more than anything else, propelled him to his current position.

It's fairly short. Read it.

Via RawStory.

President Bannon Lays Out His Agenda

C'mon -- we all know who's running the White House. This report on Bannon's speech at CPAC is, for some, an eye-opener, I'm sure:

Steve Bannon — President Trump’s chief White House advisor — just made a very revealing statement while addressing right-wing activists.

The overall theme of Bannon’s speech was “deconstruction of the administrative state,” when taking into account the policies he is pursuing. He also told the audience that Trump’s cabinet appointees “were selected for a reason, and that is deconstruction.”

Bannon’s remarks help give context to President Trump appointing ideological enemies of certain federal agencies to then lead those same agencies. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt was recently confirmed as EPA administrator despite suing the EPA 14 times over environmental regulations, usually on behalf of oil companies. On his own LinkedIn, Pruitt describes himself as a “leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.”

The statement also explains why Trump appointed former Goldman Sachs executives Steve Mnuchin to head the U.S. Treasury and Jay Clayton to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mnuchin is an avowed opponent of financial regulations, and pledged to repeal them as Treasury chief. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has called for the defunding of public housing, and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, who now heads the Department of Energy, couldn’t even remember its name while calling it for it to be abolished during a presidential debate.

Betsy DeVos was appointed Secretary of Education without having any experience in public schools, and stating that she wanted to force public schools to teach Christian dogma. Even Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is purging the State Department of longtime staff, including senior-level officials, suggesting American foreign policy may soon take a “deconstruction” approach.

This should really come as no surprise -- Bannon has described himself as a avowed Leninist who wants to do away with the government, and he has the perfect puppet in Trump, who will go along with it as long as he's free to fill his pockets and watch TV. And being, as they are, sociopaths with no concern for anyone but themselves, they don't care about the consequences for the rest of us.

Via commenter David L. Caster at Joe.My.God., in the comment thread on a story about AG Jefferson Beauregard Sessons III reversing DOJ's move toward eliminating private prisons, which itself is worth a read.

Today's Must-Read: NATO, the EU, and the Rise of the Right

Excellent analysis by Adam L. Silverman at Balloon Juice on what NATO and the EU are really about and why they are now even more necessary than ever before. Key insight:

This is the real, tangible benefit of the EU and NATO. Its not a common market or a mutual defense pact. The real benefit is that the EU and NATO have broken the reality of over a thousand years of conflicts, capped off by World Wars I and II, in Europe and among the people of the nation-states that make up Europe.

One of my many minors in college was history, with an emphasis on modern European diplomatic history. And one of the ongoing themes there was the "balance of power." And one aspect of that was integrating Russia into the European community. Silverman points out the one big failure in the West's post-Cold War policy, which was excluding Russia from that community. And Russia is currently feeling the effects of that marginalization: faced with a newly robust and vital China on the one hand and a unified Europe and America on the other, Russia really has no choice to but try to break things up. China's out of the question. Europe, on the other hand, especially with the UK leaving the EU, is ripe for dismemberment, and Putin has a willing puppet in Trump's America.

Fasten your seat belts, etc., etc.

A Thought (Updated, and Again)

(A Note: I may be adding links to this as the day goes on, when I find stories that illustrate some of my points.)

This spins off of a comment I left at this post at AmericaBlog, which concerns itself with how James Comey -- working against DoJ and FBI policy and quite possibly in violation of the Hatch Act -- announced "new evidence" in FBI's investigation of Clinton's State Department e-mails and how the FBI is building on it that leak. Aravosis has done a Facebook Live session on it in which he's done a good job of pulling together all threads of the various FBI leaks over the past week and going back to Comey's press conference in July when he announced the results of the e-mail investigation (which itself caused some raised eyebrows, especially considering how he went out of his way to indict Clinton without being able to call for an indictment). You'll have to watch that at the post, since I can't embed Facebook videos. You can skip the first couple of minutes, when he's fiddling with the camera, but it is worth watching.

Here's the comment that sparked my larger thought, and my response:

crazymonkeylady • 5 hours ago

Even if Donald Trump Doesn't win, he has scarred elections for years. And Comey has undermined the trust we have in the FBI for the future. Who do we have left to trust? Nobody.

rmthunter -- crazymonkeylady • 37 minutes ago

This is just another step in what I see as the Republicans' long-term effort to undermine the American system -- shutting down the government when they don't get a budget that guts the safety net, questioning the integrity of the courts when there's a decision they don't like, refusing to fill a Supreme Court vacancy until they can make it a blatant political appointment, using their power of "government oversight" to instigate political witch-hunts against their opponents, and now undermining our trust in not only our electoral system, over and above voter suppression, but also in our federal law enforcement agencies.

After all, a healthy democracy and an oligarchy are pretty much mutually exclusive.

Think back to the Clinton years and the investigations that led to his impeachment. Can you say "fishing expedition"? And shutting down the government when the Republican budget -- no deficit, no revenues -- failed to pass. (That bit them in the ass, happily.) Stonewalling Obama on everything -- it's a good thing the ACA passed when it did, and a good thing the Democrats in Congress took the reins on DADT repeal. Fast forward to the "investigations" of Benghazi!!1! (ten so far?) and E-Mails!!! (which some Republican senator, I've forgotten which one, was dumb enough to admit was purely political against Hillary Clinton).

And how about the reaction to Obergefell? And now, refusing to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. Not stalling, not holding interminable hearings, just flat-out refusing until a Republican president can make the appointment. We don't even have the pretense of compromise any more.

I don't think this is random. The pattern is too clear, and while I don't think it's the result of any grand strategy (sorry, I don't do tinfoil hats, and the Republicans aren't that together), it's the inevitable playing out of a trend, with each new player ready and more than willing to build on what's gone before. The Republicans' goal is quite clear, and they've been quite open about it: a permanent majority, by whatever means necessary. (They can't do it by honest elections, because what policies they do have most Americans find distressing, at best. In spite of what the press has been telling us, the only way we've moved to the right in this country is by measure of which wingnuts get elected, and that, more often than not, is not the result of honest elections -- not after all the gerrymandering and voter ID laws and dangling chads.)

I'm a great believer in the processes of history, which itself is a series of reactions. I think right now we're seeing the tail end of the reaction to the liberalism of the 1960s and early '70s -- conservatism has gotten too radical for most Americans to tolerate, and the advent of Trump - and something like Trump was inevitable -- painting the picture in somewhat garish colors is starting to turn people off. My basic optimism says the pendulum will start to swing back.

But, a thought experiment: Way back, when Bill Clinton right after assuming office took the first steps toward open military service for gays and lesbians, the reaction was swift and violent. What you don't hear about these days is that it was a group of generals who went flying to Congressional Republicans to put a stop to it. Now, given that it's at least as likely that there is a group of mid-level officers at the Pentagon who are as unhappy with the left as that group of disgruntled agents at the FBI, transpose that little rebellion to the armed forces.

If that doesn't set you tossing and turning in your sleep, nothing will.

Footnote: When I said "By any means necessary" I meant it. Check out this from Joe.My.God. and think who has the Russian connections.


Update: Just ran across this from the Guardian, which throws some light on the chaos at the FBI:

Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.

Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.

“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.

Add this Update, from Rachel Maddow:

This week, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that there has been, I guess you’d call it, like, a breakout? There’s been a breakout from this otherwise insular little Breitbart.com corner of conservative media and political activism.

Those two papers reported that apparently there are Breitbart.com fans, there are Breitbart.com true believers, there are people who buy this stuff who are working inside the New York field office of the FBI.

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal were first to report that the New York field office of the FBI used that anti-Hillary Clinton book, and the DVD of the same name, from the Breitbart.com guys, from the Breitbart.com editor and his boss who’s now the head of the Donald Trump campaign, the one funded by Donald Trump’s biggest donor, right? They actually used that Breitbart.com, anti-Hillary Clinton book as their source for launching a local FBI inquiry into Hillary Clinton. That was their evidence. That was their research.

And let's not forget this (via Joe.My.God.):

There is no denying that former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani has become one of the most significant surrogates of this campaign cycle.

Mr. Mayor has been going to bat for his longtime pal Donald Trump in just about every conceivable media arena, and recently seemed to slip in a bit of surprising information to Martha MacCallum of Fox News. At the conclusion of an interview on October 26 about the presidential election, Giuliani (while speaking about FBI Director Jim Comey) said, “I think he’s got a surprise or two you’re going to hear about in the next two days. I’m talking about some pretty big surprises.” When MacCallum prompted the Mayor for follow-up, he coyly continued, “You’ll see.”

Don Lemon reported it on his show. Video at the link.

Maybe I'd better rethink this whole "no grand conspiracy" thing.

Today's Must-Read: The GOP vs. Obama Redux

Well, if Clinton wins (which I think will happen but I'm very superstitious about making predictions like that -- and I can't believe Trump is polling as high as he is), unless we flip the Senate and make inroads in the House, it's going to be more of the Republicans trying to make Obama a one-term president From Charles P. Pierce:

Not that anybody will remember this little thing from Tiger Beat On The Potomac in March of 2017, when everybody will be writing about how Hillary Rodham Clinton's strident rhetoric during the campaign has crippled her ability to govern effectively, or to "reach across the aisle," or to "create bipartisan solutions." But I thought it ought to be noted for the record that the Republican commitment to institutional vandalism will not be going anywhere any time soon, and that there are Republicans—and a few Democrats and faux independents—who see an inert executive to be a political opportunity.

That means the bipartisan show of support she has now—thanks to Donald Trump and the "alt-right," conspiracy-driven campaign Clinton attacked Thursday in Reno—is likely to evaporate as soon as the race is called. If she wins the presidency, Clinton would likely enjoy the shortest honeymoon period of any incoming commander-in-chief in recent history, according to Washington strategists, confronting major roadblocks to enacting her ambitious agenda, as well as Republican attacks that have been muted courtesy of the GOP nominee. "It will be the defining fact of her presidency," Jonathan Cowan, president of the moderate think tank Third Way, said of Clinton's problem of entering office with a divided Congress. "It's unprecedented."

 Good Lord, not these people again. They represent nobody. There is no viable constituency for anything they represent. The Republicans are going to be bad enough, but all HRC is going to need is to be heckled from the Joe Lieberman Memorial Peanut Gallery, especially with Zombie Evan Bayh on the verge of reappearing in the Senate, after his sabbatical during which he helped save representative democracy by being a lobbyist.

I sort of disagree with Pierce about one thing: they do represent somebody, but it ain't us. If you want to find out who, just look up the financial disclosures from their election campaigns to find out who their big donors are.

This is, I think, one of the real indications of what the Republican party has become -- aside from the isolationism, jingoism, racism, etc., etc., it's the absolute refusal to govern the country unless they get their way. I'm convinced that it's one of the effects of incorporating the "Christian" right into their base: these are people who have a hammerlock on what's right (in their own minds) and they are diametrically opposed to everything this country is about. It wouldn't matter who was president, if he or she were a Democrat we'd get the same reaction from the GOP.

Today's Must-Read: About All That "Voter Fraud"

From Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo, on voter suppression laws (because that's what they are, and I'm not inclined to buy into the right-wing's attempts to pretty them up and pretend that they actually serve any other purpose) and their fate in the courts:

On Friday, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond unanimously struck down North Carolina's Voter Information Verification Act (VIVA), one of the most sweeping voting "reform" laws in the country, a voter ID law that was about far more than photo IDs. Perhaps the Charlotte Observer Editorial Board put it best:

We knew. Deep down, most of us knew.

We knew that North Carolina’s 2013 voter ID law, like similar laws across the country, was not truly about voter fraud, but voter suppression.

We knew Republicans were less interested in the integrity of elections than in building obstacles for their opponents’ supporters.

We knew. Some Republicans even admitted it. And last week, in North Carolina, they got called on it.

This, as I keep saying, is their M.O.: Find the line. Step over it. Dare someone to push them back.

It helps that they're not even pretending any more:

 The 4th Circuit found that North Carolina's law was the product of research. The Washington Post reports:

In particular, the court found that North Carolina lawmakers requested data on racial differences in voting behaviors in the state. "This data showed that African Americans disproportionately lacked the most common kind of photo ID, those issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)," the judges wrote.

So the law eliminated forms of acceptable IDs to those most likely to be held by whites. As in Wisconsin, limiting early voting as a means of disenfranchising black voters was also a factor.

The data also showed that black voters were more likely to make use of early voting — particularly the first seven days out of North Carolina's 17-day voting period. So lawmakers eliminated these seven days of voting. "After receipt of this racial data, the General Assembly amended the bill to eliminate the first week of early voting, shortening the total early voting period from seventeen to ten days," the court found.

Most strikingly, the judges point to a "smoking gun" in North Carolina's justification for the law, proving discriminatory intent. The state argued in court that "counties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black" and "disproportionately Democratic," and said it did away with Sunday voting as a result.

Judge Diana Diana Gribbon Motz writes:

[I]n what comes as close to a smoking gun as we are likely to see in modern times, the State’s very justification for a challenged statute hinges explicitly on race -- specifically its concern that African Americans, who had overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, had too much access to the franchise.

It's way past time to clean out the statehouses. Granted, if Illinois is any indication, Democrats at the state and local level are probably as corrupt as Republicans, but, in their favor, they generally want people to vote. (I hear Florida's legislature is even more corrupt.) The big plus for Democrats is that they're not as ideologically driven as Republicans have become, and are much more interested in governing.

Read Sullivan's whole piece. It's kind of appalling.

And History Repeats Itself

Two stories that caught my attention this morning (well, over the past couple of days, but I was focused on other things).

First, this, from Towleroad:

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, gay state Senator Mark Leno, and gay SF Supervisor Scott Weiner were booed off stage at a kickoff event for the annual Trans March in San Francisco, KRON reports:

“My first year in Sacramento, we added gender identity to the Fair Employment Housing Act,” state Sen. Mark Leno said.

But he was mooned by a heckler and booed by several others. Openly gay state Sen. Leno was yelled off the stage, as was Scott Weiner, a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and also openly gay, and Lee.

Lee and Weiner didn’t even have a chance to speak.

“Though this has not been a warm welcome or one of respect, I will continue to fight for transgender rights, equality, and the respect that you’re not giving us today,” Leno said.

This is what caught my eye:

“I’m upset because I’m a Trans woman who has a lot of Trans friends who are homeless, and I’m tired of people using our community as a prop, a political prop,” Ashley Love said. “I’m tired of white, gay men riding the Stonewall movie and reducing Trans women of color to secondary props, to historical props, to social props, political props. I’m tired of politicians coming here for 5 minutes, do a little sound bite, and run off, but do they really care about us?”

I've seen this before: in the 1970s-80s, I watched the New Left take over the gay rights movement, which up until then had been pretty well focused and pretty effective. All of a sudden, it was "Yes, we'll work on equal rights for gays and lesbians, but first we have to end war and world hunger." It took a decade and the AIDS epidemic to regain momentum. Now, suddenly, the trans rights movement has to take on homelessness.

And as for white gay men "whitewashing" Stonewall, read this:

Two longtime LGBT leaders/activists, who were at the Stonewall uprisings, one transgender and one lesbian, have just weighed in publicly. Here’s what they witnessed that night.

Trans leader Dana Beyer writes:

“I was there [at the Stonewall Uprising] the second night, too, and the streets were overwhelmingly filled with white men (which included the way I was perceived back then, too).”

Lesbian activist Robin Tyler:

“I was there [at the Stonewall Uprising] the second night. The majority of protesters were white gay men. And a lot of people were very upset about the death of Judy Garland and their grief turned into anger. We talked about it.”

All the documentary evidence, eyewitness accounts, what have you, point to the fact that the majority of the demonstrators/rioters were white gay men. As Aravosis points out, yes, there were trans people of color, mostly trans women, heavily involved, front and center, but let's not have a lot of bullshit about "whitewashing."

It's worth noting that the controversy was sparked by a two-minute trailer.

Pat Cordova-Goff, an 18-year-old who describes herself as a “trans woman of color” and a student at Citrus College in Glendora, Calif., created the Gay-Straight Alliance Network petition calling for a boycott of “Stonewall” after watching the trailer. The petition has now racked up more than 24,100 signatures.

And, strangely enough, we hear from Ashley Love again:

“Seeing the film in its entirety was disappointing in how once again white gay men reduce trans women of color down to historical, social and political props,” said Ashley Love, 35, a journalist and coordinator with the education group Stonewalling Accurate & Inclusive Depictions. Describing herself as a black and Latina woman of transsexual history, she said that the film further highlighted “issues of classism, trans-misogyny, anti-blackness, Hollywood trans-face casting, misgendering, identity appropriation and transparent propaganda.”

What I'm hearing is a lot of ideologically generated bullshit, backed by a desire to be in the spotlight.

And, for the love of all that's holy, the film is not a documentary, it's fiction.

What I'm seeing in both these stories is ideological (read "moral") purity overtake all other considerations. (Fiction is supposed to reflect your agenda? Since when?) I saw it in the '80s, with the rise of the New Left and its "politically correct" approach to everything, and if you look real hard (actually, not all that hard), you'll find it on the anti-gay right, and in fact, the contemporary conservative movement (which shares with the fringe left the inability to differentiate fiction from reality).

And that approach is self-defeating. By all means, boo the people who are in the best position to help advance your cause, and boycott a movie that's going to do more to raise awareness than you're ever going to do. That will be real effective, won't it?

Today's Must-Watch

Frank Schaeffer, in case you didn't know (I didn't), is the man who, with his family, created the "pro-life" movement as a political force. Here's a portion of an interview with Samantha Bee. It's very revealing. (It's also fairly profane, so be warned.)

I realize that I've gotten pretty cynical about the religious right and their motives, but Shaeffer offers this bit of validation: he admits he was in it for the money.

Via Gaius Publius at Hullabaloo.

Evidence? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Evidence!

The pope has weighed in on gender, the way it's supposed to be:

"Let's think of the nuclear arms, of the possibility to annihilate in a few instants a very high number of human beings," he continues. "Let's think also of genetic manipulation, of the manipulation of life, or of the gender theory, that does not recognize the order of creation."

"With this attitude, man commits a new sin, that against God the Creator," the pope says. "The true custody of creation does not have anything to do with the ideologies that consider man like an accident, like a problem to eliminate."

"God has placed man and woman and the summit of creation and has entrusted them with the earth," Francis says. "The design of the Creator is written in nature."

I honestly can't remember, right now, when I've seen a clearer example of the impermeable membrane with which so many Christians wrap themselves. "The design of the Creator is written in nature." Where does he think our recent (relatively) rethinking of gender and sexuality in general come from? Psychologists and biologists aren't in the habit of making these things up. (Unlike, say, Catholic bishops.)

What more is there to say? Except maybe, "Open your eyes, Francis, and take a look at the world around you."

Footnote: This attitude probably accounts for most, if not all, of the problems we're having with the environment today: "God has placed man and woman and the summit of creation and has entrusted them with the earth[.]" It's a slightly different take on the old "dominion over all things" idea, but the seed is still there, to which I can only respond, "You're doin' a heckuva job, Brownie."

"Privilege"

That word is one of the most commonly mis-used words in public discourse, and happens to be one of those that immediately causes me to lose interest in what the speaker has to say. Amanda Marcotte has an excellent post on racism and privilege at Raw Story, in which she gets it exactly right:

Look, I think Chappelle-Nada’s tweet was poorly phrased. She makes a really common and irritating mistake that’s all over lefty Twitter, which is treating “privilege” like it’s a choice or a behavior, when in fact the whole idea of “privilege” was constructed by sociologists to describe automatic benefits accorded to people despite what choices they may make. She also makes the mistake of thinking that the privileges in question are inherently bad things, when in most cases, the problem isn’t that they exist but that they aren’t shared more equally. For instance, it’s a white privilege to not have to worry about being shot by the cops for minding your own business. However, the way to rectify that problem is not to start shooting random white people, but to expand this privilege until it’s a right that everyone enjoys, regardless of race.

I was once taken to task at a blog that shall remain nameless because of my "privilege" as a white, cisgender male. (Apparently, for this group, the only bases for discrimination are skin color and gender identity -- oh, and being a woman. Being gay doesn't count, unless you're a lesbian.) The owner of the blog directed me to an article by an upper-middle class white woman that would explain it all. I read the article and realized that I had nothing in common with this woman -- her experience at no point matched my own. And let me add that the point I was trying to make to these people -- that there are innumerable "reasons" to discriminate against others and the only real counter is to just take people as people -- search for the commonalities, not the differences -- was completely lost on them. (I don't follow that blog any more. They claimed to be a refuge for "survivors," but seemed to be more interested in becoming professional victims. The owner was the lone voice of sanity, but she was only one of several diarists.)

At any rate, read Marcotte's post. It's a good one.

A Couple of Thoughts on Ferguson

From Digby, this observation:

Forget the shooting of an unarmed man. Let's talk about the reaction to it instead. That seems to be the M.O. of the right when it comes to dealing with Ferguson and the hideous underbelly of American racism. Elias Isquith at Salon talked a bit about this last week:

From the very beginning, before St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch had uttered the first word of his defensive and dissembling speech, the fix was in. The conspiracy this time was not to protect Officer Darren Wilson from standing trial for the killing of Michael Brown, though that was certainly related. This time, the conspiracy was to organize the announcement of Wilson’s exoneration in as provocative a way as possible. The ultimate goal was to manipulate the public and the press into forgetting the real story of Ferguson — of police brutality and racial injustice — and bickering about the morality of rioting instead.

Thinking back, Digby and Isquith hit it right on the head. It's been a pattern for a while, and the sad thing is, it works: we're led to focus on the reaction and not the trigger, and not the underlying causes.* It's a long post, but worth reading -- Digby has a lot of examples going back over the past several years, detailing not only the misdirection, but the lies used to support it.

This is the sort of thing that Digby's talking about: That paragon of journalistic integrity, Rich Lowry (and if you don't know who Lowry is, yes, that was meant to be snarky) rode along with Darren Wilson earlier in the day that he shot Michael Brown, so Lowry, of course, knows exactly what happened when he was no longer there.

Thinking about this, I've come to the conclusion that labeling the press as "complicit" assigns them too much agency: they're lapdogs, nothing more. (The ones who aren't tend to be in exile or relegated to the sidelines. Think about what happened to Soledad O'Brien for giving Tony Perkins a hard time -- she's now with Al Jazeera.) It's at the point now where, if you want to know what's happening in this country, you have to go to the foreign press, because the domestic press has an agenda dictated by the powers that be, and it doesn't include honest reporting.

* Footnote: plug this post by Tom Sullivan into the mix to get an idea of those underlying causes.

Today's Must-Read

This post at Mahablog, on -- well, the best I can summarize is "ideology vs. the economy." She quotes from this commentary by Paul Krugman:

Never mind that the economic models underlying such assertions have failed dramatically in practice, that the people who say such things have been predicting runaway inflation and soaring interest rates year after year and keep being wrong; these aren’t the kind of people who reconsider their views in the light of evidence. Never mind the obvious point that the private sector doesn’t and won’t supply most kinds of infrastructure, from local roads to sewer systems; such distinctions have been lost amid the chants of private sector good, government bad.

I might point out that we're dealing with a mindset that prioritizes faith over evidence, that reveres authority, no matter how unqualified, and that is impervious to facts.

Maha makes a telling point:

I can never tell how much they believe their own crap, but basically we’re dealing with people who are long on ideological theory and short on experience. Unfortunately, you can say the same thing for most of our Captains of Industry, most of whom have no idea how the products they are selling actually get made.

It’s like a perfect storm of derp. The people in charge of things, public and private, have no idea how stuff gets done and no idea what stuff needs to get done. And the country is at their capricious and greedy mercy.

It became obvious to me long ago that major Republican "economic policy wonk" Paul Ryan had no idea what he was talking about. Unfortunately, he's not alone, and these people are in control of the country.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about how the equivalent philosophy plays out in the corporate sector, here's the example that blows all that to hell:

The madness of the holiday shopping season has come to this: It's no longer notable when a retailer says it will stay open on Thanksgiving Day. Instead, it makes headlines when one says it's going to close.

Warehouse chain Costco recently confirmed just that, explaining the decision as a thank-you to its workers. "Our employees work especially hard during the holiday season and we simply believe that they deserve the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with their families," a spokesperson told the Web site ThinkProgress. "Nothing more complicated than that."

The decision is in keeping with the ethos at Costco, which has long shrugged off Wall Street's complaints about how well it pays its retail workers (Costco even gave raises during the recession). A 2013 report put the company's average hourly wage at $20.89, far above the minimum wage. It showers employees with good benefits, from low health-insurance premiums to matching and profit-sharing contributions in their 401(k) plans.

Note to WalMart and friends: You can pay your employees a living wage, give them good benefits, and still make money. That's the way the country used to run, and it worked just fine.

(A footnote: I gleaned from somewhere this morning that Macy's, after facing blowback last year for opening on Thanksgiving evening, will open earlier this year. I avoid Macy's in Chicago -- it used to be Marshall Field's, which was the best department store anywhere, not only in quality of goods but in customer service. My sister suggested I check them out when I was looking at TVs, because I might be able to score a deal if they had something good on sale. The State Street store, which used to be Field's flagship, doesn't even carry TVs. Sic transit gloria.)

And This Is a Surprise?

Gee -- the Republicans in the Senate are blocking a vote on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United:

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a vote on a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and other Supreme Court rulings dating back to 1976 that invalidated restrictions on money in politics.

The party line vote was 54 in favor, 42 against, falling short of the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster and proceed to a final vote.

I'm actually surprised that there were no Democrats joining the Republicans on this one, but they probably figured they were safe. Oh, and Ted "Obama Will Censor SNL" Cruz didn't bother to show up for the vote.

And the Through the Looking Glass Award goes to Mitch McConnell:

"I have to say it’s a little disconcerting to see the Democrat-led Senate focusing on things like reducing free speech protections for the American people," he said before the vote. "This is what they chose to make their top legislative priority this week. Taking an eraser to the First Amendment."

There you have it: in the Republican lexicon, corporations are "the American people." What does that make the rest of us?

"Jesus Christ Superstore"

John Stewart on the Hobby Lobby case:

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It's not his most incisive commentary, but then, the mere fact that this case made it to the Supreme Court is a satire on the American judicial system.

It's another attempt to establish "Christian" supremacy as the law of the land.

Backbiting

I don't really know any other way to title this post. It's something I've noticed a lot lately in the comments threads on gay blogs, maybe more lately than before. I guess it's true of just about any group, but frankly, it gets on my nerves. Think back, those of you who follow particular gay blogs, to, for example, the reaction to Tom Daley's coming out video, and then the news that the relationship that was making him so happy was with Dustin Lance Black, a man twenty years his senior. Black caught most of the flak, but the pattern is there -- I don't understand what it is with some people who can't seem to refrain from criticizing people they don't know for things that have nothing to do with them. I'm afraid my reaction is fairly simple: Congratulations. Now you sound just like any other bigot. Of course, in their minds they're not bigots -- they're just criticizing people for doing something they don't approve of.

Now it's Jared Leto's turn. His big error? He won an Oscar for his portrayal of a trans woman in Dallas Buyers Club. The reaction from some quarters is just about what you'd expect:

Several trans people reacted to Leto winning the Oscar.

‘If you thought Jared Leto's performance was anything other than an exaggerated, stereotyped, cliché damaging to trans people, f off,’ one said on Twitter.

‘One small step for Jared Leto One giant blow for the trans movement,’ another added.

Another Twitter user said: ‘The fact that every trans person on my [timeline] found Jared Leto's portrayal of a trans person offensive makes me not really want to see that film.’

British trans activist Paris Lees, writing in The Independent, said it was not an Oscar-worthy performance as she did not recognize in Rayon any trans woman she knows.

‘For truly accurate portrayals of trans people, cast trans actors, I say,’ she said.

Paris Lees' reaction is probably the most brainless. Excuse me? They're actors. Do you know what that means? They make their living pretending to be other people.

It's not just the trans community, of course. (Although I will say that, having had my own run-ins with trans activists in comment threads, they can be just as rigid and judgmental as anyone else. That was the same site where someone insinuated that I'm a racist, which anyone who actually knows me would find more than ludicrous.) I've noticed it most in what we'll call the LGBT community (which is a term I hate and avoid whenever possible), but if you read the comments on news articles or opinion pieces in "mainstream" publications, you realize that it's a phenomenon you can find anywhere.

But whoever you are who's doing it, rest assured you've earned by contempt.

I haven't seen the film -- it's been on my "maybe"list, but I haven't been to the movies lately. I may this week if it's still playing anywhere local.

Here's Leto's acceptance, which I found quite affecting: