About 92% Of IOWA GOP Didn't Vote For Trump

 

You might think from headlines like these that Trump scored a great victory in the Iowa caucuses yesterday.  Even headlines that just said he won are telling the wrong story.

They focused on the horse race.  Just on the candidates and their votes.

The real story for me is about the GOP who simply didn't vote.  

Let's look at this chart from @analogmeat on Spoutible:

I've checked the numbers and they're good on the results percentages, but the Iowa Capitol Dispatch says that as of last week  there were 687,000 registered Republicans voters in Iowa, fewer than in the chart.

The real story, it seems to me is this:

Barely 8% of Iowa registered GOP voters voted for Trump.

Just under 8% of Iowa registered GOP voters voted for candidates other than Trump.  

About 84% of Iowa registered GOP voters DID NOT VOTE.

Put another way, 92% of Iowa registered GOP voters DID NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP.  

That seems to me to be the big story.  Most GOP stayed home.  Sure the weather was bad, but even so, that sounds like a huge vote of no confidence for the GOP front runner.  Or for the other GOP candidates for that matter.  

Maybe I'm missing something here.  Maybe only a small percentage of Iowa voters have participated in the caucuses historically.  But if that's the case, it's the media horserace coverage of elections - who's winning and by how much - that have made this farce into something of national significance.  

I'm sure Mike in Iowa will fill me in if I'm wrong.  

More Waste In Packaging

 Waste in packaging is another thing that has become normalized.  Unless it's egregious, we just wade our way through it, without even thinking about it.

I felt this one qualified as egregious.

The pills came in these three plastic bottles inside the box behind.

Each plastic bottle had 14 - FOURTEEN - pills!

When I put them all into one bottle they reached up to the blue line. (That was supposed to be an arrow pointing down to the blue line.)

That's about 1/5 of the bottle.  There were three bottles, so only 1/15 of the bottles' volume was actually needed for the pills.  That's not counting the box the three bottles were packaged in.

So the contents needed about 7% of the packaging (again, not counting the box this was all in.)  So about 93% of the packaging was unnecessary.  

OK, I get that stores don't want to sell things so small that it's easy for a shopper to put something into a pocket or purse without paying.  There have to be more creative solutions to stopping shoplifting.  If humans can figure out how to get to the moon, they can figure out how to not pollute the earth with excessive packaging.  

I'd also note a story in the LA Times Sunday.  Mike Hiltzik wrote a follow up to the big story earlier this year that stores were losing $45 billion to organized crime shoplifting.  

Politicians and the media both repeated the fabricated number without question.  And law enforcement agencies love it because such stories help them get ever increasing budgets to fight crime.  But for them crime means the guy who shoplifts $30 worth of groceries, not companies that steal billions from their employees and customers.

Why do I add all these other issues to a simple story about badly packaged pills?  Cause everything has a context.  Telling stories without the larger context is just relating miscellaneous anecdotes.  There's a lot more context for this pill story, but I'm just adding a little here so that readers at least think about the larger context and maybe even add more themselves.  

.  

Reagan Told US in 1983 NOT to "Both Sides" In The Face Of Evil

[Video excerpted from speech to National Association of Evangelicals, March 8, 1983.  Full speech available here.]

While Reagan was distinguishing between the United States and the Soviet Union, he was warning people not to step back and treat both sides as equal.  He was saying the US was on the side of good and the Soviet Union was on the side of evil and you can't just offer both sides as equally worthy.  

Today we have a Democratic Party, with all its inconsistencies and flaws, basically standing for the United States and the freedoms and the democracy that were established in the US Constitution.  Opposing it are the Republican Party, essentially a cult ruled by a leader who has ties to Reagan's evil empire*, who lies, who makes false accusation, who foments violence, who favors white nationalism and fascism, and who is attempting to tear down the US Constitution and the US Government.  

United States journalists have long argued for 'objective' reporting of the news. It's part of the Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics.  

"Support the open and civil exchange of views, even views they find repugnant."

Generally, this has meant both major political parties are given equal time, and 'responsible' spokespersons for different sides of an issue are cited.   

But when one of the major political parties has become anti-democratic and does so with lies and misinformation that obfuscates and distracts from the important issues, then both sides journalism exacerbates the problem. They are basically polluting the public forum.  Much of the media has yet to adjust to this change in the Republican party.  

The media still  try to 'objectively' present opposing arguments.  Even when one side favors the basic principles and freedoms in our Constitution and the other side would ignore the Constitution when it conflicts with their goals.  

I think I'm being a bit generous here, ascribing this presenting of both sides equally as an attempt to be 'objective.'  

Despite indisputable evidence that the Republican party has become an anti-democracy cult, many mainstream media treat both parties as though the were equally valid points of view.  

This is like giving the pro-slavery side equal time with the equal rights side. "Well, now let's consider the upsides of slavery."  Oh, yeah, I forgot.t Republicans have actually done that.    Or like giving the child pornography proponents equal time and respect to the anti-child pornography side.  

Many Evangelical Christians are among those who are supporting this anti-American, pro-Trump voice. 

So I just wanted to offer this warning from one of their heroes - Ronald Reagan - against both-sidesing issues.  The video above comes from a speech to  the National Association of Evangelicals on March 8, 1983.  [And it appears that those loyal to Reagan are losing favor in Trump's GOP.]

Here's more of Reagan's comments from the transcript of that speech.

"So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride–the temptation of blithely..uh..declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil."

There is more that is not in the clip I have at the top, but in the full speech. Reagan (below) is supporting the rights of 'minority citizens,' he's arguing against racism and anti-semitism, something else the Republicans today no longer agree with.

There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens…for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war is now a point of pride for all Americans. We must never go back. There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country. [Long Applause]

I know that you’ve been horrified, as have I, by the resurgence of some hate groups preaching bigotry and prejudice. Use the mighty voice of your pulpits and the powerful standing of your churches to denounce and isolate these hate groups in our midst. The commandment given us is clear and simple: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” [Applause]

Reagan is not a president I admire, for many reasons.  I don't endorse mucht of this speech.  And it's tricky to quote parts that appear to support the point you are making.  

But Reagan is clearly telling this Evangelical audience that when there is a clear choice between good and evil, treating both sides with equal respect, as though they are equally valid, is wrong.  

We're there now, yet media are giving Trump prime time interviews.  And often using Right Wing lies as counterbalance to stories on President Biden.  

I think they understand these are not normal times and the old rules don't work, because one side doesn't follow any rules, other than obeisance to Trump.  They are trying to figure out how to report in these perilous times.   

I think they are also carefully looking at their bottom line and calculating the number of eyeballs and clicks the GOP crime scene will generate for them.  

*I'd note that Reagan was talking about the Soviet Union which has been replaced by Russia.  But much of the evil still exists.  Putin was spawned by the Soviet KGB.  And just watching the destruction of Ukraine by Russia makes it clear that Russia is ruled by an inhumane war criminal.  

I'd also like to acknowledge that I discovered the Reagan clip while watching the Netflix series SpyOps, Episode 3, Operation Pimlico.

Unchecked Reporting From A Source Who Hadn't Yet Figured Things Out

This is a tale about a journalist who writes an article based on what a friend with a new high level job in DC told her.  She pretty much writes what he says.  But it turns out his story is wishful thinking.  I just offer this as an example of bad reporting in case anyone is collecting such stories.

[Aug 31, 2023 - I've made some minor edits that, at most clarify, but don't change anything substantive.]

Miles Taylor writes in  Blowback about having arrived at the Department of Homeland Security to be "John Kelly's top intelligence and counter-threats advisor."  Taylor came into this position having worked as a Congressional staffer and in the W. Bush administration.  He'd been warned against taking a job in the Trump administration, but was pleased that someone like John Kelly would be in a high level position where he could help keep Trump in check.  

And, in fact, he was told early on that Kelly and allies had already kept Trump from doing some crazy shit.  [Sorry, that's not my style, but it seems like the most appropriate way to say it. "Prevented him from taking dangerous actions" just seems too tame.]

So barely a month on the job Taylor meets with a journalist friend.*

"Not long after starting, I caught up with a reporter friend.  We sat outside drinking cocktails not far from the White House, enjoying unseasonably warm April weather.  I confidently told her there was an "Axis of Adults" emerging inside the Trump administration - comprised of Kelly, Mattis, Tillerson, and others - who were keeping it on track.  She pushed back gently.

"They know what they're up against?"  she asked.

"They realize this is a tumultuous White House," I explained, "and they were serving as a leveling influence over fractious personalities . . .protecting the country from enemies both foreign and domestic." (pp.53-54)

Let's be clear here.  Taylor's been there a month or less in April 2017.  

"The reporter ran a story in the Daily Beast --"New Power in Trumpland: The Axis of Adults" - and asked to use the quote.  I agreed, hoping others would take comfort in knowing it wasn't all chaos in Trumpland." (p. 54)

Let me also say that Taylor has turned out to be one of the most consistent Republican voices against Trump.  He was the guy behind the Anonymous letter to the New York Times, while he was still in the government. The letter that alerted the world to how bad things were in the Oval Office.  I give him credit for sharing his early-on-the-job naïveté.  He goes on:

"In hindsight, I was probably sending the message to a few particular people - like the mentor who'd reached out to warn me against going into the administration.  And maybe, I was still trying to convince myself." (p. 54)

He closes that section with:

"I fell asleep easily in the early days knowing I'd made the right decision.  The Trump administration was starting to function, thanks to capable deputies who knew how to run the government. 

Like most bedtime stories, this turned out to be fiction." (p. 54)

So I googled Daily Beast "New Power in Trumpland: The Axis of Adults" and there it was.  As a blogger I have some sense of the dynamics of getting stories.  But since my blog is a hobby, not a job, I don't have the pressure to impress anyone or to get lots of hits.  The times that's happened it was simply because I managed to get an idea or story that took off.  

But I've read criticisms of reporters getting cozy with sources and then being used as conduits to publish an administration's story the way the administration wants it told. Or covering the strategy of the elections instead of the issues. (See for example Jay Rosen's "The savvy turn in political journalism.") I'm guessing this story would fit into savvy, but wrong.  So here's part of that Daily Beast story.

"There’s a new band in town that’s guiding national security by quietly tutoring the most powerful man in America. Never-Trump Republicans who’d been apprehensive about President Donald Trump are celebrating the trio’s influence, calling Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and Homeland Secretary John Kelly the “Axis of Adults.”

Through near daily contact with the trio, as well as Trump’s National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster and CIA director Mike Pompeo, Trump’s world view appears to be morphing more closely to match hawkish conservatives of the Bush administration.

They point to the men’s influence in the Tomahawk strike in Syria—in contrast to Trump’s isolationist slogans on the campaign trail; the outreach to China, compared to Trump’s threats to launch a trade war; a possible escalation of the war in Afghanistan; and Trump’s hardening stance toward Russia.

None of these key national security chiefs were part of the Trump campaign, or movement. They are seen by those who work most closely with them as loyal to the office of the president but still getting to know the man himself, said a senior administration official, speaking anonymously to describe the interactions just 11 weeks into the fledgling presidency."

That's Miles Taylor, the "senior administrative official speaking anonymously." 

So, the reporter meets a friend for drinks (she didn't mention that part) and he relates his early impressions of the new administration.  Things he's been told.  And which he tells us, a few years later in his book. he soon realized were fiction.

But she got her story for the Daily Beast, a story that simply reported Taylor's fantasy about how the adults were taming Trump.  She accepted her friend's (an anonymous senior administrative official) story as true.  And the Daily Beast ran with it as true.  And it was true in the sense that a senior administrative official said it.

I guess I'd also call into question a story that outs those adults - it likely put them on a Trump watchlist as people who thought they were smarter than he was.  

How did this "Axis of Adults" fare?

Wikipedia says that as head of Homeland Security Kelly 

According to the New Yorker, 

Kelly left the DHS with a reputation as one of the most aggressive enforcers of immigration law in recent American history. His record belies the short length of his tenure. In six months, Kelly eliminated guidelines that governed federal immigration agents' work; vastly expanded the categories of immigrants being targeted for deportation; threatened to abandon the Obama-era program that grants legal status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children; and has even broached the idea of splitting up mothers and children at the border to "deter" people from coming to the U.S.[39]

The DHS under Kelly "became one of the few branches of the federal government that has been both willing and able to execute Trump's policy priorities."[39] Unlike other agency heads, Kelly did not clash with Trump.[38]

Who bent whom to his ways? Seems he was bent enough to be asked to be Trump's Chief of Staff, but that's when things went south..  

"On December 7, 2018, CNN and others reported that Kelly and Trump were no longer on speaking terms and that Kelly was expected to resign in the coming days.[55] On December 8, Trump announced that Kelly would be leaving at the end of the year.[56]"

Tillerson and Mattis tried hard to be the adults, but it didn't work out.  From the Atlantic

"Now [December 2018] Mattis was becoming more and more isolated in the administration, especially since the defenestration of his closest Cabinet ally, the former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, several months earlier. Mattis and Tillerson had together smothered some of Trump’s more extreme and imprudent ideas. But now Mattis was operating without cover. Trump was turning on him publicly; two months earlier, he had speculated that Mattis might be a Democrat and said, in reference to NATO, “I think I know more about it than he does.” (Mattis, as a Marine general, once served as the supreme allied commander in charge of NATO transformation.)"

But then a lot of people thought they could be the adult who could check Trump's impulses.  

That's all.  I just wanted to highlight this one example of an anonymous source who didn't really know what he was talking about getting reported as truth, with apparently no further fact checking.  

*He calls her a 'reporter friend.'  Reporter is probably the better word.  But it's also a bit ambiguous whether she is a friend who is a reporter or a reporter who became a friend.  I'm guessing that she was a friend first, but that's not clear. 

It's NOT Better To Ask Forgiveness . . . Why The Assembly Shouldn't Settle With Roger Hickel

Roger Hickel's construction company filed suit against the Municipality of Anchorage.

"In its lawsuit, Hickel says it wants to be paid for the nearly $2.5 million of work it did last year, plus damages to be determined."  (From Alaska Public Media)

He claims he had a contract with the Municipality to do the work and now he's not getting paid.  

The problem is that his contract wasn't valid because it had never been approved by the Assembly.

"It started last year when the administration authorized Hickel to begin construction without Assembly authorization. That came to light last fall, and the Anchorage Assembly suspended the project." (same APM article.)

Last September, the Mayor brought a contract amendment to the Assembly.  

"On March 21, 2022, MOA Purchasing approved a Contract with RHC for Pre-

11 Construction Management (CM) services for the MOA Navigation Center as the

12 result of Request for Proposal 2022P007. Of the two proposals received,

13 reviewed, and evaluated, RHC received the highest score. The contract amount

14 was $50,000.00 and the period of performance was through December 31, 2022.

15 M&O is now requesting approval of the addition of General Contractor (GC)

16 construction services at a Not to Exceed (NTE) cost of $4,900,000.00 and a

17 contract extension through June 30, 2023. This will increase the contract amount

18 from $50,000.00 to $4,950,000.00."

But the Assembly rejected the extension of the contract:

"In a 9-3 vote, members rejected the administration’s request for $4.9 million so the city could proceed with the project. Assembly members Randy Sulte, Jamie Allard and Kevin Cross voted to approve it."

Why?  Because the Mayor had earlier secretly approved the contract without getting the Assembly's approval for the contract extension, which is required.  

"The vote came weeks after the revelation that, against city code, Bronson officials authorized millions in construction work over the summer without first getting the required Assembly approval to increase the contract with Roger Hickel Contracting by the $4.9 million. Work had begun weeks before Bronson officials in early September sent a request to the Assembly to change the contract."

“The municipality and the contractor have both been operating in good faith based on no less than three Assembly actions that appropriated to the tune of $9 million towards this project,” Municipal Manager Amy Demboski said. “It was our intent — we thought we were collaboratively working with the Assembly.” 

 About that 'good faith.'  Amy Demboski is the City Manager who a short time later, after she was fired by the Mayor, published a 'scathing letter' with a long list of things the Mayor had done very much in bad faith.

"It's better to ask forgiveness than permission" is a phrase often uttered in large bureaucracies when someone is proposing to skip over the rules.  The most positive spin would be that the complication of such organizations often frustrates folks to the point that they think it's easier to just plow ahead, without jumping through all the hoops to get permission.  But on the negative side, it's interpreted to mean 'since we aren't likely to get permission, let's just do it and it will be too late for them to do anything about it.'

The latter would seem to be what happened here.  There weren't that many hoops at the Municipality.  They just had to get the Assembly's approval.  But the Assembly had serious misgivings about the Mayor's project and there was a good chance they wouldn't approve it.  

We know the Mayor's office had to know they needed the Assembly's approval.  Contract approval is a very important and frequent part of running the Municipality.  The requirements for contract approval are one of the first things a Mayor needs to know.   There were still some pre-Bronson era employees who knew the rules and would have mentioned this.  At the very least, the Municipal Manager, Amy Demboski, a former Assembly member, knew well that the Assembly's approval was required.   

And Hickel?

Roger Hickel's LinkedIn Page says he's been doing construction in Anchorage for 28 years.

His construction company's website identifies over a dozen civil projects done for the MOA and the State of Alaska.  (I couldn't fit them all in one screen shot) And over 28 years he's done many, many such projects.

He also has the MOA and State of Alaska on his list of repeat customers among other government entities like the School District and the University of Alaska Anchorage. 

A FEW OF OUR REPEAT CLIENTS

Walmart

Nordstrom

Home Depot

Lowe’s

United Parcel Service

Federal Express

Army and Air Force Exchange Services

Food Services of America, NC Machinery

Providence Alaska Medical Center

Anchorage School District

Alaska Pacific University

University of Alaska

State of Alaska

the Municipality of Anchorage

Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium

Alaska Regional Hospital

As an Anchorage contractor for over 28 years with numerous contracts with the MOA of various sized projects, there is no way that Hickel didn't know that the contract extensions over a certain amount required the Assembly's approval.  You don't do this many government construction projects without knowing the rules of the Muni and the State, without knowing the cost limits that require additional approval, without experts in your office who do this routinely.  

And he knew the project was controversial.  That it might not get the approval.  He and the mayor may have convinced themselves the project was critical to solve the Anchorage homelessness situation, but they still knew it required the Assembly's permission.  

The Assembly should call their bluff.  Let them go to court.  Let them explain why they went ahead without the Assembly's approval before a judge and a jury.  My guess is that the judge and jury will understand they were taking a calculated risk.  That the project was controversial and not likely to get the Assembly's approval.  That they were betting that moving the project ahead would force the Assembly to approve a project that they had serious questions about.  

I'm not a betting man, but I take the rule of law seriously.  I urge the Assembly to be firm.  To hold the Mayor and the contractor accountable for breaking the Municipal ordinance.  To let a jury decide.  I'm fairly confident that going to court will cause Hickel to settle for a much lower sum from the Muni.  And that a jury would side with the Assembly.  

My Indonesian Yacht Cruise Was A Raft Trip On The Yentna With Ted Turner

[For those who are used to Twitter and need the this to read this in 20 seconds, skip down to the bolded question, What does this have to do with yachts cruising Indonesian islands? For those that want some context (and a little history on how the Anchorage Assembly first got onto cable, start at the beginning.]

 

Michael Shamberg's Guerilla Television had put video literacy into my life goals.  It pointed out that we are taught to read and write at school and given some skills in recognizing when written language is being used to manipulate us. (This was the 70s when schools still did that.  I think many still do, but I'm guessing a lot don't.)  

Shamberg's premise was that we were getting so much news via television that we needed that same sort of training in videography.  The book was a treatise on what was wrong with how news was created and a citizens handbook for how to make people's videos and how citizen created videos would change the world.  This was at a time when video cameras were pretty bulky and pricey, and there weren't any outlets for citizens to show their videos. There weren't even any Blockbusters yet.

I'd say Shamberg was pretty visionary. Eventually cameras on phones gave everyone a pocket video recorder and YouTube offered everyone a people's theater where anyone could show their videos and anyone could watch them.  Social media have extended the audience even further.  

And so when cable television was beginning to show up I was paying attention.  I was reading cable industry journals and even went to a few conferences on cable public access.  I was especially excited about the contracts around the country that required the cable companies to set up public access video studios with cameras and editing equipment so people could make their own videos. They also required public access channels to play those citizen made videos on. Sure, the audience was limited to cable viewers, but it was a step in the right direction. 

Multivision had bid for the contract in Anchorage.  This was 1982 or 83.  I was working on loan from the University to the Municipality of Anchorage for a couple of years.  I read the Multivision proposal and was dismayed that there was no provision for a public access video studio or a channel for people's video.  I kept telling Cathy Allen, Mayor Knowles' chief of staff (I think that was her title) that the Municipality should be demanding that such provisions - modeled from Outside cable agreements - be included in Multivisions' contract.  She kept treating me like I was crazy.  I kept sending her memos (yeah, email was not available yet)  about the Alaska Public Utility  Commission's meetings on cable.  One was coming up soon where there would be public testimony. On the day of the meeting I got a call to come up to Allen's office right away.  She'd just come back from a national conference and a city manager from a big city had sat her down and told her how important it was to have public access in cable contracts. Nothing I hadn't been telling her, but he was more credible to her than I had been.  So yes, I could go to the meeting and represent the Muni that afternoon.  

Fortunately, I'd been reading the proposal and comparing the prices they were proposing for monthly subscriptions and had lots of information about public access in other cities.  

So there I was, at the last minute, running down the street to the meeting.  There weren't a lot of people there and they all seemed to be Multivisions boosters.  Then my turn to talk came.  I nervously compared Multivisions prices to Outside prices and said something like, "I understand it is more expensive to operate in Alaska than it is Outside, but it's NOT three times as expensive!"  I also talked about how most cities were requiring cable companies to have public access studies and a public access channel.  And I sat down.

At the next break, I was mobbed by six or seven people asking me, essentially, "who the hell are you?" did  I really represented the Muni.  

As time went by I was back arguing that Multivisions should be televising the Assembly meetings live.  Not possible they said.  At that time they were meeting in the Muni's Tudor Road buildings and they said it wasn't wired for cable.  It would have to wait until the new Loussac Library opened.  

But for some reason the Assembly  had to move out of the Tudor building and temporarily went to the new Convention Center on 5th Avenue.  And I knew that building was wired.  By that time I'd gotten some others to join me and we had set up a non-profit for this project - something like Anchorage Media Access Group.  I lobbied the Assembly members and they agreed to a six month trial and allotted a paltry sum - maybe $3000 for that.  Our non-profit sent out an RFP to every third video business in the Anchorage media resources book.  We got two bids.  One was way beyond the money the Assembly offered.  The other was a budding videographer who agreed to do it at a ridiculously low price with the help of volunteers (ourselves and a few others) who would staff the cameras for him.  

At first, he balked. He couldn't trust his expensive cameras to volunteers.   But he relented when we pointed out that he couldn't afford to do it any other way.  And so the Assembly began its six months experiment being broadcast live on Anchorage cable.  

While Assembly members had had a number of doubts - it would lead to grandstanding, those without cable wouldn't have access, etc. - after several weeks they were all won over.  They had so many people say they saw them on cable and they had people showing up saying they were watching at home and had to come down to testify.  At the end of the six months they approved a much larger budget and our videographer got the contract and we stopped having to supply volunteers.  We disbanded our non-profit and gave the Assembly back the $500 we still had left and asked them to use it to support televising the Assembly. 

 

What does this have to do with yachts cruising Indonesian islands? 

Somewhere along this cable path, I got an invitation from Multivision to go on a float trip on the Yentna River with Ted Turner whom they were bringing up to Alaska.  That sounded very cool, but unlike a certain US Supreme Court justice, I didn't consider accepting for a second.  

I understood that I hadn't been randomly selected for this honor, but that it had to do with my advocacy for a better deal for Anchorage citizens and my advocacy for getting the Anchorage Assembly live on cable. And that this might be their way to get me to tone it down or who knows?.  I thanked them and said I couldn't accept their offer. 

Clarence Thomas, on the other hand, seems to have had no qualms about accepting annual half-a-million dollar vacations and didn't see it necessary to report these on his annual financial disclosure forms.  

The wealthy Republicans have been smart and have taken a long range planning approach to maintain power. When Bork got turned down for the Court, they apparently realized democracy was no longer enough.  

Lobbying has been a traditional way to get legislators to vote against the interests of their constituents.  This relationship is strengthened by campaign contributions. And secrecy. But even better would be owning a Supreme Court that decided their way if the legislature wouldn't.  

The Democrats have not been as Machiavellian and were not very good as spotting the stealth takeover  of the Supreme Court the Republicans, through the Federalist Society, had worked on for so many years.  

And with Trump as president, they succeeded in taking over the Court.  Justice Kennedy abruptly resigned to make room for Kavanaugh.  I'm still certain there's a cloak and dagger story about how Kennedy was convinced to step down, that would include his son's work for Deutsche Bank, the last major bank still willing to lend money to Trump for his projects. And Justin Kennedy was the man who made those loans happen. 

But since Trump essentially turned the job of picking his court nominees over to the Federalist Society, it's pretty clear that they had something to do with Kennedy's resignation as well.  The first link is to a speech by Sen. Whitehouse - the Senate's most active and vocal observer of how the Federalist Society has managed the sharp lurch to the right of the Supreme Court.  But for those of you who need a different source, here's a report from The Hill.  Speculation?  Sure.  But a lot of clues point in the right direction. And like Thomas' vacations with the Crows, I'm pretty certain there's lots we don't yet know.  At least there are facts and motives pointing in this direction, which is way more than the Republicans have for every major scandal they scream about daily.  

Breakdown of Norms

From Oxford Bibliographies:

"[Norms] are most commonly defined as rules or expectations that are socially enforced. Norms may be prescriptive (encouraging positive behavior; for example, “be honest”) or proscriptive (discouraging negative behavior; for example, “do not cheat”)."

Basically, norms are the rules that are socially, rather than legally, enforced.  When people break the norms, public opinion is the force that 'rules' the consequences.  Politicians lose elections, officials resign their posts.  

But we're in a period where Republicans, particularly, are no longer constrained by norms.  They're no longer constrained by laws. (Sure, politicians on both sides have fudged the law forever, but they did it clandestinely, not flagrantly out in the open.)  While Trump is by far the most egregious example, his Republican colleagues in the House and Senate have gone along.  The Senate had the power to remove him from office after the House voted for impeachment.  Twice.  

They didn't.  Instead, they rammed through the nominations of Kavanaugh and Barrett.  

Not all the Republicans are completely craven, but they are all much more interested in their reelections than they are in maintaining traditional norms of appearing to support the public interest, 

And Fox News, particularly, has worked closely with Trump to make sure their viewers are fed the stories they (the viewers) want to hear, no matter how much they deviate from truth.  Those Republicans who stood up to Trump, even slightly, have either retired (rather than face Trump's cult in the primaries) or they were defeated in the primaries.  Alaska's Senator Murkowski is the only exception I know of.  She used a write-in campaign to overcome a primary defeat in 2012.  In 2022, Alaska's new Ranked ChoiceVoting went into effect, which eliminated closed party primaries and put all candidates for each office into one primary. 

The wealthy Right Wingers know that their ideas are not popular with the voters.  Ending abortion, no restrictions on guns, racial discrimination, election manipulation are all opposed by healthy majorities of the general population. 

To win, Republicans have to rig the game.  Pack the Supreme Court with judges who rule in favor of business most of the time.  Gerrymander state voting districts to get far more Republicans elected even when the actual numbers of both parties are much more even.  Suppress the votes of minorities and the young in as many ways as they can think of.  Oppose all bills to help overcome the disparities in wealth, access to food, housing, education, and health care. In fact oppose all legislation that might be good for the country that Biden could take credit for.  And now we're seeing the truly power obsessed trying to control women's rights to decide their own health care, even banning out of state travel for those seeking abortions.  

With a strong Supreme Court majority, Republican governors are writing laws so far out of the bounds of US social norms and violate decades old Supreme Court precedents.  They are doing this in anticipation of the new Federalist Society judges overturning all those precedents as just as they overturned Roe v. Wade.  Voting rights?  We're back to a post Civil War Supreme Court that used States' Rights to allow disenfranchisement of blacks and lynchings among other terrible practices.  

And when Clarence Thomas says in his brief official statement that he read the rules and consulted with others and they said he didn't have to report transportation, he's telling me that he has NO business being a US Supreme Court Justice.  

• First, this is so extreme an example - half a million dollar vacations for 20 years!  Any reasonable person knows this sort of 'gift' needs to be reported  (I didn't have to go to law school to know accepting a pricey trip with a celebrity was the wrong thing to do.)
• Second, if Thomas has trouble interpreting such obvious and simple disclosure rules for judicial gifts, then he is hardly qualified to interpret the US Constitution. 
• Third, if he is capable of such interpretation, then he's intentionally flouting the rules and the norms for his own advantage.  In this case his perceived best interest was non-disclosure. One would assume that is also how he often interprets the law and the Constitution in his Supreme Court decisions.  
• Fourth, hanging out with the Crows and their yachting friends helps to shape his ideas of his own best interests and appropriate interpretations of the Constitution.

CONCLUSIONS

Like most such issues, this one is entangled in many overlapping contexts of law, of history, of politics, of economics, of ethics, that it is difficult to discuss it without either leaving important points out or without getting so long and complicated people won't finish.  

A key issue I'm leaving out is accountability of career and elected public officials.  Of course Trump and Fox have so violated societal norms of behavior and of truth telling that we seem to be in a completely different place than we were five or six years ago.  Though another part of me believes that the craziness we hear these days has always existed.  But today's technology enables much more of it to be seen and heard by the public.  

If that's true, the good news is that all this ugliness is being exposed - from police brutality to overt racism (OK, those two are probably intertwined), to sexual abuse, etc.  The bad news is those with norm-violating behavior and thoughts have found support for their anti-democracy desires.  

Before the Republicans get ultimate control of the courts and can manipulate all elections, we need to get all the folks who are still within traditional norms, but have given up on voting, to go vote.  There are still tens of millions of people who have come up with excuses not to vote.  (And this is also in part due to the Right's propaganda about how terrible government is, Democrats are, and how corrupt elections are.)  

Those who want Democracy to carry on have an obligation to get everyone who doesn't normally vote, to vote in the next few elections.  And the Republicans' extreme power grabbing - abortions bans, LGBTQ+ baiting, anti-Semitism, book banning, expulsion of duly elected legislators are all helping to get those voters to the polls in the next elections.   

We need enough Democrats in state legislatures and in Congress to overcome Republican attempts to turn the US into an authoritarian regime favoring wealthy white males who distort the Bible to further their interests.  

The Lazy Blogger

 For most of the life of this blog, I posted close to daily.  Within the last six months or so (maybe longer) I've given myself permission to slack off.  Why?  

• This should be fun, or at the very least satisfying for me.  
• There's so much crazy out there to write about it's hard to choose how to best spend one's time dealing with it.  
• When I write about important issues I want to do it right - get most of the key issues and back up what I saw with evidence and that often takes time.  But that means working harder than just popping off with my opinion
• Much of that crazy is simply intended to confound rational people, because 
• it isn't intended to make sense, 
• but to waste rational people's time as they try to 'expose' the lies
• The key things we need to focus on are:
• signing up non-voters, people who 
• have never voted because they aren't interested in politics
• have never voted because they weren't old enough and may not know how to vote and for some, are leery about doing something they aren't good at
• for those of us who went along with our parents when they voted, this may seem hard to believe, but lots of people have parents who didn't vote or didn't take them along to familiarize them with the process
• stopped voting because they think both parties are equally bad
• don't vote because they think their one vote doesn't make a difference
• developing scripts with evidence explaining 
• why voting is important
• that there is a huge difference between the parties
• that democracy is threatened if the GOP hold on to the House, regain the Senate, and/or the Presidency
• how to vote and how to get their non-voting friends to vote too
• [UPDATED MARCH 27, 2023 - How to distinguish between fact and fiction, human and bot.]

But we can't use ignore ALL the BS flying around.  So I do have some thoughts on the pay raise for the Governor, his commissioners, and the legislature among many other things.  But that's for later posts.  Enjoy the end of the weekend.  Do something you've never done before.  

Supreme Court Redistricting Decision Is Still Being Written - What I'd Like To See Them Address

 It's been nine months since the Supreme Court first ruled on the Alaska Redistricting Board.  That was a relatively short opinion which just answered the most immediate questions - was the latest plan acceptable and if not what needs to be done?.  They left themselves until later date to write up their reasoning for the decisions they made.  

The Alaska Court system suspends the pay of judges who don't complete their written decisions within six months of the trial..  But the Supreme Court is a little different because there isn't just one judge.  The judges who sat on the case must all agree or complete their dissenting opinions.  The Court's clerk explained to me that a draft is written and circulated to the judges.  If there are changes, the six months clock is reset.  

The Redistricting decision is no longer time sensitive.  Given that the Court hasn't issued their decision suggests to me that the last Proclamation Plan will be the plan for the rest of the decade.  If not, they needed to let the Board know that early enough to make adjustments for the 2024 election.  If there were going to be any changes, they would be limited to a few Anchorage Senate seats at most.  So, I could be wrong, but I suspect the Courts longer, explanatory decision will leave the current Proclamation plan in place.  

The decision they are currently writing will be for the 2030 Redistricting Board.  They are taking their time, I assume, so the next redistricting board will have the clearest possible guidelines for what they should be doing and should not be doing when they divide the state into 40 House districts and 20 Senate Districts.

I've discussed some of the key outstanding issues in a Previous post.  I'm repeating part of that post here.  I've made some changes and added part 4.

Some things the Court ought to answer:

1.  Explain what appears to some as a contradiction between past rulings that said everything within a Borough boundary is considered Socio-Economically Integrated (SEI) and their finding this time that Senate pairings in Anchorage were political gerrymandering.  Those two findings are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but since the Board's attorney's mantra was "everything within a Borough is SEI" based on previous Court rulings, the Board majority seemed to think that then they could pair any two contiguous house districts within the Municipality of Anchorage, and it would be fine. (Contiguity being the main legal criterion for a Senate pairing.)  Aren't things like race, economics, political leanings part of Socio-Economic Integration? Why then are factors like race, economics, and political leanings  within a single Municipality  indicators of political gerrymandering?  That needs to be explained.  And maybe the past rulings about everything in a Borough being SEI should be adjusted to reflect the differences within a Borough as populous as the Municipality of Anchorage.  Here's a post I did looking at past rulings about SEI.

[UPDATED Sept 4, 2022:  Maybe this is better focused:  I'd like to see the Court explain how they differentiate the criteria used to determine political gerrymandering and the criteria used for Socio-Economic Integration (SEI).  If Board Member Marcum hadn't mentioned that ER would have gotten an extra Senate seat, would the other characteristics of the two paired house districts been irrelevant?  At one point in the Supreme Court hearing there's an interaction between Board attorney Singer and Supreme Court Justice Warren Matthews [not to be confused with Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews or Board attorney Matthew Singer] on terms like 'communities of interest,' and 'equal protection.'  It would be nice if they could explain clearly the different concepts that Attorney Singer discussed and how the Court distinguishes between the idea that a Borough, by definition, is SEI, but, as Justice Matthews pointed out, there are differences in communities of interest within the Borough of Anchorage.]

2. Address the issue of geographic contiguity.  While the House districts paired in the revised map were technically contiguous, the borders that were touching were in unpopulated and roadless mountain areas.  While that 'connected' the two districts physically, the communities in those two districts were geographically far apart (relative to the population of Anchorage) and not really sensible political units. 

"Auto-contiguity" came up as a concept.  That 'auto' refers to cars - can you drive from one part of the district to another without leaving the district?  This was an issue in the Valdez/Mat-Su case and in the Eagle River Senate pairings. 

 I understand that being contiguous in large, roadless rural districts will sometimes require those rural Senate seats to have much less ideal connections between communities.  But in urban areas where there is much greater population density, it seems more than reasonable to consider contiguity as a continuum from "more to less," than an "either/or, yes/no," evaluation.  It was clear that the Board majority paired HD 22 and HD 9 with such an unusable border for political reasons.  The Hickel Decision tell us that

"In addition to preventing gerrymandering, the requirement that districts be composed of relatively integrated socio-economic areas helps to ensure that a voter is not denied his or her right to an equally powerful vote."

In urban areas, extreme contiguity such as we had, should also be an indicator of possible gerrymandering,  particularly when much more natural contiguity alternatives are available.  

3.  Explain why the Supreme Court disagreed with Judge Matthews' finding that the Board needed to pay more attention to public testimony in the Skagway case.  Did they disagree with his reasoning on the Board's need to justify why they were making a decision that was contrary to the overwhelming public testimony?  As I understand it, they basically said, it didn't matter since the district met the criteria for a district.  

4.  The State Constitution says that Board Members should be chosen without regard to political party.  This has rarely been the what actually happens.  And in this case, the Governor picked three Board members who were not only Republicans, but were highly partisan Republicans who, in the end pursued maps that were clearly politically gerrymandered.  Budd Simpson even testified that he was selected for the Board because there are many Republicans in Southeast.  The Court did not really deal with this clear violation of the Constitution by the Governor in selecting Board members.  But perhaps it was on their minds when they said the Board was guilty of illegal gerrymandering with some Anchorage Senate seats.  It would be very helpful if the Board set some standards for dealing with such partisan choices by those given the power to choose Board members. If they don't, they are essentially saying that that part of the Constitution is unenforceable.  

5.  There was a request from Calista plaintiffs that ANCSA boundaries be found acceptable as local boundaries for the Board to use making their maps.  This makes some sense in situations where those boundaries connect villages (water districts, schools, roads).  But the for-profit Native corporations are just that: profit making corporations that have a lot of power.  We wouldn't want corporations, say like Conoco or Monsanto, to have their own corporate political districts.  I think the Native Corporations have the burden of proof here that they are sufficiently different, in ways that matter to elections, that it would be okay. Or the Court could identify which ANCSA boundaries might be permissible and which might not.  Would making a district that exactly matched the boundaries of a Native Corporation be legal?  By refusing to accept Cantwell into the larger 'Calista' district, the Court suggests probably not.  More clarification would be helpful.  

6.  Also on hold has been the decision about whether the Board has to pay attorney fees for the Girdwood plaintiffs. 

"flood the zone with shi*t" - Why Courts And Media Don't Seem Adequate These Days

[Bear with me.  I'm trying to pull a number of issues together.  Basically, we need to step back and see the bigger picture rather than get distracted by all the crap the Right is throwing out there.  Their goal is to spew so much nonsense that the system breaks as people try to address it rationally.] 

Choosing labels carelessly  

"CULTURE WARRIORS such as U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) . . ."  LA Times"

There may have been a time when there was something that could be called 'culture war,' but that time is long past.  MTG is not offering anything resembling 'culture' unless the naked quest for power is considered a 'culture' today.  There's nothing here, really, about Christian values, though one could argue MTG represents hijacked Christian values to wrest power.  The attacks on LGTBQ and specifically trans and drag queens is merely a hook to incite the gullible to send cash and votes toward the GOP.  

On the other side are people who merely want to be free to be themselves.  If they take PRIDE in who they are, it's merely because society has vilified them so long and so hard, that they need some validation now and then.  

The media are slow to discard misleading labels, while the Republicans have an automated factory where they produce and distribute new imagery daily.  Where they take left leaning terms and turn them into epithets.  Some journalists are too young even to remember that the correct name is Democratic Party, but the Republicans have flooded the airwaves so long with "Democrat" party that people think that's the name.  

Eastman mulls the economic benefits of letting kids die

"In the case where child abuse is fatal, obviously it's not good for the child, but it's actually a benefit to society because there aren't needed ??  government services ?? for the full course of that child's life."

Rep. David Eastman (R - Wasilla) on the cost savings to the state when abused children die.

Alaska: Rep. Eastman of the family values party says it's actually a net benefit to society when a child dies from abuse & neglect because of the financial burden it would otherwise put on the state budget. pic.twitter.com/NKUOvUZvgf

— ChudsOfTikTok (@ChudsOfTikTok) February 21, 2023

The Republicans in Alaska have rules that oust other Republicans from committees if they don't vote with the party on budgets.  But making a case for letting abused kids die because it saves the state money, well, he has the right to free speech according to the committee chair Rep. Vance (R Homer).  

But, as I write, it seems that the House has censured Eastman over this.  (Thanks Matt Acuña Buxton)

The problem I have as a blogger (and any legitimate journalist has) is dealing with all the jabberwocky  being thrown out there by the Republicans - from DeSantis' shipping of immigrants to New York, banning the teaching of history he doesn't like, and his Don't Say Gay campaign (just a few examples) to the Hunter Biden laptop.  

And that's the point.  Stephen Bannon said to "flood the media with sh*t" and that's exactly what they are doing.  

From CNN

While some of the actors in this circus may actually believe what they're doing, those encouraging people to file all those election challenges and to write all those laws letting kids carry machine guns in public are just "flooding the zone with shit."  Getting people riled up and wasting time on fighting all the shit flying at them.  

Our justice system is based on the assumption that people believe in the Rule of Law and that the vast majority of people will voluntarily obey the law.  Neither our court system nor our journalists are quite ready for large numbers of people rejecting the rule of law or the rules of reason.  

The lawyers were trained to dot their i's and cross their T's, but with Trump and others filing bogus lawsuits and appeals and motions, the courts can't keep up. The public is losing confidence that they will ever be able to bring Trump and his mob to justice. But that's how Trump has stayed out of prison all these years.  The legal system has to retool itself to handle this sort of threat.  Not sure how.  Dominion suing Fox is one option, but so much damage happens before it is settled.  And Alex  Jones declared bankruptcy to avoid the financial consequences of losing his lawsuit.  We need tactics that work with the Right's new weapons.  

Journalists are trained to be impartial to the extent they feel compelled to treat insurrection as a legitimate point of view.  I'd note that some journalists believe they shouldn't vote because that taints their objectivity.  Here's an NPR journalist mulling over NPR's ethics code.  The Republicans are counting on journalists to continue such internal counting of angels.  

Such purity doesn't matter any more (if it ever did) because whatever journalists do, the Republicans will vilify them.  Meanwhile old school journalists will try to respectfully cover MTG's calls for a new confederacy and Eastman's claim that letting abused kids die is beneficial to the state of Alaska.  

Not voting, not declaring one's party, might seem the right thing to do, but I think declaring where you stand openly and then letting readers determine if your personal values color what you write (or say) is the more honest approach.  

In any case, the old rules don't apply to the new political world we're in.  Yes, a lot of voter fraud cases were won.  And a number of January 6 Insurrectionists (yes, that term identifies me as biased, but it was also the conclusion of the courts) went to prison.  But most of the top people are still living, ostensibly, comfortable lives.  (I'd like to think that all the  pending litigation is at least  disturbing Trump's peace.)

We need new tools for dealing with the current manufactured chaos.  How much damage have we had to endure (can we endure) before the deluge of lies is dammed?  

There are perhaps a dozen more threads I could easily follow that give context to what's happening today. 

 It's a psychological barrier to blogging because I know that writing about some discrete issue merely entangles me in Bannon's web.  But people's attention spans are much shorter than they used to be.  Few want to read long attempts to put things into perspective.  I'm not just making this up.

"A recent study by Microsoft Corporation has found this digital lifestyle has made it difficult for us to stay focused, with the human attention span shortening from 12 seconds to eight seconds in more than a decade."

But you can't read too many long articles, let alone books, even with a 12 second attention span.  But if you got this far, you're doing fine.  And should take articles like that with a grain of salt.  Who measured the average attention span in 2000, for example?  No, I'm not going to dig up the actual research report to find out.  It does say that drinking water, exercise, and avoiding electronic devices helps increase attention span.  So go for a walk and don't take your phone.  

About Making Assumptions: Looking Up Lisa Blatt Before Finishing This Post

 A week or so ago an attorney arguing before the US Supreme Court claimed:  [You can read the transcript here page 28.]

"but, yes, it's just been -- I mean, the world has been around for, like, 7,000 years, and no country has ever tried another country.

(Laughter.)"

The case is TURKIYE HALK BANKASI A.S., )AKA HALKBANK, )  v. UNITED STATES and involves a challenge to the US' ability to bring suit against a Turkish bank on the grounds it is part of the sovereign nation of Turkiye.  (Yes, that's the new formal name of the country.)

"the world has been around for, like, 7,000 years"

Was this a joke?  Was it pandering to the Federalist Society appointed judges?  Was it the attorney's actual understanding of how old the world is?  

Trying to comment meaningfully on today's world is how I imagine a mosquito swarmed caribou in the midsummer Arctic must feel.  Every bite hurts a little but there are just too many to deal with. 

But I also know we must stand firm.  All the voting fraud legal losses have weakened Trump and his follower, and claimed  We shouldn't assume they have more power than they have.  

That said, I looked up Lisa Blatt to see if she's also a docent at Kentucky's Noah's Ark Encounter?

Sarcasm often floats over people's heads.  I learned quickly that I couldn't use it in class because there were always a few students who took my words literally.  

Not everything is as it appears.  Lisa Blatt is said to be the female attorney who has appeared most frequently before the US Supreme Court.  She's also a former RBG law clerk.  

Here's an interview with Lisa Blatt chair of the Supreme Court and appellate practice at Williams & Connolly, that makes it pretty clear that she knows the world is more than 7000 years old and this might have been an unintentional bit of humor.  

 Is this post worth writing? If I just dealt with one mosquito among millions?  I think so, because the real point is to be careful about jumping to conclusions - which seems to happen with greater frequency as online media rush to be the first to report anything.  And if anyone reads this and checks on an assumption she's about to make, then yes.  

And I'm going to reiterate this theme in an upcoming post, so this is just a seed to get you ready.  

Political Arsonists Need To Be Dealt With Firmly

 It's harder for me to actually sit down and write blog post these days.  I think it's because there are so many outrageous things happening that it's impossible to keep up with them, let alone do the research necessary to say something worthwhile.  Republicans are like political arsonists, setting fires everywhere.

And that may be the point - just ignite the world with so much brazen, anti-democratic bullshit, that the still sane part of the world spends all its time fighting these outrages and can't get anything else done.  It's part of Trump's legal strategy - just sue and countersue and sue again until the other side runs out of money or patience.  

Fortunately a judge finally called him on this. United States District Judge Donald Middlebrooks wrote a blistering order.  I've pulled out some of the conclusions he made.  Each conclusion is followed by detailed citations of law and the facts of the cases, for which you'll have to read the whole ruling itself here. 

"This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for a political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognizable legal claim."

"Thirty-one individuals and entities were needlessly harmed in order to dishonestly advance a political narrative. A continuing pattern of misuse of the courts by Mr. Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm."

"I find that the pleadings here were abusive litigation tactics. The Complaint and Amended Complaint were drafted to advance a political narrative; not to address legal harm caused by any Defendant."

"The 819 paragraphs of the 186-page Amended Complaint are filled with immaterial, conclusory facts not connected to any particular cause of action."

"The Amended Complaint is a hodgepodge of disconnected, often immaterial events, followed by an implausible conclusion. This is a deliberate attempt to harass; to tell a story without regard to facts."

"In order to understand the scope of this abuse, multiply the above discussion by thirty-one defendants and their lawyers, forced to try to analyze and defend against the sprawling Complaints."

"I sifted through the thread of allegations against each defendant only to find they added up to no cognizable claim. And the pleadings were drafted in a way to disguise that fact."

"The Plaintiff consistently misrepresented and cherry-picked portions of public reports and filings to support a false factual narrative. Often the report or filing actually contradicted his allegations. It happened too often to be accidental; its purpose was political, not legal. Factual allegations were made without any evidentiary support in circumstances where falsity is evident."

"C. The Plaintiff’s Legal Theories Were Frivolous, Foreclosed By Existing Precedent.

The Plaintiff recklessly advanced claims foreclosed by existing precedent that the most basic legal research would have revealed. It was not that the Complaint and Amended Complaint were inadequate in any respect, they were inadequate in nearly every respect, even after the deficiencies had been identified in the multiple motions to dismiss."

"III. A PATTERN OF ABUSE OF THE COURTS.

I have explained why the totality of the problems with the Complaint, Amended Complaint, and the arguments and statements of Plaintiff’s counsel show that this lawsuit was filed and prosecuted in bad faith. But this case is part of Mr. Trump’s pattern of misusing the courts to serve political purposes. Federal courts have both the inherent power and the constitutional obligation to protect their jurisdiction from conduct that impairs their ability to carry out Article III functions."

This was punctuated with a $937,989.39 judgment, mostly to pay the attorneys fees of the defendants.  

Thomas Zimmer, @tzimmer_history, who  teaches history at Georgetown University warns that  putting out these fires won't only be done with reason and logic.  

Fortunately, most judges still base their decisions on reason and logic as did Judge Middlebrooks.  But Trump's weapon is bravado and bullshit.  Bravado for his cult members and bullshit to clog up the courts, muck up the media, and generally make truths harder to discern.  

To a great extent these political and social arsonists have escaped serious punishment if any at all.  That emboldens them to set more fires. As the judge pointed out in his ruling, the court losses that Trump suffered were all used as evidence to his cult of the corruption of the courts.  

Until we find the tools and the will to adequately apply consequences for these arsonists, things will just get worse and worse.  

[Readers, either accept this ending or create one of your own.  These topics have no neat endings, they spill out into all directions defying a succinct wrap-up with which NPR and other media are wont to end their news stories.]

COVID Is Still Killing Alaskans

I don't post that much here about COVID anymore, but I do update my (now) weekly COVID page (see tabs above).  It's weekly now because the State updates the Dashboards on Tuesdays now.  There's a table with basic stats that go back to March 2020, though changes in the Dashboards over time means some of those numbers are no longer available.  

I'm putting his post up to remind people that about 388 people died in the last week in the US and about five of those were Alaskans.   I know everyone, including me, wants life to be 'normal', but we aren't there yet.  

Here's yesterdays's weekly update over on theAlaska Daily COVID-19 Count 3 - May 2021 - ??? page you can find just below the orange header.  

Tuesday, December 20, 2022 - numbers moving in the wrong direction. Today was the catchup day for reporting deaths.  There were 19 COVID deaths reported for the last four weeks.  About five per week.  And those are the ones directly related to COVID, not necessarily all the COVID related deaths.

There are 40 hospitalized COVID patients reported  - up seven from last week.  People on vents remains the same at one.  Available ICU beds statewide remains at 24, but Anchorage is down one bed at three.

380/375 new cases were reported.  That's up 26 from last week, but lower than previous weeks.  We'll see next week which direction those numbers take.  Other places are experiencing surges.  

While 57% of Alaskans got their initial vaccine shots, only 10.4% are up to date on boosters.  (Note the numbers oo the link changes over time)  Boosters and masks folks.  Even if you only get a mild case, you keep the virus alive and spreading to people whose bodies are not as resistant as yours.  

Here's a link to make a vaccine appointment.

Who Pays For It Scam? The Propaganda Campaign

This video is good.  It will take about 30 minutes of your time.  It's better to watch it, but go ahead and listen to it while you are doing other mindless tasks you can do without thinking.  Kneading bread, putting away dishes, working out, or if that's not your thing, baking a cake.  

I'm not even asking you to listen to the whole thing, because I think once you start it you'll watch the rest.  

He takes fairly complex stuff and makes it pretty simple.  BUT, since we all have been so programmed, you do have to think a little bit to understand the programming - Who Pays? - and how the question is only asked for social welfare issues and not for military spending or tax cuts, particularly tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy.  

Some key themes that come up:

• Long term programing through repetition of "Who pays?" and "What about the debt?"
• How this programming evolved - from trying to convince average folks (didn't work) to convincing news media and members of Congress (works).  
• How media then use the fake think tank 'experts' as 'experts' on news programs.
• How news media are either unable to counter these ideas or bought and paid for so the won't.  Even PBS and NPR get caught up in this.  

All done with humor.  Ideally, when you watch or read news, you'll think about this video and not be taken in so easily.  He's talking about the relentless attacks of "Who Pays For It?" for social programs but not other government expenditures.  But you should be thinking about framing on all the other issues as well.  

One thing that emerges in the video is how little viewers actually know about the background of the guests on most media news programs - don't know their past or even current involvement with organizations that have a vested interest in the topic.  So here's Maza's Wikipedia page to start your awareness of who he is.  

OK, Carlos Maza is no Hasan Minaj*, but probably if he had Minaj's budget, staff, and researchers, he might get there.  If you don't know who Minaj is, you can watch his Patriot Act series on Netflix which picks a national issue and gets rid of the smoke and mirrors so you can see the wizards behind each scam he covers.  More recently he did The King's Jester on Netflix - also fantastic.  Maza covers some similar ground, but technically at a much more basic level.   No Netflix?  Here's a bit of The King's Jester on Youtube.  Well, I just watched it so I wouldn't be steering you wrong.  This appears to be a show where he worked with some of the material for King's Jester, but didn't really pull it all together into the show that talks about the importance of standing up to powerful people. And the personal risks.  The King's Jester is terrific.  This Youtube piece is, well, okay.  

*I realize there is some talk online about Minaj not treating some staff well. But the reports are really vague. I'm not saying there is nothing there, but given the kinds of people Minaj takes on, one can also see them doing campaigns like this to cut off his message. Patriot Act was not renewed by Netflix.