John Martin Shot To Death

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2023/06/19/shooting-of-man-sleeping-in-south-anchorage-parking-lot-was-unprovoked-attack-prosecutor-says/

Back in 2012 I posted about John Martin's city hall protest 

over homelessness

.   The post included a 

video that is no longer working (it was on Viddler and they cut my account long ago.  Though they did send me the files for my videos.  I redid some on YouTube, but not all of them.  Not sure where that file is anymore.  I mention this simply because this is a danger in an age when people store the photos, videos, and data outside of their control.)  In the video I talked to John and then Mayor Sullivan comes across the street and gives John a cup of coffee and they chat a bit.  

A previous post shows him at the Assembly and I did a brief video at the break. (It too was on Viddler and doesn't seem to be working, though it flashed an image of John just before turning black.  Somewhere I probably have these on a sound card.  When Mac upgraded they switched out of the old iMovie and so those original files are available either.  Beware how you backup your stuff.)

I'd been walking from the bus station to the Redistricting Board meeting and showed up at just the right time.  

I don't know much about John.  He did later attempt to cross the Bering Sea to Russia.  He was a committed advocate for the poor and homeless.  He saw the world from a slightly different angle than most people.  

I don't know why he was shot.  I don't know if he was the target or he was just randomly shot.  I just know we've lost a unique and sensitive member of our community to gun violence.  

Oil, Ukraine, Flopping, And A Cameo Part For Sen.Dan Sullivan

 When you get a chance, tie up one of your oil fanatic Republican family members and/or friends and make them watch this.  It covers most of the relevant issues.  Trust me.  It's worth watching.

Thanks, George.

Dan Sullivan, Who Called For Bi-Partisanship Last Week, Claims There's A "Biden War On Alaska"

Here's what I started yesterday:

I didn't hear Senator Sullivan's speech to the Alaska legislature.  I only heard Alaska Public Radio's report on it.  I looked for it on line, but couldn't find it, even on Sullivan's own web site.  But there are a couple of quotes that I think can be looked at without hearing the whole speech.    

A little later I wrote:

(Of course, when I get to see the whole speech, maybe I'll find out I'm wrong here.) 

So, I tracked down the speech with help from the Legislative Website.  They have a chat box and someone answered my question immediately and gave me a link to the speech.  I'd ask for a transcript but they said they didn't have one.  

So I typed up my own rough transcript as I listened.  It was pretty rough.  I called Sen. Sullivan's office and someone there said she'd have someone email me a copy.  If I didn't get it within a week, call back.  

Then I got an email from the legislative chat guy with a link to a transcript.

My basic reaction based on the original quotes I'd heard, hadn't changed.  Let's see if I can summarize my thoughts about the speech so that others don't have to take the time to read/listen to it and take the time to think it through.  

But unfortunately, it's difficult to 'simply' critique the speech because it's built on layers and layers of false assumptions and myths.

[I'm putting this up tonight.  But I reserve the right to review it again in the morning and make cosmetic changes.]

I'll start with the original quotes and my responses to them.  Then I'll add a few notes of other issues he's raised.  

There's lots of bluster in these quotes from Alaska Public Media

Here are the quotes I originally got from Alaska Public Media.  They certainly highlighted the bluster.  

PART I:  Biden's War on Alaska

"U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan told Alaska’s legislators on Monday that President Biden’s administration is at war with Alaska over developing resources." 

“This is not surprising,” Sullivan said. “We knew this anti-Alaska agenda was coming if the national Democratic Party took control of the White House, the Senate and the House. Alaska is always the gift that national Democratic administrations give their extreme, radical environmental supporters.”

First,  the issues with his language, style, rhetoric.

1.  Sullivan takes a disagreement on prioritizing values - balancing climate change concerns and economic concerns, in this case development of natural resources, particularly oil - and makes this into a war on Alaska.  

Rather than acknowledging that Biden's administration has legitimate concerns about climate change and debating the facts of climate change and how much oil development and then consumption contributes to climate change - a battle Sullivan can't win - Sullivan accuses the Biden administration of targeting Alaska, declaring war on Alaska.  Good populist rhetoric to rile up Alaskans.  

He also talks about 'extreme, radical environmental supporters.'  Who exactly are these people and what are their extreme radical policies?  He doesn't tell us.  Facts get in the way of his 'war on Alaska' narrative.  When we're at war, there's no debate, no discussion of the issues.  

This is, basically, a red meat speech to rile up Alaskans about how they're being screwed by the Biden administration.  

2.  You can't work out issues if you declare the other side the enemy - which is what you do, in effect, when you say you are at war.  Sullivan has also recently called on the Biden Administration to use bi-partisanship 

"Bipartisan efforts are the key to successful voting rights reform, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week," as hopes for reaching across the aisle in Congress falter and calls for removing the filibuster grow louder." [From ABC News]

But how can you call on your perceived opponent to work cooperatively with you if you say he's declared war on you?  

Second, issues with the facts, which the war metaphor skips over.

1.  Climate change versus oil and gas development.

A.  First, let's be clear.  Dan Sullivan is a Koch brothers product.  He's a spokesman for oil and gas. They, through their various 'think tanks' and institutes, spread climate change denial as widely as they could.  

B.  Oil and gas are significant contributors to climate change - a human caused change to our atmosphere that is warming the planet, including the oceans, and causing widespread extreme weather related disasters - from droughts that kill farming and help set up huge wild fires, to more and stronger hurricane and other storm conditions that flood out farmlands and cities.  The list goes on and on.  Climate change is the biggest threat to civilized human life on earth.  

But it's inconvenient for oil and gas producers who want to squeeze out the last dime of their projects around the world. Oil companies have been subsidized by the US forever and they fought subsidies for companies pursuing alternative energy options. 

C.  Oil has been a bonanza for Alaska.  We saved about $70 billion of that bonanza in the Alaska Permanent Fund. (Though Norway, whose fund began much later than ours, has a fund of over $1 trillion.  Norway didn't abolish its income tax when it set up its fund the way Alaska did.)  Oil money has helped pay Alaska's bills for over 40 years now, as well as a number of boondoggles.   

D.  But oil's day, while not over for a long time, is on the wane.  Currently, we make more money from Permanent Fund earnings than we do from oil.  And the oil tax credit laws Alaska's Republican legislatures have passed have Alaskans paying billions to oil companies, not the other way around. Republican lawmakers continue to block new sources of revenue, especially an income tax.  (Though some see this as inevitable.)   Not only has the Prudhoe Bay production declined, oil's role in climate change is making oil itself a problem.  Electric cars are beginning to replace gas powered vehicles. Major banks have refused to loan money to oil companies for Arctic projects.  Our governor has talked about forcing banks to make those loans, but says mask wearing is voluntary.  The banks aren't 'caving to environmentalists'.  Rather, they see the trends and are making calculated business decisions that these are no longer good investments.  

While it's going to be 20-40 years before most oil is phased out, and Alaska will continue to produce oil and gas during those years, the writing is on the wall.  We need to wean ourselves off oil.  We won the lottery and made a lot of money.  But now we have to learn how to sustain ourselves like most states.  We have to diversify.  But we do have $70 billion saved up which could grow and pay for part of our budget forever.  

Senator Sullivan is still hanging out with the oil guys who haven't accepted that the world is changing.  It's Sullivan who is getting further and further into the extreme, while the 'extreme, radical, environmental supporters' are becoming the mainstream.  

Part II - Socialism, Work and Dignity

Another quote from Sullivan's speech:

“They’re tempting America with cradle-to-grave, European-style socialism,” he said. “They’re cutting the ties between work and income, and in so doing, undermining the notion of earned success and the dignity and importance of work.”

In Sullivan's mind, socialism, unlike capitalism, is an evil system.  But capitalism is based on the benefits of greed, everyone for themselves.  Whereas socialism recognizes that people need to look after each other as well as themselves.  But it's not either/or.  We already have a mixture of both.  No one is for abolishing capitalism, just for correcting for the flaws inherent in capitalism that pro-market economists themselves tell us about.  Most notably in this discussion are externalities - the by-products of the industry that society, not the corporations, bear.  All that escaped carbon warming the planet.

But another result of unfettered capitalism is extreme wealth inequality.

"According to the latest Fed data, the top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion (or 30.4% of all household wealth in the U.S.), while the bottom 50% of the population holds just $2.1 trillion combined (or 1.9% of all wealth)." (From Forbes)

Once the distribution of money is so lopsided all kinds of terrible things happen.  All that concentrated money give the rich undue influence on politicians and the public.  Oil companies  spread misinformation about climate change and prevented the US from taking action much earlier.  It also allows for the wealthy to 'buy' politicians - something Senator Sullivan knows about, but never talks about publicly.  

Cradle-to-grave is a Republican slur.  I just read in the ADN today about how states and private contractors that they hire, steal social security benefits from foster kids.  How low can people go?  

Is Senator Sullivan really against supporting orphans?  Against helping babies that are abused or abandoned by their parents?   Is he really against affordable health care?  (We know the answer to that - in theory no, but in practice, yes.)  Is he against Social Security for those injured who cannot work and for those who are elderly?  That's what cradle-to-grave really means.  

But let's also look at the part about 'cutting the ties between work and income.'  Sullivan's grandfather started a business - RPM - that made the family wealthy.  Wealthy enough to help fund his campaign for Senator.  I'm not arguing that Sullivan doesn't work hard - his resume suggests otherwise.  But growing up wealthy makes it much harder to see what growing up poor (in that bottom 50%) is like.    

But beyond that, the connection between work and income has been obliterated by the wealthy who own big businesses.  They've jacked up their own incomes to a point where there is absolutely no relationship between the work they put in and the income they receive.  Why?  Because they can.    They did this, in part by paying their employees minimum wage, cutting out employee pensions, and giving them poor to no health insurance, and by moving to lower wage countries, and automation.  People working minimum wage simply don't earn enough to save any money at all.  

The" dignity of work" and the" tie between work and income" are myths that the rich invented to justify why they were rich and the poor were poor. There was no dignity in work, no tie between work and income for slaves, or for blacks in the South after emancipation.  Or, for that matter, blacks in the North and the West.   The 1950s and 60s were a golden age for white (and even for some blacks) where income distribution was far more equal than today. The ratio of CEO pay to worker pay was 21-to-1 in 1965.  It went up to 61-to-1 in 1989, and is up to 320 to 1 in 2019. (from The Economic Policy Institute.  

Issues from the rest of the speech

Sullivan's reverence for the military

Sullivan was in the Marines.  He's still in the reserves if I understand that correctly.  We're all affected by our backgrounds and experience, for better and for worse.  It helps when one recognizes one's biases.  I mention this because Sullivan starts with an anecdote from Korean War (he says he's a Korean War buff.)

"As a U.S. Marine and Korean War history buff, I found some inspiration from the past. One of the most epic battles of the Korean War was the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir where 20,000 United States Marines were surrounded by 120,000 Communist Chinese soldiers. And, oh by the way, it was 30 degrees below zero in the mountains. I have a painting, in my office in Anchorage, of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir reminding me that no matter what kind of day you might be having, it could be a lot worse. The surrounded and heavily outnumbered marines had to retreat back to the sea. When thedismayed marines asked their commanding officer how he would explain the retreat, the first in marine corps history, he remarked, "Retreat? Hell, we're just attacking in another direction." Colonel Chesty Puller, the Corps' most decorated officer, remarked similarly, "The enemy is in front of us and behind us, they are on both of our flanks, those bastards can't get away from us now." Through grit and determination, attacking and counterpunching, and sticking together, the United States Marine Corps won the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir against great odds."

Maybe this helps to explain the "war on Alaska" metaphor mentioned earlier.  He uses this anecdote to say even though Republicans have lost the House, Senate, and Presidency, we need to be like Col. Puller.  

He talks about defeats and wins as though he's still on the battlefield - and I'm sure he'd say politics IS a battlefield.  And that is one metaphor that's often used.  But it's not healthy to say that the President is at war with Alaska.  That's nonsense.  That sort of warlike behavior may have been true during the Trump administration when he withheld benefits from states whose governors didn't kiss his ring, but that simply isn't Biden's style.  Oil production in Alaska may be a casualty of the Biden climate policy, but it's not because Biden hates Alaska and is intentionally attacking the state.

But most egregiously, and the number one issue I've talked to her [the new Secretary of Interior Deb Haaland] about, is through this misguided decision, it will dramatically limit the lands available to those thousands of Alaska Native Vietnam-era veterans who were unable to select their land allotment because they were serving their country in a war that many people were avoiding service in. For decades, all Alaskans, Native, non-Native, Democrat and Republican came together to try to right this wrong.

In last year's Congress, or two Congresses ago, I was able with our delegation to shepherd legislation addressing this injustice that we got signed into law and the PLOs, Public Land Orders, were the way in which we were going to implement this law. I called Secretary Haaland immediately when I heard the news of a two-year delay. I told her that as a result of her decision, Alaska Native Vietnam Veterans who served their country admirably, when so many avoided service, and who have waited decades for the land allotments, might not be able to live long enough to get these.

There's a lot to unravel here. First, I'd note that he mentions twice "when so many avoided service."  This is both ironic and also rather biased.  It's ironic because in the last 20 years their have been two Republican presidents who "avoided service".  Bush did it [got elected] in part by smearing a decorated war hero (John Kerry).  Trump has famously called people who go to war 'suckers.'  Yet, the discipline drilled into Marines to obey their superiors seems to have permeated the Senator who has so loyally supported Trump, even though a Senator's job is not to slavishly obey the President, but to be a check to his power. 

Second, I'd note that history has clearly shown that the Vietnam War was a mistake.  It was bad policy.  While many who avoided the draft back then did so because they didn't want to risk anything, others did it because they had figured out it was a bad war, a war we shouldn't have been in.  

I obviously can't point out every little point like this, but I need to offer some to make the point that there are many more.  Now, back to Vietnam-era veteran allotments.

 It's not an issue I know well, but let's look at what this BLM announcement says:

Applications will be accepted between Dec. 28, 2020 and Dec. 29, 2025 for the Alaska Native Vietnam-era Veterans Land Allotment Program of 2019. The program provides the opportunity for eligible Vietnam-era veterans or their heirs to select 2.5 to 160 acres of Federal land in Alaska under the 2019 Dingell Act. The program is open to all eligible Alaska Natives who served between Aug. 5, 1964, and Dec. 31, 1971, and it removes the requirement for personal use or occupancy mandated under previous laws. Those receiving allotments under previous programs are ineligible. 

 Let's see now.  

• " a two-year delay" - A two year delay gets us to 2023.  There will still be two years to apply.
• "might not be able to live long enough to get these"  It's true there probably will be vets who die before 2025.  And they won't see their land.  But, this is open to their heirs as well, who will.  

More from the BLM announcement:

"The selection period is active until December 29, 2025, for the estimated 2,200 eligible veterans and heirs. Nearly 30 allotment applications are already being processed, and the BLM is poised to receive more." 

•  " to those thousands of Alaska Native Vietnam-era veterans" - well, if the BLM announcement is correct, there are 2,200 total which is heirs as well as vets.  This is probably a picky point, but I value accuracy.  If just 1000 vets had two kids each, there would be 2000 heirs.  So I'm guessing more than 200 of the 2,200 are heirs and there aren't 'thousands of Alaska Native Vietnam-era veterans' waiting to enroll.  
• I would agree though, that 30 applications since December 28, 2020 doesn't sound like a lot.  

I'd note that despite the fact that Sullivan says Biden is at war with Alaska, Sullivan has acknowledged in this speech that the administration has responded to a number of Alaska issues

• "I told them to hold off and frantically worked the phones with the brand-new Biden team, saying to them, "It can't really be your intention, in your first month in office, to lay off and give pink slips to hundreds of Alaskan workers on the North Slope. Is that true?" It took some time, but they said "No," and they let the work proceed."  I'd note that 30-40% of oil workers in Alaska are not Alaskans.  The report also says that 77% of fish processors are non-resident. Another industry Sullivan says he's fight hard for is cruise lines.  He also gets more money from the cruise industry than any other US Senator.  And that industry has more non-resident employees than Alaskans.  
• I must admit I was very pleased when Secretary Raimondo called me just a few weeks after she was confirmed by the Senate to tell me she'd be announcing close to a twenty million dollar investment for the construction of a dock, a pier, and an office facility complex for the Fairweather, and that that ship, with a crew of 51 members, would finally be home-ported in Ketchikan by the end of 2021 after a two- decade absence. That is an important victory for Alaska.
• Another victory was the recent announcement by the U.S. Air Force for four more KC-135 tankers to be home-based in Alaska with an additional 220 airmen and their families. You combine this increase with the hundred fifth-generation fighters that are coming to our state by the end of next year; that's F-35's and F-22's. No place on the planet has that kind of fire power for the Air Force, and our state is truly becoming one of the most important centers for air combat power anywhere in the world. This is great for America's national security, but also really great for Alaska's economy.

OK.  Just one more note.  At the end of the speech to he talked about how zoom and the pandemic have changed things and that this is a great opportunity for Alaska.

Finally, one of the benefits of my job when you’re talking about other opportunities is to get a sense of what's going on throughout America and what’s going on in America right now is that the pandemic accelerated, with telework and the reality of things like Zoom, a new way of working, and that dysfunctional and mismanaged cities across the nation are hollowing out.

People have had enough and they're leaving. If you look around at what's happening in the United States, more and more of our smart young dynamic people are leaving places to build businesses in other places that are well-managed and where they can have a lifestyle that they crave like in our great state.

This is pretty much the pitch that Forrest Dunbar made in a debate last week with Dave Bronson in the Anchorage mayoral runoff.  Dunbar was explaining why cutting every agency except the police, as Bronson was advocating, was a bad idea.  

Yet Sullivan has supported Bronson for mayor.  Bronson is in the same mold as Trump (no government experience, talks off the top of his head, doesn't believe in COVID as a serious threat) and comes with the same fervor for cutting government as Dunleavy.  

If you call for bi-partisanship one week and then accuse the administration of a War On Alaska, it's hard to see where there's room for compromise.  But this speech was full of bluster for the Alaska audience, and I suspect the Biden administration allows for Senators to vent for the home crowd.

Sorry to go on so long.  Political speeches are meant to persuade with emotion, not with facts.  And critiquing such speeches requires one to get into the details.  

Dear Senator Dan Sullivan (Again? This is getting old)

Dear Senator Sullivan,  

It appears that you have already made up your mind to vote to acquit ex-President Trump.  I don't understand that decision, which most of the Republican Senators seem determined to make.  But this is critically important so I will give you the view of one of your constituents on why you should vote too convict.

As a young man, I listened to most of the Watergate Hearings on the radio.  Let me begin with this quote from Howard Baker, Republican Vice Chair of the Watergate Investigation:

“There's only one way that my party, the Republican Party could be mortally wounded with certainty and that would be for the public to think that we Republicans don’t have the courage, the stamina, the determination to clean our own house."

I've watched four days of impeachment hearings now.  It's clear that the House team made a tight, detailed, well organized, factual case against the ex-president.  They clearly showed how his actions, since well before the election even, set up the mob that ransacked the Capitol.  They showed how he created the big lie - "if I lose, the election was a fraud."  After the election he kept up that refrain - and presented no credible evidence in 61 courts.  All the judges rejected his cases out of hand. Not just Republican judges, but judges Trump himself appointed!

Then he tried to intimidate Republican election officials in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia into decertifying the elections.  He told the Georgia head of elections to just find enough votes to let him win!

Then he started telling his supporters to "Stop The Steal."  He encouraged them many times to prevent Biden from becoming president.  

Not only was the evidence they presented overwhelming, but for anyone paying attention to legitimate news the last six months, it was all stuff we knew already.  You yourself related how you and Sen. Murkowski sprinted out of the Chamber because the insurgents were knocking out the windows and banging on the doors where the House and Senate were certifying the election.  

Trump's defense attorneys made feeble attempts to reiterate their claim that "impeaching a private citizen was unconstitutional."  But we know he was impeached while he was a sitting president.  We also know that judges and other officers have been convicted after they resigned.  

They argued that his First Amendment rights were violated.  They dismissed the letter from over 100 top Constitutional lawyers, including key people from the Federalist Society, as "partisan."  It wasn't.  I'm guessing by your question today, that you will choose  "You can't impeach a private citizen" as your fig leaf to cover your vote.  It's transparent.  It won't cover what you're trying to hide.

They played five minutes of video tape of every time any Democrat had ever said "Fight" arguing that the ex-president saying it numerous times in his pre-rampage speech was equivalent.  The House team put the ex-president's words into context.  Trump's team did not.  Instead they tried to make it seem that telling people to fight for equal justice for African-Americans who are regularly being harassed and  killed by police is the same as telling an armed mob to take the Capitol and stop the certification of the election by violence.  

Some have argued that the Senate Republicans are suffering from the political version of Battered Woman Syndrome.  I assume that you know about this syndrome since you have championed the ending of abuse against women.  But let me remind you of some of the symptoms:

• learned helplessness
• refusing to leave the relationship
• believing that the abuser is powerful or knows everything
• idealizing the abuser following a cycle of abuse
• believing they deserve the abuse

Here's what some key Republicans said of Trump in 2016:

"On the campaign trail, Rand called Trump a “delusional narcissist” and a “fake conservative,” and Trump mocked his height. Rubio mocked Trump’s small hand size and called Trump a “con artist,” and Trump eviscerated  “Lil Marco.” Graham said Trump was a “kook,” “crazy,” and “unfit for office,” and Trump gave out Graham’s personal cellphone number on national television. Cruz said Trump was a “pathological liar,” a “narcissist,” and a “serial philanderer,” and Trump and basically called Cruz’s wife ugly—while accusing Cruz’s dad of being involved in the Kennedy assassination." (from The Daily Beast.) 

You yourself said you were ready to support Pence as the candidate and you publicly said you didn't vote for Trump in 2016.  

Yet all these Republican Senators, including yourself, have lined up to staunchly back Trump for four years, and the now the ex-president.  

The battered woman syndrome does seem to fit well in two particular ways.  

• Often women are afraid to get out of relationships because they fear how their men will retaliate.  
• Or they are afraid they can't afford, for economic reasons, to leave the relationship.  

That sounds pretty close to the situation of Senate Republicans.  You're afraid of retaliation by Trump and by his supporters and you are afraid of losing the economic support of Republicans in your next election.  

You've taken an oath to support the Constitution both as a Marine and as a US Senator.  You're allowing your personal interests and the peer pressure of your Republican colleagues to close your eyes to what that oath requires of you now.  The case against the ex-president is more than clear.  Trump's defense team was all smoke and mirrors.  

There is more to life than being a US Senator if that is the price for honoring your oath to office.  But you aren't up for reelection until 2026.  By then, voting to convict Trump will be respected by conservatives as well as progressives.  Or Trump will be using his acquittal to continue to claim he was robbed of the election and will still be stoking the fires of white supremacy and creating more havoc than you can imagine now.  Just as you didn't imagine the storming of the Capitol when you voted to acquit last time.

The American people know Trump should be publicly sanctioned and banned from office.  The world knows that.  And even if Republicans prevent conviction, the House's case is well preserved on video tape for future generations of Americans to see it for themselves in history classes.  And they will.  Your children and grandchildren will see it.  And they will know you didn't have the courage to honor your oaths to protect the Constitution.  They will realize that you grabbed some of the irrelevant sound bytes that Trump's lawyers offered Republicans to use to excuse their votes.  

I urge you to stop hiding and stand up front and proudly and deliberately cast your vote (mine too since you represent me in the  Senate) to convict Donald Trump.

Thank you

Blogging During A Pandemic And Insurrection

1.  John Brown and Harper's Ferry

From History:

"Abolitionist John Brown leads a small group on a raid against a federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed revolt of enslaved people and destroy the institution of slavery."

 This incident is in every American history textbook.  STOP  My students knew that if they wrote a sentence like that, I would underline it and write something like:  "Have you looked at every American history textbook?  

So, of course I had to see what I could find to answer that question.  I suspect one would have to sample as many US history books as one could gather and read through them.  (I did something like that in an article about the lack of Native American Law in public administration textbooks.)  In answer to that question I did find some related sites.  One is by a history teacher writing about how to use Harper's Ferry as a lesson. He writes:

"What the Textbooks Say

Brown’s raid often appears in the narrative of the Civil War as the point of no return—the moment in which the country’s deep divide between free and slave interests polarized with the injection of violence. Textbooks tend to describe the responses to Brown’s raid and trial in binary terms, with Northerners and Southerners displaying unified, and starkly opposite, reactions."

That doesn't answer the question, but does let us know it's a topic in many history textbooks both in the North and the South.  

Magazine of History looks at John Brown as an chance to teach history, not through the memorization of names and dates, but as an opportunity to explore difficult and ever present moral tensions.  

Although the institution of slavery was purged in the crucible of the American Civil War, John Brown's determination to expose and end chattel slavery still resonates. The multiple legacies of slavery and questions about the efficacy of violence as a tool for change in a democratic society continually bring historians and teachers back to the complicated life of John Brown. When students consider Brown's contributions to the American narrative, lines between advocacy and criminality, contrasts between intensity and obsession, and differences between democratic ideals and harsh reality are brought to the surface. To this day, artists, authors, historians, political activists, and creators of popular culture maintain a fascination with the antebellum rights-warrior and his death.

Wow.  I was planning an array of short comments in this post, and already I've gotten carried away on this first one.  But as I think about those who plundered the Capitol Wednesday, I have to think about Harper's Ferry and the fact that this nation is still divided over the same questions that led to Harper's Ferry.  While slavery has been abolished (but not completely eliminated if we consider things like sex trafficking and even prison labor, and some might suggest people who have no choice but to take minimum wage jobs), the belief that some people are inherently superior to other people based on skin color or ethnicity or religion is still capable of stirring people to violent attempts to overthrow the rule of law.  Just as the belief that everyone deserves to be treated by police with the same respect and the same level of force based on the real inherent danger to the police and the public got people out into the streets all summer.  

When John Brown took up arms, slavery was still legal in the United States.  His cause was to overturn those laws.  As much as I want to believe that slavery is inherently evil and that racism is evil, there are tens of millions of people who either disagree or think these issues are subordinate to other values they hold.  

2.  Both Energized And Drained by Zoom

Thursday I was in front of my screen from 3-3:30 watching Bridgman/Packer's presentation to APAP.  

"The Association of Performing Arts Professionals is the national service, advocacy and membership organization for the live performing arts field. APAP is dedicated to developing and supporting a robust performing arts presenting, booking and touring industry and the professionals who work within it."

My understanding is that every year they have artists - in this case dancers - perform for people who book acts to various venues around the country.  This year it was done virtually and Bridgman/Packer invited us to sit in.  Bridgman/Packer is a dance duo that totally dazzled me when I first saw them perform in Anchorage.  We've sent a modest check each year to support their work - it's criminal how geniuses in the arts have to scrape by.  Here's the blog post I wrote when we first saw them.  I was trying not to give anything away.  But the magic of what they do is combining live dancing with prerecorded dancing, use of screens and shadows.  It sounds odd, but it's amazing. In the showcase they talked about and showed video of their work.  They've been using abandoned factories in upstate New York as filmed backdrops.  They also do dances inside a large truck.  And they had one set that was filmed by a drone.  

Then I had back to back political fundraisers - we have a mayoral race in Anchorage in April - to attend.  And finally I tried to watch the Humanity Forum's annual awards to see Rachel Epstein get her award.  She ran the UAA bookstore speaker program for years and years - a real treat for many of us.  

3.  Turkish and Spanish

I've been doing 20-30 minutes a day of Spanish on Duolingo for over a year now.  It helps my vocabulary and grammar, and my listening, but not my speaking.  But I figure it keeps my brain active.  A couple of months ago I decided to add Turkish.  A month or two in Istanbul is something I've been wanting to do.  I skipped Istanbul in 1965 when I was hitching from Germany to Greece and back - promising to get there one day.  So we've watched a few Turkish movies on Netflix, and the one at the Anchorage International Film Festival.  Turkish definitely offers insights in grammar that I'd never considered.  Lots of things - like plurals and possessives - are done with suffixes.  Well, we add an 's' to make plurals, or 'ies' so I'm sure we're as bizarre to speakers of other languages.  Also, adjusting my brain and fingers to a Turkish keyboard is tricky too.  

4.   Prodding Dan

I sent my junior Senator another email.  I figure his original Koch backers have their own agenda for him in the US Senate so he's more loyal to that than to protecting Democracy.  But I figure I can keep reminding him I'm here and I want him to prove he's really a Marine.  And maybe the staffers who read the emails are more susceptible to reason.  

5.  Keeping My Photoshop Skills Alive

6.  And There's The Daily Alaska COVID Count Update

Dear Senator Dan Sullivan:

First, let me thank you working with Senators from both parties to get the Oceans Act passed.  This is a big achievement.  But it would mean nothing if President Trump were to succeed in overturning our democratic election.  As you know the courts have resoundingly rejected about 60 challenges made by Trump because there was no evidence presented to back up his claims.  And yesterday we learned that Trump called the Republican Secretary of State of Georgia and told him to find some 11,000 votes to overturn Biden's win in Georgia, with a threat of legal action if he didn't.  

Today I urge you to strongly endorse the certification of Biden's election and to denounce those senators who are threatening to challenge the election.  There is no doubt that Biden has legitimately been elected president of the United States.  Not denouncing those challenging this election merely feeds the white nationalists and others who want to reestablish 'the good old days' when White men were never challenged by women or people of color.  We need to resoundingly denounce these actions.  

I try to imagine what calculations you are making that prevent you from taking bold action on this issue.  I watched you take the oath yesterday to defend the Constitution.  This certification of the vote is one of the most important opportunities you have to do that.  To end the alarming talk of a number of people in your party, including sitting US Senators.  

I'm not willing yet to believe that you support this seditious action and would welcome an armed resurrection and coup to keep Trump in power.  

The only concern of yours that makes any sense at all to me is that you fear Trump supporters finding a candidate more amenable to their anti-democratic, racist views to run against you in 2026.  But you have nearly six years until you are up for reelection.  The world will be significantly different by then.  And probably most important on this point, Alaska will be using Ranked Choice voting.  There will be no Republican primary where you can be defeated by far right extremists in your party.  

As part of your campaign you told Alaskans that you are a Marine.  We expect you to show the courage of a Marine.  We expect you not to hide in the back of the crowd, but to stand up front to resoundingly defeat this challenge to our democracy.  

Readers can send their own email to Senator Sullivan here.  

My Email To Senator Sullivan And His Response And Links For You To Contact Your Senators

Out of great frustration with Republicans in the Senate I sent an email to my junior Senator Dan Sullivan:

 

" Here's a Tweet from a Republican former head of the House Intelligence Committee: 

Mike Rogers 

@RepMikeRogers 

· 8h 

Our adversaries aren't waiting for the transition to take place. @JoeBiden should receive the President's Daily Brief (PDB) starting today. He needs to know what the latest threats are & begin to plan accordingly. This isn't about politics; this is about national security. 

Senator Sullivan - do your damn job and protect our Democracy from the internal threats caused by Trump's refusal to acknowledge reality and his spreading of conspiracy theories and fomenting his supporters to believe the election was stolen. And protect our nation from foreign threats by making sure the presidential transition proceeds immediately. 

I don't know what threats and enticements have kept the Republicans in the Senate so meek when it comes to confronting the very worst and most dangerous president of the United States ever, but you're a Marine. Do your duty, sir!"

Here's the response I got today:

"Thank you for contacting my office. Your opinions and concerns are important to me. My staff and I are hard at work to ensure Alaskan voices are represented in Washington and you will soon be hearing back from us with a more detailed response to your inquiry. In the meantime, please make sure to visit my website for additional information on recent legislation. 

I appreciate and am honored to have the opportunity to represent you in the U.S. Senate. 

Sincerely, 

Dan Sullivan 

U.S. Senator "

OK, I'm willing to accept that this is simply a courtesy response so that people know the email was received.  And he's promising a more detailed response.  

But we know that at least 109,000 people voted for Al Gross (Sullivan's Senate opponent).  If 5% of those people called up Sullivan's office each day for the next week on this topic, that would be 35,000 calls.  (Well not really because it would jam up his system, so you could send emails if you can't get through on the phone)  That kind of response might get his attention.  Though just coming off an election win, maybe not.  

Here's the website with all the contact information for Dan Sullivan. 

Here's the page for Lisa Murkowski.  (The Office Location link gives you phone numbers.)

And for non-Alaskans, here's the page to find your Senators.

 

LA Times Article Looks At Republican Candidates Reversing Their Anti-ACA Stances - Including Dan Sullivan

Alaskans have all recently watched as Senator Dan Sullivan was forced by a leaked video to take a strong Twitter stand against Pebble Mine.  In the video, Pebble executives say that Sullivan is in their corner, but keeping quiet before the election. 

An LA Times article today says Sullivan, along with other Republicans like Iowa's Joni Ernst, are backing off their earlier anti-ACA stands.  

"WASHINGTON — Contempt for the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — was so central to Sen. Joni Ernst’s 2014 election campaign that the Iowa Republican, in a TV ad promising she’d “unload” on the law, pulled out a handgun and fired repeatedly. “Give me a shot,” she asked voters.

Six years later, the first-term senator is battling for reelection, and she’s holstered her gun.

Ernst is not alone. Earlier this month, she joined fellow Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Dan Sullivan of Alaska — two other would-be assassins of the 10-year-old healthcare law who are now fighting for their political survival — in breaking with their party to support Obamacare on the Senate floor. They voted with Democrats on a measure opposing a Republican-backed case against the law that’s now before the Supreme Court.

As that vote showed, endangered Republicans are frantically trying to pivot away from the “repeal Obamacare” slogans that served them well for much of the last decade. Those are now a liability amid a jump in public support for the healthcare law.

Candidates also are playing down the long-standing legal challenge initiated by a coalition of Republican-led states that’s reached the Supreme Court. And from President Trump on down, they claim to be guardians of Obamacare’s most popular provision — a guarantee of insurance coverage for people with preexisting conditions — though that mandate would fall with the rest of the law if the court’s conservative majority sides with Republicans."

As you can see from the chart below, Alaska is one of only four states not involved in the case, either for or against the ACA.  

The chart comes from a Kaiser Family Foundation webpage that explains the court case and who all is involved.  Click on the chart to enlarge and focus it.

But I'm more troubled by unflagging loyalty to Trump as one of the bots on the Republican side of the US Senate.  He acts like a kid who doesn't want the teacher to call on him.  Sort of like the Pebble guy who said he's trying to lie low until the election is over.  And while he said he didn't vote for Trump in 2016, he now says he will.  

One has to wonder who is holding all those Republican Senators in line and voting to confirm Amy Barrett's appointment to the Supreme Court.  Senator Whitehouse gave the most insightful presentation on that in the Hearings and I'm hoping to get up a post about that soon.  I'll link to it here when I do.  

[UPDATE October 17, 2020:  Here's another article from Salon:  Alaska GOP senator routinely voted for policies that benefited family's chemical company]

Sen Dan Sullivan Responds Quickly To My Email Concerning Impeachment [UPDATED With Murkowski's Impeachment Response And Views Flying Out Of Anchorage)

The options one has when picking a topic at Dan Sullivan's 'contact' site does include Impeachment.  Not could I find "other.'   So I marked something like "Crime and Law Enforcement."

If you want to contact Sen. Sullivan you can at this link.
Senator Lisa Murkowski can be contacted here.

For non-Alaskans, you can get to your Senators here.

His response does not address the specific issues I raised, but it suggests that he's getting at least a few letters.  It stays neutral except for a part that takes a jab at the fairness of the House process.  Here's the response:

"Dear Mr. A,
Thank you for contacting me regarding the impeachment of President Trump. I appreciate your thoughts on this issue and welcome the opportunity to respond.
Article II, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution reads, “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United Sates, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The House and Senate have essential, but different roles in carrying out the constitutional responsibilities required for the impeachment inquiry and trial. An impeachment proceeding must originate in the House of Representatives.
Following allegations that President Trump potentially engaged Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, the House of Representatives initiated an impeachment inquiry on September 24, 2019.
Articles of impeachment are a set of charges, and act similar to an indictment in court. Following the House’s decision to impeach, the Senate conducts a trial. When the trial concludes, the Senate meets as a whole to deliberate. A conviction requires the support of two-thirds of the Senators present.
On December 18, 2019, the House approved two articles of impeachment: Article I by a vote of 230 to 197, and Article II by a vote of 229 to 198. This matter has now moved to the Senate, where a trial is being conducted. On January 22, 2020, the Senate agreed to rules for the procedures of the impeachment trial. These rules, very similar to those used during the impeachment of former President Clinton, allow the House managers and the President’s legal team 24 hours each to present their arguments. Importantly, these rules allow the Senate to call additional witnesses and request documents if determined necessary after the first phase of the trial where both sides are able to fully present their side of the case and answer questions from Senators. The fair and reasonable rules agreed to for the trial in the Senate stand in sharp contrast to the process in the House.
Now that articles of impeachment have come before the Senate for consideration, I have sworn an oath as a juror to do “impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws,” and I will reserve final judgement on this matter until all facts are known. I encourage you to read the impeachment proceedings from both the House managers and the President’s legal team, and determine for yourself the fairness of the proceedings and whether the actions of the President constitute an impeachable offense. The impeachment briefings can be found on my website at the following link:
https://www.sullivan.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/information-on-the-senates-impeachment-proceedings
Thank you again for contacting me on this issue. If you have any more questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me or my staff. My office can be reached at 202-224-3004, or online at www.sullivan.senate.gov."

Sincerely,

Dan Sullivan
United States Senator 

[UPDATE January 27, 2020m 9:57pm Seattle time:  This email from Senator Murkowski, in response to an email I sent a week ago, came shortly after I posted Sen. Sullivan's response.  But I

was on an airplane and I only just saw it after spending time with my granddaughter here and daughter here on Bainbridge.

"Dear Steven:

          Thank you for contacting me to share your views.  I appreciate hearing from you and having the opportunity to explain my position on the Articles of Impeachment against the President and the trial being held in the Senate.
          As you know, the Articles of Impeachment have been sent over from the House and are now before us.  Our responsibilities as a Senate are outlined in the U.S. Constitution—the Senate will act as the court of impeachment.  Our duty is to oversee a fair trial.
          While I encouraged the Majority Leader and Minority Leader to come ­to an agreement on setting the parameters for the Senate trial, after several weeks that did not happen.  I supported the organizing resolution offered by Majority Leader McConnell, which follows the framework set in the 1999 trial of President Clinton.  This effectively provides President Trump the same treatment every senator thought was fair for President Clinton during his impeachment trial.  This process allows the House and the President to present their case, following which Senators are allowed time to submit questions to the case managers.  After those questions, the Senate will then be allowed to vote on whether it is in order to ask for witness testimony or additional documents.
          The removal of a duly elected President by impeachment is a significant and serious matter and should not be approached lightly.  I have taken an oath to deliver impartial justice according to the Constitution and the law.  I will not rush to judgment, making all decisions based on the facts of the case presented.
          Again, thank you for contacting me.
United States Senator
Lisa Murkowski
http://murkowski.senate.gov*"

Dear Dan Sullivan, I'd Like To Recommend John F. Kennedy's Profiles In Courage

You served in the Marines and still do part of the year.  The Marines are known as courageous and never giving up until they have victory.  They are also supposedly fighting for democracy.

I don't have any details on how you served on the battlefield, but in Congress, I don't see any courage or backbone or do or die fight for Democracy.  Instead I see you and many other Republican Senators holding back, weighing the personal consequences of doing the right thing, and waiting until it is safe.

That doesn't seem to me to be the Marine we elected to the Senate.

The evidence against the president is overwhelming.  Just read, or have your staff read for you, Seth Abramson's Proof of Conspiracy and then let me know all the places he's wrong.

Just read the Mueller Report.  The whole report with the grand jury material as well.

I would also suggest you read John F. Kennedy's slim volume, Profiles in Courage, which is about eight US Senators.  (The link takes you to an online version.)  I know your time is limited, but sometimes people need to take a break to reflect on their values.  There's also a free audio version so you could listen while working out.

Kennedy writes:

"This is a book about that most admirable of human
virtues — courage. “Grace under pressure,” Ernest
Hemingway defined it. And these are the stories
of the pressures experienced by eight United States Senators
and the graee with which they endured them — the risks to
their careers, the unpopularity of their courses, the defama-
tion of their characters, and sometimes, but sadly only some-
times, the vindication of their reputations and their
principles.
A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which
in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to
insist upon or reward that quality in its chosen leaders today
— and in fact we have forgotten."

Kennedy, the junior Senator from Massachusetts when he wrote the book, also asked readers to be understanding of the pressures a senator faces.  He quotes two former senators and others whose descriptions of the senate are not laudatory.  Then he continues:

"I am convinced that the complication of public business and the com-
petition for the public’s attention have obscured innumerable
acts of political courage — large and small — performed almost
daily in the Senate Chamber. I am convinced that the decline
— if there has been a decline— has been less in the Senate
than in the public’s appreciation of the art of politics, of the
nature and necessity for compromise and balance, and of the
nature of the Senate as a legislative chamber. And, finally, I
am convinced that we have criticized those who have for-
lowed the crowd — and at the same time criticized those who
have defied it — because we have not fully understood the
responsibility of a Senator to his constituents or recognized
the difliculty facing a politician conscientiously desiring, in
Webster’s words, “to push [his] skiff from the shore alone”
into a hostile and turbulent sea. Perhaps if the American
people more fully comprehended the terrible pressures which
discourage acts of pohtical courage, which drive a Senator
to abandon or subdue his conscience, then they might be
less critical of those who take the easier road — and more
appreciative of those still able to follow the path of courage."

Senator, this book is short and the stories of

• John Quincy Adams 
• Daniel Webster
• Thomas Hart Benton 
• Sam Houston
• Edmund G. Ross 
• Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar
• George Norris 
• Robert A. Taft

may, I hope, remind you of your duty to truth, to the people of the Alaska and the United States, and to the Constitution as you ponder the pros and cons of voting to convict the president if and when the Senate takes up his impeachment.  Also talk to Alaska's senior Senator who seems to know some of this already.

[I'd note that Kennedy cites these Senators for specific acts that displayed great courage. Those acts have not always redeemed other actions these men committed.  And perhaps John F. Kennedy's view from the US  culture of 1955 would not always be consistent with more modern understandings of American history.]

Why Everyone Should Turn Off Online Movies Until They Finish Reading Proof Of Conspiracy - Plus A Brief Twitter Explanation

OK, it's hard to read Proof of Conspiracy because it doesn't come out until Tuesday September 3.  So you have the weekend to binge view.

I've already posted about Seth Abramson's previous book, Proof of Collusion which was like the background guide for the Mueller Report.

Here's an overview of what you'll get in Proof of Conspiracy from the author via a 15 Tweet thread:   [*For those who don't know a Tweet from a Thread, skip down to the bottom of this post]

Seth Abramson
@SethAbramson
·
Aug 30
1/ Two things are simultaneously true:
(1) PROOF OF CONSPIRACY will shock you and profoundly alter your understanding of what the Trump presidency means for the whole world.
(2) PROOF OF CONSPIRACY is fully sourced: 3,250 endnotes and 4,330 citations are being published online.
2/ In fact, for the first time, I'm going to direct people to the website for the 378 pages (not a typo) of endnotes and citations for PROOF OF CONSPIRACY that are available for free online. All stem from the endnotes in the print book, which is 592 pages: https://static.macmillan.com/static/macmillan/proofofconspiracy/endnotes.pdf

3/ The Trump collusion narrative that lay outside the scope of the Mueller Report is larger by a factor of 5—at least—than what even those who've read the full Report have seen. Mueller focused on 1 crime and 1 country; PROOF OF CONSPIRACY looks at *many* crimes and 10 countries.
4/ Every day, America is rediscovering the narrowness of the Mueller Report. Not merely because the Report says at its beginning that Trumpworld witnesses withheld, hid, and destroyed evidence—making a proper, conclusive investigation impossible—but because the probe ended early.

5/ I'm not criticizing Mueller. I believe there were pressures/anxieties in play in his investigation we will one day discover. But the investigation ended with *all* counterintelligence information—a far greater stock of information than what was in the Report—being farmed out.

6/ The Mueller probe ended with key subpoenas unfulfilled, key witnesses unquestioned, key issues unlitigated, key cooperation deals wantonly broken, key lines of inquiry that lay outside the narrow scope of the investigation wholly—seemingly carelessly—unexplored. That's a fact.
7/ The problem we have is that not only did media do nothing to consider, explore, or reveal to news-watchers the *vast* narrative that lay outside the scope of the Mueller Report, it didn't even educate viewers on the *Mueller Report*.
Not Volume 1, at least. *That* it ignored.
8/ Tell most people that the Mueller Report reveals that Trump's top Russia adviser for the entirety of the 2016 campaign was a Soviet-born man who currently works for the Kremlin in Moscow and who Putin has described as a "friend," and they'll say, "No it doesn't."
But it does.

9/ Tell most people that the Mueller Report reveals that weeks before the 2016 election a Kremlin ally wrote Trump's lawyer to confirm the existence of blackmail videos of Trump, thereby issuing an implicit threat from the Kremlin, and they'll say, "No it doesn't."
But it does.

10/ Tell most people that the Mueller Report proves that the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin—and that an indictment undergirded by that collusion couldn't be brought only because Trump convinced Manafort to lie to the feds—and they'll say, "No it doesn't."
But it does.


11/ Media has so ill-prepared us to understand the foundation upon which PROOF OF CONSPIRACY was written that the book must, at points, remind readers of these facts—with citations to the Report and elsewhere—in order to unfold its even-more-terrifying (and fully sourced) story.
10/ Tell most people that the Mueller Report proves that the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin—and that an indictment undergirded by that collusion couldn't be brought only because Trump convinced Manafort to lie to the feds—and they'll say, "No it doesn't."
But it does.

11/ Media has so ill-prepared us to understand the foundation upon which PROOF OF CONSPIRACY was written that the book must, at points, remind readers of these facts—with citations to the Report and elsewhere—in order to unfold its even-more-terrifying (and fully sourced) story.

12/ What we've gotten, instead, is 1,000+ Trump propagandists like John Solomon or anyone at Fox News or Chuck Ross who are lying—bald-facedly lying—every day about what Volume 1 does and does not say, likely because they *haven't read it* and they assume no one else has, either.

13/ If you want to know how carefully documented PROOF OF CONSPIRACY is, consider that whereas most in media ignored Vol. 1 of the Mueller Report—and some lied about having read it and what's in it—I publicly live-tweeted my first reading of it in a thread spanning 500 tweets.

14/ What we're getting:
@ChrisCuomo
—a smart, dedicated journalist—arguing with profoundly dishonest Trump cultist
@KayleighMcEnany
.
What we deserve: Deep dives on the Saudi- and Emirati-funded Israeli disinformation campaign that the Trumps knew about and that helped Trump win.

15/ Upshot: I'm a ride-or-die Mueller-Report-Volume-1 nerd who owes nothing to corporate bosses or advertisers and will offer long-form analysis of a national emergency whether some scoff or not. I worked harder on PROOF OF CONSPIRACY than anything I've worked on in my life. /end

I'm thinking of sending this Tweet to my US Senators.  Dan Sullivan has said his staff has been reading the Mueller Report, but he hasn't.  Murkowski says it's slow, but she's plowing through it.    It should be high a priority.

And so should Proof of Conspiracy.  Maybe this author written set of Cliff Notes might help Sullivan.



*Tweets And Threads

Twitter is a kind of social media where members can post mini-blog posts of up to 280 characters. It used to be 140 characters but eventually they doubled it.

https://www.lifewire.com/twitter-slang-and-key-terms-explained-2655399is a post on Twitter.  They look like this:

EARTH TO DAN SULLIVAN @SenDanSullivan
Critically ill Immigrant kids are being cut-off from medical treatment by the Trump Administration! @POTUS
Do you care?@lisamurkowski @DrAlGrossAK @adn @JuneauEmpire @FDNMPolitics

— Elstun (@ElstunL) September 1, 2019

People can add photos and videos.  And people can comment as well.  But you're limited, as I said, to 280 characters.  People can have a Twitter name (here, it's Elstun) and a @elstonL is how you find him.  The @SenDanSullivan in this post will let Sullivan know he's been mentioned in a Tweet.  There's lots more.  Here's a page which explains key Twitter terms.  I mention all this because I know many people never look at Twitter, even though they hear about the President tweeting every day.

A Thread is a series of Tweets all connected.  This is a way to say more than you can with just 280 characters.

I chose not to 'embed' Seth's Twitter Thread (then it would have looked like it does on Twitter) so I could edit out things that you really don't need, including all the comments.  But if you want, here's the same link as in the beginning which will take you to Seth's Twitter Thread on Twitter.  And no, you don't have to be a member of Twitter to read Tweets there.

Researchers Offer Four Common Characteristics of Mass Shooters

Scholars Jillian Peterson and James Densley  list four common traits of the mass shooters they studied.  This is a very abbreviated form from the LA Times.

"First, the vast majority of mass shooters in our study experienced trauma and exposure to violence at a young age. The nature of their exposure included parental suicide, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence and/or severe bullying. . .
Second, practically every mass shooter we studied had reached an identifiable crisis point in the weeks or months leading up to the shooting.  . .
Third, most of the shooters had studied the actions of other shooters and sought validation for their motives. . .
Fourth, the shooters all had the means to carry out their plans.     . . "

They go on to list ways to prevent such shootings.  Basically:

• remove access to good locations by adding more security
• remove access to guns
• remove the notoriety they seek and get from the media
• remove barriers to reporting people for people who see signs of potential violence*
• much more education about mental health and how to cope and get help in all schools

*This is in contrast to the article that friends of the Ohio shooter broke off from him when he DID show signs, but apparently they didn't tell police until after the shootings.  

But let's remember that the NRA not only leans hard on its Republican (and a very few Democratic) members of Congress to prevent  banning any weapons or adding any restrictions to getting weapons, BUT just as pernicious is their successful ban on government agencies doing research on gun violence.  If you can't do research, you can't show the impact of guns on society.  Fortunately, there are some non-governmental research who continue to study gun violence.

In the 2016 election cycle, Open Secrets tells us the NRA spent  $839,574 on Congressional candidates.
In 2018 (not a presidential election year), they spent  $711,654.

Here's what they spent on Alaskan members of Congress in 2016.  

Name	Office	Total Contributions
Young, Don (R-AK)	House	$6,950
Murkowski, Lisa (R-AK)	Senate	$4,500
Sullivan, Dan (R-AK)	Senate	$2,000

And let's remember the NRA, which used to be an organization of hunters and gun collectors that taught gun safety, is now an organization funded significantly by the gun industry.

How many shootings will it take until half the voting population personally knows someone who died in a mass shooting?  Will we change the laws then?

Comparing Congressional Tweets - AOC Shines

What is it that I like so much about AOC Tweets?
I think it's that she tweets the way I would if I were in Congress, and the way I blogged the Alaska Legislature back in 2010.  Showing us what new eyes notice about the place.  Not worried about 'what you're supposed to do or not do.'  Showing people what goes on behind the scenes that others either take for granted or think shouldn't be talked about.  She also does a great job of giving credit to others.

So here's a great one from today.  [If you click on the > at the bottom right of the Tweet, it will take you to the Twitter page of each of these Members of Congress.]

Let’s talk abt how Gov works behind the scenes: Remember that Big Pharma hearing last week?

Here’s how it happened.

A 23 y/o staffer in my office met w/ local HIV advocates. They argued the CDC held the patent for PrEP & Gilead was price gouging.

She picked it up + dug in. /1

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 24, 2019

My senior US Senator Lisa Murkowski:

As medicine and technology evolve, we must ensure that our healthcare professionals, even in the most rural areas, have access to the continued education that will allow them to provide the best care possible.

— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) May 24, 2019

My Junior Senator Dan Sullivan:

I’d like to commend @IvankaTrump for strongly advocating for #paidfamilyleave. There are a number of proposals—some bipartisan—in the Senate that I will be taking a serious look at in the coming weeks and months. pic.twitter.com/k1EVMSsuPe

— SenDanSullivan (@SenDanSullivan) May 24, 2019

And my member of congress, Don Young:

#OTD in 1919, the House passed the #19thAmendment, finally granting women the right to vote. 100 years on, we honor the women who fought to make history, and celebrate those who continue to do so. Learn more about the 19th Amendment: https://t.co/dQ1tQBmi3G via @librarycongress pic.twitter.com/Kuq0VAecMR

— Rep. Don Young (@repdonyoung) May 21, 2019

My assessment apparently isn't isolated.  Here's how many people follow each of the members of Congress on Twitter:

Ocasio-Cortez has 4.3M Followers
Murkowski has 260K Followers
Sullivan has 36.4K Followers
Young has 19K Followers

OK, AOC is part of the internet age, but it's more than that.  She's got

• 16 times what Murkowski has
• 118 times what Sullivan has
• 226 times what Young has

in just four months in Congress.  Other people must also appreciate her insights into how things work and her candor.

Obviously, this is just one measure of a member of congress, so take these numbers and put them into your mental notebook to compare to other measures you're tracking.

Senator Dan Sullivan Defends McCain In Tweet, But Tweeters Call Out His "Both Sides" Nonsense

Making light of this – especially in the senseless and classless manner that’s been described in the media – is simply sad and speaks more broadly to the low levels of civil discourse & respect that have infected our politics on both sides of the aisle. We all need to do better.

— SenDanSullivan (@SenDanSullivan) May 13, 2018  (emphasis added)

Then one after another, people remind him that it was a Republican, talking to Republicans, supporting the Republican president who dissed Republican Sen. McCain.

Here are just a few.

For the whole thread go here.


This idea that the blame for the decline in civl discourse in the US belongs equally to both parties is part of the Republican mythology.  Sure, there are people on the left who unnecessarily and harshly insults about people instead of debating issues, but the actual politicians - from Obama and through Congress - tend to be far more respectful and nuanced than the vast majority of the current Republicans.  As loopy as many of  George W. Bush's comments were, his mother brought him up with basic manners and decency.

I'd comment that the last few replies I've received from Sullivan's office have been detailed and thoughtful discussions.  They are general letters based on the topic, but they reflect that his staff, at least, understand more than one side of most issues.  I really think that this 'both sides' comment comes from hearing his fellow Republicans' say this so often that he didn't think it through - that this was a Republican on Republican insult.  Or, he more cynically, he was trying to blame the staffer's disrespect on a general decline that he sees both sides being responsible for.  But there is, and I doubt ever has been, anyone US politician at a high level of government who has every insulted so many people, so often, and with so many lies, as the current president who is a member  of Sullivan's own party.  And to Sullivan's credit, he dropped out of the Alaska Republican Party's Central Committee in protest against Donald Trump and said he would not vote for him.

Checking With The Reporters On A Couple Of Amazing Claims They Made

There were two lines in the Anchorage Daily News today that caught my attention.  "Really?  How do they know that?"

The first was a line in Erica Martinson's story about Alaska's two US Senators' relationship with the President.  It talked about how they didn't support him, but they are getting policies that help Alaska. (Of course, what helps Alaska is open to interpretation and to whether one is looking short term or long term.)

Martinson wrote:

"More than 500 days have passed since Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Alaska's Republican senators didn't vote for him . . ."

Wow!  They didn't vote for the presidential candidate in their own party.  (I have to say that it was a safe bet in Alaska, where their two votes were not going to swing the state to Clinton.)  But to tell people?  I assumed that Martinson had evidence, so I emailed her asking if she meant in the November election (which is what the sentence would seem to say) and if yes, how she knew this.

I got a quick response:

"I meant in the Nov. 2016 election.
I wasn't in the voting booth, but that's what they told me and others at the time. Sullivan said he was going to write in Mike Pence's name. Murkowski said she was going to write in a name, but she never did say who, at least to me.
https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/10/08/u-s-sen-lisa-murkowski-in-interview-said-decision-on-trump-was-instantaneous-after-seeing-video/
https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/10/08/alaska-sen-dan-sullivan-calls-on-donald-trump-to-drop-out-of-presidential-race/They both resigned their positions on the Alaska Republican Party's central committee until after the election because they would not support Trump: https://www.adn.com/politics/2016/10/11/alaska-republican-party-is-sticking-with-donald-trump/Not sure if it made it into a story that day (I think we ran a day-of blog?), but I spoke to both Senators about it on or around election day and they had not changed their plans."

I guess during the election coverage I missed this or forgot it.  Had I read the story on-line instead of in print, I'd have seen the link, but I didn't do that until I was getting the link for this post.

 

The second line that jumped out at me was from an article by Marc Fisher, also in the ADN, reprinted from the Washington Post, about Trump's campaign against Jeffrey Bezos - the Amazon head and owner of the Washington Post.

"But others who have heard Trump rail against Amazon as a “monopoly” say his central complaint is based more on a cultural gap than a financial one, deriving from the fact that the president has never been known to shop online and does not use a computer — and has therefore never experienced what has drawn so many Americans from local storefronts to Amazon and other online retailers." [emphasis aded]

That jumped right out at me.  The president doesn't use a computer!  I remember the uproar when George H. W. Bush expressed amazement at a demonstration of supermarket scanners.that checkers use.  (This Snopes assessment suggests the New York Times played up that story to Bush's detriment.)  I was thinking that the US president doesn't necessarily get too much time going to the supermarket and he'd been VP for the eight years before he became president.

But in 2018 it seems remarkable that the US president doesn't use a computer.  And if he doesn't, how can he tweet every day.  So I emailed Marc Fisher my questions - did he mean by 'computer' a laptop or desktop?  Surely Trump uses a smart phone or he wouldn't be able to tweet.  Before I sent the email I googled the topic and found quotes about Trump feeling no computer was secure to use.

I also got a quick reply from Marc Fisher:

"Yes, Trump uses a phone, primarily for voice calls and for tweeting, which he does only on his phone or by dictating to his digital politics advisor. What he does not and has not ever used is a desktop or laptop computer. He has, for example, never used email. As for his reasons, when he’s been asked about his avoidance of computers, he says he doesn’t have the time. Not a terribly enlightening answer, but there it is."

Given that a smart phone today is a mini-computer with access to the internet, I guess it isn't as shocking as it originally sounded.

What is shocking - and would seem to be illegal - is the possibility that Trump is intentionally using the office of the presidency to damage someone because he's offended by what Bezos' newspaper writes about him.  (Fisher cites several WP people who say Bezos plays no role in the content of the paper.)

"Later in the campaign, Trump complained that “every hour, we’re getting calls from reporters from The Washington Post asking ridiculous questions, and I will tell you, this is owned as a toy by Jeff Bezos.” Trump said Amazon was using The Post “as a tool for political power against me. . . . We can’t let him get away with it.”

"Amazon’s stock value declined by more than 5 percent after the president’s recent attacks but has gained ground this week."

"A Wells Fargo analysis concluded that although 'the arguments made by the president against Amazon have been undermined by third-party fact checkers . . . the president’s actions [could stir] additional scrutiny of Amazon beyond the federal government.'” 

"But Politico media critic Jack Shafer argues that Trump is right to connect Amazon, Bezos and The Post, because the retailer’s wealth made Bezos’s purchase of the paper possible. “If Amazon didn’t exist, it’s unlikely the Washington Post would exist in its current form,” wrote Shafer, whose wife, Nicole Arthur, is The Post’s travel editor. Shafer rejected the notion that The Post is lobbying on behalf of Amazon but said that by linking The Post to Amazon and driving down Amazon’s stock price, Trump had found a way to try to punish a news organization that he otherwise couldn’t harm."  [emphasis added]

 If a company is misbehaving, the president of the United States can say something about that.  and even call for an investigation.  But he's got to be careful not to bias that investigation.  But if the reason for the president's attack on a company is criticism in a newspaper whose owner also owns the other company, it seems to me there are real First Amendment issues being raised.

In any case, I was pleased that both these reporters were quick to respond to my questions and to have information to back up what they wrote.  Fisher clarified what using a computer meant, but didn't say how he knew about the president's computer use.  But when I looked back at my original email, I didn't ask that of him.  And it should be pointed out that Fisher works for the Washington Post, which is the target of the president's attacks.