Lessons of History and Trying To Avoid the Same Mistakes

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If one of your jobs is to make laws that affect our economy, you should at least have an opinion, even if it is a wholly uninformed one, on Glass-Steagall. Greene’s bizarre defense that she doesn’t know about things that happened before she was born in 1974 isn’t anti-intellectual as much as it is a lie.


Based on Greene’s criteria for things she is “not familiar” with, here is a list:

• The Constitution.
• People like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln
• Slavery
• The Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade
• The Civil War
• The Civil Rights movement
• The Vietnam-Paris Peace Accords
• Watergate

Wait, maybe she is telling the truth!

Here’s the video and some responses.


(full article online)

Marjorie Taylor Greene says because she was born in 1974, she doesn't know history before 1974

During a recent town hall appearance, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene answered questions, written on scraps of paper by audience members, that she picked out of a fish bowl on stage. One question was ...

www.dailykos.com

 

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Joyce Vance on investigations into Donald Trump & why democracy is in danger​

 

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Cracker Barrel now joins the historically conservative Chick-fil-A, which became the subject of right-wing irewhen it was discovered that for more than two years, the company has employed an executive position that oversees diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. And while Cracker Barrel is one of the larger Southern fast-casual chains, it doesn’t break the top ten in the U.S. Even Chick-fil-A is only the fifth-largest fast-food chain in the United States, according to career and jobs portal Zippia. There are nine other fast-food chains available to these red-blooded patriots who refuse to grab food from an institution that has gone woke!

Or are there?

The largest fast-food chain, according to Zippia, is no surprise: McDonald’s! Uh oh—they have a very thorough page detailing the company’s commitment to “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI).” This includes making sure that women receive more equitable pay to their male counterparts, and working to “best represent the diverse communities in which we operate.”

Next up is Taco Bell. Run for the border! Just last year, Taco Bell announced a plan to create a training program directed at lifting up “operators from diverse backgrounds” at their company.

The third-largest fast-food company is Subway and its sandwiches. Subway’s “commitment” includes promoting diversity within its franchises and the communities in which they operate. Boooooo! Subway also prides itself on providing access to disabled patrons. Double booooo!

Subway is followed by Chipotle Mexican Grill. (What would MAGA do without the cultural influence of Mexico?) Bad news for MAGA land: Chipotle has been making proclamations in support of things like “the Black community,” and its CEO Brian Niccol was even included (that word again!) on the top 25 list of “Top-Rated CEOs for Diversity in large companies.”

No. 5 on the list is Chick-fil-A, followed by Pizza Hut. Yum! Brands Inc., owns Pizza Hut (as well as KFC and Taco Bell). I suspect that the Texas-based pizza chain’s “Diversity & Inclusion: Everyone At The Table” page would count as having “fallen” to the “woke mob.” If you want pizza, why not try Domino’s? Ruh roh!

No worries! There’s still Panera Bread Company … and its VP of DEI. Ouch. They have a separate report on their inclusion initiatives here. There’s always Wendy’s. Of course, if the concept of “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” continues to be a deal-breaker, you should probably stay away from Wendy’s. But never fear: Burger King is No. 10 with a bullet (cue M. Night Shyamalan twist ending music): a diversity initiative bullet!

The good news for bigots is that fast food is generally unhealthy and shouldn’t be eaten too frequently. The bad news is that if you plan on holding another insurrection or driving cross-country to support your suspected criminal former president, there are going to be a lot of places you cannot eat. Like, most of them. Better start looking at the 7-Eleven menu. Oh no!!!!!

No biscuits and gravy for MAGA as Cracker Barrel goes 'woke'

It’s Pride month! Corporations around the country, realizing that LGBTQ+ people also buy stuff and are a part of families that buy stuff, have been showing their support. The “anti-woke” crowds, always crying about “cancel culture,” have been spending...

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[ Winning by cheating ]

The Texas state government is poised to enact a new law giving the governor-appointed Secretary of State the ability to overturn elections in the state's biggest county.

The legislation, SB-1993, passed in the Texas State Senate on Tuesday by a vote of 19-12. According to the text of the bill, the Secretary of State, a position appointed by Republican Governor Gregg Abbott and currently held by Jane Nelson, would have the authority to throw election results in counties wherein 2 percent or more of the polling locations ran out of ballot paper for more than an hour. In the event that an election was thrown out, a new one would then be held.

The specific parameters of the bill were inspired by incidents in Harris County during the 2022 midterm elections, in which 26 out of the county's 782 polling locations were affected, according to the Houston Chronicle. Despite the relatively small number of locations affected, the issue was seized upon by Texas Republicans, some of whom claimed that the shortages cost them their races, ultimately leading to the push for legislation that resulted in SB-1993.


(full article online)

Texas bill will give Republican official power to overturn elections

The parameters of the new bill specifically target Harris County, the largest county in Texas, over ballot shortages in 2022.

www.newsweek.com

 

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The House voted on Wednesday to reject a GOP-backed resolution to censure Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff for his role in congressional investigations of former President Donald Trump, effectively killing the effort to publicly reprimand him.

House Democrats moved to table a resolution introduced by Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, an ardent Trump supporter. The motion succeeded by a vote of 225 to 196, with 20 Republicans voting with Democrats. It needed a simple majority to pass.

"I'm astounded by the vote," Schiff told reporters. "It was basically almost one out of every 10 Republicans voted against this resolution."

The resolution called for the House Ethics Committee to investigate Schiff, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee and current candidate for Senate in California, and said he should be fined $16 million if the committee determines he "lied, made misrepresentations, and abused sensitive information." Luna said the fine represents half the cost of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

Schiff has been one of Trump's most ardent and high-profile critics for years, having served as the House's lead prosecutor in Trump's first impeachment trial. In a letter to colleagues on Tuesday, Schiff wrote that the effort to censure him was "not only a terrible misuse of House precedent and resources, but a clear attack on our constitutional system of checks and balances."


(full article online)

House rejects bid to censure Adam Schiff over Trump investigations

The resolution called for an investigation into Rep. Adam Schiff and a possible fine of $16 million.

www.cbsnews.com

 

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[ Ignorance and prejudice gone too far ]

A grandparent shut down a school sports event when he falsely accused a nine-year-old with a “pixie” haircut of being trans.

The youngster was taking part in a shot-put competition when the relative of one of the other participants disrupted the event in the Canadian town of Kelowna, British Columbia.

“She went to step up to compete for the grade four shot-put final, and right before she went to throw, a grandfather of a student said, ‘Hey, this is supposed to be a girls’ event, and why are you letting boys compete.’ My daughter is cisgender, born female, uses she/her pronouns. She has a pixie haircut,” her mother Heidi Starr told Castanet.

She says that the man, who has not been identified, then demanded the youngster provide certification that she was born a female.

“He stopped the entire event. He also pointed at another girl who also had short hair. He then piped in and said, ‘Well, if she is not a boy, then she is obviously trans.’”

Grandparent shuts down school sport event falsely accusing girl of being trans

Athletics competition was disrupted in Canadian town of Kelowna, British Columbia

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Sixties Fan]

All of this is typical. With vanishingly few exceptions, Republicans are unwilling either to discipline Trump, withdraw their support for his political leadership or even just criticize him for his actions. The most we’ve seen, Romney aside, is a nod to the fact that these are serious charges. This is a “serious case with serious allegations,” said Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who nonetheless added that this prosecution represented a “double-standard” and that “You can’t protect Democrats while targeting and hunting Republicans.”

There are several ways to think about most Republicans’ reluctance to break with Trump in the face of his egregious lawbreaking and contempt for constitutional government, but I want to focus on two in particular.

The first concerns something that exists wherever there is a relationship between an individual and an institution. That is, it concerns the loyalty of the individual to the institution. Political parties in particular are designed to inculcate a sense of loyalty and shared commitment among their members. This is especially true for officeholders, who exist in a web of relationships and obligations that rest on a set of common interests and beliefs.

Loyalty makes it less likely that a dissenter just ups and walks away, especially when there isn’t a plausible alternative. Few Trump-critical Republicans, for instance, are willing to become Democrats. What’s more, as the economist A.O. Hirschman observed in his classic text, “Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States,” strong loyalty to an institution like a political party might lead a dissenting or disapproving individual to hold onto her membership even more tightly, for fear that exit might open the door to even worse outcomes.

“The ultimate in unhappiness and paradoxical loyalist behavior,” Hirschman wrote, “occurs when the public evil produced by the organization promises to accelerate or to reach some intolerable level as the organization deteriorates; then, in line with the reasoning just presented, the decision to exit will become ever more difficult the longer one fails to exit. The conviction that one has to stay on to prevent the worst grows stronger all the time.”

Assuming this is all true, how then do we explain the reluctance to criticize or condemn? For that, we can look to the history of the modern Republican Party, stretching back to Richard Nixon. And what do we see? We see a pattern of presidential criminality and contempt for the Constitution, backed in each instance by most Republican officeholders and politicians.

For Nixon, it was Watergate. For Ronald Reagan it was Iran-contra. For George W. Bush, it was the sordid effort to fight a war in Iraq, and the disgraceful use of torture against detainees. For Donald Trump, it was practically his entire presidency.

Most things in life, and especially a basic respect for democracy and the rule of law, have to be cultivated. What is striking about the Republican Party is the extent to which it has, for decades now, cultivated the opposite — a highly instrumental view of our political system, in which rules and laws are legitimate only insofar as they allow for the acquisition and concentration of power in Republican hands.

Most Republicans won’t condemn Trump. There are his millions of ultra-loyal voters, yes. And there are the challenges associated with breaking from the consensus of your political party, yes. But there is also the reality that Trump is the apotheosis of a propensity for lawlessness within the Republican Party. He is what the party and its most prominent figures have been building toward for nearly half a century. I think he knows it and I think they do too.



(full article online)

Republicans Keep Failing the Same Test

In the wake of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Republican officeholders had three choices. They could stick with

dnyuz.com

 

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A small group of conservative doctors has sought to shape the nation’s most contentious policies on abortion and transgender rights by promoting views rejected by the medical establishment as scientific fact, according to documents reviewed by The Washington Post that describe the group’s internal strategies.

The records show that after long struggling to attract members, the American College of Pediatricians gained outsize political influence in recent years, primarily by using conservative media as a megaphone in its quest to position the group as a reputable source of information.

The organization has successfully lobbied since 2021 for laws in more than a half-dozen states that ban gender-affirming care for transgender youths, with its representatives testifying before state legislatures against the guidelines recommended by mainstream medical groups, according to its records. It gained further national prominence this yearas one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit to limit access tomifepristone, a key abortion drug.


(full article online)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/06/15/abortion-transgender-christian-doctors/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjE1MjUzNDgiLCJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNjg2ODAxNjAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNjg4MDk3NTk5LCJpYXQiOjE2ODY4MDE2MDAsImp0aSI6IjU1MmFmZjA4LWM1NmUtNGE1Yi05Njg1LTc0MGExYzIwNmE3MyIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9oZWFsdGgvMjAyMy8wNi8xNS9hYm9ydGlvbi10cmFuc2dlbmRlci1jaHJpc3RpYW4tZG9jdG9ycy8ifQ.iXefFxoZ6B2wb5rHNxlhw4hiIzAeGto7-n2un4K04zQ&link_id=12&can_id=6e84143cce349aec0c9a0b4e4a28c9c6&source=email-trump-and-the-fun-factor&email_referrer=email_1959252&email_subject=as-indictments-pile-up-trumps-senate-gop-skeptics-multiply

 

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VIDEO OF THE DAY: Ron DeSantis issues jaw-dropping claim about himself and Jesus

The governor of Florida made the mandatory walk of shame demanded of all Republican presidential wannabes Friday, sitting for an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network and delivering the most shameless display of self-righteousness and disingenuous virtue signaling you'll ever see.

 

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A federal judge issued an order Friday stopping an Indiana ban on puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors from taking effect as scheduled July 1.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sought the temporary injunction in its legal challenge of the Republican-backed law, which was enacted this spring amid a national push by GOP-led legislatures to curb LGBTQ+ rights.

The order from U.S. District Court Judge James Patrick Hanlon will allow the law’s prohibition on gender-affirming surgeries to take effect. Hanlon’s order also blocks provisions that would prohibit Indiana doctors from communicating with out-of-state doctors about gender-affirming care for their patients younger than 18.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit within hours after Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed the bill April 5. The challenge, on behalf of four youths undergoing transgender treatments and an Indiana doctor who provides such care, argued the ban would violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantees and trampled upon the rights of parents to decide medical treatment for their children.


(full article online)

Federal judge blocks most of Indiana's ban on gender-affirming care for minors

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sought the temporary injunction in its legal challenge of the Republican-backed law, which was enacted this spring amid a national push by GOP-led legislatures to curb LGBTQ+ rights.

www.pbs.org

 

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Free Press Advocates Slam 'Blatantly Unconstitutional' Conviction of North Carolina Reporters

"Reporters shouldn't be arrested for doing their jobs," said one First Amendment advocacy group.

www.commondreams.org

 

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Donald Trump and the promise of participatory violence

From the time he made the most ridiculous entrance in political history, riding down a golden escalator to spew an almost unbroken stream of anti-immigrant rhetoric , one part of the appeal of ...

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With all due respect to Pete Wehner, an evangelical Christian, former George W. Bush White House aide, and the author of the above quote, this analogy undersells Donald Trump’s depravity by a damn stretch. A person born blind would surely be curious about what color is. Further, he or she wouldn’t scorn others for seeing color, and wouldn’t reflexively assume it’s useless.

A better analogy might be that, to Trump, morality is like his gravely ill infant nephew, whom he tried to strip health insurance from (purely out of spite, mind you): He doesn’t give a shit about it.

The quote in the headline comes from a blunt essay by CNN White House correspondent John Harwood, who argues that we’ve never seen anything like Donald Trump’s amorality in any of our presidents.

Wehner sums up Harwood’s thesis well with another choice quote: “We've had presidents who were more moral, or less moral. We've never had a president who takes psychic delight in shattering moral norms, or discrediting morality as a concept.”

Harwood goes on to tick off a litany of previously unthinkable sins that would have been deal-breakers for any candidate — much less a presidential candidate — in saner times:

In the 2016 campaign, Trump put these qualities on a larger stage. He maligned John McCain's experience as a Vietnam War prisoner, and embraced torture as a military tool.

He mimicked a disabled reporter who questioned the truthfulness of his recollections about 9/11. He belittled the parents of a soldier killed in Iraq after they criticized his attacks on Muslims.

He ridiculed the poll standing and physical stature of Republican rivals Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio. He insulted Ted Cruz' wife, and baselessly linked Cruz' father to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

“The man is utterly amoral,” Cruz eventually fumed. “Morality does not exist for him.”

Harwood notes that Cruz has privately told White House lawyers that all 100 senators believed Trump had demanded a quid pro quo from Ukraine — but every Republican, with the exception of Mitt Romney, insisted that nothing he’d done was impeachable. And, of course, Rubio, and especially Trump’s pet Grahamster, have become two of the pr*sident’s most reliable — and pliable — bootlickers.


(full article online)

'Asking Trump to understand morality is like asking a person born blind to understand color' – The Politicus

thepoliticus.com

 

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"Today is a good day to remember: Christianity is the faith and America is the place slavery came to die," the white nationalist sympathizer and self-declared masculinity expert tweeted. This is a good day to remember that the Republican Party is where logic and good sense go to die.

(full article online)

Sen. Josh Hawley Shares His Mindblowingly Stupid Thoughts on Juneteenth

"Today is a good day to remember: Christianity is the faith and America is the place slavery came to die," the Missouri senator tweeted. Who's gonna tell him?

jezebel.com