3/17/21 More Tragedy for Asian Americans

The man says he's addicted to sex. He wanted to eliminate temptation. For that, eight people are dead. Six were Asian-American women.

It wasn't the "Wuhan Flu," then, that made 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long use a long rifle to gun down ethnically Asian women working in massage parlors. It was a case of their being attractive to a sex addict. At least this time, no one is blaming the victims.

It's ironic that this marquee case of crime against Asian-Americans is not a clear-cut example of the recent wave of white-on-Asian crimes of retaliation. It's clear that simple-minded thugs are blaming all of east Asia for the COVID19 virus. You know, the virus that's so “overblown” by liberals, and so contemptible in the eyes of the former President because it threatened to make him appear weak.

It's painful to see the random, impulsive fist strikes and stabbings inflicted on unassuming Asian-Americans, attacks that show all the discretion of a drunk windmilling at an adversary that only he can see. In reality, Asian-Americans ARE adversaries that only certain white supremacists can see. To the rest of us, they're just people walking around.

We've had clear-cut bad guys and good guys in the news these past four years. So it remains: Long is not blaming Asians for COVID19, but his fetish is as fundamentally racist as could be.

"I have been speaking about the brutality against Asian-Americans, and it's troubling," Biden said from the Oval Office. "I'll have more to say when the investigation is completed."

Kamala Harris said, "I do want to say to our Asian-American community that we stand with you and understand how this has frightened and shocked and outraged all people."

We've been seeing white supremacists blame Asian Americans for COVID19 and attack them in retaliation. Are Long's murders the same kind of violence?

Do you think there's any hope that this incident will lead to tighter gun regulation? Is there any way to protect Asian Americans in particular from this sudden wave of violence?

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/17/atlanta-mayor-massage-parlor-shooting-476691?fbclid=IwAR2d6rRxuGwsFxLmlO-y6fqq20KRkVGLkqtV2N9RKKSZtmvHxNogkheqEC8

3/16/21 Vindication for a Vindman

Life wasn't easy for Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, a modern-day boy scout, after he testified in Trump's first impeachment hearing that the President pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden. (Vindman had been one of several officials listening in on Trump's call to Ukraine's president.) After “a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation," as he put it, Alex Vindman retired from the military last July.

It wasn't easy for his twin brother Yevgeny ("Eugene"), either. Yevgeny reported ethics violations by former National Security advisor Robert O'Brien for using his staff for personal errands and demeaningly sexist behavior among female NSC employees. Both Vindman brothers worked at the National Security Agency. Already angry with Alex, the NSC Trumpists got even with Yevgeny, who was also a Lieutenant Colonel. It was easy: He got bad job evaluations from his supervisors, Trump appointees John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis, from the White House Counsel's office. The evaluations stopped dead any hope he had of upward progress in his career.

Here's what Eisenberg said of Yevgeny the previous year: Vindman was “a top 1% military attorney and officer ... [who] can do any job in the legal field under unusual and constant pressure and scrutiny. Select now for SSC [Senior Service College] and promote immediately to COL. Absolutely unlimited potential!” Let's just say that a bad evaluation was unexpected.

Yevgeny was the senior ethics official at the National Security Council and its deputy legal adviser from July 2018 to February 2020. He stayed in the military. Trump fired both brothers from the NSC. They were escorted out of the White House and sent back to the Pentagon.

Last August, Yevgeny filed a complaint of retaliation with the Pentagon inspector. It began, "This is one of the clearest and highest-profile cases of whistleblower reprisal in American history."

Michel Russell, a major general and assistant deputy chief of staff, investigated and found that the evaluations were "not objective." The Army later deleted those evaluations. They never went to the promotions board as official records.

Now, Vindman is set to be promoted to full colonel, according to Politico.

It's about time, no? Wouldn't it be wonderful if Alexander Vindman was vindicated too?
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/15/yevgeny-vindman-promotion-post-trump-476038?fbclid=IwAR1EcemyE5R0YRl7PnGUZNHbUMYMyu9tGjT4SEEe7hFt9ehhkZvx0CqNgXE

3/18/21 Is Andrew Cuomo a Flawed Hero? Or Anti-Hero?

Watching Andrew Cuomo fight for his political life is looking ever more like watching a man fight the air while he sinks in quicksand.

Cuomo has slid a long way from his high flying days as Governor COVID19 Warrior Hero.

If only he'd included nursing home deaths in his COVID casualty count!

If only he'd kept his hands to himself instead of placing them on attractive young women! If only his "mentoring" didn't involve asking them intrusive questions about their sex lives!

If only he hadn't skipped over Rockland County when he set up mass vaccination sites! Was it really animus between him and the county executive?

Cuomo's a mixed bag. We knew he was a bully and a political survivor well before he became governor.

Now, he's also looking more like a tragedy, because the longer he says he won't resign, the more likely it is that he'll have to.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/andrew-cuomo-rockland-county-vaccination-site_n_60523983c5b605256ec02c52?fbclid=IwAR2aF6mq44fIjyCUCrEv5UmmrJsTG6-bne_oWQQwfyacgnrcZ1aOPElhKss

3/17/21 Bowman-Cleaver Bill Would Help Extend Broadband to Public Housing

Only days ago, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) reintroduced a bill that would put more than $90 billion toward expanding broadband infrastructure into areas that need it.

Yesterday, Reps Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) introduced a bill that would help democratize the web even more: It would require the Treasury, USDA, and HUD to rework the utilities "allowance" now granted to the residents of public and subsidized housing so that it includes broadband. Says Bowman, "We must rethink broadband as a basic utility alongside gas, electric, and water.”

This is certainly so, although implementation last year, before the pandemic started, would have been a lot better. Remote schooling has been difficult if not impossible for impoverished families, even families that had a computer already. Most kids have lost a year's worth of schooling.

But let's not be too optimistic. A report on the nation's public housing, published this week in the Houston Chronicle, shows that public-housing residents in Kansas, Florida, and Texas are still fighting, and failing, to get slow-moving management to conduct basic repairs, such as fixing air conditioners and ceilings, and mold remediation (we'll post a link). As recent media articles have noted, new HUD chief Martha Fudge has her work cut out for her.

At least this bill will help, not hurt, as HUD tackles housing troubles across the country.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/543545-bowman-cleaver-introduce-legislation-to-expand-affordable-broadband-access-to?fbclid=IwAR2oygbU2mbO0pT28RQ-Dk2ArV8CrWKHOMb8wvN8vfZmYt69kf6fjxdGLDQ

Public housing:  https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Living-Hell-how-government-failed-galveston-homes-16003685.php?fbclid=IwAR3DdLLsY5qmoSu8Jti9687vUvbjqMyk7dFpTOqnUIHQdLY_69xVw5jqs3E

3/16/21 Vindication for a Vindman

Life wasn't easy for Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, a modern-day boy scout, after he testified in Trump's first impeachment hearing that the President pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden. (Vindman had been one of several officials listening in on Trump's call to Ukraine's president.) After “a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation," as he put it, Alex Vindman retired from the military last July.

It wasn't easy for his twin brother Yevgeny ("Eugene"), either. Yevgeny reported ethics violations by former National Security advisor Robert O'Brien for using his staff for personal errands and demeaningly sexist behavior among female NSC employees. Both Vindman brothers worked at the National Security Agency. Already angry with Alex, the NSC Trumpists got even with Yevgeny, who was also a Lieutenant Colonel. It was easy: He got bad job evaluations from his supervisors, Trump appointees John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis, from the White House Counsel's office. The evaluations stopped dead any hope he had of upward progress in his career.

Here's what Eisenberg said of Yevgeny the previous year: Vindman was “a top 1% military attorney and officer ... [who] can do any job in the legal field under unusual and constant pressure and scrutiny. Select now for SSC [Senior Service College] and promote immediately to COL. Absolutely unlimited potential!” Let's just say that a bad evaluation was unexpected.

Yevgeny was the senior ethics official at the National Security Council and its deputy legal adviser from July 2018 to February 2020. He stayed in the military. Trump fired both brothers from the NSC. They were escorted out of the White House and sent back to the Pentagon.

Last August, Yevgeny filed a complaint of retaliation with the Pentagon inspector. It began, "This is one of the clearest and highest-profile cases of whistleblower reprisal in American history."

Michel Russell, a major general and assistant deputy chief of staff, investigated and found that the evaluations were "not objective." The Army later deleted those evaluations. They never went to the promotions board as official records.

Now, Vindman is set to be promoted to full colonel, according to Politico.com.

It's about time, no? Wouldn't it be wonderful if Alexander Vindman were offered a boffo post?
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/15/yevgeny-vindman-promotion-post-trump-476038?fbclid=IwAR23N8hlDzDbDPsY5tUjdrgxt0ASrTEC6mLCKffx7S05qcGBz0NaPTpbiF4

3/15/21 The First Lady of Wildflowers Kept a Kick-Ass Diary

 Lady Bird Johnson is best remembered for her crusade for wildflowers, and for her initiative to seed highway medians all over the country with them. Why wildflowers? "Just joy," she once said, "and joy is a component of life, or should be."

Less well known is that Lady Bird kept an audio diary of the Johnsons' years in the White House, starting with the day that LBJ rose to the Presidency. Her diary says, "Mrs. Kennedy's dress was stained with blood. One leg was almost entirely covered with it. And her right glove was caked – that immaculate woman – it was caked with blood, her husband's blood."

After listening to all 123 hours of the recorded diary, Julia Sweig wrote "Lady Bird Johnson: Hiding in Plain Sight," a book that is available as an audiobook for all of us who want to hear Lady Bird's native Texas twang. She was born in Karnack. To get there, go eastward from Dallas to Shreveport, Louisiana, and stop about 80% of the way.

The musical name "Lady Bird," coined by a nanny, stood in for the real name "Claudia."

In 1964 President Johnson wasn't sure whether to run the following November. He asked Lady Bird to write out the pros and cons. She responded with a seven page, hand-written memo. "On balance, you should run and you'll win ... And then in February or March of 1968, you can announce that you will not run again." That's what happened.

And here we all thought that LBJ was just worn out by the war and the protestors. We stand corrected.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lady-bird-johnson-first-lady-and-diarist/?fbclid=IwAR23N8hlDzDbDPsY5tUjdrgxt0ASrTEC6mLCKffx7S05qcGBz0NaPTpbiF4

3/15/21 Racist Graffiti Leads to Local Support for an Ethnic South Asian Restauranteur

Remember the conservatives who chastised Cindy McCain for speaking well of Joe Biden? In Texas, once you're outside bright-blue Houston and Austin, you can throw a rock in any direction and you will find a cousin of those folks -- if you hit anyone at all, of course. Rural is rural.

The owner of San Antonio's Noodle Tree restaurant, Mike Nguyen, caught the eye of that critical, partisan-Republican group when, last Wednesday, he criticized Governor Abbott's decision to do away with public COVID19 restrictions.

“Greg Abbott doesn’t have the Texas people’s interests in play,” Nguyen told CNN in an interview. “He only cares about himself at this point.” He continued, "Dropping the mask mandate will not help the economy, will not help us open. And a lot of us feel he's putting…us in danger.” 

Being South Asian and owning a noodle shop was enough to make him Chinese in his vandals' eyes. “Go back 2 China,”  "Kung Flu," “No masks,” and other such witticisms, scrawled in red spray paint, covered the windows and outdoor benches of his restaurant when he came to work on Sunday.

Still, the day's diners had to wait only an additional hour for their meals while Nguyen and his friends -- joined by increasing numbers of well-wishing strangers -- worked to wash off the spray paint.

Nguyen told a local news station that he's used to the racism. He  says he's actually half Vietnamese and half French.

"If they don’t want to wear a mask that’s okay,” he said, in a kind of verbal shrug. "They can dine outside or order to go.”

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/543165-texas-restaurant-covered-in-racist-graffiti-after-owner-speaks?rl=1&fbclid=IwAR135aWpp-XlVBbVlnPvyqYuDoR_n0vkZYXUhfahfTH-bM2Z_CxwbEuZ3DA

https://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/noodle-tree-restaurant-vandalized-overnight-with-racist-

3/14/21 Trickle-down Economics, Confederate Style

“The Confederacy – and the slavery that spawned it – was ... one big con job on the Southern, white, working class,” says Frank Hyman in an op-ed for McClatchyDC.com. “A con job funded by some of the ante-bellum one-per-centers.”

What many poor whites didn’t realize, perhaps, was that slavery cut labor prices for the unenslaved, too. Slave labor made up a quarter of the more highly skilled trades in manufacturing, construction, and lumber. 

The South was rich before the Civil War, but its wealth was in splendiferous private mansions, while most Southern whites had lower literacy rates and lower land ownership rates than their peers up North.

The one-percenters made their case with propaganda. Planters, Hyman writes, supported more than 30 regional pro-slavery magazines and a plethora of other publications that implied, first, that the economy was a zero-sum proposition: That is, if Blacks benefited, Whites would lose out. Second, they argued that slave ownership had benefits for the entire society and not just the slave-owning wealthy. Prosperity, in other words, would trickle down to the poorer slice of White society.

This bucket of twaddle was spun into the gossamer web of the Cause, which killed primarily poor men and effectively starved their families.

We know by now that the trickle-down theory is bunk, although it is still a favorite stalking horse for today’s one percenters, including the Koch family and Rupert Murdoch -- Hyman’s examples -- through the right-wing think tanks they promote. 

Today, poorer workers still lionize wealthy people who have done them harm. Bill Gates all but invented the gig economy, hiring by contract in a way that allowed few Microsoft workers to enjoy job security. Correct me if I’m wrong. Why do we, and why does he, think he’s a sage?

Not to mention, as another group member put it recently, “Why [do] poor rural people support tax cuts for fatcats?”

The link below will take you to the full op-ed.  Its publisher, the McClatchy Co., owns 29 daily newspapers in 14 states.


https://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article136803208.html?fbclid=IwAR3uNJCOEBzxPGzGDI8kiWMTzbASwKUzjykzCE2xymGZ_4z1JrQ-46B-epU

3/11/21 A Biden Boost Helps Families with Child Expenses

Among the many wonderful consequences of Biden’s COVID19 relief bill is the benefit it will give to families with children. For each child under 6, families will get direct cash payments amounting to $300 a month. For each child from 6 to 17, families will get $250. That’s enough to raise a substantial proportion of families out of poverty.

Right now, one out of five kids is literally going hungry, even with food banks helping. For many, their parent(s) are working such long hours that the kids barely see them, and when they do, the parents have the energy of dead spirits walking.

Under Biden’s relief plan, families will get half the benefit money before they file tax returns. These will be direct monthly payments. They’ll get the rest after they pay taxes, irrespective of how much money they made and irrespective of how much they paid in taxes.

This aid bill is a new thing under the US sun. Previous efforts to help families have not always reached the poorest families. Take the tax credit for families signed into law by Donald Trump. It benefits the middle-income and wealthy families more than it does poor families.

Here’s why: Often, poor parents don’t make enough money to reach that $2,000 in tax credits. They simply haven’t paid enough in taxes. They could get up to $1,400, which is a lot better than nothing, but families at that income level need every dime.

That’s one reason that politicians love to tinker with taxes: If people don’t qualify, the Treasury saves some money. Not to mention that fewer poor families hear about and understand how to use a tax tweak to their advantage.

Biden’s boost does away with that savage loophole. All parents will get the full benefit, no matter how much money they make. The total cost for one year’s benefits will be $100 billion. It’s a lot of money... until you compare it to the federal budget.

The United States is a johnny-come-lately to family support of this kind. Many of the wealthy countries of the world have had similar programs for decades.

The Biden boost is a one-year bill, but even that will be a huge help to hungry families. We’ll see how it works. Perhaps the results will determine whether the benefit can become permanent.

Do you think it’s worth the money for the United States to prop up families’ budgets? Do you feel a twinge of resentment if/that you didn’t have financial help when you were raising your own kids? Do you see any downsides to this plan compared to Trump’s? How about upsides?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/child-tax-credit-stimulus-covid-relief-bill-2021-03-14/

3/11/21 Congressional Republicans are Getting Tired of Representative Greene

That loudmouthed poster child for right-wing wackos, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), will not be silenced.

God knows the House has tried. After Ms. Greene demonstrated that she was racist, outrageous, and presumably out of her mind, every House Democrat and 11 Republicans voted to pull her from her two committee assignments. They didn't want to see her use the Education-and-Labor Committee and Budget Committee as her personal public pinatas.

But Greene is all gadfly. She proposed an early halt to a legislative session once last week and once this week. The COVID stimulus bill was under discussion, and she said she was trying to stop the bill.

The entire House had to vote on her motions. Last week, 18 Republicans joined Democrats to say Thanks but No Thanks. This week, it was 40 Republicans. It's a pain to deal with something so trivial. 

Maybe Greene would be fun to watch if she had wit, or humor, or even charm. Sadly, she's more likely to grow antlers and bellow like a moose.

Still, Greene's not the first gadfly in Congress. We think the Republic will survive her, and many more.


https://thehill.com/homenews/house/542517-41-republicans-vote-against-greene-motion?fbclid=IwAR1ArLpOoklmh5QT0jFfGgxMYGMJD59SeDwLWyiitz2zI9_8p6INAhUuqN8&rl=1

3/10/21 The Death Penalty for Abortion?

In Texas, US leader in reactionary blather, a state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would allow for women who have abortions to get the death penalty.

Yes, it’s more hot air from the high plains. Women who’ve had abortions, to my knowledge, haven’t been charged with murder anywhere in the United States. It’s just that making an in-your-face statement is an attention-grabbing move if you’ve run out of other ideas for pandering to your voter base.

The bill allows for a charge of murder, the death penalty if convicted, and immunity for witnesses. Anybody have a problem with that? It’s not at all like the Salem Witch trials....

Oh, and the bill is supposed to supersede all other laws, including federal. So it’s unconstitutional from the get-go.

“The bill ... will guarantee the equal protection of the laws to all Texans, no matter how small,” says Bryan Slaton,  the Texas state representative who blessed the earth with this legal concoction. He represents three counties east of Dallas.


https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/542436-gop-texas-lawmaker-introduces-bill-to-allow-death-penalty-for-women-who?fbclid=IwAR0K6K4uh76e2GjieNgLy1toNsImye07gHSgwDcHVwx5gVXAeVT4PATW0yQ

3/10/21 A Policeman Who Knew Your Grandma

Never mind that it’s half a miracle that he can get up and walk around.  L. C. “Buckshot” Smith is 91 years old, but he was 80 when he became a rookie cop in Camden, Arkansas. That was five months after he retired as a sheriff’s deputy in Ouachita County, where Camden is located.

Now, you’ve got to respect a man who can walk the beat at that age, carrying a gun but working with only his knowhow. Smith says, “This badge and gun don’t make you a police officer. You got to respect people.” He says he’s taken more people home than he’s taken to jail.

Besides, he knows you personally. “He knows your mama and he knew your grandmother. So he has the authority to speak into our lives,” Camden’s mayor says.

“Buckshot” -- his name since childhood -- isn’t planning to retire. Been there, done that, didn’t like it. He says he’ll retire when the Good Lord tells him to.


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arkansas-oldest-police-officer-buckshot-smith/?fbclid=IwAR0K6K4uh76e2GjieNgLy1toNsImye07gHSgwDcHVwx5gVXAeVT4PATW0yQ

3/7/21 Outrageous Bullying in Plano, Texas Schools

This should NEVER happen to anyone.

A young Black boy, often bullied at Haggard Middle School in Plano, north of Dallas, was invited to a sleepover party by a new friend. Once there, he found he had been invited solely to provide entertainment --as the target of unspeakably cruel bullying by a group of white boys.

SeMarion Humphrey, 13, was forced to drink the urine of another boy while being videotaped, amid laughter from other students at the party. The vicious child who took the video then sent it to several people at their school.

Later that night, SeMarion was shot with a BB gun and subjected to racial slurs.

Plano Independent School District is "investigating," it says.

Sure it is. A year ago, at another Plano middle school, a Black sixth-grade girl who was a cancer patient -- a cancer patient! -- was chased around the gym by a girl she thought was her friend.

The friend pulled A'Myah Moon's wig off in front of all the other students there and called her derogatory names. 

After the incident, A'Myah, 11, locked herself in a bathroom, cried until she felt dizzy, and left.

"I just want to leave school forever, and don’t want to have no friends, no more," she said later.

The school district's comment said, "While we cannot discuss disciplinary measures as it relates to a specific student ...."  If the school or the district did anything, it didn't make the news. 

M'yah found her footing again after a number of empathetic people worked to boost her spirits.

As for the Humphreys, they have put SeMarion into a private school.

I hope that they sue Plano ISD for millions of dollars and win. That may be the only way to wreak change in this wretched, godforsaken annex of hell.

https://www.theroot.com/black-middle-school-student-allegedly-shot-with-bb-guns-1846423071?fbclid=IwAR0yGKQ1o1Kl-eAHc51u--R_2I7DcEpK3m5NSu0rlwMn5GQaGhB4UGMrOHE

https://atlantablackstar.com/2020/02/17/cancer-stricken-girl-11-says-she-wants-to-leave-school-forever-after-classmate-snatches-wig-off-her-head-in-humiliating-prank/

3/10/21 Black Farmers Finally Get Some Farm Aid

Ya gotta love these omnibus bills like COVID19 relief. They've got so many passengers that you don't even know who's riding on the other end of the bus. (Reading the bill aloud was a nice touch, but did anybody listen to it?)

One of those legislative passengers, a clever section of the bill, was a century overdue. For all those long years, Black farmers have been almost entirely cut out of the US Department of Agriculture's federal farm loans, subsidies, and improvement initiatives. Meanwhile, White farmers have come to rely on a harvest of handouts just to stay in business.

Undoubtedly, farm aid has kept more U.S. land in tillage than there would otherwise be. But not for Black farmers. 

In 1910, 14% of U.S. farmers were Black. Today, it's 2%. In part, that's because of an egregious breach of ethics that often kept Black farmers from being able to pass down their entire farms as an inheritance.

Their deed structures created fractional ownership setups, so that each generation had less land to use to make a living. It guaranteed painful, deep poverty and raised the likelihood that White farmers could buy the land -- cheap.

Says Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), “We know that there is a direct connection between discriminatory policies within the USDA and the enormous land loss we have seen among Black farmers over the past century.”

Booker has introduced legislation to help Black farmers in the past, but the ribbon for this year's legislation goes to freshman Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

Aren't you glad he got elected?

https://www.theroot.com/black-farmers-finally-get-plentiful-harvest-as-covid-19-1846438103?fbclid=IwAR3iZYpgNyNDUgIR3V8lCbPqVrPoKZu2VO_DbV90BD_pZBhAouh8lHwRtM8

3/9/21 The Worst Police in the Country?

Ever since the retirement of Joe Arpaio, a laughably (cry-ably?) racist sheriff in Arizona, the police department in Rochester, NY has been vying to take over his mantle as the nation's most vicious local law enforcement agency.

Last September, Rochester police dealt with a mentally ill man, Daniel Prude, by restraining him and putting a "spit bag" over his head (the bags keep suspects from spitting at officers). Prude died on the street, in handcuffs, at least in part from asphyxia "in the setting of physical restraint." A police cover-up followed.

In January of this year, they dealt with a 9-year-old girl with emotional problems, whose mother had phoned for help, by handcuffing and then pepper-spraying the child as she resisted being put in the police car.

Yesterday, the police chased a mother with her toddler -- a supposed shoplifter -- across a street and into a parking lot, where they pulled the child away before pepper-spraying the mother, pushing her to the ground, and handcuffing her.

This all happened despite significant efforts to reform the department since before Daniel Prude's death. We suspect that because both the mayor and the police chief are Black women, they have had little buy-in or compliance from the majority-white, male, police officers.

Rochester has had this problem for many decades. Check out Wikipedia for a casual history.

As Bob Dylan sang, “How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?” For “he,” substitute “the Rochester police.”



https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/nyregion/rochester-police-woman-pepper-sprayed.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces&block=more_in_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=929147629&impression_id=8b73c651-800e-11eb-bb1e-7bca316a991f&index=4&pgtype=Article&region=footer&req_id=645732721&surface=more-in-new-york&variant=1_bandit-all-surfaces&fbclid=IwAR3iZYpgNyNDUgIR3V8lCbPqVrPoKZu2VO_DbV90BD_pZBhAouh8lHwRtM8

3/9/21 Volunteers Step in to Help Asian Oldsters Step Out

Residents of Oakland, CA have stepped up to help elderly Asian-Americans who are facing hate crimes just for being Asian.

 Like so many others, they're appalled to see that knuckle-dragging racists are hurting Asian-American individuals with the idea that it’s revenge against China for the COVID19 virus.

Since the Pandemic began, more than 3,000 Asians have been affected or attacked by these haters, and some have even been killed. After an 84-year-old man died in San Francisco after being shoved to the ground, virtually everyone in the Bay Area with a trace of compassion was appalled by such brutal and misguided crime. 

Jacob Azevedo of Oakland responded with an Instagram post offering to accompany any Asian-American in Oakland's Chinatown when they had to go out in public, to help them feel safe. Hundreds of other people followed his lead.

One of the people who spotted Azevedo's post was Jess Owyoung, a fourth-generation Chinese-American born in the Bay Area. She contacted him and the pair, along with four others, founded “Compassion in Oakland” in February.

As of March 8, the organization has 700 volunteers to escort elderly Asian-Americans around town. The group also helps with translation and police reports. And they're helping form additional chapters elsewhere in the U.S.

Owyoung says that the volunteers are of all ages and all ethnicities. "It's a beautiful conversation that we have together about our individual experiences....[with our] commonalities and differences.

"But it's what makes America so wonderful."


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/asian-american-seniors-california-volunteers-escort/

3/8/21 Democrats Eyeball Killing Wile E. Coyote

The filibuster is the Wily E. Coyote of Senate rules. The Senate can bomb it, drop anvils on it, or run it over a cliff, but it always comes back.

This year, it’s the Democrats’ turn to plot against this most pestiferous of Senate rules.

“I think we do need to go back and take a look at it,” says Jon Tester of Montana, who would be a key vote against the filibuster. “But I think we ought to give this Congress a chance to screw up before we change it.” 

The filibuster gives the minority party a chance to argue in public on pending legislation. But the filibuster can only benefit the Senate if Republicans are willing to play nice -- sometimes.

So far, Republicans are still playing hardball -- not to mention pandering to Trump fans and lying about the election results.  

The filibuster could be scrubbed for specific types of legislation. Republicans did away with it for executive and judicial nominations. There’s no filibuster for the federal budget, either.

Voting Rights legislation seems to be the line in the sand for Democrats: State-level Republicans are, right now, actively pushing to restrict access to voting for minorities. That may be the next carveout for the rule.

It’s starting to look as if even Joe Manchin, West Virginia’s Democratic senator, might be willing to make a few adaptations. He and Kirsten Sinema of Arizona are the primary holdouts against filibuster reform. 

“If you want to make [the filibuster] a little bit more painful, make them stand there and talk. I’m willing to look at any way we can,” Manchin said in a Sunday morning talk show yesterday. “But I am not willing to take away the involvement of the minority,” Manchin added. “I’ve been in the minority.”

Wily E. Coyote lives on.


https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/542017-democrats-near-pressure-point-on-nixing-filibuster?fbclid=IwAR3yVXMzLJTQed6VtirH7Wz6T-IDIF-IGVPpgDgu244F4qWFIeTlXBfuh38

3/7/21 Texas Parents Are Outraged by Chivalry

Parents of Shallowater High School students, near Lubbock, Texas, had plenty to say recently about an assignment they didn't understand.

When a teacher there was introducing kids to gender roles in the age of chivalry, she gave boys and girls each sets of instructions for behavior. 

Girls were told not to "show intellectual superiority if it would offend the men around them,” and to "obey any reasonable request of a male." 

As for boys, "Gentlemen will rise when a lady walks into a room. Gentlemen should bow when greeting a lady," etc. 

The assignment had been used the year before, but this time, a local journalist tweeted a copy of the instructions, and parents erupted in indignation.

They seemed to think that the teacher was giving serious real-life instructions, not simply showing how bizarre and different life was in the 1300s. The assignment drew such outrage that the district withdrew it.

To be fair, older Americans know that these forms of "chivalry" didn't really start to die until the 1960s. But still. 

It seems that Texas needed to raise its educational standards starting about 25 years ago. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-school-scraps-chivalry-assignment-had-girls-obey-any-reasonable-n1259730?fbclid=IwAR18TCekd2PEDeFe3kQyyt5Hah14oS6ebKMMxGF1LBTF_ymNzwOdG1zw0NU

3/6/21 Filibuster: It’s Time to Play Hardball with the Hard Bit

If you could kill the filibuster right now, would you?

Joe Biden isn't quite ready to kill it. Joe Manchin, D-WV, wants to keep it. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, is not discussing it at all.

But it seems that every Republican in the country is counting on the filibuster. If the GOP can hogtie the fledgling John Lewis Voting Rights bill, they can push through more than 200 proposed state laws that are aimed to limit future voting to probable Republicans. It seems that limiting minority votes is a positive good in conservative eyes.

The voting rights bill would also limit gerrymandering, which has garnered Republican wins in areas that would otherwise go to Democrats. 

It's that prospect -- losing the voting rights bill -- that has brought more filibuster-busting lawmakers out of the woodworks. Besides Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who leads the anti-filibuster push, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith (both D-MN), and John Tester (D-MT) have recently said they're leaning toward killing it. 

(You already know this, but: The filibuster is a way of running out the clock on legislation that would otherwise come up for a vote in the Senate.)

In this Congress (after "filibuster reform" a few decades back), the Senate can set aside a filibuster if ten Republicans agree to let the bill go to a vote.

The Senate can vote away the filibuster with 50 Senate votes plus a vote from VP Kamala Harris. It isn't happening now because -- short answer --  Joe Manchin of West Virginia has vowed not to vote to eliminate the filibuster.

Still, it may be absolutely necessary to do for Democrats to make legislative progress. We've seen enough partisan biting and bickering on the COVID economic stimulus bill to be confident that very little will happen if Democrats have to wheedle 10 Republicans for every piece of legislation for the next two years.

I'm ready to see the filibuster die. It's time to play hardball with the hardbit. Vote it out!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/voting-rights-senate-filibuster/?fbclid=IwAR3iZYpgNyNDUgIR3V8lCbPqVrPoKZu2VO_DbV90BD_pZBhAouh8lHwRtM8

3/5/21 Senator Johnson Brushes Up His Trump Credentials by Slowing Down the COVID Relief Bill

Ron Johnson, the Senator from Wisconsin, is determined to slow, if not stifle, the COVID19 economic booster bill. 

His new tactic makes it quite literal: He wants the entire 638-page bill read aloud on the floor of the Senate before it goes to a vote. It'll take a lot of hours, but no Senator is going to sit there and listen to it, and no Senator is going to read it aloud. Senate staffers will mouth every word into the blank eye of the CSPAN camera.

Presumably, any bullheaded, discourteous obstacle that a Republican lawmaker tosses in the road will cadge a few more votes from the Trump fans.

But this one has even Republicans wondering why. “I’m not sure it really makes a point. It doesn’t punish anybody except members of the staff … and pretty much all 100 senators,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D).

Johnson hasn't said for sure whether he'll run again, but he recently scored another point with Trump voters by claiming that the insurrection was initiated by “fake” Trump supporters.


https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/541741-ron-johnson-grinds-senate-to-halt-irritating-many?fbclid=IwAR2H6pgLY07D6-U7B5dnexVa_hg7ZBnhhpa4xW9fMd5KQiBMrrTH9mACWFQ

3/2/21 Minimum Wage Plans A and B Both Fall Short

The fast-tracked minimum wage increase had a Plan A and a Plan B, and neither is going to work.

Plan A was to tuck a new $15 minimum wage into the COVID19 relief bill. The Senate Parliamentarian ruled that out because it veered outside the bounds of the reconciliation process.

The Biden administration refuses to go to battle against the Parliamentarian. So much for Plan A.

Plan B was a rather complicated tax scheme that Ron Wyden (D-Wa) and Bernie Sanders (D-Vt) liked. Making policy by way of the tax code is fraught, and it wasn't clear that the Senators' plan would do the trick. Wyden was sure that it would slip through the Parliamentarian's restrictions, but the bill never got enough traction from the rest of the Senate to move forward. Sorry folks, that was it for Plan B.

Don't despair, though: The minimum wage hike is dead only as a part of the COVID19 relief package. It's still a priority for Democrats, and, one hopes, for some of the quieter Republicans too.

There'll be a stand-alone bill sooner rather than later! 

3/1/21 Health Care Workers Continue Their Marathon

The pandemic is far from over. In California, the death toll is close to 52,000 and counting. There, and elsewhere, health workers at still running their marathons.

While new case numbers have dropped, new variants have put a dent in that welcome news.

New studies show that nearly half of hospital workers may have mental health issues including anxiety, depression, insomnia and post-traumatic stress disorder. Every surge brings increased workloads, personal risk of infection and the loss of many patients. Those workers note grimly that the number of Latino and Latina patients is double the number of Anglo patients.

There are signs of hope. In County USC Medical Center in Southern California, Biden's administration has literally sent troops to help vaccinate people and to help tired employees in the ICU. (In ancient Rome, idle troops built roads, so why shouldn’t the Military use their time to help out?)

If you have a way to ease the burdens these health workers face, don't hesitate to do it. 


https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-healthcare-workers-confronting-mental-health-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR3vWYdFDTuHRF-J7nCH0v4znNZSFZsaPDjJb9HUyu9gxrgyfRFziMyXrqU

2/28/21 In Biden's White House, Khashoggi is Not Forgotten

On Friday, Avril Haines, who heads the Office of National Intelligence, released a report saying that Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman, the country's ruler, had approved the operation to "capture or kill" a Washington Post reporter in 2018.

The details are memorable, and gruesome: Jamal Khashoggi, who had gone to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to get documents for a marriage license, was strangled and dismembered, and his body vanished.

To Donald Trump, it wasn't that big a deal. That Khashoggi worked for a prominent liberal newspaper -- well, Trump might not have minded at all. But in any other era, under any other president, Khashoggi's death would have called for freezing diplomatic relations, shipping the Saudi ambassador back home in a hurry, and although it's hard to imagine, possibly even making a military response.

Two-plus years on, Biden inherited the mess Trump left behind, and the impossible task of responding to an international crime more than two years old.

The new report confirms the prince’s involvement in the murder, and makes diplomatic relations a tad awkward. It's like having a severed head on the conference table where you're negotiating arms and oil. What're you going to do, ignore it?

Other than restricting various visas and chiding the parties involved in the killing, Biden hasn't and possibly won't respond in any public way.

On the other hand, last week Biden met with Saudi Arabia’s king, and not with the crown prince. We assume Biden may have given the king an ultimatum to remove the we crown prince from the succession order, to help the US in some other way that compensates for the past act, or to face sanctions.

Perhaps not... it’s too early to know. We can safely assume that if the Saudis don’t do penance, the air will be a lot chillier between Washington and the Middle East's desert.


https://thehill.com/policy/international/middle-east-north-africa/540756-intelligence-official-says-khashoggi-report?fbclid=IwAR2BbtV51FBaOU6O-Mj-QKT8GjLdHzpXFc949L_xh0XwWFctYtcTiU3gj1w

2/28/21 Can Democrats Trust Republicans to Investigate January 6?

Ever since Trump Republicans joined the Church of the Holy Wacko, it has been next to impossible to trust anything they say, right down to the words And, If, and But.

So when House Reps heard that Nancy Pelosi wanted to install a Democratic majority on the panel investigating the insurrection of January 6, I for one felt a sense of relief.

As Representative Gerry Donnolly (D-Va) put it, “We do not owe delusional deniers a role or a platform in a commission designed to try to ferret out extremism and violence to prevent its recurrence." He added, “These people are dangerous.”

Additionally, it’s likely some legislators were personally involved in planning or carrying out the attack. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Ca.), who helped  prosecute Trump’s second impeachment, sees it as a fox-in-the-henhouse equivalent. Republicans are "asking to have oversight for an event that they are partially responsible for inciting.” You don't say.

Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, are concerned that Democrats intend to muddy Trump and Republicans repeatedly ahead of the 2022 elections, and are more than willing to fling accusations about how unfair it all is. That shouldn't stop Democrats from remembering the rough treatment they've had at the hands of Mitch McConnell's right-wing army of legislators.

It matters that Trump Republicans are a new breed. We've known for a while now that Trump fans have left the real world behind in favor of QAnon or, worse, a taste for news that pours misinformation into gullets thirsty for a reason to force the rest of the nation back into the inequalities of the past.

There is not one Trumpist politician out there who is putting the country first; none show integrity, and their political goals have twisted to the point that they appear eager to do actual harm to people who oppose them. It's like Joe McCarthy came back red-headed and hypnotized them.

It's time to fight back with the commonsensical step of keeping Republican politicians from ruining yet another once-honorable process of Congress. Remember how Republicans' special prosecutor started out investigating Bill Clinton's relationship with Gennifer Flowers and, years later, finally impeached him over an incident that took place long after the investigation began?

In the context of recent history, Democrats will do a fine job just by being honest, and a spectacular job just by being fair.


https://thehill.com/homenews/house/540779-democrats-dont-trust-gop-on-1-6-commission-these-people-are-dangerous?fbclid=IwAR36esiQoaONStobeReNLgJbzKHfMshDMrFaVZUldUfQ5rJCq6lQGjRSPBE

2/17/21 Plan B for Passing a $15 Federal Minimum Wage

Senator Ron Wyden, G-Wa, has a Plan B to get the minimum wage up to $15 an hour: Use the tax code. 

Wyden's idea is to institute a tax penalty for companies that won't raise wages. If they pay less than $15 an hour, they'll have to pay a tax penalty per employee. It's like giving the company a choice of ponying up for their employees or ponying up for the federal government.

Wyden's idea was designed to go into the omnibus stimulus bill, which is up for a vote in the House Friday night. If it's not there now, it will probably be there later. Wyden says that the measure works with the rules of reconciliation.

Plan A, as you'll recall, failed after the Senate Parliamentarian said a $15 minimum wage couldn't be tucked into Biden's COVID19 economic stimulus bill. You might think that Plan B would be pushing a separate bill through the Senate, but no:  There are too many not-too-sure-about-this Senators who are queasy about doubling the current federal minimum ($7.25) and then some.

Natch, a tweak to the tax code is apt to be a lot more complicated than it sounds. It'd be great if, say, Dewey Cheatham and Howe Mfg., Inc. decided to pay $5 an hour to the government instead of raising its workers' pay from $10 an hour (because, say, the wage workers might develop higher expectations).

It's another matter if persons unknown decide that the tax penalty should be a small proportion of the difference between the actual pay and the putative minimum pay, thus giving companies some incentive to undercompensate. Or that the minimum should be not $15 now, but $12 now, or, as Senators Romney & Cotton would have it, $10 four years from now. It would also not be a surprise if someone found a way to make that tax penalty a writeoff.

And it's another matter still if DCH Mfg. decides to outsource by hiring contractors, turning jobs with dismal pay into an even more dismal part of the gig economy. Wyden says his plan will make that impossible. He wants this to be a carrot for small businesses and not just a stick for large ones. He figures an income tax credit of 25 percent of wages up to $10,000 a year for companies that raise their wages.

Whatever happens, the minimum wage hike is not going to disappear. It’s a very popular idea!

Think back to the first job you ever had as a teenager. What would you be earning now if your pay had kept up with inflation? Inflation calculator:  https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm


https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/540668-plan-b-for-15-minimum-wage-unveiled?rl=1&fbclid=IwAR2JljtdXQwhmMXnUa6jCiQ_ieVtPIUPVBx5q0TZg5L8Ry-qXEsi91sKit4

2/25/21 Donnie Jr. Deplores Teachers Who Dare Insist on Survival

That backdrop of fancy-looking guns got a lot of attention in Donald Jr.'s recent rant about teachers' unions.

It shouldn't have. Sure, it was deliberately chosen to intimidate the weak and stoke the stupid, but its real drawback is that it threw people's attention away from Donnie Jr.'s unhinged words.

Teachers don't want to work unvaccinated -- or with kids who may do surprise "reveals" of their faces by removing their masks (betchya Donnie's kids do that, those little scamps!).

Given that fact, Donnie's message seems to be that teachers have no right to safe working conditions (OSHA? What's that?).

"The teachers' unions are out of control & are destroying our kids' futures!" the captions on the video said.

In short: How dare teachers abandon their posts as champions of Trumplandia's spawn? We all sacrifice for our children! It follows that teachers should sacrifice themselves for our children! Don't teachers realize their lives are worth nothing?

Really, don't wackos of this type generally home-school their kids anyway?


https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-jr-teachers-unions-gun-wall_n_6032ea86c5b66da5dba25a2b?fbclid=IwAR3iZYpgNyNDUgIR3V8lCbPqVrPoKZu2VO_DbV90BD_pZBhAouh8lHwRtM8