THE OWLS' NEST - Mostly U.S. Politics
Ari Fleischer, W's press secretary, says on Fox News that Republicans should retaliate for what they see as unjustified persecution of Donald Trump:
Here's what I hope happens, Sean. I hope conservative prosecutors in rural areas of America indict Bill Clinton, indict Hillary Clinton, indict Hunter Biden.
He doesn't elaborate as to just what terrible crimes they should be indicted for. Who cares? Just indict them!
The biggest intergenerational transfer of wealth in history will occur over the next 25 years, as the richest 1.5% of Americans hand down some $36 TRILLION to their children and grandchildren. This doesn't make those heirs superior: It makes them lucky.
The idea that everyone is "paid what they're worth" has proven to be a cruelly effective way to put the blame on workers for not getting ahead — while giving the rich and powerful cover to rig the game for their own benefit.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 25, 2023
Don't buy it. pic.twitter.com/kckQuOjZ2w https://t.co/yN0omnYZ6p
Here’s a reaction, Frank. This is horrific, a set of despicable lies that will incite violence. What Russians produced it? And who helped them from inside this country? https://t.co/SWMtJjVdNI
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) July 25, 2023
Amazingly inspirational woman who is reminding us to do better https://t.co/rhjNYULe5X
— Teresa Szczepaniak (@Teresa_LS) July 23, 2023
Click here for the Wikipedia article on "Ocoee massacre."
I had never heard of it until today. I caught a snippet of a TV news clip a couple of days ago that mentioned another massacre similar to the Tulsa massacre of 1921 (Black Wall Street) -- which I had never heard of until about six months ago.
The Ocoee massacre was a mass racial violence event that saw a white mob attack numerous African-American residents in the northern parts of, Ocoee, Florida [a suburb of Orlando]. The massacre took place on November 2, 1920, the day of the U.S. presidential electiion.
By most estimates, a total of 30–35 black people were killed in the violence. Most African American-owned buildings and residences in northern Ocoee were burned to the ground. Other African Americans living in southern Ocoee were later killed or driven out of town by the threat of further violence being used against them. Thus, Ocoee essentially became an all-white or "sundown" town. The massacre has been described as the "single bloodiest day in modern American political history".
The attack was intended to prevent black citizens from voting. Black people had essentially been disenfranchised in Florida since the beginning of the 20th century. In Ocoee and across the state, various black organizations had been conducting voter registration drives for a year.
In November 1920, Mose Norman, a prosperous African-American farmer, tried to vote but was turned away twice on Election Day. Norman was among those working on the voter drive. A white mob surrounded the home of Julius "July" Perry, where Norman was thought to have taken refuge. After Perry drove away the white mob with gunshots, killing two men and wounding one who tried to break into his house, the mob called for reinforcements from Orlando and Orange County. The mob laid waste to the African-American community in northern Ocoee and eventually killed Perry. They took his body to Orlando and hanged him from a lightpost to intimidate other black people. Norman escaped, never to be found. Hundreds of other African Americans fled the town, leaving behind their homes and possessions.
"Most of the people living in Ocoee don't even know that this happened there", said Pamela Schwartz, chief curator of the Orange County Regional History Center, which sponsored an exhibit on it. For almost a century, many descendants of survivors were not aware of the massacre that occurred in their hometown.
Then there's the incident of National Guard troops opening fire on students demonstrating on a university campus in 1968 -- 3 killed, 28 injured.
Did you just assume I was referring to Kent State? No, that was 4 killed, 9 injured, and it happened in 1970. Surely the whole world knows about Kent State, when the National Guard opened fire on students demonstrating, an incident immortalized in this picture:
And in Neil Young's song, Ohio:
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
Tulsa, Ocoee, Orangeburg -- these things aren't well publicized, are they? I wonder why that is?
I originally said this as a joke, but on reflection, I came to believe it's true:
The core of Republican economic policy is this: The poor have too much money and the rich have too little.
It's Robin Hood in reverse.
Here's Jon Stewart with something along the same lines:
Who else thinks Jon Stewart would be an outstanding Senator? Drop a 🩵 and RT if you agree! pic.twitter.com/GLmtV00dEb
— Rob Bon Vivant🌊 (@77SunnyAndClear) July 22, 2023
And here's the body of a tweet later the same day from Robert Reich:
Why is it that when progressive policies that help the bottom 90 percent are proposed, the question always seems to be, "How will you pay for it?"
But when the top 1 percent ask for bailouts, tax cuts, and subsidies, the question always seems to be, "How much do you need?"
This is a question posed on Quora:
And here's the answer:
The rot started a long time ago. This didn’t start with Fatso45. Not at all.
In fact, Barry Goldwater, an Arizona Republican who once ran for president, predicted what we are seeing now
:“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them.”
It started back in 1964, after the Civil Rights Act was passed, and the parties divided along racial politics. One side endeavored to expand rights for people, the other side, stuck in tradition, did not. And the people who were against change like women’s rights, minority rights, gay rights, and were for the Vietnam war led a campaign against those who wanted that change.
Damn. He really nailed it, didn’t he?
That’s when we started to see all the talk about people on the left being communists, immoral, unAmerican, etc. That’s when the right started all the talk about feminism being immoral as women started coming into the workforce and Roe became the law of the land, allowing women to exercise control over their reproductive systems and sex lives by being able to obtain abortions legally for the first time along with legal and widely available birth control. When we saw all the talk about blacks being criminals and taking jobs from whites with the advent of affirmative action. When nonwhite immigrants were accused of taking jobs from the white man or after 9/11, being terrorists. When we saw war protesters, many of whom were young draft age white men who refused to go to war, left the country to avoid it, protested it, dressed weird, listened to rock and roll, and stopped going to church/taking up nonChristian beliefs like Buddhism and Hari Khrisna as immoral and anti-American. But the Republican party had enough people running the party and government who were housebroken enough to contain the worst actors to the fringes of the party and to moderate the opposition to the forces of change.
But the fringe wasn’t going to stay there. Oh, no. Not when you think your cause is righteous. and destruction is imminent if you lose.
It took off with right wing radio in the 80s and 90s, most notably by Rush Limbaugh. They started spewing caustic, racist, sexist talk designed to gin up the working class white population, mostly men. Together with people like Newt Gingrich in the House, the right started to talk about their opponents on the left as enemies of America. Evangelical Christians also saw these changes as a moral threat to America’s soul as well, particularly the changes to women’s rights, increasing acceptance of sex outside of marriage, and gay rights, and joined hands with the fringe element to become a key voting bloc called the “Moral Majority”. The Moral Majority gave people like Gingrich a moral shield to what he was doing—when Clinton was impeached by the House he led, Gingrich’s affair with his now wife, Callista, that was going on at the same time was essentially ignored by that same group of Christians who condemned Clinton for his affair. All Gingrich had to do was say he was a practicing Catholic, quote some Bible to them, and that was all those Christians needed to hear—all was forgiven as long as he could take out the hated Clinton and stop the Democratic agenda.
The left was painted by people like Limbaugh as well as the Moral Majority and their representatives in Congress as being a mortal threat to America and that they had to be stopped before judgement rained down on this country. Limbaugh in particular became the poster boy for the right, even acting as a kingmaker in political circles—if you pissed him off, you literally could lose your political career, and if you wanted one, you have to sound just like him and if you could, be a regular guest on his show. Sound familiar?
Then Fox News added to the chorus being sung by the right regarding the left being anti America and pushed the narrative that the mainstream media was being run by leftists who were out to get “traditional America” and could not be trusted. With Fox pushing the right wing narrative against women’s rights, minority rights, and more and more, LGBTQ rights, and the growing belief among the conservative base that all other media could not be trusted, Fox became the go-to network for the right, with all of the stars in the right wing political universe making appearances on their shows. Other right wing talk shows sprung up as well to reinforce/establish the right wing media universe and world view.
All of this talk rested increasingly on twisting the truth and reducing the arguments to simplistic, belligerent “us vs. them” scaremongering talk and bumper sticker policy that was easy for the Republican base to understand and for politicians to campaign with. And as time went on and the right wing media became more entrenched and widespread, twisting the truth evolved into outright lies about the Democrats and their agendas and beliefs as well as war talk. And that talk angered and frightened a greater proportion of the mostly white, rural, churchgoing/traditional values crowd who lapped it all up. Those hosts were speaking to everything they believed, and they started voting for people who were willing to reinforce their beliefs about a new America that was out to get them—an America that was made up of nonwhite, nonChristian/atheist, and women who didn’t want to marry young (or at all), birth baby after baby and stay at home (and thanks to Roe, they didn’t have to anymore). An America that if taken over by Democrats, would kill them and drive America to the very gates of hell if we, the righteous, don’t stop them.
Well, when you start talking about your opponents as being a threat to you and your country, and you have leaders who twist the truth or outright lie about them, and you are frightened that your country will be harshly judged by God if you don’t get things back the way they were before 1964, you start getting the mindset that it is “all hands on deck”—whatever it is you have to do to stop your country going down the drain, you do. Whoever is on your side is your friend, and we aren’t going to care what kind of person you really are because you believe like I do. And if the people leading you into battle are ginning you up on lies and twisted versions of the truth and a dark view of America under your opponent’s rule, and you therefore support them because you think they are the last wall between you and destruction, well, you are already on the road to hell. You’re not going to really care too much about what those people who are leading you are really doing and saying as long as they are fighting by your side for your very soul.
But up until the advent of the Tea Party in the late 2000s, the Republican establishment and apparatus were still able to keep the housebroken members in the top offices and to put a lid on the crazy. People like Mitt Romney, John Boehner, John McCain, George H. W. Bush were still in control at the highest levels of government, and they tamed/tamped down/ostracized a lot of the more feral members. But the Tea Party managed to send a significant number of these feral Congressional members to the House to the point where they made up a major part of the Republican caucus and could no longer be stuffed in a box. They made Speaker Boehner’s life hell, hell to the point where he and Paul Ryan, his successor, just couldn’t govern their caucus. Both Boehner and Ryan eventually ended up resigning as Speaker and left politics altogether. In all likelihood they knew that what they were seeing was the likely future of their party, and they refused to continue to deal with it.
The firewall just couldn’t hold for much longer. With each election the base was becoming more and more radical, more and more wanting to push back against the changes they saw, ginned up by all the forces I’ve talked about above. And eventually the dam broke—with John McCain’s and Mitt Romney’s losses to Barack Obama, a black man with a funny name running the country, the right wing sphere went into overdrive, casting Obama as a Muslim and not as American as they were because he had a Kenyan father and blaming McCain’s and Romney’s losses on them not being real Republicans—a RINO.
After that loss in 2012, it was on. The base, after eight years of Obama, and getting drunk on right wing lies, doomsday talk, and racist talk about Obama from Fox, right wing media, Republican politicians, and conservative Christian leaders, did not want any more McCains or Romneys—they wanted fighters, brawlers.
Enter Fatso45.
He was as crude and direct spoken as they were. He talked in simplistic language and made threats to people. He called Democrats and other establishment Republicans names and he said all the stuff they were thinking about women, immigrants, minorities and gay people. He sucked up to the Christian right with his talk about appointing judges. And he was a rich man, a household name, with a pretty wife so he must know what he is talking about. He sounded like Rush Limbaugh, someone they had long supported and loved. The fact that he was a crooked businessman, had been married three times and had cheated on all of his wives didn’t matter.
By the time Fatso came on board, the base was ready to take whoever would beat back “the left”. And you know the rest—it’s been turtles all the way down since. The base looked the other way or cheered outright when Fatso started crapping like a diarrhetic Christmas goose all over the law and the Constitution and what most people would consider decent behavior—all the stuff they would have lynched Obama for had he done even a tenth of what Fatso did.
Since the housebroken people have now largely been drummed out of visible politics on the Republican side there are no more adults in the party to check this stuff. Those that used to be considered traditional Republicans like Lindsay Graham, Mitch McConnell, and Mitt Romney are keeping quiet—they don’t want to lose their seats or invite threats or harassment from the base like Liz Cheney did. It’s a feral, feces throwing, free for all over there with the radical members holding people like Kevin McCarthy hostage—McCarthy is now doing the two step with ferals like Majorie Taylor Greene, Matt Geatz, Paul Gosar, and others in order to become Speaker. Anyone who wants to run for office, even a clown like Santos who literally lied his way into office and will be seated as a Congressional member while McCarthy, the putative Speaker, looks the other way has a place in today’s Republican party.
It’s sad that there is nobody in the Republican world that is just willing to just say, “STOP!”. The Republican congressional leaders are leaving it largely to non-Republicans to do a job they should be doing—exposing this rot and cleaning it up. But not only are these leaders refusing to do that, they condemn anyone, Democrats or Republicans who aren’t down with Fatso and his crowd who try to insert some saneness and standards back into the equation.
But as I’ve shown, it’s not like we didn’t see this coming. Our buddy who we started this off with, Goldwater in the 60s saw it coming. It just took a while. Would that the Republican party heeded his words:
“Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism. Fellow Republicans, it is the cause of Republicanism to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism. It is the cause of Republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people. ”
So, the upshot is, the TLDR is,
For at least 60 years, the Republican party was primed to accept any soldier they could find who would advance their goals: to wipe out the Democrat/progressive portion of the country and restore America to what it was pre-1964 when white, straight, Christian men had all power in all corners of American life and everyone else had to shut up and salute. When you are at war, you take any body you can, and that is what the Republican party is down to now: If you are on our side and will help us fight, we don’t care what you are and when you do something you shouldn’t do or you are outright criminal, we are going to defend you or just look the other way if we can’t defend you because we need you for battle.
Click herefor a post by Robert Reich entitled "The larger meaning of the Hollywood strike."
It's labor v. capital -- and capital has an overwhelming advantage.
Consider: Stock gains this year have been concentrated among five giant digital firms: Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta. Their combined market capitalization is now over $8 trillion, a figure that exceeds the GDP of every country but the United States and China.
Netflix’s Reed Hastings got a 2022 compensation package worth $51.1 million, up 25 percent from the year before. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO got $39 million. Comcast’s CEO, $32 million. Paramount’s CEO, $32 million. Disney’s CEO, $24 million.
Amazon’s Bezos and Meta’s Zuckerberg are raking in more than all these executives combined.
Meanwhile, the people who create the content are getting shafted. They have less and less bargaining power.
I’m talking about writers, designers, artists, musicians, software designers and developers, photographers, graphics specialists, coders, sound engineers, animators, singers, songwriters, architects, showrunners, journalists, and everyone who stores or delivers these creations.
Over the last decade, the pay of TV writers has fallen by 23 percent. The typical actor has also been on a downward escalator (last year, averaging $26,276). So have the pay, benefits, and job security of most other content creators.
In other words, what’s happening in Hollywood is also happening in a huge and growing portion of the U.S. economy.
This gap between the declining rewards going to digital creators and the soaring rewards going to the executives of the giant corporations that manage digital creations has become a chasm, and it’s becoming ever larger.
The Biden administration has been fighting valiantly for the little guy -- the most labor-friendly administration since FDR's -- but look at the 6-3 Supreme Court. Don't expect many victories for minorities, women, or labor for a couple of decades at least.
Who said people can't change? @RepMTG just gave a glowing endorsement of President Biden. pic.twitter.com/1EqifCfRPE
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 17, 2023
And Goldwater continued:Smart words to ponder: pic.twitter.com/Dwr9JxwzgE
— David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) July 13, 2023
There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.'
STATEMENT OF MS. ROSA PARKS
On the Nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas
To the United States Supreme Court
September 13, 1991
Without a doubt, Judge Thomas has achieved remarkable
success in his career, raising himself up from humble beginnings
to the nomination for the highest court in the land. That is to
his great credit, and I applaud him for it.
Yet I have to believe that his confirmation to the highest
court in the land would not represent a step forward in the road
to racial progress but a U-turn on that road. The record and
rhetoric of the man leaves me little confidence that his
confirmation would in any way help address the profound racial
problems and divisions that drag our country down. His
statements on the Brown v. Board of Education case on
affirmative action, and even on Roe v. Wade, to me indicate
that he wants to push the clock back.
African Americans I believe want to have confidence in the
promise of the courts; we want to believe that they are a place
we can turn for redress of racial discrimination and many
deprivations that are still clearly rampant in our country. The
Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education
instilled in us that hope nearly forty years ago, as did many
others that subsequently followed.
Yet much has changed in recent years. The Supreme Court now
appears to be turning its back on the undeniable fact of
discrimination and exclusion, ruling that anti-discrimination
laws and remedies have gone too far. I believe that Judge Thomas
will accelerate that trend, and that will be destructive for our
nation.Click here for the Wikipedia entry on Rosa Parks (1913-2005).
The share of the national income going to the super-rich was lowest when union membership peaked.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 8, 2023
It's not about economics. It's about power. pic.twitter.com/XX1lubl4qF
Click here for the text of the dissenting opinions by Justices Sotamayor and Jackson to the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard lawsuit, a 6-3 decision by which the radical conservative majority ended the 50-year policy of affirmative action.
It's 98 short pages; Sotamayor's is first, and Jackson begins on page 70.
Click here for an article at Business Insider article entitled "New assault rifle being sold to civilians is twice as powerful as the AR-15 and capable of shooting through bulletproof vests, report says."
That's the Sig Sauer MCX-SPEAR.
The gun fires bullets with twice the kinetic energy of those from an AR-15 has a longer range, and has a noise suppressor that could make a gunman harder to locate, the outlet reported.
Lovely. Let the fun begin.
This says it all! pic.twitter.com/kb1SmXMQbv
— Jill Wine-Banks (@JillWineBanks) July 7, 2023
"The greatest threat our country faces is that our republic will fall to a tyrant. Donald Trump is the tyrant and there should be no mistake about that."
— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) July 7, 2023
More on why the Democratic Party is currently the most important institution in America: https://t.co/rdMUgtjmWb pic.twitter.com/GgimqVookp