May 13, 2023

Happy Birthday, Wonderful Stevie Wonder

Long may you run!

May 13, 2023

Mass Psychosis -- How an Entire Population Becomes Mentally Ill

Change of pace. Visual and mental food for thought. Grist for the mill.

May 11, 2023

Thoughts on dealing with the next nineteen months.

Nineteen months out is too early for the 81 million Americans who voted for President Biden to subject themselves to media's horserace show of a so-called frontrunner -- the most unworthy being the twice-impeached, once-indicted, sexual abuser and defamer who is the former White House occupant.

We know the deal and the grifter. We knew CNN's shitshow was predictable.

We know CNN allowed the Trump Gish Gallop because it's a ratings hustler.

I've said this earlier, but imo it bears repeating.

The gish gallop is Trump's technique of choice.

He always has one aim: bury the interviewer and audience in a torrent of incorrect, irrelevant, or idiotic narratives that he passes off in sincere tones as legitimate argument.

Trump uses Bannon's philosophy, which is that
a) Democrats don't matter,
b) the real opposition are the media, and
the way to deal with media is to "flood the zone with shit."

That's what Trump's gish gallop does -- he dumps a load of previously discredited and debunked bullshit -- knowing that it takes more time and energy to disprove one false claim than to make two or three at a time.

He performs his imagined presidential demeanor, his media interviewers don't even try to follow up on or correct his bullshit, and so CNN's tightly controlled "town hall" is a shitshow.
CNN and grifter get their win-win.

Worst of all, the Trump/CNN win-win is intended to trick viewers into believing the illusion of his authority, and that it is on their side.


It's our option to duly note and not care that media are hustlers selling horse race tickets.
As the Dominion/Fox suit shows, we won't change them in or out of court.

What we're optionally witnessing is not a campaign worthy of the American people.
It's not even a campaign.

As far as I'm concerned, the next nineteen months' hyped horse race is categorically that "rough beast" that "slouches towards Bethlehem to be born."

We know that 81 million Americans with a moral compass won't help, pity or stare at that beast of a "campaign." Life's too short. Children and the future are too important.

We Democrats and allies can settle in, be neighbors, remind fellow Americans to keep strongly walking alongside President Biden and the good hearted soul of America.

May 10, 2023

Today is John Brown's birthday. Long live John Brown.

Malcolm X always said John Brown was his favorite white man in American history. I know more than a few Black people who agree.

At the time John Brown was executed by Virginia for raiding Harper's Ferry, he was praised by famous writers such as Hugo, Emerson, and Thoreau.

More recently, Brown has been the subject of novels, notably, Russell Banks' Cloudsplitter.

Reading history and fiction is all good. Yet, the more I've read about him, the more I wonder at how little we learn of great Americans, and of how old the soul of America is.


I loved Thoreau -- read this excerpt from his "Plea for John Brown" with my 10th grade students back in the day -- and believe he best describes John Brown:


..."All is quiet at Harper's Ferry," say the journals. What is the character of that calm which follows when the law and the slaveholder prevail? I regard this event as a touchstone designed to bring out, with glaring distinctness, the character of this government. We needed to be thus assisted to see it by the light of history. It needed to see itself. When a government puts forth its strength on the side of injustice, as ours to maintain slavery and kill the liberators of the slave, it reveals itself a merely brute force, or worse, a demoniacal force. It is the head of the Plug-Uglies. It is more manifest than ever that tyranny rules. I see this government to be effectually allied with France and Austria in oppressing mankind. There sits a tyrant holding fettered four millions of slaves; here comes their heroic liberator. This most hypocritical and diabolical government looks up from its seat on the gasping four millions, and inquires with an assumption of innocence: "What do you assault me for? Am I not an honest man? Cease agitation on this subject, or I will make a slave of you, too, or else hang you."

We talk about a representative government; but what a monster of a government is that where the noblest faculties of the mind, and the whole heart, are not represented. A semi-human tiger or ox, stalking over the earth, with its heart taken out and the top of its brain shot away. Heroes have fought well on their stumps when their legs were shot off, but I never heard of any good done by such a government as that.

The only government that I recognize,--and it matters not how few are at the head of it, or how small its army,--is that power that establishes justice in the land, never that which establishes injustice. What shall we think of a government to which all the truly brave and just men in the land are enemies, standing between it and those whom it oppresses? A government that pretends to be Christian and crucifies a million Christs every day!

Treason! Where does such treason take its rise? I cannot help thinking of you as you deserve, ye governments. Can you dry up the fountains of thought? High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever recreates man. When you have caught and hung all these human rebels, you have accomplished nothing but your own guilt, for you have not struck at the fountain-head. You presume to contend with a foe against whom West Point cadets and rifled cannon point not. Can all the art of the cannon-founder tempt matter to turn against its maker? Is the form in which the founder thinks he casts it more essential than the constitution of it and of himself?

The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves. They are determined to keep them in this condition; and Massachusetts is one of the confederated overseers to prevent their escape. Such are not all the inhabitants of Massachusetts, but such are they who rule and are obeyed here. It was Massachusetts, as well as Virginia, that put down this insurrection at Harper's Ferry. She sent the marines there, and she will have to pay the penalty of her sin.

Suppose that there is a society in this State that out of its own purse and magnanimity saves all the fugitive slaves that run to us, and protects our colored fellow-citizens, and leaves the other work to the government, so-called. Is not that government fast losing its occupation, and becoming contemptible to mankind? If private men are obliged to perform the offices of government, to protect the weak and dispense justice, then the government becomes only a hired man, or clerk, to perform menial or indifferent services. Of course, that is but the shadow of a government who existence necessitates a Vigilant Committee. What should we think of the Oriental Cadi even, behind whom worked in secret a vigilant committee? But such is the character of our Northern States generally; each has its Vigilant Committee. And, to a certain extent, these crazy governments recognize and accept this relation. They say, virtually, "We'll be glad to work for you on these terms, only don't make a noise about it." And thus the government, its salary being insured, withdraws into the back shop, taking the Constitution with it, and bestows most of its labor on repairing that. When I hear it at work sometimes, as I go by, it reminds me, at best, of those farmers who in winter contrive to turn a penny by following the coopering business. And what kind of spirit is their barrel made to hold? They speculate in stocks, and bore holes in mountains, but they are not competent to lay out even a decent highway. The only free road, the Underground Railroad, is owned and managed by the Vigilant Committee. They have tunnelled under the whole breadth of the land. Such a government is losing its power and respectability as surely as water runs out of a leaky vessel, and is held by one that can contain it.

I hear many condemn these men because they were so few. When were the good and the brave ever in a majority? Would you have had him wait till that time came?--till you and I came over to him? The very fact that he had no rabble or troop of hirelings about him would alone distinguish him from ordinary heroes. His company was small indeed, because few could be found worthy to pass muster. Each one who there laid down his life for the poor and oppressed was a picked man, culled out of many thousands, if not millions; apparently a man of principle, of rare courage, and devoted humanity; ready to sacrifice his life at any moment for so much by laymen as by ministers of the Gospel, not so much by the fighting sects as by the Quakers, and not so much by Quaker men as by Quaker women?

This event advertises me that there is such a fact as death,--the possibility of a man's dying. It seems as if no man had ever died in America before; for in order to die you must first have lived. I don't believe in the hearses, and palls, and funerals that they have had. There was no death in the case, because there had been no life; they merely rotted or sloughed off, pretty much as they had rotted or sloughed along. No temple's veil was rent, only a hole dug somewhere. Let the dead bury their dead. The best of them fairly ran down like a clock. Franklin,--Washington,--they were let off without dying; they were merely missing one day. I hear a good many pretend that they are going to die; or that they have died, for aught that I know. Nonsense! I'll defy them to do it. They haven't got life enough in them. They'll deliquesce like fungi, and keep a hundred eulogists mopping the spot where they left off. Only half a dozen or so have died since the world began. Do you think that you are going to die, sir? No! there's no hope of you. You haven't got your lesson yet. You've got to stay after school. We make a needless ado about capital punishment,--taking lives, when there is no life to take. Memento mori! We don't understand that sublime sentence which some worthy got sculptured on his gravestone once. We've interpreted it in a grovelling and snivelling sense; we've wholly forgotten how to die.

But be sure you do die nevertheless. Do your work, and finish it. If you know how to begin, you will know when to end.

These men, in teaching us how to die, have at the same time taught us how to live. If this man's acts and words do not create a revival, it will be the severest possible satire on the acts and words that do. It is the best news that America has ever heard. It has already quickened the feeble pulse of the North, and infused more and more generous blood into her veins and heart, than any number of years of what is called commercial and political prosperity could. How many a man who was lately contemplating suicide has now something to live for!

One writer says that Brown's peculiar monomania made him to be "dreaded by the Missourians as a supernatural being." Sure enough, a hero in the midst of us cowards is always so dreaded. He is just that thing. He shows himself superior to nature. He has a spark of divinity in him.

"Unless above himself he can Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!"

Newspaper editors argue also that it is a proof of his insanity that he thought he was appointed to do this work which he did,--that he did not suspect himself for a moment! They talk as if it were impossible that a man could be "divinely appointed" in these days to do any work whatever; as if vows and religion were out of date as connected with any man's daily work; as if the agent to abolish slavery could only be somebody appointed by the President, or by some political party. They talk as if a man's death were a failure, and his continued life, be it of whatever character, were a success.

When I reflect to what a cause this man devoted himself, and how religiously, and then reflect to what cause his judges and all who condemn him so angrily and fluently devote themselves, I see that they are as far apart as the heavens and earth are asunder.

The amount of it is, our "leading men" are a harmless kind of folk, and they know well enough that they were not divinely appointed, but elected by the votes of their party.

Who is it whose safety requires that Captain Brown be hung? Is it indispensable to any Northern man? Is there no resource but to cast this man also to the Minotaur? If you do not wish it, say so distinctly. While these things are being done, beauty stands veiled and music is a screeching lie. Think of him,--of his rare qualities!--such a man as it takes ages to make, and ages to understand; no mock hero, nor the representative of any party. A man such as the sun may not rise upon again in this benighted land. To whose making went the costliest material, the finest adamant; sent to be the redeemer of those in captivity; and the only use to which you can put him is to hang him at the end of a rope! You who pretend to care for Christ crucified, consider what you are about to do to him who offered himself to be the savior of four millions of men.

Any man knows when he is justified, and all the wits in the world cannot enlighten him on that point. The murderer always knows that he is justly punished; but when a government takes the life of a man without the consent of his conscience, it is an audacious government, and is taking a step towards its own dissolution. Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good? Is there any necessity for a man's being a tool to perform a deed of which his better nature disapproves? Is it the intention of law-makers that good men shall be hung ever? Are judges to interpret the law according to the letter, and not the spirit? What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that you will do thus or so, against the light within you? Is it for you to make up your mind,--to form any resolution whatever,--and not accept the convictions that are forced upon you, and which ever pass your understanding? I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode of attacking or defending a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his own ground, and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases. Business men may arrange that among themselves. If they were the interpreters of the everlasting laws which rightfully bind man, that would be another thing. A counterfeiting law-factory, standing half in a slave land and half in free! What kind of laws for free men can you expect from that?

I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead not for his life, but for his character,--his immortal life; and so it becomes your cause wholly, and is not his in the least. Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown was hung. These are the two ends of a chain which is not without its links. He is not Old Brown any longer; he is an angel of light.

I see now that it was necessary that the bravest and humanest man in all the country should be hung. Perhaps he saw it himself. I almost fear that I may yet hear of his deliverance, doubting if a prolonged life, if any life, can do as much good as his death.

"Misguided"! "Garrulous"! "Insane"! "Vindictive"! So ye write in your easy-chairs, and thus he wounded responds from the floor of the Armory, clear as a cloudless sky, true as the voice of nature is: "No man sent me here; it was my own prompting and that of my Maker. I acknowledge no master in human form."

And in what a sweet and noble strain he proceeds, addressing his captors, who stand over him: "I think, my friends, you are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity, and it would be perfectly right for any one to interfere with you so far as to free those you willfully and wickedly hold in bondage."

And, referring to his movement: "It is, in my opinion, the greatest service a man can render to God."

"I pity the poor in bondage that have none to help them; that is why I am here; not to gratify any personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive spirit. It is my sympathy with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you, and as precious in the sight of God."

You don't know your testament when you see it.

"I want you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people, oppressed by the slave power, just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful."

"I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better, all you people at the South, prepare yourselves for a settlement of that question, that must come up for settlement sooner than your are prepared for it. The sooner you are prepared the better. You may dispose of me very easily. I am nearly disposed of now; but this question is still to be settled,--this negro question, I mean; the end of that is not yet."

I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.

Full essay at
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/thoreau_001.asp

May 9, 2023

Congratulations to the Miami Herald for winning the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing

EDITORIAL WRITING: Nancy Ancrum, Amy Driscoll, Luisa Yanez, Isadora Rangel and Lauren Costantino, Miami Herald

Their 2022 editorial series is entitled "Broken Promises"

(sorry this photo doesn't show)
https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/2rdlv5/picture275209266/alternates/FREE_1140/MIA_105PulitzerWatch08NEWPP


The editorial board has also produced a podcast series, which, imo, should also have won a Pulitzer.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/woke-wars/id1675958996

May 9, 2023

Rachel Maddow on Convergent Violence of RWDS Trumpists & Anti-Semite Nazi White Supremacist Racists

(Apologies for the tacky-ugh screen video caption)

Trumpcult hosts its 'hitler was right' conference in Miami this weekend.

May 7, 2023

Laurence Tribe -- Why I Changed My Mind on the Debt Limit

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/07/opinion/debt-limit.html

May 3, 2023

AG Garland Announces Largest Int'l Operation Against Darknet Trafficking of Fentanyl and Opioids

A little over two weeks ago, I announced that the Justice Department had taken significant enforcement actions against the largest, most violent, and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world: the Sinaloa Cartel.

I said then that the Justice Department is doing everything in our power, and using every authority we have, to bring those responsible for the fentanyl epidemic to justice.

That includes holding accountable the drug traffickers who use the dark web to commit their crimes.

Drug traffickers are increasingly turning to the dark web to sell illegal drugs in exchange for cryptocurrency. They may advertise their drugs on darknet marketplaces as brand name pharmaceuticals. But in reality, the pills are often counterfeit and laced with fentanyl.

The drug traffickers are confident that, by operating anonymously on the dark web, they can operate outside the bounds of the law.

They are wrong.

I am joined today by FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, DEA Principal Deputy Administrator Lou Milione, Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale, IRS-CI Chief Jim Lee, and FDA Investigative Services Division Chief Daniel Burke.

We are here today to announce the results of an unprecedented international enforcement operation led by the FBI – known as Operation SpecTor – against traffickers of fentanyl and other drugs who operate on the dark web.

Operation SpecTor was a coordinated international law enforcement effort, spanning three continents, to disrupt drug trafficking on the dark web.

It involved agencies across the federal government, along with our partners at Europol and Eurojust, and law enforcement agencies in eight foreign countries. It was led by the Department’s Joint Criminal Opioid and Darknet Enforcement – or JCODE – team.

Across the U.S. and eight other countries, Operation SpecTor resulted in a total of 288 arrests and the seizure of 117 illegal firearms, 850 kilograms of drugs, and $53.4 million dollars in cash and cryptocurrency.

This represents the most funds seized and the highest number of arrests in any coordinated international action led by the Justice Department against drug traffickers on the dark web.

Here in the United States, our Operation SpecTor investigations involved the FBI, DEA, ATF, and more than 30 U.S. Attorneys’ offices – as well as our partners at other federal agencies.

In the United States, we arrested 153 defendants, seized 104 illegal guns, and seized over 200,000 pills, including those containing fentanyl.

To give just three examples of the cases that made up this massive operation since it began in October 2021:

In the Central District of California, a defendant was charged with drug and weapons offenses for his role in leading an organization that obtained bulk fentanyl; operated labs that used high-speed pill presses to create pills containing fentanyl and methamphetamine; and sold millions of pills to thousands of customers on the darknet.

In the Southern District of Florida, we secured the conviction of an individual who distributed narcotics, including fentanyl, on various dark web marketplaces. That defendant possessed a list of over 6,000 customers across the United States.

And in the Eastern District of California, two individuals were charged with drug and money laundering offenses for their role in selling tens of thousands of counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl in exchange for cryptocurrency on the dark web.

I am extremely grateful to the agents, prosecutors, analysts, and staff across the Department who participated in this operation –including the FBI and its JCODE team, the DEA and ATF, our U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and OCDETF, and multiple sections of the Criminal Division – including the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, the Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section, the Fraud Section, and the Office of International Affairs.

I also want to thank our partners across the federal government for their assistance in this operation – including the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, IRS Criminal Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the FDA Office of Investigations, and the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

I am likewise grateful to our partners at Europol and Eurojust, and to our law enforcement partners in Austria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Brazil, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland – without whom this operation would not have been possible.

The Justice Department is cracking down on criminal cryptocurrency transactions and the online criminal marketplaces that enable them.

In 2021, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced the results of another international operation, Operation DarkHunTor, which involved the arrests of 150 Darknet drug traffickers and the seizure of $32 [million] in cash and cryptocurrencies.

Last year, together with our German law enforcement partners, we seized Hydra Market, the world’s largest and longest-running illegal marketplace on the dark web.

Earlier this year, we led a coordinated international operation against Genesis Market, a major criminal marketplace that enabled cybercriminals to victimize individuals, businesses, and governments around the world.

And today, we have announced an unprecedented international enforcement action against drug traffickers on the dark web.

This work will continue.

Our message to criminals on the dark web is this: You can try to hide in the furthest reaches of the internet, but the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable for your crimes.

The Justice Department, together with our American and international partners, will continue to disrupt and dismantle darknet markets.

April 29, 2023

Every day is Arbor Day.

We join the world in celebrating trees.


There's a reason to love every single tree, but here are twenty.

Tree Poems, of course.


Twenty of the world's oldest trees.

April 25, 2023

President Biden Delivers Remarks on Investing in America

President Biden discusses how his investing in America agenda is bringing manufacturing back, rebuilding the middle class, and creating good-paying union jobs.

Start 28:35