Monday, May 31, 2021

Tweets Of The Day

 

President Biden on Memorial Day 2021: "democracy itself is in peril" --

 

 

Example of that peril, Russian asset says what --

 

 

 

 

"Patriot Voices" πŸ‘†πŸ‘‡ lol --

 


Nikki Haley, lightweight contender (more self-owning hypocrisy here) --

 

 

 


Evergreen --

 

 

 

QOTD -- "Trolling, Recrimination And Bile"

 

"It is both an uneasy and an incredibly easy time to be an ambitious Republican politician. A generation of hothouse freaks bred for and molded by the conservative political ecosystem are running up against the realization that their base cares nothing about the ludicrously shitty and unpopular policies they’ve been pushing for generations, and also hates their tricksy and smug debate-club rhetoric, and also hates them, really, mostly for the usual reasons that people dislike Yalies but also because they are boring. But what has replaced all that professional stuff is just trolling and recrimination and bile; there is no real reasoning to it, or with it.

"What this base wants to see is itself, reflected in shades of gunmetal and gold, because it does not trust and cannot care about anything but that reflection. This is the language that Jenner is trying to learn to speak, the uncanny patois of sunburned small-business tyrants and seething but secretly bored bosses and aggrieved middle-management. The task before Jenner is to learn the things that the deranged hornball grifters and serial antagonizers of customer service professionals and sloppy hair-trigger affluenza cases hear all day from their televisions, and then learn to say it back to them. Trump was able to do this because, for all his wealth, he was exactly as small of spirit and vacant of principle and jealously selfish as the people that idolized him, and just as voracious a consumer of the same terrible television. For all the other things that might hold Jenner back as a candidate, she does at least seem to have all that going for her." --  David Roth, writing about Republican candidate for California Governor Caitlin "I Can See Homeless People From My Hangar" Jenner, but really about Republican pols in general, who reflect the vacuity of their base in the era of the former guy.


Today's Tomorrow Cartoon: "Compromising" With Fanatics

 (click to enlarge)



Egged on by a lazy and cynical Beltway media, pressure is being put on Dems to "compromise" with Republicans whose only agenda is to make the Dems fail. Sen. Manchin never found his "ten Republicans" to break a filibuster on a January 6 investigation, and he never will. 

Help support Tom Tomorrow's work by signing up here.


Monday Memorial Day Reading

 

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Memorial Day 2021 also happens to fall on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, when as many as 300 Blacks were murdered by White mobs, who looted and burned Tulsa's prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood on the basis of a false rumor.  It's a very appropriate twinning, since many historians believe the first observance honoring American war dead was by newly freed Black people who wanted to honor the thousands of Black soldiers who fought and died to preserve the Union in the Civil War.  

Karen Attiah writes about the moral responsibility of America to address what it owes to Black Americans:

The fact that serious reparations proposals are becoming more mainstream is a cause for hope that the United States might finally grow up. As school kids, my friends and I used to joke about reparations — not because the concept of some form of recognition and repair to Black people was laughable, but because we knew White people were not about to recognize and correct the harm they caused to Black people. Later we would learn that the U.S. paid reparations to the families of the Japanese Americans it forced into internment camps. That was the right thing to do — but by what possible logic would the same not be done to address generations of slavery, Jim Crow and segregation?

Some of what we’ll hear in this conversation: Direct cash payments are unfair. The crimes were too far in the past. The bill would be too high. Or, even more crudely, Black people should get over the past. But the past is always present. There are reminders everywhere, when it comes to White and Black relations, that it is not Black Americans who should get over the past, but White Americans. [snip]

A Memorial Day for the ages, indeed. The fact that GOP-led state governments are attacking scholarship on racism in this country reveals one truth: The United States has lacked the courage to face what it owes to Black Americans. Reparations will be the real test of whether the United States is interested in changing that — or would rather dance around its moral responsibilities for another hundred years.

E.J. Dionne, Jr., writes about the military sacrifice of Black Americans and the "promissory note" that awaits full payment:

We often declare, rightly I think, that those who gave their lives for our country were fighting for freedom. But after a year marked by a searing confrontation with racial injustice, in the present and in our history, we would do well to ponder the military sacrifice of Black Americans from the Civil War forward. In World War II alone, 1.2 million Black Americans served in the military. What did freedom mean for those who faced racial oppression?

“Black men have fought in every single war for the United States, most of them at times when they weren’t even considered first-class citizens,” says Christopher S. Parker, author of “Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South.”

In his interviews with Black veterans, Parker, a political science professor at the University of Washington, found a patriotism rooted not in the reality of their moment but in aspirations for the future — “hope that America would recognize its founding values. It’s the thing that kept them going,” he told me. [snip]

“A lot of people talk about patriotism these days,” Parker told me. “But what is patriotism? It’s a commitment to a set of founding values so complete that one is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.”

This can be said of all we honor on Memorial Day. But Parker and Gates, like Franklin before them, are right to call our attention to Black Americans who served and sacrificed on the basis of what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called “a promissory note,” written in our founding documents — one that still awaits full payment. It’s hard to imagine a more sweeping sense of faith — and hope.

Think about that perspective as we hear racist right- wingers endlessly yapping about "wokeness" and critical race theory in their desperation to hold back the aspirations of our fellow Americans for yet another generation.

The Associated Press has taken a look at racism in the military:

In interviews with The Associated Press, current and former enlistees and officers in nearly every branch of the armed services described a deep-rooted culture of racism and discrimination that stubbornly festers, despite repeated efforts to eradicate it.

The AP found that the military’s judicial system has no explicit category for hate crimes, making it difficult to quantify crimes motivated by prejudice.

The Defense Department also has no way to track the number of troops ousted for extremist views, despite its repeated pledges to root them out. More than 20 people linked to the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol were found to have military ties.

The AP also found that the Uniform Code of Military Justice does not adequately address discriminatory incidents and that rank-and-file people of color commonly face courts-martial panels made up of all-white service members, which some experts argue can lead to harsher outcomes.

The military said it processed more than 750 complaints of discrimination by race or ethnicity from service members in the fiscal year 2020 alone. But discrimination doesn’t exist just within the military rank-and-file. That same fiscal year, civilians working in the financial, technical and support sectors of the Army, Air Force and Navy also filed 900 complaints of racial discrimination and over 350 complaints of discrimination by skin color, data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shows.

We're confident that with President Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at the top of the chain of command this culture isn't going to be allowed to fester on their watch.

Not all who served are patriots, of course.  Take for example this felonious lunatic:

Avowed QAnon disciple and confessed felon retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has called for a Myanmar-like military coup in America.

“It should happen,” Donald Trump’s former national security adviser said in an astonishing declaration at a QAnon conference Sunday.

Myanmar’s military violently seized control of the country from its civilian government in late January, detained democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and top party members, and killed more than 700 protesters as of early this month. The military justified its action by claiming unproven “election fraud.”

Flynn presented his dark vision of a military coup and dictatorship in the U.S. in response to a question from the audience at the conference.

″I wanna know why what happened in Myanmar can’t happen here?” an unidentified member of the audience asked Flynn, though he pronounced the nation as “Minnimar.”

“No reason,” Flynn responded to wild screams of approval. “It should happen.”

Advocating the violent overthrow of the government is a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2385 and is punishable by not more than 20 years in the clink.  Flynn is increasingly making the case for a finding of  non compos mentis, in which case a long visit to a psychiatric facility would be merited.  Either way,  lock him up (and take away his rank and retirement benefits)!

Finally, please head over to Infidel 753's link round- up for the best selection of "interesting stuff" he's found on the Internet in the past week (and that's truth in labeling!). 


Dem Walkout Halts TX Voter Suppression Bill



In an attempt to impose severe voting restrictions in Texas aimed at Dems, the state's Republican legislature crafted a sinister bill that would have made voting by mail difficult, empowered partisan poll watchers to disrupt elections, and made elections easier to overturn by the Rethug majority. The Texas Senate passed the bill yesterday and sent the bill to the Texas House, where late last night, the entire Dem delegation walked out. Lacking the quorum required for a vote, the Rethugs had to adjourn without passing the bill. From the Associated Press:

"Texas Democrats pulled off a dramatic, last-ditch walkout in the state House of Representatives on Sunday night to block passage of one of the most restrictive voting bills in the U.S., leaving Republicans with no choice but to abandon a midnight deadline and declare the legislative session essentially over.

The revolt is one of Democrats’ biggest protests to date against GOP efforts nationwide to impose stricter election laws, and they used the spotlight to urge President Joe Biden to act on voting rights. [snip]

One by one, Democrats left the House chamber until there was no longer the 100-member quorum needed to pass Senate Bill 7, which would have reduced polling hours, empowered poll watchers and scaled back ways to vote in Texas, which already has some of the nation’s strictest voting laws." 

Trumpist toady Gov. Gregg "Abbadabba" Abbott said after that he would call a special session at an undetermined time later this year to take up the bill again. 

Trying to ensure that Republican pols choose the voters rather than the other way around, Texas' voting bill was couched in the deceitful premise that there was a problem to be solved, allegedly widespread voter fraud which hasn't been a factor in any national elections in modern history. The validity of the November 2020 election was confirmed by all 50 Secretaries of State, the cybersecurity command at the Department of Homeland Security, former Attorney General, and Trump's "Roy Cohn", Bill Barr, and through countless lawsuits which failed to prove election fraud.

Clearly, the "problem" that Republican pols are up against is the changing, increasingly pro-Dem demographic of their state that's eventually going to vote many of them out of office.

(photo: Dem legislators walk out to block voter suppression bill.  Dallas Morning News)

Sunday, May 30, 2021

Across The Universe, Cont. -- Lopsided Spiral Galaxy

 

(click on image to enlarge)

From NASA/ ESA, May 27, 2021This spectacular image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the trailing arms of NGC 2276, a spiral galaxy 120 million light-years away in the constellation of Cepheus. At first glance, the delicate tracery of bright spiral arms and dark dust lanes resembles countless other spiral galaxies. A closer look reveals a strangely lopsided galaxy shaped by gravitational interaction and intense star formation. 

Credit:  ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Sell

Acknowledgement: L. Shatz

 

The Winner In The One Gram Weightclass

 (click to enlarge)


People experiencing their every-17 year fill of the cicadas now swarming from parts of the midwest to up and down the eastern seaboard have been eager for them to leave. 

It looks like as though this little cicada weightlifter still has hopes for the Olympics this summer in Tokyo. Go for it, but mainly just go!

(Oxana Ware via Reuters)

Tweets Of The Day


Just the tip of the iceberg --

 

 

 


Saying the quiet part loud (cont.) --

 


Sic transit gloria, America --

 

 


There has never been systemic racism in America (cont.) --

 

 

"Faux News = Faux Outrage" --

 

 

C'est incroyable! --

 

 

 

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Dave Whamond, caglecartoons.com)

(Nick Anderson, gocomics.com)

(Walt Handelsman, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)

(Clay Jones, claytoonz.com)

(Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune)

(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)

(Bruce Plante, caglecartoons.com)

(Dave Granlund, politicalcartoons.com)


Sunday Reflection: "Incident"


Countee Cullen was one of the Harlem Renaissance's most celebrated literary lights, along with the more famous poet Langston Hughes and novelist Zora Neale Hurston. Born 118 years ago today, Cullen witnessed open racism growing up in America. In his 1925 poem "Incident," he writes about an encounter as a little boy while on a trip to segregated Baltimore:

"Once riding in old Baltimore,

Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,

I saw a Baltimorean

Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,

And he was no whit bigger,

And so I smiled, but he poked out

His tongue, and called me, 'Ni**er.'

I saw the whole of Baltimore

From May until December;

Of all the things that happened there

That's all that I remember."

Tomorrow and Tuesday mark the 100th anniversary of the vicious, senseless massacre of hundreds of African-Americans in Tulsa, OK, by thousands of armed white racists. The African-American community of Greenwood, known as the "Black Wall Street" for its business life and prosperity, was sacked and burned in the whites' riot. Cullen's poem, written just four years after Tulsa, is but one testiment -- by him as a child -- of the racism that African-Americans encounter, in small ways and large ways, in their daily lives, and that we must acknowledge and fight.

Israel's Netanyahu On His Way Out?

 



From the Jerusalem Post:

Barring last-minute unforeseen circumstances, Yamina leader Naftali Bennett will announce in a meeting with his faction on Sunday that he has agreed to form a coalition government with Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid, sources in the faction who spoke to Bennett told The Jerusalem Post on Saturday night.

Bennett informed Lapid of his decision on Friday. They agreed that Bennett would serve first as prime minister until September 2023, after which Lapid would take over until the term ends in November 2025. But sources in Yamina said there are still some disputes with Yesh Atid that remain unresolved.
 
Final coalition deals will be signed by Monday and submitted to the Knesset. The swearing-in ceremony could take place as early as Wednesday, but legally, once Lapid tells President Reuven Rivlin that he could form a government, he has a week to bring the government to a vote of confidence in the Knesset.

Of course, the dealing and horsetrading over the next 48 hours will be mind- numbing, and PM Netanyahu is pulling out all the stops to retain power:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu manoeuvred on Sunday to try to dissuade opponents from forming a "government of change", with media reports saying a deal to unseat Israel's longest-serving leader could be imminent.

Opposition chief Yair Lapid, who has until Wednesday to put together a coalition after the fourth inconclusive election in two years, was closing in on an alliance of right-wing, centrist and leftist parties, Israeli media reported.

The new coalition's parties would have little in common apart from a plan to end the 12-year-run of Netanyahu, a right-wing leader on trial over corruption charges he denies. [snip]

Netanyahu, 71, made a sudden three-way counter-offer on Sunday to stand aside in favour of another right-wing politician, Gideon Saar. Under Netanyahu's blueprint, Saar would serve as prime minister for 15 months, Netanyahu would return for two years, and Bennett would then take over for the rest of the government's term.

"We are at a fateful moment for Israel's security, character and future, when you put aside any personal considerations and take far-reaching and even unprecedented steps," Netanyahu said in a video statement on Twitter about the proposal.

However, Saar, a former Likud cabinet minister, swiftly rejected the offer, writing on Twitter: "Our position and commitment are unchanged - to end Netanyahu's rule."

Netanyahu is the ultimate political survivor, but this just might be where his story ends.  Stay tuned.

(Photo: two right- wing leaders with corruption issues/ Ronan Zvulun, Reuters)

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Bill Bramhall, New York Daily News)

(Ann Telnaes, Washington Post)

(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)

(Mort Gerberg, @Mortgerberg)

(Michael de Adder, Washington Post)

(Jeff Danziger, The Rutland Herald, VT)

(Robert Ariail, Spartanburg Herald-Examiner, SC)

(Tim Campbell, Washington Post Writers Group)

(Kevin Kallaugher, The Economist, London)

(Martyn Turner, Irish Times, Dublin)


"The GOP Betrayed America" On January 6

 

A powerful new video from MeidasTouch was released yesterday, targeting the betrayal of our democracy by Republicans, who want voters to forget the violent insurrection on January 6 that their cult leader instigated. The attempted coverup continued with yesterday's disgraceful vote, but there are means for Congress to get at the details of what happened, which is why a select committee needs to be appointed. Watch and share widely:

Tweets Of The Day


Republicans kill bipartisan January 6 commission/ end the filibuster! --

 

 

 

 

 

 


"Bronx cheers" for dimwitted Trump cultists --


 

Today in Darwinism:  his "immune system" didn't work so well --

 

 

 

Quotes Of The Day -- "They Weren't Sincere"

 


"They were very charming, and they knew what they were doing.  They knew how to talk to us. But we kind of held back. It was just — it was tense. And we just made believe, you know, everything was fine. And we were very nice to them for the most part. … We knew they weren’t sincere. They weren’t sincere.”  -- Gladys Sicknick, mother of late Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, interviewed by CNN yesterday after a series of meetings with Republican Senators trying to convince them to allow the bipartisan January 6 commission bill to go forward.

_____________________ 


"It’s all talk and no action. Clearly they’re not backing the blue.”  -- Sandra Garza, Officer Sicknick's partner, during the same interview.

(Cartoon:  Michael de Adder/ Counterpoint)


Paper: Don't Wait For Rubio To Do The Right Thing


The Orlando Sentinel didn't mince words when they went after their shallow, power-needing Senator, Marco "Li'l Marco" Rubio, for his cowardice and betrayal of American democracy over establishing a January 6 investigative commission. From their editorial:

"So Marco Rubio declared on Twitter he’s a no vote on creating a commission to get to the bottom of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

That’s the least surprising news since Rubio voted against convicting Donald Trump after the former president encouraged the insurrection, the clearest case for impeachment and removal of a president in U.S. history.  [snip]

Sorry to say it, but Marco Rubio is beyond hope.

Before the insurrection, we, too, took a few stabs at encouraging Rubio to do the right thing.

After Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death just weeks before last year’s election, we asked Rubio to stand by the Merrick Garland doctrine he and the GOP embraced in 2016 — that replacing a Supreme Court justice in a presidential election year should be left to the election’s winner.

No dice.

We asked him to go ahead and support Trump’s policies if he must but to take a stand in opposition to Trump’s worst, most grotesque impulses.

Nuh-uh.

What’s the point of appealing to someone who swore off another Senate run when he ran for president in 2016, then turned around and ran for the Senate? Someone who negotiated a bipartisan immigration reform bill and then campaigned against it?

We’ve been waiting a decade for Rubio to do the right thing. But the senator is Lucy with the football, and every Floridian who trusts him is Charlie Brown."  (our emphasis)

Rubio imagines himself to be a future President, as a young child might. But imagine this: a President without the character, spine and honesty to put his country above his party making life-and-death decisions for the nation. That's what you'd get, and worse, from Li'l Marco. The Trumpist / Insurrectionist Party is full of Rubios, and won't be deterred unless they start losing elections, and probably not even then.

(photo: Li'l Marco tries out a big person chair)

 

Friday, May 28, 2021

QOTD -- Filibuster

 

"The Founding Fathers, who designed Congress to be run on simple majorities, would have seen the filibuster as a perversion of their vision for the Senate. Despite recent claims about its centrality in the Senate's working, the filibuster was not a product of the founders' work, and it has never been enshrined in the Constitution. It came about after the fact, largely by accident, enabled by a loophole in the Senate's rules and a willingness of some members to exploit it.

"The name given to the new practice in the mid-19th century showed what contemporary Americans thought of it at the time. A "filibuster," in the language of the day, was a plunderer or a pirate. Those who employed the newly invented scheme to block legislation and prevent progress in the Senate were seen, metaphorically, as exactly that — pirates who had hijacked the legislative chamber and steered it to their own ends."  Princeton historian Kevin Kruse, in "Senate's Capitol commission fail highlights Manchin's filibuster ignorance."  It's a good read, describing how this anti- democratic feature has only been used to thwart the good.  The history is there for anyone to read.  Anyone using "tradition" and preserving government as excuses for keeping this racist anachronism is either willfully ignorant or a bigoted charlatan.


Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger, Newark, NJ)

(Lalo Alcaraz, LA Weekly)

(Christopher Weyant, Boston Globe)

(Ed Wexler, caglecartoons.com)

(Rob Rogers, Counterpoint)

(Steve Benson, Arizona Mirror)

(Nick Anderson, gocomics.com)

(Mike Peters, Dayton Daily News)

(Matt Davies, Newsday)

(Walt Handelsman, The Times-Picayune, New Orleans)


 (Michael de Adder, Washington Post)

(Ellis Rosen, @EllisRosen)


Tweets Of The Day

 

As expected, seditionist Republicans block January 6 commission --

 


 Sen. Tester (D-MT), can you spare a ball for Sen. Manchin? --

 


Underage sex and blow enthusiast (allegedly!) looking to lead armed insurrection --


 

Tracking down the insurrectionists:  fire extinguisher "man" heading for jail --

 

 


Evergreen --

 

 

TGIF (wait for it) --

 

 

 

Weekend Memorial Day Music

 

As has become a tradition with us, we're saluting Memorial Day Monday with "Beneath the Southern Cross," part of the original Richard Rodgers' soundtrack for the NBC "Victory at Sea" World War II documentary series from the early 1950s.  The title refers to the constellation Crux (or Southern Cross) easily visible in the South Pacific.  The RCA Victor Orchestra led by Robert Russell Bennett performs the song, also familiarly known as "No Other Love Have I."

Memorial Day in America is a day we remember those service men and women in all wars who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country. We gratefully honor their service.

Stop The Steal!

 

This happened in yesterday's Cubs-Pirates game, with two outs in the third inning:

 

 

Pirates first baseman Will Craig could have simply ended the inning by tagging BΓ‘ez, and the run wouldn't have scored.  Pirates catcher Michael Perez got an error on the throw to first.  Chicago ended up winning 5-3.

 

Today In Racism: A Congresscritter and A Shooter

 

Congresscritter: The vile gym rat POS Trumper from Georgia, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Q-Sedition), was at a Georgia rally with equally vile sex trafficking Floriduh man Rep. Matt "Teen Spirit" Gaetz, when she broke into a tale about Mexican drug dealers in a racist Mexican accent. So much for outreach to the Latinx community. Adios!

Shooter:  The gunman who killed nine fellow employees at the San Jose VTA facility two days ago was apparently facing a disciplinary hearing for making racist remarks to his colleagues. NBC's local station reports:

"NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has learned that the gunman who shot and killed nine VTA co-workers before committing suicide Wednesday was under investigation for allegedly making racist remarks to coworkers and was scheduled to attend a disciplinary hearing on the day of the attack.

According to law enforcement sources, Samuel Cassidy, 57, had been the subject of recent complaints including accusations that he was making inappropriate racial remarks to colleagues while on the job as a station maintenance worker."

Both exemplify the cancer of racism that got a major boost during the regime of the Loser, who never held back from expressing his contempt for people of color.

Thursday, May 27, 2021

PAC Formed To Defeat The "Treason Caucus"

 

A newly-formed political action committee, Never Again, aims to take down as many of the 147 treasonous Republican pols who voted to reject the results of the 2020 election. Calling them "the Treason Caucus", Never Again states on its website:

"The simple fact remains that the Republican Party has time and time again proven themselves to be unfaithful stewards of our most cherished and previously inviolable democratic principles. It is time to respond more aggressively. Never Again PAC would operate on a simple principle: Members of Congress who destabilize American democracy need to be voted out from positions of power, and we can start by holding these dangerous elected officials accountable in the off-years."

They're looking to raise at least $4 million to target the most vulnerable of those 147 treasonous Trumpers. Go to their link here to donate.

Check out their new video. 

Today's Cartoons

 

(click on images to enlarge)

(Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune)

(Pat Bagley, The Salt Lake Tribune)

(John Branch, branchtoon.com)

(Michael Ramirez, Las Vegas Review- Journal)

(Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press)

(Matt Davies, Newsday)

(Stuart Carlson, gocomics.com)



Tweets Of The Day

 

The GQP infrastructure "counteroffer" that isn't (they also want to take money from the COVID relief act) --

 

 


The megalomaniac grifters want to put a contract on you --

 


Lyin' Lukashenko --

 


Bad day for Big Oil --

 

 

Bush leaguer gets bush league treatment --

 

 

Quality Russian construction --

 

 

 

Quotes Of The Day -- Warning

 

"Whatever the label, the party that prioritized protecting white rights has always been more willing to destroy the country than accept a situation where people of color are equal and can participate in the democratic process.

"Donald Trump was not the first politician to refuse to accept the results of a presidential contest. After Abraham Lincoln and the anti-slavery Republican Party won the election of 1860, the Confederates did not waste time filing lawsuits and trying to bully state election officials into overturning their state’s election results. They simply severed their ties with the United States of America, seceded from the union with the defiant 1861 Cornerstone Speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens declaring that “the negro is not equal to the white man,” and quickly organized an army that killed hundreds of thousands of their formerly fellow countrymen." --Steve Phillips in The Nation, on "The Party of White Grievance."

 ______________________

"So 2020 felt like a test run. The plot to overturn the 2020 election never had a real chance of working without some external intervention like a military coup or something like that, which I never thought was particularly likely. But the institutional path that they pursued to steal the election failed because they didn’t control Congress and they didn’t control the right governorships in the right places. [snip]

"It was a test run for a way to overturn an election with the veneer of legality. You have to give Trump and Republicans some kind of dark credit for figuring out that this is really conceivable. I think they now know that, even though it would cause a court battle and possibly a civil war, that if they can’t win by suppressing the vote and the election is close enough, they can do this if they control enough state legislatures and the Congress.

"If Democrats don’t make some changes to our election laws and if they lose some races that they really need to win in 2022 and 2024, then we’re in real trouble." -- David Faris, Roosevelt University political scientist, in an interview with Sean Illing at Vox.  

Democrats need to stay energized and focused -- and pass the "For the People Act" and the "John Lewis Voting Rights Act."  With Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clarke in key positions at the Justice Department, that would be a strong antidote to Republican anti- democracy actions.  They may not be able to always counter Republican white grievance politics, but they need to keep them from rigging elections, which they're doing in plain view right now.

Defending voting rights must be the number one priority for the Administration and Democrats.