Judge Amy Coney Barrett is a threat to the Republic

A slow moving coup against the judiciary is afoot. This slow moving coup has gone on for twenty years, and one may say the project is to establish a Zombie Confederacy.

The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court is a deep cause for concern for the Republic. Barrett's judicial philosophy is actually a political philosophy which is not moored within constitutional history. When Bennett testifies at her nominating hearing, we may expect her to tell the Senate and the public she is an "originalist" in constitutional judicial philosophy, a "strict constructionist," and doubtful about the "administrative state" which state she will likely say grew during FDR's New Deal.   I post here to go through why these judicial philosophy concepts are hollow, and are concepts which people such as Barrett cynically apply to undermine the very basis for the Republic's Constitution.

"Originalsim" is a cynical cover for right-wing political ideologies, not a true method to interpret the Constitution 

Initially, let's not be fooled by Judge Barrett's supposed or so-called "originalist" judicial philosophy. "Originalism," as stated by most right wingers and libertarians, is fallacious at best, and cynical at worst. First, Justice Scalia publicly admitted to me at a lawyers' forum we were at in Orange County in the mid-1990s how he had never seen a case where he knew precisely what the Founders had written or said on the subject of the case.  In making this admission, I said, and Scalia had no answer (to the shock of the audience), one is admitting one can never truly know the "original intention" of the Founders in the way he and other right-wingers describe.

Second, Madison's Federalist Paper no. 37 makes the case the only "original intent" of the Founders is more of a "living" type of document. In Paper no. 37, Madison discussed how even God--yes, God!--could not make Himself clear in the Bible ("When the Almighty himself condescends to address mankind in their own language, his meaning, luminous as it must be, is rendered dim and doubtful by the cloudy medium through which it is communicated."). Madison also noted there were many vague phrases in this newly minted Constitution, which Madison admitted were the result of compromise among men of differing world views, but who came together in good faith. Madison recognized how only posterity would form meaning for the terms and phrases used in the Constitution, thus anticipating Oliver Wendell Holmes' discussion of the Anglo-American Common Law, when Holmes said, "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience." Thus, if there is any original intent, it appears that intent is more a "living" document, not some iron-clad, clearly written instrument (Madison's views on the Bible should, ironically, appall fundamentalist Christians in our nation, including this no longer potential Supreme Court nominee).  Scalia tried to get around this fact all his adult life by telling people to ignore The Federalist Papers. I think most Americans who study our Constitution would find Scalia's statement fairly shocking--but also an admission regarding the hollowness of the entire "originalism" argument, at least as right-wingers use the phrase.

Third, anyone interested in the topic of "originalism" and its fallacies should read Justice John Marshall's early Supreme Court opinions in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), where he opined on behalf of the Court that the Constitution must meet the exigencies of each era so as to ensure the document is not a strait-jacket. He stated, again for the Court:

To have prescribed the means by which Government should, in all future time, execute its powers would have been to change entirely the character of the instrument and give it the properties of a legal code. It would have been an unwise attempt to provide by immutable rules for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly, and which can be best provided for as they occur. To have declared that the best means shall not be used, but those alone without which the power given would be nugatory, would have been to deprive the legislature of the capacity to avail itself of experience, to exercise its reason, and to accommodate its legislation to circumstances.

Fourth, one should also read Professor Jack Balkin's constitutional history on the topic of "originalism," as Balkin has said much of what I have been saying for the past nearly thirty years. By the time you have completed review of the Federalist Paper no. 37, McCulloch v. Maryland, and Balkin, most intelligent and honest Americans will see through the canard of "originalism" as used in the usual conservative and right wing parlance.

Strict constructionism is another cynical dodge

Separate from "originalism," if Judge Barrett decides to say she is a "strict constructionist," she may have to contend with the same early and legendary Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Marshall, who opined in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824):

If they contend for that narrow construction which, in support or some theory not to be found in the Constitution, would deny to the government those powers which the words of the grant, as usually understood, import, and which are consistent with the general views and objects of the instrument; for that narrow construction which would cripple the government and render it unequal to the object for which it is declared to be instituted, and to which the powers given, as fairly understood, render it competent; then we cannot perceive the propriety of this strict construction, nor adopt it as the rule by which the Constitution is to be expounded.

The administrative state has been embedded within our Republic since the Republic's Founding

This is an important moment in United States History. There is reason to be deeply concerned with the entire judicial worldview of "Judge Amy," and her ensconced cohorts, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, about the "administrative state" being supposedly unconstitutional. That belief on the trio's part is simply stated, ahistorical. As I have said elsewhere, I would urge people to at least find someone who has read Kate Elizabeth Brown's densely written, but highly informative, recent book on Alexander Hamilton's administration of the Treasury Department in the early to mid 1790s. What Professor Brown proves, through her research and findings, is Hamilton created the first administrative state through his department's (a) interpretation and enforcement of statutes; and (b) preparing regulations to supplement those statutes. The idea that the administrative state only begins with the Interstate Commerce Commission in the late 1880s, or--heavens!--Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom and FDR's New Deal, is ultimately laughable, if it was not such a serious matter in maintaining our nation's ability to adapt and survive as the best humankind has to offer. 

Let's also remember James Madison, in Federalist Paper no. 10, telling us how the purpose of modern government is to regulate various economic interests. Madison stated in Federalist Paper no. 10:

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts. But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government. (Emphasis added)

Concluding thoughts

This Trump-Republican judicial nomination is about more than abortion rights, though that correctly remains vital to millions of our fellow Americans. More ominously, this pick is about undermining our Founders' actual overall intent for a living document. This is about undermining the scope of the 14th and 15th Amendments, and exulting instead a John C. Calhoun interpretation of the Constitution. There is a deep cynicism on the part of the Neo-Confederates if Amy Coney Barrett is seated on the highest court in our nation. It is a mockery of the best Ginsburg and people such as Ginsburg stood for, and is a dagger in the heart of our Founders' best beliefs in pluralism, modernism, and rationality guiding our leadership.

UPDATE: A short set of links in an article about Coney's judicial extremism.

Did Bloomberg violate Florida's vote influencing statute? Not likely, based upon "money is speech" jurisprudence. But that won't stop Republicans in Florida.

Matt Gaetz had to lie low for awhile while people wondered about his sexual orientation, being a right wing and supposedly Christian conservative, and all. I guess he figured he can stick his head up after Jerry Falwell, Jr.'s antics were exposed, and people still want to support the fils Falwell. Plus, this is a great way to warm the hearts of white conservatives who make up his constituency, which is to stop black felons from voting. Here we see Gaetz happily reporting his discussions with state or federal prosecutors in Florida who are investigating whether Michael Bloomberg may prosecuted for his role in restoring 32,000 felons' right to vote in Florida. 

This FoxNews report was interesting, though, because viewers got to hear a beautiful woman (a Fox special, ya know?) tell them why felons should not be subjected to civic death after serving prison time. Then, right after that, they got to see and hear another fairly attractive woman (yeah, FoxNews!) say the real issue should be how rich people such as Bloomberg, Soros, and the Koch Bros (well, only one left, ya know?) are overly influencing our system overall. Those are two left-wing talking points, regardless of the source. Wild, eh?

Anyway, the FoxNews host, another beautiful woman, then went to the "Democrat" commentator, which shows how Fox thinks of anyone not a Republican or right winger. God forbid a FoxNews person would say the correct pronunciation, which is "Democratic Party" person. That person, of course, threw some cold water on the theory that this is a violation of a voting bribery statute in Florida, though she correctly recognized the memorandum from Bloomberg saying he wanted to bring in new voters (written before he knew about this issue) could bite him in a politically minded prosecution. 

I read the statute this morning, and there is an important qualifier in the beginning of the first section of the statute: It says, "Whoever by bribery, menace, threat, or other corruption whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, attempts to influence, deceive, or deter any elector in voting...." Bloomberg's donation to the felons-right group is certainly not bribery because we know, from studies of felons, they can easily vote Republican or right wing, especially if they are poor and white. What the studies show is these people, more men than women, have lived a life based upon punishment values, and who deserves or does not deserve whatever. That makes them more susceptible to conservative, not liberal, exhortations. Bloomberg is not paying these people's fines directly, and the statute does say direct or indirect, we should note. However, what Bloomberg is doing is donating to a non-profit group, and a coalition of similar groups, that have been set up with the narrow purpose of restoring felon voting rights. The group or coalition is not at all implying or asking felons how they would vote or influence them as to whom they would vote. Bloomberg is not talking to the felons, not is he having any intermediaries talk or otherwise influence the felons' votes. Proving bribery here would be problematic or not a way to go at all against Bloomberg.

Second, what we know about the Bloomberg donation to the coalition or group is certainly not an example of a "menace" or "threat" against the felons who get back their voting rights. This leaves the sole issue of whether Bloomberg donating to a group that was dedicated to restoring felons' rights is "corrupt." However, here, one needs only to cite the conservative Justices at the US Supreme Court, including former Justice Kennedy, who have basically read "corruption" out of the conversation, as anything other than explicit bribery, when it comes to money and politics. Karma is a bitch, Mr. Gaetz. 

However, there is a second section of the Florida statute. The heart of the statute's second section says:

"No person shall directly or indirectly give or promise anything of value to another intending thereby to buy that person’s or another’s vote or to corruptly influence that person or another in casting his or her vote...."

(The rest is about the explanation of the felony and a statement of exception for food or a button or regalia one wears in political advertisements).

The question is whether Bloomberg's donation to the organization that works to restore voting rights for felons is trying to corruptly influence an individual felon in casting his or her vote. This suffers from the same problem as in the first section with the word "corruptly" as the US Supreme Court's "money equals speech" jurisprudence has made it less than clear that Bloomberg giving to an organization that is working, without asking for people to vote one way or the other, is an act of corruption--regardless of a memo he wrote to other Democrats some time ago.

I am not saying the Republican Attorney General or some Republican District Attorney in Florida won't indict and try to imprison and fine Michael Bloomberg. I am, however, saying the prosecution would likely upset the entire apple cart of the "money equals speech" crowd if the statute is interpreted the way Gaetz now wants it to be interpreted. However, we also know Republicans don't care about consistency, and we know they will make use of bad faith arguments with more and more politically compliant judges. 

I must admit it will be fun to watch Bloomberg defend himself, with an army of lawyers from all sides of the political aisles, push back against the vengeful politically minded prosecutors. From what we saw with Kansas Secretary of State and lawyer, Kris Kobach, there are some really incompetent lawyers on the right wing side, and, when up against silk stocking lawyers from major law firms, they are exposed worse than a poorly prepared High School Mock Trial student.

Somewhere Chief Sitting Bull and Black Elk are smiling with that special sense of schadenfreude

I am so glad to see millions of Americans finally waking up to what I have said over the past twenty years or more, which is that Republican officeholders have only one principle:

Heads I win, tails you lose.

That is the witty version of having no principles except to get and maintain power for corporations and white supremacy--though the white workers get nothing except the right to use the N-word and feel superior to people with darker skin; they are screwed along with everyone else.

Can we imagine, too, if the current situation regarding the US Supreme Court was reversed? Republicans would be telling their supporters to arm themselves and threaten the Democrats in the senate. Oh, wait. No need to reverse or imagine anything. That mindset is already here. 

Just check the photo of screaming white male Trump supporters at a polling place in Virginia. It's here, and these pathetic, but dangerous white working class men know they are representing a set of opinions and polices the majority of the nation rejects. These white men claim they are rallying around the flag, and, of course, their other favorite flag, the "Confederate" (really Northern Virginia military) flag. However, they are really not rallying around the post-Civil War Constitution, or any of the Bill of Rights--except THEIR right to have a gun; and God forbid if a black guy holds a gun.

Oh well. Somewhere Chief Sitting Bull and the medicine man Black Elk are smiling with that special sense of schadenfreude.*

* For those who may not get my meaning, below are quotes from Chief Sitting Bull and Black Elk, the medicine man, about us white settler-colonialists who are now increasingly at each other's throats, with those who would have supported the genocide of Native Americans and slavery being the ones who are armed and ready to kill those of us who live more by John Lennon's Imagine: 

Chief Sitting Bull: "The love of possessions is a disease in them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break, but the poor may not! They have a religion in which the poor worship, but the rich will not! They even take tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule. They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own use, and fence their neighbor away. ... If America had been twice the size it is, there still would not have been enough. (Sitting Bull: The Collected Speeches, p. 75)

Black Elk: "I could see that the Wasichus [Whites] 'did not care for each other the way our people did before the nation's hoop was broken. They would take everything from each other if they could, and so there were some who had more of everything than they could use, while crowds of people had nothing at all and maybe were starving. They had forgotten that the earth was their mother. This could not be better than the old ways of my people." (Black Elk Speaks: The Complete Edition, pages 135-136).

I wanted to use the quote sometimes attributed to Chief Seattle, and sometimes to other 19th Century Native American figures. However, the quote turned out to be a misattribution. The quote comes from much more recent vintage, the early 1970s, and one or more Native American environmental activists.  Here is the quote, as it also speaks to our time and predicament:

When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you can't eat money. 

See the Quote Investigator for the etiology of the quote.

The Politics at RBG's Funeral

One of Michael Harrington's most profound, and least known, books was about culture and religion, entitled, "The Politics at God's Funeral" (1983). The book is a great meditation on the cultural and religious implications of the Enlightenment period in European history, and its echoes in 19th and early 20th Century American history. Harrington posits that, in the face of scientific discoveries and Enlightenment era philosophy, religious certainty, built upon superstition and atavistic fears, will continue to undermine any progress humanity may make in developing ourselves and protecting our planet.

Oh well. That is not the topic of this blog post. The topic of this blog post is the politics at Ruth Bader Ginsburg's funeral.

First, let's not over-venerate Ruth Bader Ginsburg, affectionately known as the Notorious RBG (after the Notorious B.I.G.). Yes, Ginsburg was a great and brilliant lawyer who fought against sexism in nearly every step of her life and career, and led many successful legal fights to promote women's rights. We cannot overestimate that. Yes, she was a justice at the Supreme Court who protected minority rights on a consistent basis. We cannot overestimate that, either. However, right now, I am so angry with her for seeing sexism in 2014 when Obama made overtures to her to retire so he could place another person on the Supreme Court who would carry a reasonably "liberal" judicial torch. This was already a time when the Republicans were getting ready that November to control the senate, and there were astute political pundits worried another Bush (Jeb, remember?), or someone worse, was going to succeed Obama as president after 2016. And historically, Obama himself knew it was tough for a political party to hold the presidency after that party's president completed two terms--with the exception of Republican George Herbert Walker Bush's victory over the hapless Michael Dukakis in 1988, after two terms of Republican Ronald Wilson Reagan (Mr. 666).

Here is a decent defense of Ginsburg's decision not to retire from the normally reliable Dahlia Lathwick at Slate.com. Lathwick says Ginsburg felt it was sexist to ask her to retire instead of Stephen Breyer. However, last I checked, Breyer was, and remains, five years younger than Ginsburg. Also, unlike Ginsburg, who had already been treating for cancer in 2009 (!), Breyer was, and is, in relatively good health. Yes, I get it that, once anyone hits one's late 70s or 80s, dying suddenly or in one's sleep gets increasingly likely. However, Ginsburg's health was already in question, no matter what she said, and she was, again, five years older than Breyer. Worse, Ginsburg did not leak anything about sexism in Obama's request in 2014. Here is what Ginsburg said in 2014: "So tell me who the president could have nominated this spring that you would rather see on the court than me?"  See this article from Reuters for proof of that exact statement from Ginsburg.

Irami Osei-Frimpong, my favorite living philosopher these days, has spoken in his videos, and in this Medium article, about how Obama, Harris, and even John Lewis built their political careers on a vain self-actualization rooted in the belief that their personal success was equivalent to the type of fundamental policy changes necessary to help oppressed minorities in the United States. Therefore, in this light, RBG's decision in 2014 was one of supreme (yes, pun intended) arrogance. Ginsburg arrogantly confused herself with a movement, and a political strategy. It is not as if Obama would have refused to replace Ginsburg with another woman. And yes, that woman may have been seemingly more conservative than Ginsburg to get her through a ridiculously tight senate. However, Sonia Sotomoyor was already on the Supreme Court, and I would like to think a relatively young Obama pick may have found Sotomoyor someone to look up to and admire, and be influenced by.*  

So, let's play politics at RBG's funeral, and I really don't want to hear, "Oh, Ginsburg was a saint, and we have to mourn first!" Sorry, this is a time of sharp and existential politics, and, we, the living, have a duty to finally get something correct here that goes beyond Ginsburg's funereal self-actualization.

First, I like journalist David Sirota's idea of announcing an early primary challenge to Wall Street/Extremist Zionist Charles Schumer (D-NY) for 2022. I like, too, how Sirota provides us a link to the Republican Senator Lindsay Graham (South Carolina) video, where Graham says he would do the same as he did in stopping Obama in 2016 from holding hearings on a Supreme Court nomination if there was a Republican president and Republican Senate. Yeah, like that will stop Graham from going the other way now--though Graham, another (likely) closeted homosexual, is in a tight re-election race, and maybe, Graham can't afford to lose whatever remaining principled independent voters who may exist for him. 

This presidential election, and most definitely the senate elections, just became more existential, even if the Republican Senate, in the "lame-duck" session of mid-November to the end of December, rams through a Trump Supreme Court nominee. I remain convinced Trump's administration knew Ginsburg was dying, as, just last week, they floated 20 people to consider for the Supreme Court. Anyway, to me, whether a Trump nominee is rammed through the senate during the lame-duck session will come down to whether Republican Senators Murkowski, Collins, Gardner, Romney, or Grassley or Alexander, will go along.  I will be happily surprised if enough do not go along, and even more happy if Graham joined them. However, I remain convinced these so-called "moderates" are nothing of the sort (well, maybe Romney is these days), and are, instead, venal, preening, shallow, and corrupt.

As for the substance of constitutional jurisprudence, I admit I have always shaken my head at how a woman's right to an abortion remains such a hot political issue over the last 45-50 years. I have always believed Roe v. Wade was properly decided, and well within the New England Holmesian and Virginian Marshallian constitutional traditions (I have also said any person who is anti-abortion should reconsider his, her, or their priorities). Roe v. Wade balanced when, and under what circumstances, fetuses may have a right to be born into our world, while properly keeping the main eyes of justice on the inherent rights of the living woman carrying the fetus. 

However, this fight over who replaces Ginsburg is really about so much more than abortion, for I believe, if Roe is fully reversed and returned to the states,** the Republicans would rue that day because many states would have referendums and legislative battles, where voters, even in right-wing dominated states, would vote to protect basic abortion rights. What this post-Ginsburg fight is primarily about is the neo-Confederates, now ironically called Republicans, undermining the 14th Amendment and 15th Amendment, the way Chief Justice Roberts started to do with his terrible voting rights act decision in 2013. This fight is about whether the right-wing and libertarians in the modern Republican Party will enshrine Neil Gorsuch's (and Brett Kavanaugh's) constitutionally ahistorical attack on the federal sovereignty, and what Gorsuch, and his libertarian-oriented buddies, call the "administrative state." This judicial-political fight is about saying, "Even if you Dems, and whoever, pass Medicare for All, it is unconstitutional." 

That is the primary significance of this post-Ginsburg fight. For me, I wish even the so-called Supreme Court liberals would know about my analysis of early constitutional and political history, as in my dream to have cross-examined Brett Kavanaugh. I would also make all Supreme Court justices, and nominees, read political science professor Kate Elizabeth Brown's dense, but penetrating book, detailing with Hamilton's administration of the Treasury department, circa 1792-1796. They would see how Hamilton established the administration state right from the start of the Constitutional Republic. 

I have feared for the judiciary for much of the Trump Era because of the way Senate Republicans have rammed through judicial appointees who have so little legal experience and are political bomb throwers. A win for Jefferson Davis, er, Mitch McConnell on this would add significantly to the undermining of the American judiciary as an institution.

Finally, for those keeping score of how badly the Electoral College screwed us up, Bush II got two Supreme Court justice picks and Trump has two picks, and now probably a third pick.  That's five justices after elections where Bush II and Trump won the Electoral College vote, but lost the popular vote.  I know, I know. We can't know how the elections of 2000 and 2016 would have gone had there been a popular vote choice for president, as political strategies would have changed in approaches to people living in various states.  However, let me say it straight up: The majority of voters would still highly likely have gone for Al Gore in 2000, and Hilary Clinton in 2016. To argue against that conclusion is to avoid decades-long polling data, and where the majority of people in our nation have been moving over the past thirty years.

The battle has begun, regardless of mourning and overpraising RBG.  God, I hope we don't screw this up again.  Right now, I am not optimistic.

* If I had to choose my favorite justices of the past half century, it would be David Souter and Sonia Sotomoyor.  Sotomoyor has been elegant and brilliant in stating, with full judicial candor, where the racial fault lines are in our nation's history, and has been a voice for those who are not in what George Carlin has called "the big club."  Souter was the modern version of Holmes and Brandeis, without Holmes' eugenics, and, in fact, Souter had a Rawlsian sense of fairness and justice. I remain convinced Souter resigned way too early, and may have done so to avoid being outed as a homosexual. Souter remains an intensely private person, and resigned in the first year of Obama's administration, just as the Republican religious and racist war against Obama was underway.  

**Yes, there remains a chance at least Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch, plus one could decide a fetus is a "person" under the 14th Amendment, and, therefore, ban all pro-abortion laws as unconstitutional. However, I just don't see that as a probability, even if Trump and the senate Republicans ram through another right wing ideologue.

UPDATE: A FB friend posted this article from Mother Jones magazine in 2018, which says what I am saying about RBG's arrogance.  Had I seen this before this morning, it would have save me a lot of blogging time. :)

COVID-19 risks hit home, and maybe it is time to call ourselves the United Hates of America

The former husband of a close friend of ours in Poway, CA has died from COVID-19. He was a paramedic who had saved countless lives, and, due to his being an essential worker, contracted the virus, and now has died. And then I read this article about young people, buying into their parents' delusions, no doubt, trying to return to school in person on their own.

People who buy into the argument that this virus is just another flu, or people who are so self-centered as to believe their boredom or wanting to get out of the house should prevail over the needs of the community, should be ashamed. The best argument is one which should be directed against Trump, the Republican leadership, and Democratic leadership, and that is their caring more about big business money interests, and not regular people's needs. I get the Democratic leadership wants to pass a better plan for regular Americans. However, their leadership is weak, they are poor negotiators, and ultimately they serve the rich and powerful not much different than the Republicans.  P-Lousy has to go, and I don't care if Shahid Buttar may be a bad boss.  Buttar should replace P-Lousy, though I have little hope of that occurring, as too many Democrats, especially in San Francisco area, are too enthralled with MSNBC and CNN propaganda for the DNC's big money donor interests.

Here's the thing: If the nation's health depends upon many of us staying indoors or not going into public places, then the government owes people money to continue staying in the places they live, ensure their medical care is taken care of, and provided spending money for other basic and elemental living needs. 

I don't know why this is so hard--well, actually I do. We live in a nation where we accept corrupt leadership, and would rather express hatred against each other than make the fundamental changes in how we elect people, who we elect, and the policies we need to enact.  I am thinking we should not only not call ourselves the United States of America anymore, and even the United States of Amnesia, Gore Vidal's pithy phrase, is no longer saying enough.  I am now saying we should call ourselves the United Hates of America. The fact of our hates, no matter our specific differences, is what appears to unite us, and drive us to accept the failed and corrupt leadership who plague us like, well, the current plague. 

I mean, really, our nation's inequality is worse than before our own revolution against a colonial power, England. Yet, nearly half the actual voters, and a majority of white people over 50, are primarily blaming "Mexicans," "Black Lives Matter," and some small amorphous set of mostly unarmed Bohemians known as "Anti-Fa."  And, almost as bad, almost 30% of of the rest of us, and another 25% of white people, are herded through corporate media propaganda into believing Joe Biden is our savior, when Biden has voted badly and wrong on every major issue of the past 40 years, with a craven desire to serve and compromise with the monied interests. Yeah, I get that Biden is the "pause" button against Trump's fascist moves (which may come with the help of local police departments throughout the nation). But, my God, when will we stick our heads out of the ground, or out of our asses, and realize how we have failed our children and grandchildren, not to mention, you know, the planet?  

Right here where I live, the Rio Rancho School Board voted 5-0 about ten days ago to start in-person schooling, starting tomorrow, September 14. It has ordered the middle and high school students back to school by the start of October. I give this experiment two weeks before the district has to return to online learning, which is how the Rio Rancho public schools began this school year.  I have yet to find any public school district that opened which did not have to re-close and go back to online--and I can't believe these people can be this daft or corrupt. Luckily, I am teaching this fall at a public charter school, for grades 6-12. While the public charter school is located in Rio Rancho, the school is not part of the Rio Rancho Public School District, and directly reports to the state. The principal at our school appears to me to be very skeptical about the Rio Rancho School Board's decision. He has adopted a wait-and-see position, though, in the past, he said he has always gone with the RRPS Board decisions out of a respect for the community in which the school operates.  

If there is an outbreak at Rio Rancho schools, and they have to go back to online learning, I will likely get petitions together to recall the entire Board. This is a Board filled with rubber stampers for a reactionary superintendent, and they appear to be Trumpists, who should never be allowed near any decision-making regarding any school district. It is a sad state of public affairs right here in Rio Rancho.  Next door to Rio Rancho, the Albuquerque Public Schools, a month ago, decided to stick with online learning for the entire semester--though they stated they would revisit the decision if or when the governor gives an all-clear sign.  That is smart, cautious leadership, unlike the Rio Rancho Public School Board, who appear to be getting their "news" and marching orders from FoxNews or worse.

Another male-dominated kleptocracy in the Middle East formalizes the informal relations it has had with Israel

 So, here we go again. Another kleptocracy, which resembles more a male-dominated corporation than an actual nation, has cut a deal with Israel.

Bahrain is a "nation" much like the United Arab Emirates, as I wrote about here.

Amnesty International explains what life is like there for the non-elite, and sometimes the elite who speak up, while Wikipedia explains the demographics, i.e. how more than half the people in the "nation" are migrant workers.

Both the UAE and Bahrain have been helping Saudi Arabia commit a slaughter of Yemenites, and both the UAE and Bahrain have had informal trade relations with Israel for years.  

These deals are desperate moves, courtesy of Netanyahu and, less directly, Trump. If Trump thinks these two deals are going to help him get more than 30% of the American-Jewish vote in November, he is back to snorting Adderral.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals blinks and moves back from their initial direction toward allowing felons who completed their sentences the right to vote

 Read the damage done here, reversing the district court decision I blogged about here.

As readers of this blog know, I am of the view that felons should be enfranchised, and I have even come around over the last couple of years to say, as is the case with Vermont, Maine, and a host of civilized nations around the world, including Israel, believe it or not, that those serving in jail have a right to vote.