Politics Plus

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage.  These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that.  Even though there are many more which I can't include.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

A rather disgusting practice in Longmont, Colorado, is over now (for now), but not everyone who was involved in it or aware of it has been held accountable.  From Denver's Channel 9 (NBC) News:

Some powerful people in Longmont appear to have forgotten that the Constitution still exists.

The Longmont Housing Authority says it was using the homes of low-income residents to train police drug dogs. There weren’t warrants, but simply a notice that the landlord was coming, and a police officer and drug dog would be there, too.

The director of operations of the Housing Authority is Krystal Winship Erazo.  She says,

“Two months ago, there were some rumors and some concerns about drug activity on the property and one way we found to address it was to invite a partnership with the Longmont Police Department – to invite the canines over on their training day.  Usually it helps the residents feel really secure in that we're following up, we're holding residents accountable, it's an opportunity for the dogs to train."

Yes, the head of a public housing agency in Colorado said they use the homes of low-income people to train police dogs.  (emphasis Chennel 9's)

Channel 9 interviewed the heads of other housing authorities in the area, who confirmed their gut feeling that this is unconstitutional.  (One laughed out loud because the concept is so ridiculous.)  Of course, like a good Republican, Erazo had a ready response:

If there is concern, it kind of sparks some curiosity for me. You know, what are they concerned about if (the officers’) only job is to ensure there aren't drugs in the unit?

In other words, if you aren't using, you have nothing to fear.  Where have I heard that before?

Anyone who follows statistics on drug use knows that, if police want to find actual drugs, they should be training K9's at the homes of the wealthy in gated communities.  The obvious deduction is that the police have no interest in actual drug use.  Their interest is in persecuting the poor, and particularly, the poor of color.

At least city officials in Longmont grasp this.  They, and the station, are still looking for whoever in the police department knew about this.  Perhaps, Megaera, you can help ferret this out.

Staying on the topic of drugs, we now move to Worth County, GA, where, on April 14, the day students at Worth County High School returned from spring break, they found a police state in possession of their school.  Worth County High has 900 students.  Every one of those 900 was patted down for drugs.  From the complaint:

Defendants’ searches of students were intrusive, performed in an aggressive manner, and done in full view of other students. For example: a) Deputies ordered students to stand facing the wall with their hands and legs spread wide apart; b) Deputies touched and manipulated students’ breasts and genitals; c) Deputies inserted fingers inside girls’ bras, and pulled up girls’ bras, touching and partially exposing their bare breasts. d) Deputies touched girls’ underwear by placing hands inside the waistbands of their pants or reaching up their dresses; e) Deputies touched girls’ vaginal areas through their underwear; f) Deputies cupped or groped boys’ genitals and touched their buttocks through their pants. 8. Defendants had no warrant or other authority to perform a mass search on hundreds of public school children.

Now, that complaint is the complaint in a class-action civil lawsuit.  There are currently no criminal charges, although, according to mark Begnaud, the attorney for the students, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation.

I see that the Worth County Sheriff's Office website has a sex offender map.  It's handy for the Sheriff that he already has the addresses of all of his deputies.  Not that I actually expect to see any such result, you understand.

Like a good Republican (for whom the only part of the Constitution actually in effect is the Second Amendment), Sheriff Hobby stands by his actions, "noting that as long as a school administrator was present, the search of the children was legal."  I don't know where he came up with that.  Not from the School Handbook, that's for sure.

Tisiphone, following up the civil suit to make sure immense damages are awarded appears to be just the tip of the iceberg here.

Moving now to Iowa, where Steve King, Representative from the Fourth District, is working hard to achieve the title of, if not the stupidest member of Congress, still the meanest member of Congress.  Perhaps his most memorable quote is wht one about "calves the size of canteloupes,"  but "not a safety net, it's a hammock" and "let's not get bogged down in Americans dying" also made the news. 

One might argue that he appropriately represents his district in view of this:

Kim Weaver, who had announced in March that she would challenge one of the most repugnant members of Congress, Steve King, for the 4th District seat in Iowa, has withdrawn from the race,. Weaver cited death threats that she has received and political retaliation against the state agency where she is employed.

She said in a post on Facebook:

Beginning during my 2016 campaign, I have received very alarming acts of intimidation, including death threats.  While some may say enduring threats are just a part of running for office, my personal safety has increasingly become a concern.

Enduring threats just a part of running for office?  Dear God, I hope not!  I don't think I even want to know who says that!  Alecto, can you work on that before it becomes "unceasing" – if it isn't already too late?

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4057275

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage.  These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that.  Even though there are many more which I can't include.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

If you can stand one more thing about the Bradley Foundation, this should at least make you smile.  As you know if you have been reading for the last three weeks, the Center for Media and Democracy has been working for years to expose the (Lynde and Harry) Bradley Foundation, and this year finally released a comprehensive exposé of this shadow entity.  The site to bookmark to find the complete exposure and also specific parts of the exposure is called SourceWatch.  And this is not just for the Bradley Foundation.  The column on the left of that page will show you many other evildoers upon whom CMD has been working.

It goes without saying that the Bradley Foundation DOES NOT LOVE SourceWatch, and, if you believe that, you are half right.  In one way, the Bradley fundation does not love SourceWatch.  In another way, however, the Bradley Foundation loves SourceWatch SO MUCH that they are working on getting a website of their own up which will be modeled after SourceWatch.  To quote CMD's Lisa Graves,

Oh boy, we can [hardly] wait to see what this group of flaks, hacks, and climate change deniers will come up with, but we will be sure to let you know!  (bolding by Lisa)

While we are waiting for that site, I want to call the attention of my readers and of the Furies to an article in Truthout called "Expect More Murders: Why the Radical Right Kills."  Written by Spencer Sunshine. it draws heavily on a scholarly paper by one Chip Berlet, a long time scholar on right-wing populist movements.  The paper is called "Heroes Know Which Villains to Kill: How Coded Rhetoric Incites Scripted Violence," and if that title doesn't send a chill down your spine, you may not be paying attention.  It's worth a read – yes, it's 33 pages, but 11 of those are footnoes, and the body is fairly widely spaced.

From the facts presented by both, I admit that it concerns me a bit that right-wing "heroes" actually DON'T know which villains to kill, though they sure think they do.  For instance, one target group is "Muslims," yet in real life this translates into "people they think look like Muslims," and it's obvious that two groups need not be the same.  Another target group is transgender persons.  Since most of us dress to cover our primary and sexual characteristics, and to reveal basically the secondary sexual characteristics which are consistent with our inner gender identity, I wonder.  I wonder if the 26 transgerdered people murdered in 2016 were the only people in 2016 murdered for "liiking transgender."  That's not the kind of thing that can be easily known.

Now, of course, as evidenced by the Portland killer (name not used deliberately) yelling in court, "Death to antifa!" by which he meant you and me, and anyone who is opposed to fascism, in other words every decent person, how are we ever going to know whether a killing is a right wing hate crime?  And some of us may be interested in, how are we going to defend outselves from being killed by the far right?

Let me give an example from Teen Vogue (don't laugh; Teen Vogue is developing a reputation for serious, real journalism, and I for one am grateful).  On April 30, 2017, in La Jolla, CA, a community within the city of San Diego, CA, a white male opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol at a pool party within an apartment complex.  Eight people ended up being taken to a nearby hospital, seven shot, and one who broke an arm while fleeing.  Only one was white.  One woman of color, a mother of three, died.  Witness testimony clearly stated that the witnesses perceved the shooting as racially motivated.  Yet, "San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said just one day after the shooting that there was "zero information" that race contributed to the attack."  Apparently testimony isn't "information" now.

(Unusually, the gunman did not survive the crime.  When police arrived, he was re-loading.  Apparently he pointed the gun at the police, who fired first and killed him.)

But the point of my example is, if law enforcement has difficulty seeing racial motivation in this situation, despite the colors of the victims and the testimony of the witnesses, how is law enforcement – how is anyone – ever going to determine, if a white activist is killed by one of these right-wing "heroes", that it was a hate crime?  Lincoln Blades, the author of the Teen Vogue article, ends with

In America, citizens must grapple with reality. Not only is white male terrorism as dangerous as Islamic extremism, but our collective safety rests in rooting out the source of their radicalization.

Sunshine ends his Truthout op-ed thus:

With Trump and his appointees openly circulating demonizing narratives, the genie is out of the American bottle. US presidents have limited political power, but they have an incredible ability to set the mood of the country. And the mood is ugly. We can expect more murders from hate-steeped men like [Portland killer name redacted].

Alecto and Tisiphone, I can hear you now.  "Sheesh!  It isn't enough just to go after evildoers any more?  Now you want us to be detectives too?"  Well, yes.  There really isn't anyone else.  No law enforcement under the present administration is going to do it.  Please.

Megaera, I didn't include you in that; I want you to take a little trip to Texas and have a – discussion – with a Junior High teacher there.

Lizeth Villanueva is a thirteen year old kinda brown Salvadorean American Honor Student with zero history of disciplinary problems at Anthony Aguirre Junior High in Channelview, Texas, near Houston.

Sure, she’s a cute kid, an honors student who’s never been anything other than a credit to her school, but still there’s still that troublesome slight excess of brownness she insists on displaying – so what could be more natural than her teachers practicing their comedic stylings by honoring her with a vicious, stupidly racist and imminently tenure endangering award?

”On Tuesday, her teacher gave her a “most likely to become a terrorist” award. It was supposed to be a joke, part of a mock end-of-the-year awards ceremony at Anthony Aguirre Junior High in Channelview, Tex., near Houston, where a group of teachers hand certificates to students. Lizeth, 13, said her teacher “just laughed” when she signed and handed her the certificate, just one day after the Manchester arena terrorist attack in Britain.” 

The story gets even worse from there.  The Administration is not happy – but it really isn't clear whether the unhappiness stems from the offense or from the publicity.  Just a comment from me on the stupidity here – if it isn't obvious to everyone that the most likely student to become a terrorist in any classroom in America would have to be both male and white – then when will it be?

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4056023

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage.  These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that.  Even though there are many more which I can't include.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

I've spent the last two weeks discussing the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, hoping to put its name into every article and every sentence which contains the words "Koch Brothers," and I'm not going to spend today's whole article on it.  But I did want to share that, in addition to everything else, Bradley also has an enemies' list.  And guess who is on it.  that's right, the Center for Media and Democracy, whose hard work built the expose summarized here.  (Others on the list include Alliance for Justice, Color of Change, and Common Cause.  Good groups.  I'm not on that list, not being an organization, nor is Politics Plus – yet.  But I'd be proud to be on it.)

But I have found two recent deaths to be so moving I need to say something about them.  You have probably heard about the murder of Richard Collins III, a student of Bowie State Uiversity (in just three days he would have been an alumnus).  He had been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army's intelligence division just two days prior.  Or maybe you didn't.  There is a strong tendency, when a person of color is killed, for media to present information to make it look like the victim was at fault, or at least "no angel."  That couldn't be done here.  Gordon Johnson, the special agent in charge of the Baltimore office of the FBI, said he should be remembered as a national treasure.  No one seems to have been found who had anything less than glowingly positive to say about him.

The murder is being investigated as a hate crime.  It has been called an act of terrorism.  Dave Zirin at The Nation Magazine has taken some flak for calling it a lynching.  Zirin belives that his categorization is important enough to defend it, and he makes an excellent case.

First he points out that, although we tend to think of a lynching as being a hanging, or, in other words, done with a rope, there have been many deaths totally accepted as lynchings in which no rope was involved.  He cites the case of Emmett Till, who was beaten to death and shot, not hanged, but definitely lynched.

To clarify the difinition of lynching, Dave spoke with Dr. Rasul Mowatt, a professor of American Studies at Indiana University.  Dr. Mowatt has written extensively about lynchings, and would appear to be the go-to guy on the subject.  He said:

The Tuskegee Institute in 1959 provided us with the clearest definition of a lynching: 1) Met death illegally; 2) Three or more persons participated in the killing; and, 3) the group was acting on the pretext of justice, race or tradition (vigilantism).… To me, the second criteria from Tuskegee is no longer a requirement for a lynching.   (emphasis mine)

Why is it no longer necessary to have the hands-on participation of a mob for a murder to qualify as a lynching?  Because mobs in the 21st century no longer need to be hands-on or physically present in order to incite murderous behavior.  They can be on line instead.

Sean Urbanski was part of a Facebook group called “Alt Reich: Nation,” which has since been taken down. Based on screengrabs still available online, this community performed the function of a mob: agitating its participants not only to racist bigotry but also to violence.

This stabbing needs to be understood as part of a tradition of homegrown violence aimed at black and brown people as an instrument of terror. If we don’t see Richard Collins III in the centuries-old continuum of lynchings, we are helping whitewash what took place. We are categorizing what happened as an aberration in the “post-racial” 21st-century United States.

Megaera and Tisiphone, while it's appropriate for you to go after the murderer, I think it must be Alecto who tackles the issue of the use of language.  Good luck.

The other death, Jayson Negron, was a shooting by police, hardly a novelty of course, but this was another victim who was found to be impossible to denigrate (what a word!), and this young man was only fifteen.  Here's why this stood out for Daily Kos user JoanMar:

(I have been forcing myself to watch the videos of some pretty horrific acts of brutality for some time now. It has not been easy, but I have determinedly stuck at it…until this one. I started watching the video of the defenseless, powerless, innocent young boy forced to lie prostrate on the ground and at the point where it became obvious that he’d moved his head, I lost it. I couldn’t continue.)

7. And this…this is almost unbearable: They watched him die and then left his body uncovered and exposed for 6 hours! Why???!!!

In addition, the bald-faced lying by law enforcement stood out, even in a world where police lies are routine:  "After his death, representatives of the police department went to break the news to his loved ones: 'Jayson was shot in the head and died instantaneously,' they told his mother."  In fact, he was shot several times in the chest and bled to death.  How could they think this lie would not be found out?  And that is just one lie among multiple lies.

Megaera and Tisiphone, the group Support the Dream Defenders, while mourning Jayson desparately, realize you cannot bring him back.  They would be best pleased if you see what you can do to help get legislation passed to require law enforcement to render first aid to anyone injured in a stop or an arrest.  Clearly no such legislation is going to be passed by a Republican Congress.  But at least some state legislatures would consider it.  Thank you.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4054791

(AKA Friday Furies – today)

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage.  These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that.  Even though there are many more which I can't include.  As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."

After last week's focus on the Bradley Foundation (more fully, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation), I wanted to follow up a little, with articles that focus on specific things that the Foundation is doing, and articles that show that it is now getting attention from local media where it is getting most active.

Of course the Foundation is located in Milwaukee, WI, so it makes sense that Wisconsin media would be interested.  The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has zoomed in upon the Foundation's activities, including its ties to Scott Walker (gee, thanks, Bradley /S)

When Gov. Scott Walker laid out a plan in his state budget address urging people to take steps to avoid welfare, it mirrored a platform of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which has pushed for greater personal responsibility and more stringent welfare requirements.

Documents hacked from the Bradley Foundation's computer server show the connection is not just philosophical — it's financial….

The foundation even awarded a $100,000 grant to the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families to underwrite the commission itself — an unusual, if not unique, step in government. Neither the source of the commission's money nor the foundation's stake in the outcome was disclosed. The state spent about $62,000 of the grant before making its recommendation to the governor.

This excellent piece of reporting follows the money to show how deep the Bradley Foundation's tentacles go, and how they spread out into multiple areas of Winsoncin government.  Or maybe we should say "Fitzwalkerstan" government.  Personally, I think it's a pity Scotty didn't take a post with the Trump Administration before now, so that he could be taken down with it.  But, if he was too cunning to do so before, he's definitely too cunning to do so now.  Sad.

The Journal Sentinel is very much on the whole story; there are two other articles just this week on the Foundation.  One focuses on its funding of groups opposing climate regulation, and the other includes an interview with Marcus S. Owens, who ran the IRS's tax-exempt organizations division during the 1990's; he shows how closely they are skating to the exempt-non exempt line, and indeed going over it.

Other Wisconsin media are also discussing the Foundation, including the Wisconsin Independent and Urban Milwaukee.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, it has comne to the attention of Colorado Politics that the Bradley Foundation is putting a lot of money into Colorado, with a focus on union-busting.  Citing the CMD report, the article says:

Bradley has given the Colorado-based Independence Institute $1.45 million between 2004-2016, the documents indicate, including multiple grants some years. With the assistance of the Independence Institute, the right-wing Douglas County school board enacted a series of measures, including countywide school vouchers for private and religious schools (later struck down by the courts), plus an end to collective bargaining, teacher tenure, and automatic dues deductions for teachers unions. In 2013, the battle resulted in a high-dollar school board race where unions and the Koch’s Americans for Prosperity group spent heavily.

Bradley has been a big funder of this agenda. In 2015, Bradley gave a grant of $100,000 to Independence Institute for “aggressive education reform,” which Bradley says included “neutralizing the power of Colorado’s teachers’ unions by defunding them at the local school district level” (Independence Institute, Grant Proposal Record, 11/10/15).

The Independence Institute's response:

It’s no secret that the Independence Institute, the Denver-based libertarian-leaning think tank, takes on unions at every turn, and it depends on anonymous donors to do it.

“We never talk about our donors,” Independence Institute president and CEO Jon Caldara said in an e-mail. “But if Bradley gave us that much money to fight unions, I’d be living on some small island with that cash right now instead."

Oh my.  Well, it certainly is refreshing for a right wing/Libertarian operative admit he is an embezzler, even if only at heart.

Over in the State of Washington, The Stand ("News About Working People Standing Together in Washington State") also picked up the informmation about union-busting.

In Washington state, the Bradley Foundation granted $1.5 million over three years to the Freedom Foundation with the purpose of “defund[ing] Big Labor,” because “Washington State’s liberal labor laws have long allowed it to be a net exporter of union dollars to other parts of the country,” according to proposals regarding the grant.

Examples of the Freedom Foundation’s anti-union activities in Washington include canvassing, mailing, and phone banking union members to get them to opt out of their unions. They also hired a Santa Claus to leaflet state workers as they walked in and out of their workplace, encouraging them to stop paying full union dues.

The Stand also noted that, besides Wisconsin, Colorado, and Washington, the two states the Foundation targets most aggressively are North Carolina and Oregon.

Jeff Johnson, President of the Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO said:

We’re not going to let the Bradley Foundation, the Freedom Foundation, or the other groups they fund get us down. More than ever, working people are coming together to raise wages, protect workers’ rights, and expand the right to organize in our state. We will continue to spotlight and expose the negative, destabilizing outside pressure from anti-union groups on state and local governments. We must ensure Washington politics put the priorities of Washington’s working families first.

Dear Furies, fighting this thing is like fighting the nine-headed Lernean Hydra, which grew two new heads every time one was cut off, at least until the immortal head in the middle was found.  Perhaps you need to enlist Heracles to deal with this – thing.  One version of the myth says that cauterizing the necks with a torch prevented their regeneration; if you are too busy to hold the torches, perhaps Iolaos, who originally served that function, would come along.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4053330