Politics Plus

I can't do it today. I just can't. I can't write about any outrage today as it it were an aberration, when outrages are going to become are already starting to become the norm. If you want to see what Alecto ("unceasing"), Megaera ("grudging"), and Tisiphone ("vengeful destruction") look like when it has become too much even for them, just look at the picture.

Here is just a small sample of what is already happening (from an email from Moms Rising):

•In Illinois, White university students put on blackface and posed in front of a Confederate Flag to celebrate Trump’s victory.
•In Philadelphia, vandals scrawled Nazi and pro-Trump messages in city neighborhoods.
•In Kansas, a high school suspended two White boys wearing Trump shirts for ripping a hijab off a fellow student. When asked why they did it, one boy answered, “Because she’s about to get kicked out anyway and we won.”
*In Delaware, a Black woman filling her gas tank was approached by a group of four White men. One said to her, “How scared are you, you black b****? I should just kill you right now, you’re a waste of air.” Another showed her his firearm and said, “You’re lucky there’s witnesses or else I’d shoot you right here.”
•In California, a young woman was approached by an older man who said, “I can’t wait until Trump asks us to rape your people and send you back over the biggest damn wall we’re going to build. Go back to hell, wet back.”
•Also in California, a gay man at a bar was approached by a group of men who shouted at him, “We got a new President you f***ing f****ts," before assaulting him in a nearby alley.
•Educators from across the country are reporting rising levels of anxiety and fear among their students of color. In Utah, two parents reported seeing two kindergartners tell a Hispanic classmate that he would be going back to Mexico after Trump’s victory.

Yes, a lot of this was going on before the election.  But somehow, now it seems to have a new – authority.

This from ExPat Girl at Daily Kos:

Fascism just got hold of the United States. We are now seeing the worst of the worst elevated to positions of incredible power. Racism has been legitimized and the reports of hate crimes are rolling in. Trans children are committing suicide. Stock prices of private prisons and coal have skyrocketed. Women are months away from truly losing the right to control their own bodies. Marriage equality is under attack. The safety net is about to be destroyed. Hard won progress on climate change is about to go down the toilet. We are about to lose all regulations on the financial industry. Millions are terrified of being rounded up for deportation. Muslims are facing honest to God persecution. We’ve gotten confirmation that the world’s most powerful dictator manipulated our election to get the result he wanted. Our allies in Europe are freaking out. Intelligence from the Middle East indicates that al-Qaeda and ISIS are over the moon with joy.

And the majority of the people here are refighting the primary war? Ignoring the terror of huge swaths of America to gloat? Dreaming of how this is all going to work out for them in the future?

Can people really be this stupid as to what is happening ? This blind to what is coming down the road?

I quoted John Pavlovitz last week.  I'd like to quote him again now, as he addresses people who don't understand:

This is not about losing an election.  This isn't about not winning a contest.  This is about two very different views of the world.

Hillary supporters believe in a diverse America; one where religion or skin color or sexual oriantation or place of birth aren't liabilities or deficiencies or moral defects.  Her campaign was one of inclusion and connection and interdependency.  It was about building bridges and breaking ceilings.  It was about going high.

Trump supporters believe in a very selective America; one that is largely white and straight and Christian, and the voting verified this.  Donald Trump has never made any assertions otherwise.  He ran a campaign of fear and exclusion and isolation – and that's the vision of the world those who voted for him have endorsed.

Every horrible thing Donald Trump ever said … has now been validated.
Every … call to bully protesters … and every ignorant diatribe has been endorsed.
Every piece of anti-LGBTQ legislation … has been signed-off on.

Half our country has declared these things acceptable, noble, American.

And this is why we grieve.

(This is only a summary.  Click through for the whole piece.  Skip the comments though.)

Oh, the Furies and I will be back.  Eventually.  But all four of us need some down time right now.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4020659

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to anyone here that I am a big fan of Keith Ellison. When he was appointed to the Democratic Platform Committee, and issued a mass invitation for Dems to tell him their thoughts, I posted it here (and it got a lot of attention LOL).

Bernie Sanders is a fan too (He was a Sanders appointment to the platform committee). 

Now, Keith has expressed interest in being the chairman of the DNC, and frankly, I can't think of a better idea.

Bernie says so too.

Keith is a true progressive champion.  He is often described as a "Climate Hawk," but he is progessive on everything, not just climate.  As the DNC Chair, he will be in a position to encourage and assist candidates and potential candidates whose values are in ine with ours – "ours" referring to those of us who are regular readers and posters here (and on Care2).  And it will be a position where he will be interacting mainly with Democrats, hence less likely to be exposed to ugly Republican Islamophobia on a daily basis.  He may or may not care about that (and he is strong enough and smart enough to face anything they throw at him), but I do. 

There is a petition on MoveOn, addressed to the DNC, in support of his candidacy.  Here's a quote from it:

Rep. Ellison has been endorsed by Sen. Sanders for the job, and has the experience, principles, and organizational skills to lead the Democratic Party in opposition to the Trump-Pence-McConnell-Ryan-Roberts administration. He is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a member of the House Democratic Steering & Policy Committee and the Congressional Black Caucus, and the founder of the Congressional Consumer Justice Caucus. 

I hope that many will sign this petition, and I thank in advance any who do.

It's another week when I have so many items today which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them that I won't be able to share them all. 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 few months ago we got the news that the Department of Justice, after learning the results of an investigation (in which The Nation magazine played a large part), which showed "longstanding patterns of medical neglect in the facility, including operating for months on end without a medical doctor and failing to provide basic care and screening for infectious diseases," was terminating a contract with a CCA-owned private prison.  The contract had been in place for 16 years, and still had four years to run, but the DOJ (and specifically the Bureau of Prisons, which operates under the DOJ) evidently felt the prison's shortcoings were so profound as to justify canceling the contract early, and, on October 1, the last federal prisoner was removed from this prison – the Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, NM.  Yay!

Oh, wait – not so fast.  "Now a Cibola County official who says he has been briefed by CCA and members of Congress tells The Nation that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is moving forward with plans to sign an agreement with CCA to reopen the facility as an immigrantion detention center."  Because "we would support that because it’ll keep the jobs here."

You see, the Justice Department was speaking for the Justice Department.  Its ruling never applied to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), because that is an agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS.)  Grrr!

After the DOJ ordered the BOP to start closing ALL of its private prisons, Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, formed a commission to study whether "immigration detention operations conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) should move in the same direction" as DOJ.  That study should be available by the end of November.  But ICE isn't waiting.  Just this month, ICE extended a CCA contract for five more years for the South Texas Family Residential Center.  Yes, "Family."  They lock up children.

As ICE "pursues a longstanding policy of detaining new arrivals, including migrants seeking asylum," the detainee population is expected to continue to grow.  And grow and grow.

One wonders on what basis ICE is so confident that the as yet uncomplete report will be in favor of their private prison expansion.  Alternatively, one wonders whether they even care.  What is the definition of a "rogue agency" again?  Alecto, check that out for us, will you?

Private use of public land was in the news again this week as the Bundy Crime Syndicate is celebrating their acquittal on all (or all but one which was not ruled on – I'm not sure which) charges.  Now, private use of public land is not automatically bad.  For instance, if I want to camp in a National Park, and will follow the rules and not block anyone else in the process, that in my opinion is perfectly fine – and what public property was designed to do.  The problem arises when someone wants to use public land in a way that cuts off others from enjoying it equally.  This is what the Bundys have been doing, both in Nevada with the cattle grazing, and in Oregon at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge.  One wonders what the jury can have been thinking.

But the Bundys are not the only people who think that public land ought to be allocated to them for their private use.  Case in point:  Barry Diller, who has for some time dreamed of building an island in the Hudson River, dedicated to himself.  "Diller Island," now under construction, is planned to comprise a long esplanade leading to a floating island resting on 300 piles resembling giant golf tees.  It will include greenery, walkways, and three performance spaces.  Up to 70 feet high and 2.4 acres in surface space, it is expected to just out from the shoreline seven blocks below the High Line – the High Line being an aerial greenway at 20th Street built on an elevated section of a disused railway.

The thing is, the "land where the island is to be built is public. It falls under the jurisdiction of the HRPT (Hudson River Park Trust), a partnership between New York State and City charged with the construction and design of the four-mile Hudson River Park. The Park belongs to millions of New York City residents whose taxes subsidize it."

New York State law requires an environmental impact assessment for construction like this, and this assessment has notbeen filed with the state.  The HRPT states that is has performed its own review:  "We take our role as stewards of the Hudson River Park sanctuary seriously, and that's exactly why we not only conducted a thorough environmental review in accordance with state law, but went beyond what was required by inviting public comment on that review."

The City Club of New York, a land-use policy organization, however, says the review was never filed with the state.  Neither has the Army Corps of Engineers filed a similar report at the federal level.  My, my.  The City CLub is suing the Trust in the Manhattan Supreme Court to hat the contruction, and is not having much success.  This is a long story with a lot of history, which is definitely worth a read, and I'm sure the information will be very helpful to Megaera as she looks into this example of grudging.

From private prisons to privatization of public land, we move to privatization of public utilities.  Always a bad idea.  Always leads to spending more and getting less in return.  Pittsburgh is no exception.

Pittsburgh has a long history of having clean water.  However, in 2012, the utility, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, having made a series of poor financial decisions, was hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.  Residents were complaining of poor customer service and unfair fees. 

With public funding drying up (pun intended) and infrastructure more and more outdated (gee, do you think there might be a connection?), Pittsburgh is far from the only municipality to be running into trouble.  Pittsburgh is also not the only utility to turn to a private management company to help out.  Pittsburgh called in Veolia.

If you haven't heard of Veolia, it's time you did.  Based in Paris (France, not Texas), the company operates in 68 countries, and, in the USA, consults or manages in 530 cities (though that number is growing.) 

In Pittsburgh, while initially promising no layoffs, by 2015, the utility had laid off (or fired) 23 people, notably the safety and water quality managers.  The laboratory staff was cut in half.  And major changes were made to the water treatment system.  (Cue ominous music.)

For decades, the utility had been adding soda ash to its water to prevent the pipes from corroding and leaching into the water.  in 2014, soda ash was replaced by caustic soda, with no environmental review.  But this year, as the disaster in Flint came to the notice of the nation, they switched back to soda ash.  Because soda ash prevents lead from pipes getting into the water.  And caustic soda, apparently, doesn't.  Were they in time?  Well, not really.

This summer 81,000 homes in Pittsburgh received notice of elevated levels of lead "in some homes."  Seventeen per cent had levels comparable to those in Flint.  Prior to this testing, Pittsburgh lead levels had always been normal.

Had the lab staff not been drastically reduced, a formar water quality director says, "We would have been researching like crazy this lead corrosion problem to see how to correct it."

Another former employee, asked about Veolia, said, "They will come in, rape your water company, and leave with money bags."  Yup.  That's about the size of it.  Tisiphone, although this may have been more attributable to greed than to vengeance, please see what you can do.  Many thanks.

If anyone has the stomach to check into any more stories, here are some links:

North Carolina Republicans try to stop 100-year-old Grace Bell Hardison from voting
(New Mexico) AG says APS violated open records law. Now they’re still denying a mother the documents
Jailed 96 days on bogus charge: It is no one's fault?

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4018423

I have so many items this week which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them that I won't be able to share them all. 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."

Barely had I posted #46 and started to read my email inbox than I had been alerted to three new stories, and during the week two more came to my attention.  Seriously.  I don't even have to look for them.  They come to me.  I think I will skip the one about the police officer who was acquitted of negligent homicide in the death of an unarned veteran, and the one about the Florida Ballot Initiative which would amend the Florida Constitution to make abortion first-degree murder (in a state which still has the death penalty) and would criminalize not just pregnant women and doctors but also people who use certain forms of birth control.  The former has, alas, become commonplace, and the latter – well, let's not panic till after the votes are in.  I do provide the links in case anyone wants to dig deeper.

But the one about the terrorist truck driver, and the two involving young children, must be told.

In Reno, NV, about forty people were holding a peaceful protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline and, at the same time, against a holiday (Columbus Day) being dedicated to a mass murderer.  At about 7 p.m. Monday they were getting ready to go home, but stopped for a photo under the Reno Arch when two men (well, apparently 18 and 17 – I would have said technically a man and a boy) in a white Nissan pickup stopped.  The driver approached the protestors, presumably yelled at them, and they yelled back ("heated words").  The man in the truck then drove through the crowd, butting one woman in the hospital – Kitty Colbert, 59, of Carson City.

A fellow named Taylor de Lao got a video and posted it on Facebook.  I'm not on Facebook, but I know many here are and won't have any trouble seeing it.  Ms. Colbert suffered several pelvic fractures, a sacral fracture, and a fractured hip.  She was listed in serious condition the following day, but was able to talk, so we have her story – which is that he could have gone to either side of the protestors, but instead rammed right through.  She feels it was attempted vehicular homicide.  I agree.

Alecto, do find this guy – well, both of them – and do some schooling, won't you?

You may have heard about the seven year old boy, Abdul Aziz Usmani, a first-grader, who was bullied by his classmates, and, eventually, beaten up by them – hence the arm sling in the photo. 

His father, Dr. Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani, an acclaimed writer, scientist and TED Talk speaker, is in the United States working on combating the effects of terrorism.  He

has worked with the UN’s Special Envoy for Global Education on a safe school initiative in Pakistan. In fact, Usmani has developed software to “model the effects of suicide bombings” in order to create safer environments and reduce injuries in the event of an explosion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Now, his wife and kids are returning to Pakistan at least until after the election.  They will wait to see if it is safe to come back to the United States.  Incidentally Abdul Aziz is an American citizen, having been born here.  Megaera, maybe you could school some of these bullies?  Yes, I know there are a lot more where they came from.  Them too.

The other child to have made the news is a ten-year old special needs child from Kerrville, TX.  His name is Kayden Culp.  I say made the news, but I think maybe he ought to have made news a little more.  My main source for this is a webpage specifically for firefighters.  Why firefighters you say?  Did this poor child get burned?  Well, yes, he did.

As of October 6, he was in the University Hospital in San Antonio in critical condition, on life support and a feeding tube, and under sedation, with first ans second degree burns over 20%  of his body (though in the picture it looks like more to me.  Of course there is always smoke inhalation too.)

Also as of October 6, a Kerrville teenaged boy is under arrest on suspicion of having started the fire.  There was a second pre-teen boy also injured in the fire, but his injuries were less extensive.

The boy’s family say that Culp was lured to a shack in the town of Kerrville on the afternoon of October 2. He had been under the impression that he was playing with three boys, ages 9, 10 and 11. At the shack, the bullies doused Culp in gasoline and set fire to him.

Culp’s family are adamant that the victim was targeted because of his autism. Another of his aunts, Kelly Mack, told News4 San Antonio, “The other kids are saying that he was going to be riding his bike like he always is, my nephew Kayden is going to be riding his bike, and they said we’re going to grab him and take him inside and burn him. If it wasn’t premeditated, it still is attempted murder.”

Meanwhile, Tanya Kasper, told Fox News, “All the kids are talking, saying, ‘Hey, they set out to do it on purpose.’ We want to keep in mind that these are kids, and they do need help. We just want the proper justice done.”

Earlier this year, Kayden's mother was very active in raising funds for another Kerrville resident and her family who had lost their home to a fire.  The house had been paid off within the last year, and the insurance had been cancelled by the owner's ex-husband.  Sounds to me as if it may be a case of no good deed goes unpunished.  Tisiphone, this one's for you.  Anything additional I might say would probably be unprintable.

The Furies and I will be back.

Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/4015885