On Thursday, I watched a video by Heather Cox Richardson which she made on Thursday (Her letters are done at the end of the day and are therefore already a day late when they post.) It had me in tears within the first 20 minutes – because I have been trying for at least a decade to posh the Political Compass, and the distinction between forms of government and economic principles. When, as part of the process of how we got here, she pointed out that when after World War II, as part of establishing the international rules based order, we already conflated capitalism with democracy, and never stopped, and spread that falsehood virtually worldwide – I lost it. Here’s the link; it’s been cut – by Heather or her staff – so it’s only the first just under 20 minutes which got to me.
This is another video – 38 minutes – if you choose to watch. Adam Klasfeld, who was in the courtroom, about the hearing regarding the DOJ seizure of the Fulton County election materials from 2020. Fulton County, naturally, wants their materials back – originals, not copies. DOJ does not want to give the originals back, although they have copies. There apppears to me to be even more hanky-panky in the seizure than I suspected from the start. But withoug going into excesive detail, one thing that struck me is that Fulton County is arguing that the warrant demonstrated a “callous disregard” for its 4th Amendment wights. DOJ is srguing that Fulyon county (presumably because it is not a person?) has no 4th Amendment rights. IANAL, but that horrifies me. Even granting that Fulton County is not a person, it keeps tohse materials as a custodian – on behalf of the voters of Fulton County, who damn well are people and have 4th Amendment rights. No one appears to have come anywhere close to making that point. And there was another, similar argument which if it succeeds will endanger privacy. Sorry, I was so concentrated on the first one that I don’t remember the details, but I expect it will turn up in writing somewhere.
From Press Watch. I know people are saying that the Iran War is simply a distraction from the Epstein files, or inflation, or tariffs, or something. I am inclined to believe that all these other things are merely a distraction from how he is using the war to manipulate the oil market, and thereby steal millions, maybe billions of dollars through insider trading. And sharing that with cronies who can do the same. Flashy bombings, moving troops around, meanwhile saying (about nonexistent negotiations) whatever will make the prices go sown so he can buy or up so he can sell. I’ll go out on a limb and say he started the war solely so he can grift from it – and stock up money for when he is no longer President. That is the only plan. The theory that it is a matter of mental illness cosplaying as foreign policy is appealing – but I honestly don’t think he has put even that much thought into it.
Yesterday, I observed that ICE (and/or CBP) is heading to Ohio (Springfield) on or about February 3. Also, Don Lemon has been arrested – I would assume (unconstitutional) charges have been filed, but who knows`. A number of smart people have been warning us it will get worse before it gets better. And, at least some businesses and schools in Denver (though probably not here) closed for the General Strike today. And, The Nation has nominated the City of Minneapolis for a Nobel Peace Prize, whilw Senate Democrats succeeded in splitting off DHS funding from other funding, thus avoiding a shutdown of the rest of the regime.
We have heard this from The Conversation before, and don’t think it would be out of line to say that we know it, and are aware of it – we who come here. But there are still lots of people out there who don’t. So please feel free to share.
Harry Litman takes a break from the law to address history and music, specifically Philip Glass’s Symphony #15, “Lincoln.” He quotes several points from Lincoln’s “Lyceum” speech, which is featured in the symphony, and is eerily prophetic. I’ll say up front that Glass is a personal friend of Harry’s, since he doesn’t reveal that until close to the end, and I think it colors his understanding.
I have another extended quote from an email to share today – no link, it only exists in the email. It’s from retired Major General Paul Eaton, who is kind of the voice of VoteVets.
After months of unjustified and outrageous escalations from Trump’s paramilitary forces, I’ve got a story for you. It’s a small town outside of Fallujah, at the height of the Iraq War. A rifle battalion commander and his men are outfitted in battle dress. A crowd of Iraqis approaches these men, very upset, with a whole lot of riot potential. An exceptionally dangerous situation. That battalion commander did not square up for a fight. He directed his men to take a knee, put the barrels of their rifles in the dirt, and smile. His men thought he was crazy, but they followed orders. And in one fell swoop, everything de-escalated. The Iraqis didn’t riot, no one was shot, and everybody went home. A rifle battalion commander, surrounded by young men, in a combat zone, acted with restraint. What we’ve seen these last several weeks on American streets has been anything but restrained. I don’t tell you this to advocate pitting American Troops against American citizens, but to further illustrate the vast divide between our Military and the ICE and CBP agents deployed by Trump to stir up trouble. They’re out looking for a fight, and it’s important to understand why. He had Pam Bondi demand access to the Minnesota voter rolls in exchange for a drawdown. The FBI just raided an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia. Trump knows the country hates what he’s doing. He knows he’s going to get taken to the woodshed this November. And he’s trying to figure out any way he can to hold on to power — even if he loses. We’ve already seen it on January 6th, 2021. We see it every day in the lies, provocations, and threats Trump makes. This is an incredibly serious situation, and we can’t wait to act against it.
Yesterday, the remaining snow got down to under an inch where it remained, but my back yard still looked blanketed. Today is supposed to be the warmest day of the week and sunny, and I really wasn’t expecting it to be gone before today anyway. I can’t keep my fingers crossed because it’s too hard to type that way, but I’m hoping. Also, I apologize to Dr. Keith Knight for including only the last third of his cartoon. But I do feel it stands alone just fine. Finally, I have managed to find a poem by Renee Nicole Good which won a prize. Here’s the link.
The Root newsletter was really hot yesterday. I bumped one until tomorrow. This one is most remarkable for the amount of truth revealed to Pastor Callaghan (who has the kind of courage every decent person should have.) This is far more revealing than their constant, and utterly transparent, lies. It probably won’t get the attention it deserves because no blood was spilled – but everyone in the US should know it.
Robert Reich is not in Minneapolis, but he quotes in full a letter from a former student who is. Don’t write Minneapolis off. There are too many people there who have “miles and miles and miles of heart” (quote from the musical Damn Yankees.)
I might refer to adding insult to injury – but this – from The New Republic – is bigger than that. It’s more like “We might not be able to take your life, but we can definitely ruin it.”
Granted that this is 17 minutes long. But it should be seen by every American over the age of 18 – and maybe younger (And there are more where this came from.)
Yesterday was, of course, New Year’s Day. I hope yours was both happy and as productive as you wanted it to be. And if that was not at all, that’s great. On New Years Eve, I had it on my calendar to repost “featured images” used by other authors at the end of December so they could be found more easily, and I missed the moment of midnight. As I was cussing myself, it occurred to me that if I temporarily changed the blog time zone from Pacific to whatever they call Alaska and Hawaii, I might be able to put them in in fake December, and them turn the time zone back again and they might stay in December. By golly, it worked. I haven’t tried to use the scheduling feature again to see whether it is working again, but I will again tonight since on Saturdays I get up for the opera – at 9:00 Pacific – so if it’s late it won’t be horribly late.
Joyce Vance explains “Inherent Contempt” and why the House is contemplating using it on Pam Bondi.
Good news for workers in a few blue and purple states – including Colorado, Ohio, and Missouri. Not so good for workers in states who still are stuck with the federal minimums. The article mentions a couple of the amounts by which the minimum changes, but none of the full new amounts. I looked up Colorado, and our new minimum is $15.16, and by law, it increases every year as the CPI increases.
Whether or not this affects you (it doesn’t affect me directly on account of a long series of lucky decisions which turned out to be consequential), it will almost certainly affect someone you care about. Effing Republicans.
Yesterday, I did receive by email the approval of the documents I sent to San Carlos (where Virgil is.) Not in time to visit that day, though. I had sent a note through the electronic system – they print it out and give it to him on paper, so it’s not immediate – asking him to call me, but, as I type, I haven’t heard from him yet. (The other thing I did was put the need for a new form on my calendar for next year – with about 2 weeks to spare. In the meantime, I don’t really know how to plan. I expect I’ll hear from him in time to plan effectively, but just now, it’s frustrating.
Robert Reich on the May Day demonstrations. This is helpful but not, IMO, good enough to run on Sunday. Particularly since the following day Trump** issued an executive order defunding NPR and PBS. My local public radio station is not a member of NPR, but it does – or it did – receive some federal funding.
HuffPost covers the Apricot Antichrist’s declaration that being poor is good for you. You may think that sounds like St. Francis – but nothing could be farther from the truth. Sur, Francis lover poverty, but that was because he chose to be poor. That’s 180 degreed from being forced to be poor because everything you had was taken away from you. Francis would not have been in favor of that at all.
Heather Cox Richardson writes about the media – not the mainstream media, and not the media of the resistance, but the Turmeric Tyrant’s own media – which may be the direst threat to democracy of all, more so than his flouting of the law and the courts, because it creates and intensifies a cadre of true believers who are beyond the ability of reason to influence. Yes, we’ve already observed that in his first term and in his campaigns, but this is an escalation on an undreamed of scale.
Yesterday, I touched base with the other two moderators, since what I had thought was causing the squishing problem turned out not to be Of course this had to happen at a time I don’t have all my meds and am both low energy and low enthusiasm, but I promise I will be working on it, though it may be slow. The last of the four prescription I had to get new scrips for with the new PCP is supposed to come today, and I’ll take a dose immediately if and when it does, but it is still going to take time for everything to kick in (I know it will because it did coming home from rehab.) But I’m on the case. I just chose a remembrance photo for today – at least if/when it squishes you won’t miss out on words.
Wonkette referred me to this by Ned Resnikoff. I am not personally knowledgeable on it, but I too have seen ominous signs relative to it – like Chesa Boudin losing his recall election, and some cities becoming harsh to the homeless. And if it’s this bad and getting worse, it should be obvious that the consequences would be catastrophic.
Here’s Margaret Atwood, in the writing burrow, with post-election predictions for which I’m confident paying subscribers have been begging. Mostly they are not that different from others’ predictions except that her sardonic tone is unique, and I suspect her fairly detailed description of the conditions under which the Pythia worked at the Oracle of Delphi may be her way of disclaiming accuracy. But I always find her fun to read, and hope you will also.
Spain has just passed a law allowing those with especially painful periods to take paid “menstrual leave” from work, in a European first.
The bill approved by Parliament on Thursday is part of a broader package on sexual and reproductive rights that includes allowing anyone 16 and over to get an abortion or freely change the gender on their ID card.
The law gives the right to a three-day “menstrual” leave of absence – with the possibility of extending it to five days – for those with disabling periods, which can cause severe cramps, nausea, dizziness and even vomiting.
The leave requires a doctor’s note, and the public social security system will foot the bill.
The law states that the new policy will help combat the stereotypes and myths that still surround periods and hinder women’s lives.
Equality Minister Irene Montero, an outspoken feminist in the leftwing government, hailed “a historic day of progress for feminist rights”.
“There will be resistance to its application, just as there has been and there will be resistance to the application of all feminist laws,” she told parliament.
“So we have to work (…) to guarantee that when this law enters into force, it will be enforced”.
‘A lightning rod for feminists’
“The days of (women) going to work in pain are over,” Montero said last year when she unveiled her government’s proposal.
But the road to Spain’s menstrual leave has been rocky. Politicians – including those within the ruling coalition – and trade unions have been divided over the policy, which some fear could backfire and stigmatise women in the workplace.
Worldwide, menstrual leave is currently offered only in a small number of countries including Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea and Zambia.
Italy flirted with the idea in 2016, proposing a bill that would have given three fully paid days off to workers who obtained medical certificates, but the proposal failed to progress before the parliamentary term ran out in 2018.
“It’s such a lightning rod for feminists,” Elizabeth Hill, an associate professor at the University of Sydney who has extensively studied menstrual leave policies worldwide, told Euronews Next.
The debates around menstrual are often intense, she said, with concern focused on whether such a policy can help or hinder women.
“Is it liberating? Are these policies that recognise the reality of our bodies at work and seek to support them? Or is this a policy that stigmatises, embarrasses, is a disincentive for employing women?”
According to the Spanish Gynaecology and Obstetrics Society, around a third of women who menstruate suffer from severe pain known as dysmenorrhea.
Symptoms include acute abdominal pain, diarrhoea, headaches and fever.
‘Stigmatising women’
Some Socialists have voiced concern a menstrual leave could backfire against women by discouraging employers from hiring them.
“In the long term, it may be one more handicap that women have in finding a job,” Cristina Antoñanzas, deputy secretary of the UGT, a leading Spanish trade union, told Euronews Next when the draft bill was first unveiled.
“Because we all know that on many occasions we have been asked if we are going to be mothers, something that must not be asked and that men are not asked. Will the next step be to ask us if we have period pains?”
Spain’s other main trade union, Comisiones Obreras, has supported the idea of menstrual leave. But it has raised concerns over the details of the policy, and whether women would have to prove they suffer from a condition known to worsen period pain – such as endometriosis or polycystic ovary syndrome – to claim this menstrual leave.
“How many women are we leaving out?” Carolina Vidal, its confederal secretary for Women, Equality and Working Conditions, told Euronews Next last year.
“In many, many cases periods become unbearable and disabling, but they are not considered illnesses”.
In the end, it will be up to doctors to judge whether the pain is disabling and also how many days of sick leave would be needed.
The law states the right to a “three-day medically supervised leave, with the ability to extend to five, for those with disabling periods: severe pain, cramps, cramping, nausea, dizziness and vomiting that some women suffer every cycle”.
Menstrual leave is part of sweeping new legislation introducing new reproductive rights. Under the new laws, Spain will also roll out free feminine hygiene products in certain public facilities, such as educational institutions and prisons.
When it was first unveiled last year, the draft bill also aimed to scrap or slash VAT on specific feminine hygiene products. That provision was ultimately left out but is expected to be revived in the government’s next general budget review.
Teenagers as young as 16 will now be allowed to seek an abortion in any public hospital without needing their parent’s or legal guardian’s consent.
The law also includes a new paid prepartum leave from the 36th week of pregnancy up to the moment of birth, the provision of free contraceptives and the morning-after pill, as well as the prohibition of surrogacy, declaring the practice a form of violence against women.
I posted this article to show how rapidly things can change in a nation in the hope that changes in the opposite direction will be of a very short-lived nature and common sense will prevail in America.
Spain dropped the fascist yoke that it acquired in 1936 under Franco as late as 1973, but it continued under the stringent rules of the Catholic Church, which had supported Franco in a close relationship, even though it was abolished as the state religion in 1978. However, like Ireland, Spain became more secular over time and now only about one-third of Catholics in Spain are practising members of the church. This led abortion to be decriminalised in 1985 and further liberalised in 2010. With these additional laws, Spain has transformed into one of the most progressive countries in Europe.
Take this to heart when voting, America
