Columbia Students Barricade Office of Dean

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Thursday April 25, 2024 · 12:58 PM PDT

2024/04/25 · 12:58

April 24, 1968 (pdf) "300 Protesting Columbia Students Barricade Office of College Dean." I recall reading about this at the time, in high school. There was a lot going on in 1968. The Dems weren't smart about the Vietnam protestors, and it arguably hurt them in the November election that year, when Nixon got elected. (George Wallace took some southern states, 3d party, too.)

Violent repression of anti-war protestors at the DNC Convention that summer in Chicago didn't help. They had contempt for the protesters & didn't read the room. 18 year olds couldn’t vote yet in 1968, but that changed in 1971.

I wish Biden had visited a mosque back in October, but he didn’t. (Dubya got that one right after 9/11.) I wish Biden hadn’t equated “Hamas” & “Palestinian” either, but he did. For an empathetic guy, he’s got a huge blind spot when it comes to the humanity of Palestinians.

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. Fingers crossed that the Dems start listening to the kids on this one. There’s plenty of reason to object to imposed mass starvation & aid trucks being turned away if they have sleeping bags (zippers!!), nail clippers (weapons!), water purification tablets &c. Calling those objections “anti-semitism” doesn’t help either. My personal opinion is that there’s been more than enough vengeance for Oct 7.

An opinion piece in the Gray Lady, just posted a couple hours ago, suggests that Columbia handled protests against apartheid in the 1980s better than they did back in 1968. Or are doing now.

Kenosha: Compare & Contrast

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Sunday August 30, 2020 · 4:06 PM PDT

2020/08/30 · 16:06

After two years of awaiting trial, Chrystul Kizer has finally been bailed out of jail in Kenosha. Yeah, that Kenosha. She got trafficked, and at 17 killed the guy. Not a rich & powerful guy like Epstein and he was under investigation for child pornography & trafficking when she killed him. Not clear how long the investigation was underway, perhaps years. Chrystul finally got bail (the whole $400k) in the wake of George Floyd’s killing from a flood of small donations.

From what I’ve seen, Kyle what’s-his-face might never have been charged at all if it had been up to the local cops in Kenosha. Hey, they were out after curfew. Hey, welcome to town, right-wing gun types, come help us out. But if you are kid, the same age as what’s-his-name, shooting that scumbag isn’t quite so welcome:

“As district attorney, I cannot condone vigilante justice, and when presented with evidence of premeditated murder, I do not believe it is appropriate for prosecutors to weigh the value of the victim’s life,” he wrote in his statement.

As it happens, I’ve been giving a little more attention to the intersection of Qanon & law enforcement of late, owing to tussles over enforcement of COVID restrictions and “what about the rioters?” &c. Because of doxxing and other threats locally, including our sheriff who I have personally witnessed coaching someone how to “make [name withheld] famous” who was using a private FB group to get word out about non-compliance of local businesses. (His “enforcement” hasn’t gone beyond sending someone out to inspect a restaurant reported multiple times for indoor dining. At 3:30 pm. Not exactly a busy time.) We have had major problems of being overrun by Texas & other tourists from hotspots, still exhibiting the behavior that made their homes hotpsots in the first place.

Anyhow, in the course of keeping an eye on our little local skirmishes, I’ve noticed how the Qanon types always start jumping up and down about “child trafficking.” I guess it’s mainly imaginary trafficking like the pizza parlor in DC. In Kenosha, it has not bothered them much.

Anyhow, worthy of a moment’s attention about the bizarre contrast. Hopefully, the connection between the two will get noticed a little more in upcoming days.

Who should I donate to for Sen-2020?

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Saturday February 01, 2020 · 12:48 PM PST

2020/02/01 · 12:48

It has been so long since I’ve been on DK, I had trouble figuring out how to post a diary. (Or are they even still called diaries?) And then I had to make a new password; “Cancel Password Renewal” didn’t work. That said: It seems like now is a good time to make some donations to Senate candidates. I went for Amy McGrath (KY) & Mark Kelly (AZ) already. Obvious enough. I usually donate mostly in my own state (Deb Haaland, Xochitl Torres-Small & Maggie Toulouse Oliver in 2018), but I don’t think my $$ are needed in the 2020 Senate race in NM. I have several races listed below, with info gleaned from Ballotpedia. It’s possible it’s not entirely up-to-date.

Looking at the list of other senate races, there’s quite a few that pretty much safe, except I might want to donate against Lindsay Graham in SC anyhow:

Safe Dems: Coons (DE), Durbin (IL), Markey (MA), Booker (NJ), OPEN (NM), Merkely (OR), Reed (RI), Warner (VA)
Safe GOP: Sullivan (AK), Cotton (AR), Risch (ID), Cassidy (LA), Hyde-Smith (MS), Sasse (NE), Inhofe (OK), Graham (SC), Rounds (SD), OPEN (TN), Capito (WV), Enzi (WY)

So, here’s the races I’m considering:

AL-Sen: Doug Jones. Won’t be easy to keep. Worth donating? Republican challengers include Roy Moore, pedophile, & Jeff Sessions, former Sen. discarded by Trump & 5 others. Primary March 3, Super Tuesday. Filing deadline passed.
AZ-Sen: Martha McSally: Prime target. Already donated to Kelly. Primary not till August. 3 additional Dems & 3 additional Republicans in the primary.
CO-Sen Cory Gardner: There’s a lot of primary candidates & I’m not fond of Hickenlooper. Filing deadline 3/17, primary 6/30. No primary challengers for Gardner.
GA-Sen: Kelly Loeffler. Incumbent, not elected (appointed 2019.) 1 Dem challenger, no other GOP primary candidates. Filing deadline March 6, primary May 19.
GA-Sen: David Perdue. Incumbent. 9 in Dem primary. Filing dealine March 6, primary March 19. Perdue has 3 challengers in the Republican primary:
IA-Sen: Joni Ernst. 5 in Dem primary. Filing deadline: March 13. Primary: June 2. Pig castrater has 1 primary challenger.
KS-Sen: OPEN. 4 Dems, 7 GOP. (So far.) Filing deadline: June 1. Primary: August 4
KY-Sen: Mitch McConnell. Already donated to McGrath. Filing deadline is passed. Primary: May 19. Moscow Mitch has 7 GOP challengers in the primary.
ME-Sen: Susan Collins. 5 Dems in the primary. Filing deadline, March 16. Primary June 9. Collins has no challengers in the GOP primary
MT-Sen: Steve Daines. 4 Dems in the primary. Filing deadline, March 16. Primary June 2. No primary challengers in the GOP.
NC-Sen: Thom Tillis. 5 Dems in primary. Filing deadline passed. Primary March 3, Super Tuesday. Tillis has 3 Republican challengers for the primary.
TX-Sen: John Cornyn. 12 Dems in primary, Filing deadline passed. Primary: Tuesday Mar 3, Super Tuesday. Between voter registration efforts in the Rio Grande Valley, plus landowners POed at the eminent domain incursions for the stupid wall, one has hopes for Texas. But there’s 12 candidates to choose from. Cornyn has 4 Republican challengers for the primary.

As a general guideline, I’m a bigger fan of AOC than I am of Joe Manchin or Rahm Emanuel. I’m probably supporting Valerie Plame, who is running for the open House seat in my district. Plame says “If you don’t get climate change & nuclear proliferation right, nothing else matters.” And she understands about Iran better than most of us, which would be helpful in the Congress at this time. Another time, I might go for a different candidate, but this is now. My favorite Digby post of late is about fiddling while Australia burns.

This request is entirely about donating to Senate candidates. That last paragraph is an indicator of the kinds of candidates I’m more or less likely to want to support.

Trump's Political Donations Since 1979

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Tuesday June 13, 2017 · 9:58 AM PDT

2017/06/13 · 09:58

One of the current attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller is that he hired people for the Russia investigation based on professional abilities, without checking their political donations. Now he's being raked over the coals for hiring someone who gave Hillary a donation. (Or three?)

So I thought I'd take a look at Trump's political donations. FEC has all the way back to 1979, when he donated to Carter/Mondale and to Sen. Al D’Amato (R-NY). I spent the evening putting it all in a spreadsheet and reviewing. Here's what I found:

Trump has donated to Hillary Clinton including presidential primaries (but not the general, not Bill Clinton, and not Obama either), Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Anthony Weiner, Joe Lieberman, Chris Dodd, Frank Lautenberg, Dick Durbin, Charlie Rangel, Dick Gephart, Rep. Ted Weiss (D-NY) Pat Moynihan, Ted Kennedy, Patrick Kennedy and a bunch of other Democrats including Al Gore for President in 1988.

Republicans, too, such as Giuliani (Exploratory Committee & campaign), Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-CT), Rep. Sue Kelly (R-NY), John Sweeney (R-NY) Pete Wilson (R-CA), McCain/Palin, Jack Kemp, Rep. Susan Molinari, Sen. John Heinz, Sen. Phil Gramm, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), Sen. Bob Dole, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and lots more. Many, but not all, in districts he had some connection to such as Congressman Mark Foley, the Rep from Florida who got shunned over his creepy advances to young male Congressional pages. Trump gave several donations to Rep. Vito Fosella (R-Staten Island) who had to resign over, amongst other things, keeping a secret second family on the side.

Pretty much like Trump said: I give them all money. It helps me.

Looking in detail: The last donation to a Democrat was to Kirsten Gillibrand in Oct 2010. Senate run. In early 2011, he made 2 donations: to Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) and to the NRSC. Those were his only two donations in the first four months of 2011.

On May 3, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed in the famous raid. So it was the night before when Trump got mocked at the White House Correspondents Dinner. From that time forward, he never gave any more money to Democrats, according to the FEC.

Here's the rest of the 2011 donations:

5/3/11: Pete King (R-NY) for Congress
5/20/11: Allen West (R-FL) for Congress
12/9/11: Linda McMahon (R-CT) for Senate
12/19/11: Mitt Romney for President

2012 didn't have many donations, but somebody got his attention in 2013, when he gave donations to:

Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
John Bolton's PAC
Jon Cornyn (R-TX)
Tim Cotton (R-AR)
Steve Daines (R-MT)
Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Trey Gowdy (R-SC)
Raul Labrador (R-ID)
Mitch McConnell (campaign & PAC)
Tim Scott (R-SC)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Allen West (R-FL)
and more. (I didn’t look up all the names I wasn’t familiar with.)

In early 2015, The Donald concentrated more on early primary states, with donations to the State Republican Party organizations in New Hampshire, South Carolina & Iowa; Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dean Heller (R-NV.) And a few others. (Once he announced, not another penny to anyone.)

I've long thought his run for President was at least in part to seek revenge on Obama for that mockery in 2011. Still looks that way to me.

Navajo Nation to Winslow, AZ: #Justice4Loreal

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Sunday April 03, 2016 · 10:44 AM PDT

2016/04/03 · 10:44

Today
Please support if you are in the area! #Justice4Loreal #JusticeOrElse #AZ #JusticeOrElseAZ pic.twitter.com/sJOmXbXAjh
— Justice or Else Mvmt (@JusticeOrElse) April 2, 2016

We’ve heard stories like this way too many times:

A woman armed with scissors was shot five times and killed by police over the weekend in this small eastern Arizona community, authorities said.

A Winslow police officer responded to a convenience store Sunday on a report of shoplifting and found Loreal Tsingine, a 27-year-old woman who fit the description of the suspect, said Winslow police Lt. Jim Sepi. Tsingine struggled with the officer and threatened with scissors as the officer tried to take her into custody, authorities said.

Summary execution for suspected shoplifting. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Plenty enough reason for a 7-year old girl to lose her mother. Loreal was suspected of stealing a case of beer, which she did not apparently have in hand at the time of her shooting, two blocks distant from the store. (At least it’s not been reported that she did.)

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Thursday March 24, 2016 · 6:56 PM PDT

2016/03/24 · 18:56

Challenger Tim Canova will get access to the Democratic voter database after all

Good news! The Florida Democratic Party has decided to reverse its policy denying access to its voter database to Tim Canova, who is challenging Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in the Florida Democratic primary this year. (They have the Presidential primary at a different time than for the downticket races in Florida. This one’s still on.) From the Miami Herald today:

On Thursday [that is, today], the Florida Democratic Party reversed its position. …

It’s been the policy of the Florida Democratic Party for the past six years to withhold access to candidates challenging incumbent Democratic members of Congress. But the party agreed — in this single instance — to give Canova access to the voter file “to avoid any appearance of favoritism,” Arceneaux told the Herald/Times on Thursday.

It’s also possible that outcry over yet another case of the game being rigged in favor of Wasserman-Schultz’s wishes played a role. I’ve made a donation to Tim Canova. You can too, if you’re tired of the DLC-style world of DWS.

Margaret Sanger

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Monday November 30, 2015 · 9:00 PM PST

2015/11/30 · 21:00

Margaret Sanger (Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-29808)

Margaret (Higgins) Sanger (1879-1966) was the founder of the American Birth Control League, which organization was precursor to Planned Parenthood.

Margaret’s mother, Anne (Purcell) Higgins, was born in Ireland. Anne was brought to America as a girl. The family were refugees from the Great Potato Famine. Over the course of 22 years, Anne had 18 pregnancies with 11 live births. She died at 49.

Margaret Sanger had three children.

NM SoS Diana Duran (R) resigns. It's about time!!

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Friday October 23, 2015 · 7:53 AM PDT

2015/10/23 · 07:53

Past due actually. She's the one who got indicted for many charges of fraud &c. The writing has been on the wall for awhile, but Duran has been slow to face reality. Perhaps yesterday's late night email is related to a scheduled court appearance this morning for motions in her criminal case:

On a more cynical note, perhaps Duran resigned now hoping it would get minimal coverage. Not only was there the Benghazi hearing spectacle, there's a huge hurricane about to take over the headlines. And in Albuquerque, there were two high-profile shootings this week, including the national story of 4-year-old Lilly Garcia, shot in a road rage incident. (Thank goodness, there's been an arrest in that case.) The opposite of a slow news day.

In NM, the SoS has responsibility for ethics issues, which contributed to Duran's problems getting so far out of hand. Eventually, NM Attorney General Hector Balderas stepped in with an indictment with scores of counts. The Democratic state legislature had also begun moving towards Duran's impeachment.

Duran has a gambling problem, from which (IMO) all these charges stem. The core of the problem is that something short of half a million dollars of campaign funds were withdrawn by Duran from ATMs at casinos throughout the state. Even the GOP Governor, Susana "la Tejana" Martinez, is ready to cut her loose. Reported last month:

Staff in Duran's office confirmed she has not returned to her Santa Fe office since the allegations came to light, and Gov. Martinez even said Tuesday that enough could be enough.
"If the allegations are true, they are extremely concerning. If they are true, she should resign," Gov. Martinez told KOB Tuesday.

In Duran's absence, no one knows for sure if the functions of her office are being effectively carried out in her absence.

Martinez gets to appoint a replacement, so why not? Read More

Greenwood, Mississippi Won't Fly State Flag Anymore

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Thursday August 20, 2015 · 8:10 AM PDT

2015/08/20 · 08:10

Not until the state removes the Confederate flag component:

In the end, the council voted 6-1 to remove the flag from all city property, effective today, as long as the Confederate emblem is on it.

This is the Mississippi Delta, birthplace of the blues. The population here has been as high as >80% black, still 2/3 African American in the 2000 & 2010 US Census. This town is home to the Tallahatchie Bridge and where pioneer bluesman Robert Johnson died. Emmett Till was killed nearby, and his confessed killers were not punished. This is where Morgan Freeman graduated from segregated Broad Street High School in 1955. (He's part owner of a blues club in a nearby town.)

A wee bit of good news in this crazy, brutal world.

Victoria Jackson ain't no Al Franken

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Sunday February 08, 2015 · 7:07 AM PST

2015/02/08 · 07:07

There's another SNL alum throwing a hat in the ring, running for public office. But not in the tradition of Al Franken, who's a serious guy (Stuart Smalley notwithstanding) and knowledgeable about policy. I learned that listening to him on Air America before he ran for office.

The latest SNL alum? Not so much.

Like iron filings to a magnet, Tennessee attracts bizarro types to the public arena. The latest? Victoria Jackson. She was slightly cute as a faint shadow of Gracie Allen kind of zany. And in recent years, she's been a tea party enthusiast. (There's a guy in Iowa, too, a more serious candidate. But that's beyond the scope of this diary.)

Now, "tired of complaining", she's announced she's running for County Commissioner in Williamson County. That county's already represented by Marsha Blackburn in Congress. It's home to an abundant array of cheaply-built MacMansions, home to lots of Hummers. She's running as an independent, not a Republican.

“I just can’t do it anymore; they just don’t have the values of our founding fathers anymore,” Jackson told The Tennessean. “I am sure there are a few Republicans who do. I want less federal government involvement, lower taxes, smaller government, more public involvement, a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility.”

Her key issues for suburban Tennessee are opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, Agenda 21 and Common Core education standards. (I missed that the Muslim Brotherhood was active in suburban Nashville, but maybe she's onto something that I missed.) Read More

Good News from Oklahoma

Land of Enchantment for Native American Netroots

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Friday December 19, 2014 · 3:49 PM PST

2014/12/19 · 15:49

By now, most Americans are aware of the movement to push the Washington, DC NFL team to give up its obnoxious team name and mascot, "Redskins." I don't need to repeat the arguments here. The same issue is being confronted all over the country at the college and high school level. There's a long way to go before this noxious problem is resolved. For one example, consider the town of Liberal, Kansas:

When it comes to news from Oklahoma, we come to expect it to be harsh and face-palmingly retro, whether it's the governor, the state legislature or the particularly visible and dreadful nonsense spewed and blockages thrown up by Senators Coburn and Inhofe. This time, they've done the right thing. Earlier this month, the Oklahoma City school board voted to remove the "Redskins" mascot from Capitol Hill High School. And it wasn't a squeaker of a vote, either. The tally was 8-0. The vote was met with enthusiastic applause, cheers and hugs. Read More

Cuba! (in 21 pictures)

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Wednesday December 17, 2014 · 11:41 AM PST

2014/12/17 · 11:41

One of my French relations, Lucile Chriqui, is a talented young songstress. She loves the music of Cuba and has taken extended trips there to immerse herself in the culture. I'm sharing some pictures from her most recent trip, being as how we're all talking about Cuba today. Here's Lucile and her friend Cynthia Abraham. The rest of the pictures are below the fold.

I'm no expert on Cuba, so I'll skip adding commentary. Below the fold, please enjoy Cuba through Lucile's eyes. And yeah, it's long past time for the embargo to go.

Here's a video that includes Lucile singing, back home in Paris:

And this is Cynthia (also in Paris):

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