069 The Erickson Report for January 26 to February 8

 

Episode 69 of The Erickson Report notes the anniversary of Roe v.Wade with some recent news on abortion rights, goes over how Medicare Advantage programs are actually backdoor ways to privatize Medicare, and reintroduces Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages, with three Clowns and the Outrage that is Florida.

The Erickson Report is news and informed commentary from the radical nonviolent left. It is advocacy journalism, dealing in facts and logic but having a point of view. Sometimes serious, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes even flip but always with the intent to inform and inspire,The Erickson Report strives to be a tool for justice

Reactions and comments are welcome.

SOURCES:

Guns
https://www.wbur.org/npr/1150667373/monterey-park-shooting-what-we-know-californi
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org
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Abortion rights
https://hymnary.org/text/onward_christian_soldiers_marching_as
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3809346-alabama-ag-says-women-could-be-prosecuted-for-taking-abortion-pills/
https://www.npr.org/2006/02/21/5168163/partial-birth-abortion-separating-fact-from-spin
https://www.alternet.org/minnesota-lawmakers-partial-birth-abortion/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/freedom-speech-mississippi-abortion-rights/671202/
https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess124_2021-2022/bills/1373.htm
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and- analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/05/19/some-states-already-are-targeting-birth-control
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/13/23505459/supreme-court-birth-control-contraception-constitution-matthew-kacsmaryk-deanda-becerra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid's_Tale
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-comment-nationwide-ban-abortion-introduced-us-senate
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-01-19/religious-leaders-sue-to-block-missouris-abortion-ban
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2023%3A27-28&version=KJV
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Medicare Advantage / ACO HEALTH
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/is-medicare-advantage-a-scam
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/09/08/medicare-advantage-profit-scam-time-end-it
https://www.cms.gov/files/document/fy-2022-medicare-part-c-error-rate-findings-and-results.pdf-0
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/11/30/congress-asleep-switch-biden-continues-trump-era-ploy-privatize-medicare
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G8B012QNk9rzEJvfYaLcPwr2HJdZe_hcrR7KU_mAibk/edit
https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-announces-increase-2023-organizations-and-beneficiaries-benefiting-coordinated-care-accountable
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Clowns
https://www.newsweek.com/jim-banks-plans-anti-woke-caucus-bolster-gops-war-wokeness-1773778
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/01/hate-pastors-now-speaking-beer-say-makes-men-feminine/
https://sdg.iisd.org/events/2022-un-climate-change-conference-unfccc-cop-28/
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-politics-united-states-government-only-on-ap-john-kerry-b5d6482d465dcc8fa5063af9a0e44041
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Outrage
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-blocks-high-school-african-american-studies-class/ar-AA16x9Ds
https://www.commondreams.org/news/ap-african-american
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/574045-in-andrew-warren-suspension-trial-gov-desantis-officials-answer-what-does-woke-mean/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Maddox
https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-releases-results-of-diversity-and-inclusion-report/c-336511848
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2018/11/09/racism-lingers-for-nhl-players-60-years-after-oree-landmark/38451681/
https://www.rawstory.com/desantis-hockey/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nhl/nhl-backtracks-after-florida-gov-ron-desantis-office-blasts-league-for-discriminatory-job-fair/ar-AA16kkpL
https://www.queerty.com/florida-flop-ron-desantis-manages-show-off-anti-blackness-queerphobia-one-sentence-20230124
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/11-black-lgbtq-history-makers-you-should-know-n848631https://www.americanprogress.org/article/black-lgbtq-individuals-experience-heightened-levels-discrimination/

062 The Erickson Report for September 22 to October 5

 

 

062 The Erickson Report for September 22 to October 5

School book bans
https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/banned-books-in-Texas-school-districts-database-17359043.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/Texas-book-bans-driven-by-GOP-pressure-not-parents-17362170.php
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/31/2119964/-Republicans-sue-to-force-school-district-private-bookseller-Barnes-Noble-to-remove-two-books

Clowns
https://www.aol.com/news/massachusetts-gop-voters-size-trump-041243830-093431758.html
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https://www.qsaltlake.com/news/2018/07/26/star-parker/
https://www.rawstory.com/women-not-controlling-their-bodies/

Outrages
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/12/disgusting-starbucks-help-its-workers-student-debt-unless-theyre-union
https://www.forbes.com/profile/howard-schultz/?sh=41d3889052c6
https://perfectunion.us/exclusive-starbucks-hit-with-charges-over-sweeping-illegal-union-busting-scheme/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/04/smells-illegal-starbucks-ceo-says-unionized-workers-will-be-excluded-wage-hikes
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/15/disgusting-starbucks-threatens-trans-health-benefits-union-celebrates-150-wins
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https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/08/abhorrent-and-anti-democratic-outrage-dnc-panel-blocks-vote-dark-money-ban
https://theintercept.com/2022/09/14/dnc-overrule-convention-bylaws/

Climate change
https://www.juancole.com/2022/08/pakistan-emergency-biblical.html
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3192559/typhoon-muifa-lashes-eastern-china-forcing-16-million-people
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/16/coastal-alaska-storm-surge-flooding-winds/

061 The Erickson Report for September 8 to 21

 

The Erickson Report for September 8 to 21

Good News

    - "Angels" protect lgbtq+ celebrants

    - Federal court blocks part of Florida's "Stop WOKE Act"

    - 9th Circuit Court upholds ban on "conversion therapy" for minors

 

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages

    - Clown: Carroll Independent School District

    - Clown: Rep. Mike Johnson

    - Outrage: Mississippi to take student debt relief as income

 

RIP

    - Mikhail Gorbachev

    - Barbara Ehrenreich

 

Some observations on the war in Ukraine

050 The Erickson Report for March 17 to 30, Page Four: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrage]

050 The Erickson Report for March 17 to 30, Page Four: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrage]

Moving on the Outrage, we have a real one.

In two decisions announced the end of the first week in March, the Supreme Court upheld and potentially expanded the pernicious “state secrets” privilege, a "privilege" that allows the Executive Branch to keep secret any information and so beyond the reach of legal review any case in which it claims pursuing the matter could involve "national security concerns," a protection to the point where the government will argue that even if allegations of law breaking or constitutional violations are true, they are exempt from judicial review.

Technically, the courts have to accept the assertion of this so-called privilege, but in practice courts tend to be extremely deferential to the security state.

One of the two cases was United States v. Zubaydah, where a divided court ruled that the government did not have to disclose information about its torture program at CIA “black sites” to a plaintiff who is currently detained in Guantánamo Bay. The other was United States v. Fazaga, where a unanimous court ruled that a case against the FBI for unlawful surveillance of mosques should not proceed.

What makes this the true outrage that it is that the state secrets privilege is the result of government lies. It was invented in its modern form by the Supreme Court in the 1953 case United States v. Reynolds.

In 1948, a B-29 crashed, leading to the deaths of three RCA employees on board. The families sued, claiming negligence.

The government refused to release its report on the accident, claiming that to do so would damage national security; in fact, what had been being done on that flight was so secret that it couldn't even be released to the judge to view in chambers.

The Supreme Court ruled that the government had made a valid claim of privilege against revealing military secrets, a privilege "well established in the law of evidence." Which it wasn't. It was part of common law since the 19th century, but it was this ruling that codified it into practice.

Here's the thing: When the accident report was finally declassified in 2004, it proved the government has totally lied. There was nothing secret in the accident report and the equipment on board being tested did not in any way figure in the crash and was not even mentioned in the report. What the report showed, rather, was that the plane had experienced problems before and that it was not properly checked out before the flight.

That is, the report proved the very negligence of which the government was accused and it claimed "national secrecy" to cover up its own guilt.

The entire state secrets privilege is built on a lie. Which makes its use to conceal torture and spying the clearest sort of outrage.

050 The Erickson Report for March 17 to 30

 

050 The Erickson Report for March 17 to 30

Good News: Relief for the USPS
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/03/08/usps-senate-biden/

Ukraine: "The War Drags On"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeH5rVUgios
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/10/2085119/-Ukraine-update-A-war-on-the-concept-of-civilization-itself
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22967674/russia-ukraine-no-fly-zone-limited-nuclear-war
https://twitter.com/MMazarr/status/1501688603042361346
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2022/03/no-fly-zone-test/363099/
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-zelenskyy-kyiv-europe-congress-058c8b72b81044f861b30b7ceb500a15
https://www.politico.eu/article/zelenskyy-peace-talks-russia-realistic-accept-compromise-nato/

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages
Clowns:
    DC "truckers convoy"
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/11/2085314/-D-C-freedom-truckers-threaten-to-abuse-911-system-if-Washingtonians-don-t-stop-flipping-them-off
    US Senate
    https://www.aol.com/news/u-senate-approves-bill-daylight-184244252-204613821.html

Outrage:
    Illegitimate "state secrets privilege" used to conceal torture and spying
    https://freedom.press/news/supreme-court-entrenches-state-secrets-privilege-dealing-a-blow-to-accountability/
    https://www.aclu.org/other/background-state-secrets-privilege
    http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/04/must-read.html

Julian Assange closer to being extradited
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/14/uk-top-court-rejects-assanges-request-appeal-extradition-decision
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/06/13/worlds-most-powerful-imprison-julian-assange-his-virtues-not-his-vices
https://rsf.org/en/news/uk-home-secretary-gives-green-light-extradite-julian-assange-us
https://www.cnn.com/2010/US/12/06/wikileaks.investigation/index.html
https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2010/12/once-more-into-breach.html
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/28/assange-kidnapping-wikileaks-cia-senate/
https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london-shoot-out-inside-the-ci-as-secret-war-plans-against-wiki-leaks-090057786.html
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2010/12/once-more-into-leak.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2017/06/245-news-on-chelsea-manning-and-julian.html
https://rsf.org/en/news/uk-rsf-calls-home-office-block-assange-extradition-following-supreme-court-refusal-consider-appeal
https://freedom.press/news/appeals-court-says-that-nixons-attempt-to-prosecute-pentagon-papers-reporter-must-stay-secret-50-years-later/

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 5: A Year of Stupid Special Merit Award

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 5: A Year of Stupid Special Merit Award

But there is one more award, an award for the achievement of combining stupidity, jackassery, and outrage in one package. So herewith a Special Merit Award to someone who wasn't even nominated this year but whose contributions to the spirit of these awards can't be overlooked.

So congratulations to "President" Joe Manchin.

Joe Manchin makes me miss Lyndon Johnson. LBJ would not have put up with his crap. Her would have dragged - not invited, not asked, dragged - Manchin into the Oval Office, reamed him a new one and said "You know that money you wanted for that project in West Virginia? Get in line or forget it."

For those who say that's not fair and he can't do more because he's from this incredibly red state, let me start by reminding you of the many times he shifted the goal posts, always suggesting that if we just got rid of this or adjusted that he could support Build Back Better only to have a new this or that when he got what he wanted.

And let's not forget that it appears his real issue with the bill is the inclusion of the Child Tax Credit, which significantly cut child poverty, because this multimillionaire twerp who lives on a yacht and drives a Maserati while together with his wife sucking down a million bucks a year from the coal industry for doing and creating nothing thinks that poor people will just blow the money on drugs - because, y'know, poor people.

But more directly, the idea that he can't sell the bill to his constituents is bull. First, he is popular, well-connected, and well-known. He has a 61% approval rating and 70% of West Virginians say he's an "independent voice," a substantial shield against any threat to his political future a "yes" vote could raise.

Second, the polls in West Virginia on the bill are all over the place depending heavily on the way the question is phrased - for example, one phased the issue as "Joe Biden's trillion-dollar spending plan" and got 70% opposition while another phrased it in terms of some of the provisions and got 68% support.

And even ignoring all that, the fact remains that even if supporting BBB, doing the right thing for the people of West Virginia, even if it were to cost him his seat, it is still the right thing to do. No excuses.

Finally, for those who say we can't go the LBJ route, we can't do that, we can't push him or he'll just switch parties, and then where will we be: He's not going to switch parties, at least not before the midterms. No way. Right now, his entire power, his entire influence, the thing that gets him on TV most every night, is the fact that it's a 50-50 Senate. Period. He switches parties and it goes to 51-49 GOPper and he is back to "Joe who," just another schmuck in Fishface McConnell's army.

Joe Manchin may be a self-centered, egomaniacal, glory-hunting creep on a power trip, and he is, but he is not stupid.

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 4: A Year of Stupid: Outrage of the Year

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 4: A Year of Stupid: Outrage of the Year

Here's another reason for skipping Two Weeks of Stupid: Because this week's choice has been elevated to Outrage of the Year. And it can be told very easily:

In just six weeks, the six weeks prior to Christmas, the US, the United Kingdom, and the European Union together secured more coronavirus vaccine doses than the entire continent of Africa received in the entire year.

According to an analysis by the People's Vaccine Alliance, between November 11 and December 21, the EU, UK, and US obtained 513 million vaccine doses. African countries got just 500 million doses across the whole of 2021.

A good part of this is the greed-driven selfishness of the pharmaceutical industry, which maintains a stranglehold on vaccine production, abetted by some developed nations such as the UK and Germany which are blocking action at the World Trade Organization on a temporary waiver of patent rights on the vaccines so poorer countries could produce their own.

And in case you're wondering, the combined population of the EU, UK, and US is about 810 million. The population of Africa is about 1.4 billion, over 70% more.

This is not only inhumane, it's stupid. Remember the Omicron variant first appeared in southern Africa and as we are constantly telling the anti-vaxxers here at home, unvaccinated people are providing a genetic breeding ground for new variants to emerge.

Inhumanity, greed, selfishness, and stupidity in one package. That is a gold-medal worthy Outrage. It is in fact the Outrage of the Year.

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12

 

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12

- Good News on the minimum wage

- Thoughts prompted by the Kim Potter verdict 

- Clowns of the Year: Louis Gohmert and Dave Chappelle

- Outrage of the Year: vaccine selfishness 

- Special Clown/Outrage Award: "President" Joe Manchin 

- RIP: Desmond Tutu 

- And Another Thing: James Webb Space Telescope takes off; Parker Solar Probe "touches the Sun"

043 The Erickson Report for December 2 to 15, Page Five: Two Weeks of Stupid [the Outrages]

Finally, we have two Outrages.

The DOD's so-called 1033 program was established in 2013 to transfer supposedly "excess" military equipment to local police forces. In the years since, according to Stephen Semler of the Security Policy Reform Institute, local cops have received "nearly 70,000 firearms, over 5,000 military vehicles, and 358 aircraft" valued at over $1.5 billion, including nearly $34 million in the first quarter of 2021mili.

The program has been a significant factor in the dramatically increasing militarization of local police, where cops more and more act like an occupying force than community protectors, leading to more police violence. Studies have shown a positive and statistically significant relationship between 1033 transfers and fatalities from officer-involved shootings.

This year in the debate over the NDAA, Rep. Hank Johnson of GA proposed an amendment to exclude combat gear and weapons from the program.

The outrage is that the amendment failed. It failed because 22 House Democrats - including liberal hero eric swalwell - voted against it.

It would take an act of Congress to dismantle the program entirely, but there is nothing to prevent Joe Blahden from issuing an Executive Order suspending the transfers or even demanding the return of equipment, because technically the stuff is on loan from the DOD. In fact, Obama did exactly that.

We'll see if Blahden acts. If he doesn't, it will only double what is already an outrage.

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Finally: Last year, 13-year-old Adeola “Abraham” Olagbegi was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder, aplastic anemia, that required him to undergo surgery for a bone marrow transplant. The good news is that Olagbegi’s transplant was a success.

And, another bit of good news come his way: The Make-A-Wish foundation granted him a wish. And he chose to provide food for the homeless citizens of his hometown in Jackson, Mississippi, for one year.

Once a month for the next year, at least 80 homeless folks will be provided food donated by local churches and businesses.

So why is the here under outrages?

Because why should he have to? Why should this child have to give up this special gift to do something that our society should do as a normal part of its normal functioning, making sure people have enough food?

The USDA, the Department of Agriculture defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life.

And food insecurity is a very real daily issue in the US. According to the USDA, in 2020, nearly 14 million households in the US, encompassing 38 million people, were food insecure; 10 million of them had "very low food security," meaning there were times during the year when they weren't wondering where their next meal was going to come from because they already didn't have a current meal.

And the numbers might be worse. The group Feeding America estimated that 54 million were food insecure, noting that 60 million resorted to food banks to supplement their food supply during the pandemic.

The difference between the two estimates represents the product of the large-scale increase in aid driven by the COVID pandemic, an effort which kept the numbers as - pardon the expression - low as the USDA estimate. Which happily goes to indicate that 16 million people in the US may have been spared food insecurity last year by those efforts - but unhappily shows how much more could be done.

Consider that a new poll from Impact Genome and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research used a somewhat broader notion of food insecurity to include people who would say they have enough food but despair at the idea of being able to afford fresh fruits or vegetables - because the fact is, eating healthy is expensive. The survey found that 23% of people in the US fit that broader description.

Despite the increase in programs, nearly three-fifths of those people struggled to access the government or nonprofit assistance that should have been available to them, and more than one-fifth, more than 4% of our population, about 13 million people, said that they had not been able to get assistance of any kind.

131 years after Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives;

59 years after Michael Harrington's The Other America;
57 years after the start of the modern Food Stamp - now SNAP - program;
53 years after CBS News' "Hunger in America;"

and all the times since, after all this time, all these times, after all the times we were told, after all the times we insisted that now we know, now we see it, after it all, we as a nation are still depending on private charity and 13-year-old children to, in the words of the prophet Isaiah (58:10) "Spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed."

And That. Is. An. Outrage.

041 The Erickson Report, Page 5: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]

041 The Erickson Report, Page 5: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]

Moving on the the Outrages, here are six civil society organizations in the West Bank:

- Addameer offers legal aid to prisoners, collects data on incarcerations, including so-called administrative detentions – i.e., there's no trial – and acts to end torture.
- Al-Haq documents violations of Palestinian human rights in the occupied territories.
- The Palestine branch of Defense for Children International monitors the killing of children and the wellbeing of children imprisoned in Israel.
- The Union of Agricultural Work Committees aids Palestinian farmers, mainly in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli control.
- The Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees
- The Bisan Center for Research & Development, which describes itself as seeking to "enhance Palestinian’s resilience" and "contribute in building an effective democratic civil society."

Beyond that they work in the occupied territories, they have one other thing in common: On October 19, the Israeli Defense Ministry labeled all of them terrorist organizations based on an unsubstantiated claim that they are secretly controlled by the militant Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Under Israel’s 2016 counter-terrorism law, these human rights organizations now face possible mass arrest and being shut down by the Israeli government, and anyone identifying with the groups can also be subject to imprisonment.

Reaction was swift:

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued a joint statement calling it "appalling and unjust" and "an attack by the Israeli government on the international human rights movement," a government that "for decades" has "systematically sought to muzzle human rights monitoring and punish those who criticize its repressive rule over Palestinians."

Twenty-one Israel-based civil organizations joined in a statement calling the move a "draconian measure that criminalizes critical human rights work" and "an act of cowardice characteristic of repressive authoritarian regimes."

United Nations Human Rights Office in Ramallah called it "the latest development in a long stigmatizing campaign against these and other organizations."

The US-based Jewish Voice for Peace said it was "an attack on all Palestinian rights and an obvious attempt to evade accountability" and called on its supporters to "flood Congress with outrage."

The editors of the Israeli daily newspaper Ha'aretz labeled it a "destructive folly" and "a stain upon Israel," adding that "the outlawing of human rights groups and persecution of humanitarian activists are quintessential characteristics of military regimes, in which democracy in its deepest sense is a dead letter." There is, the editors said, "a straight line from defining the nonviolent struggle against the occupation as 'diplomatic terror'" - which Israel has done in the past - "and designating human rights groups as terrorist organizations."

A coalition of nearly 300 U.S.-based social justice groups urged the Blahden administration to "immediately and unequivocally" condemn this "shameful" "attack on human rights," noting that calling your opponents "terrorists" is "a dangerous, well-worn tactic of authoritarian regimes."

There was more, but that should make the point that the international civil and human rights community has had enough, more than enough. Several of the statements said that one of the reasons Israel thinks it can get away with this is precisely because it has gotten away with so much for so long.

Which is painfully true, just as painful as the undeniable fact that the US has been Israel's prime enabler.

Yes, most definitely an Outrage.

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And then there was this: On August 25, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse shot three people on the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Joseph Rosenbaum is dead. Anthony Huber is dead. Gaige Grosskreutz is still recovering from a severe wound.

But according to Judge Bruce Schroeder, presiding over the trial of Rittenhouse, none of those three people are victims or at least none of them can be called “victims” during the trial.

“The word ‘victim’ is a loaded, loaded word,” said Schroeder. “‘Alleged victim’ is a cousin to it.” That is, the terms are too inflammatory, too prejudicial, to be allowed.

There are ways around this and people have already suggested some and you can, to be totally fair, make an argument that "victim" should be avoided since the question is not if Rittenhouse pulled the trigger but under what circumstances. But what moves this beyond an ordinary silly legalistic argument over language is what Schroeder said those vic- um, those men who were gunned down could be called by the defense.

He told defense counsel that in closing arguments the three can be called “looters,” “rioters,” and “arsonists” even though none of them have been charged, much less convicted, or any such crime or indeed any other related to the events surrounding the shooting.

That is, in Schroeder's court, "victim" is out of bounds even in reference to the people Rittenhouse is on trial for shooting, but “looters,” “rioters,” and “arsonists” are entirely reasonable descriptions of men who have been charged with nothing. I will be blunt: I find it beyond hard to accept the idea that having a baby-faced pro-cop white boy on one side the three young protesters against police violence on the other is not a major factor in operation here.

But even if I'm wrong about that, this is still a case of the judge openly endorsing, even inviting, inflammatory, prejudicial language being directed toward the people Rittenhouse shot - hell, I'm not in the court, his victims. Openly inviting, that is, putting the victims on trial. And that is still an Outrage.

041 The Erickson Report for November 4 to 18

 

Good News:
- Court throws out Tweetie-pie era water rule
- Supreme Court upholds Maine vaccine mandate

COVID-19 deaths worldwide pass 5 million

A Closer Look at critical race theory

Noted in Passing
- The reactionary smirk
- Dem House leadership tells progressive members to pretend they are winning
- Kavanaugh, Barret seem skeptical of Texas anti-choice law
- RIP Mort Sahl

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages
- Clown: teacher tells Arab student re math assignment "We don't negotiate with terrorists"
- Clown: Premier Joe Manchin says all emissions are coming from Asia
- Clown: Texas legislator "investigating" if school libraries hold any of a list of 850 books
- Clown: Missouri governor threatens to prosecute reporter as "computer hacker" for obtaining publicly-available information
- Outrage: Israel labels six Palestinian civil rights groups "terrorists"
- Outrage: judge rules prosecution can't call those shot by Rittenhouse "victims" but defense can call them "rioters" and "arsonists"

035 The Erickson Report for April 8 to 21, Page Three: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrage]

035 The Erickson Report for April 8 to 21, Page Three: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrage]

We end with our Outrage and this one is a bit different because it's not about an incident or a policy, but a topic, one I've been meaning to mention for a while.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which focuses on digital privacy and free speech reports that during the pandemic, a dangerous business has prospered: invading students’ privacy with proctoring software and apps.

The group says that in the last year, universities have been compelling students to download apps that collect their face images, driver’s license data, and network information. And it does beyond solely extensive ID requirements: Students who want to move forward with their education are sometimes forced to accept being video recorded in their own homes and having the footage reviewed for “suspicious” behavior.

But believe it or not, that's not the Outrage here.

Unsurprisingly, students and educators have been pushing back against these invasions of privacy. Last fall, Ian Linkletter, a remote learning specialist at the University of British Columbia, became one of them.

Linkletter looked at what the software actually did and compared it to what Proctorio, the company that sold the spy apps to the university, was telling people about it. He posted some of his criticisms on Twitter, and included links to Proctorio's publicly-available YouTube videos.

So Proctorio has sued him, claiming - and I had to admit I read this a couple of times to make sure they were really saying this - that by linking to publicly viewable YouTube videos, Linkletter had violated both Proctorio's copyright and a confidentiality agreement between the university and the company on the grounds that even though the videos were publicly available, they were confidential. Note well, Linkletter did not alter the videos, he didn't re-use them in any way, he didn't even copy them. He just linked to them. But according to Proctorio, that's enough.

The case is transparently absurd, but that's not the point. This is - and this is why I bring this up - a classic SLAPP, a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, a suit not with the goal of winning a judgment but of silencing opposition by saddling an individual or small group with back-breaking legal costs, aiming to financially break them or force them to agree to shut up in exchange for the suit being dropped.

Fortunately for Linkletter, British Columbia has a sort of “anti-SLAPP” law, allowing a defendant to bring an early challenge to the lawsuit against them on the basis that their speech is on a topic of “public interest.” If the court accepts that, the suit is dismissed unless the plaintiff can meet a very high standard for it to continue. Dismissal could also result in the defendant getting their legal fees back.

Which is good, but hardly good enough. Getting your fees back is not guaranteed and in any event it requires being able to pay them in the first place. Linkletter, for example, has had to raise $50,000 to defend himself. For the corporation, "losing" can be written off as a cost of doing business, worth it to silence a critic. For the defendant, "winning" can be bankrupting, spiritually if not financially.

Stopping SLAPPs will take more than enabling recovery of costs after the fact. There must be actual penalties to these corporations, including being liable for personal damages, not just legal fees.

SLAPPs have been a weapon wielded by the strong against the weak for some time. They are still being used but we don't hear about a lot of them because the defendant often is required to never discuss the case as a condition of the suit being dropped.

Their purpose is to make the cost of objecting to corporate power too high. It's time we made the cost of silencing speech even higher.

For more on this, check out anti-slapp.org

035 The Erickson Report for April 8 to 21

035 The Erickson Report for April 8 to 21

This week:

A Longer Look at healthcare

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 4: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 4: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]

Now for the Outrage, and we have two, or in a way one and a-half as they involve the same person and the same topic, but two different examples.

The person is President Joe Blahden; the issue is his foreign and military policies.

On February 25, on Blahden's order, the US dropped seven 500-pound bombs in eastern Syria on what is claimed to have been a site housing Iran-backed militias. The attack, which killed 22 people according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, was undertaken without Congressional authorization and was not in response to any imminent threat. In fact, it was avowedly labeled retaliation for a rocket attack a week earlier on a US base in northern Iraq, a base which the Iraqi parliament said a full year ago it wanted closed. To what should be no one's surprise, this "retaliation" did not stop and more likely provoked the rocket attack which followed the bombing.

It was so far removed from any useful military purpose that military experts quoted by USA Today said it was actually about "sending a message" that the US intended to remain "engaged" in the Middle East.

Perhaps the worst part of this was when White House press secretary Jen Psaki said of the bombing, "when threats are posed, he has the right to take an action at the time, and in the manner of his choosing" and insisted it was within his "Article II authority," adopting exactly the same sort of "presidents can do whatever they damn please with the military, we don't need no stinking Congress" attitude that has plagued our nation with war for decades without resolution or end.

Our second example shows that on the other hand, Joe Blahden doesn't always have to show he's tough enough to "take action." Consider the case of Saudi Arabia.

As a candidate, he promised to make Saudi Arabia "the pariah that they are" over the 2018 murder of dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.

But when it came time to actually do something, he refused to take any action against Saudi Crown Prince and dictator Mohammed bin Salman even in the face of a US intelligence report concluding bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi's murder.

State Department spokesman Ned Price blew off the moral collapse by calling Saudi Arabia "a hugely influential country in the Arab world.” In other words, "Hey what did you expect?"

Instead, Price said, the US is "recalibrating" its relationship with the kingdom, a “recalibration” that looks a lot like another case of Obama 2.0: tsk-tsking and tut-tutting about massive human rights abuses, oppression, imprisonment, torture, kidnapping, and now murder while doing absolutely nothing so long as a few lessers can be thrown under the bus for the sake of appearances.

So again it's about "sending a message." It's just that this time, the message is "if you're at the top, then no matter what, so long as you sell us your oil and buy our guns, it's business as usual."

That is, the usual Outrage.

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25

 

The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25

This episode:

Recent news on climate change
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-atlantic-ocean-gulf-stream-system-amoc-weakest-1600-years/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/03/warm-up-to-main-event.html
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/01/26/president-biden-us-capable-too-europe-generates-more-electricity-renewables-fossil
https://thinkprogress.org/forget-coal-both-solar-and-wind-are-now-cheaper-than-new-natural-gas-plants-e281f5485e5f/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/27/largest-ever-climate-poll-shows-64-global-public-believes-warming-planet-emergency
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-28/biden-s-early-climate-blitz-goes-faster-further-than-expected?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/3/2013746/-Scientists-say-2-trillion-investment-can-decarbonize-energy-by-2050-paid-for-with-a-carbon-tax
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/02/green-new-dud-progressives-warn-house-climate-bill-fails-grasp-fundamental-truth
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/28/climate-campaigners-say-listen-science-new-study-shows-earth-now-warmer-any-time
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3061/2020-tied-for-warmest-year-on-record-nasa-analysis-shows/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/12/09/carbon-footprints-climate-change-rich-one-percent/

Updates on attacks on LGBTQ+ rights
https://19thnews.org/2021/02/wave-of-anti-trans-bills-are-hitting-statehouses/
https://19thnews.org/2021/02/36-anti-lgbtq-religious-freedom-measures-are-in-covid-church-bills/
https://www.rawstory.com/republicans-anti-lgbtq-bills/
https://www.them.us/story/virginia-ban-anti-lgbtq-panic-defense-danica-roem
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/25/us-house-equality-act-lgbtq-americans-discrimination

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Clowns]
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-early-childhood-education-education-boise-bills-581517bc89b86666887396ae8ecce4ce
https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-house-passes-bill-allowing-legislature-to-declare-federal-laws-unconstitutional/35661454
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-school-chivalry-assignment_n_6041bfc6c5b660a0f387697e

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Outrages]
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/02/26/syria-bombing-biden-airstrikes-mark-test-us-role-worlds-police/6831034002/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/26/syria-bombings-biden-airstrikes-deliver-message-more-than-damage/6834550002/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50998065
https://apnews.com/article/biden-retreats-saudi-arabia-sanctions-khashoggi-killing-d91d31edece5db07112d1c2d4dd3be33

032 The Erickson Report for February 25 to March 10. Page 7: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrage]

032 The Erickson Report for February 25 to March 10. Page 7: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrage]

Now we move on to the Outrage.

On February 23, the Israeli government began delivering doses of coronavirus vaccine to Honduras, Guatemala, and the Czech Republic. Why those three? Some humanitarian reason? Are they facing critically short supplies?

No and no. What the three have in common is that they have either moved or agreed to move their embassies to Jerusalem. That is, it is a reward for their diplomatic support of Israel's apartheid policies.

A reward given even as Palestinians under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza struggle to obtain inoculations and the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyoyo delayed delivery of vaccines while the Knesset considered using them as bargaining chips.

Although the Prime Minister's office said on February 23 that it's giving some of its surplus coronavirus vaccine supply to the Palestinians, the vast majority of people in the occupied territories remain without access.

According to its health ministry, Israel has vaccinated 70% of its population over the age of 16. Meanwhile, the West Bank and Gaza have received roughly 32,000 doses - enough to inoculate less than about 1/2 of one percent of the 5.2 million Palestinians who live there.

Late last week, the Israeli government finally agreed to help vaccinate 100,000 Palestinians who regularly cross into Israel for work - because that, of course, is what is important: not getting Palestinians inoculated, just making sure they don't bring COVID into Israel.

Matthias Kennes, a registered nurse and medical referent for the Doctors Without Borders Covid-19 response in the West Bank city of Hebron, noted on February 22 that

You are over 60 times more likely to have a vaccination in Israel than in Palestine.

"It is" he said, "inexplicable and unbelievable. Worse than that - it is unjust and cruel."

Meanwhile, journalist Neri Zilber called it "both bad health policy and a disgrace."

It is all that. It is unjust, cruel, bad health policy, and a disgrace. It is also typical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Which is is an Outrage.

031 The Erickson Report for February 4 to 17, Page Three: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Outrages]

031 The Erickson Report for February 4 to 17, Page Three: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Outrages]

Now we turn to the Outrages, and this time we have just one. It's the Blahden administration.

Okay, it's more focused than that. A number of domestic moves have been encouraging, some even better than I expected. But on foreign and military policy, it's a disaster and an Outrage. Let me go through a few things in no particular order to illustrate.

For one thing, the Space Force, Tweetie-pie's vanity project, apparently is going to continue. Once established, it quickly developed institutional momentum, now preaching the Fear Merchants' classic line about "emerging threats," just now in space, and it seems he is of no mind to challenge that.

For another, take military spending in general. Despite the fact that during Tweetie-pie's regime, such spending rose 19%, Blahden is expected to resist calls from progressives to cut that budget in order to finance human needs, expected especially because even during the campaign, he said if elected he didn't foresee any significant reductions.

On Afghanistan, there are already indications that Blahden will keep US troops there past a May withdrawal deadline laid out in a deal with the Taliban. It appears the intention is to keep 2000-2500 troops there for "counterinsurgency" - apparently permanently, giving an interesting twist to the notion of "ending our forever wars."

Another forever war he is likely to continue is the drone wars. He's spoken very little on the topic, but as vice-president he advocated for what he called “counterterrorism plus,” in Afghanistan, a combination of special forces and aggressive drone bombing.

Now, I'm sure there are those who will praise his plans for Israel and the Palestinians, but they look good only by comparison to the horrendous Tweetie-pie years.

What he proposes is a return to the mushy, all-talk-no-action "support" for a two-state solution, a policy pursued by multiple previous administrations across parties, one marked primarily by tut-tutting and tsk-tsking about Israel's oppression of the Palestinians - including turning Gaza into what has been accurately described as the world's largest outdoor prison, building settlements, illegally seizing Palestinian land, and demolishing Palestinian homes - while at the same time providing Israel with billions in military support and deliberately refusing to use any of the leverage this gives the US to push for a political settlement.

One more case to mention is Venezuela, where the Blahden administration will continue to recognize Juan Guaido as president, part of a campaign to force out president Nicolas Maduro, a campaign marked by crushing economic sanctions that have cost the Venezuelan economy an estimated $194 billion, reduced import earnings by 99%, and killed tens of thousands from lack of medical supplies and medicines. And for those who would parrot the official line that the sanctions are because of Maduro's disputed 2018 re-election, I'd note that the first round of economic sanctions came in August 2017, nearly a year before that election took place.

There is a lot more to this; I had originally intended to do a whole segment about Venezuela but the time to explain it properly just kept expanding and expanding to more than I could properly present. But know this: There is a great deal to doubt and question about Nicolas Maduro but ultimately this is not and never was about him. The US has been trying to undermine or overthrow the government of Venezuela since 1998, when the people there committed the unforgivable sin of electing the socialist Hugo Chavez. Nicolas Maduro is not the cause, he is the current excuse.

Because ultimately, this is not about democracy or free elections. It is about dominance and the bipartisan foreign policy consensus which Joe Blahden embraces. Which is an Outrage.

030 The Erickson Report for January 21 to February 3, Page 3: Two Weeks of Stupid, Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]

030 The Erickson Report for January 21 to February 3, Page 3: Two Weeks of Stupid, Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]

That last item tees up the first of our Outrages, whith is yet another example of how we are uninformed, malinformed, and misinformed by our majpr news media.

In reporting on the deal and a plan to open a US consulate in Western Sahara, Reuters, ABC News, AP, and Politico all used some variation of the term "territorial dispute" to describe what's been happening there. Reuters and AP also described the Polisario Front as, respectively, "a breakaway movement" and "an organization pressing for the territory's independence," as if Western Sahara had always been part of Morocco and they want to secede.

Get it straight, people: This is not a "territorial dispute." This is not a secessionist movement. This is people denied their right to self-determination, first by the Spanish and then by the Moroccans with the help of the US and the passivity of the UN, an oppressed people who are resisting an invasion and foreign occupation.

You may think they are foolish, you may think it's pointless to continue and they should give up and just accept whatever deal Morocco offers them, just as some think about the Palestinians and Israel, you may think that, but at least do not buy the bull in the major media.

Because it's an outrage.

=

Okay. This past week saw the annual federal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.

And there is one thing about it that infuriates me every year. Every year, without fail, every year, regular as clockwork, every year we are treated to the spectacle of rightwingers, reactionaries, and the rest of the bozos and bigots declaring how omigosh wasn't he so amazing and oh, yes, we believe in, we share, his dream and oh my yes, we do, we really really do, honor his memory.

And I am freaking sick to death of it. Sick to death of the transparent, grinning, smug hypocrisy of people who would have been among those who reviled King when he was alive, who would have applauded Bull Conner's fire hoses and dogs, who today revile, condemn, and tear gas those protesting continuing inequality and police violence and who think that smarmily quoting a line about judging people by "the content of their character" once a year covers all their sins.

The FBI - the FBI - tweeted out a picture of a monument at the reflection garden at the FBI headquarters in Virginia graced by King's words that "the time is always right to do what’s right.”

The FBI - the agency that the day after the famous "I Have a Dream" speech wanted to, quoting a memo from FBI Domestic Intelligence Chief William Sullivan, mark MLK as “the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation,” and to “use every resource at our disposal to destroy him.”

The FBI - the agency that harassed him, spied on him, wiretapped him, the agency that, having obtained proof of his having affairs, anonymously sent him an audio tape with a letter calling him a "filthy, abnormal animal" and trying to blackmail him into committing suicideThe FBI - the agency whose director J. Edgar Hoover feared the rise of what he called a "Black Messiah" and for years strove to undermine and discredit black activists of all types, that FBI - now has the gall to claim to be inspired by King's words.

And they are hardly alone.

This year we got among others, Kayleigh McEnany, RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, Melania Trump, former Vice President Mike NotWorthAFarthing, former Senate Majority Leader Fishface McConnell, Lindsey Grahamcracker, and Ted Ooze all proclaiming what an inspiration King is to them.

More than that, there is and has been for at least 10 years a damn industry among the right to twist the words and message of Martin Luther King into the service of racism, classism, and elitism, rightwingers cherry-picking his words and deleting their context to claim King was actually one of them.

The very sort of people who would have been relieved by if not outright applauding his murder are now trading on his legacy for their own selfish interests, trying, as a columnist at the Michigan Advance wrote, to make him not only colorblind but raceless, sent not to challenge whites but to forgive them, join hands, and sing.

They ignore the true radicalism of his message, not just the radicalism of active nonviolence, the power found in stubbornly demanding what is right, the power found in simply stubbornly refusing to back down, the embracing of, as King put it, "peace is not the absence of tension. It is the presence of justice," not just that.

But the radicalism of the program, of the commitments, of the ideas he proposed, of the vision he advanced. A vision not only of racial justice but of economic justice, such that he once said that "if we are to achieve a real equality, the US will have to adopt a modified form of socialism," that is, a democratic socialism.

We forget that the last major campaign of his life was the Poor Peoples March, the reason he was in Memphis was to support a sanitation workers strike, and in the speech he gave the night before his murder he urged his Black audience to take their money out of white banks and put it in Black banks.

So I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear a single damn rightwinger saying "let freedom ring" or anything at all about a "dream," claiming to honor the - the term is particularly apt here - whitewashed version of Martin Luther King while by their actions they spit on the real man and his legacy every other day of the year. They do not have the moral standing to invoke his name or anything else about him.

And it is a profound outrage when they do.

030 The Erickson Report for January 21 to February 3, Page 3: Two Weeks of Stupid, Clowns and Outrages [on the cusp]

030 The Erickson Report for January 21 to February 3, Page 3: Two Weeks of Stupid, Clowns and Outrages [on the cusp]

These next two lie in the gap between Clown and Outrage. I wasn't completely sure where to put them, so here are, somewhere between. Consider them a segue from the Clowns to the Outrages.

The first is one that in an even slightly saner time would be laughed at for being so bone-headed stupid. But now, we can't afford to laugh.

Terry Jones is a GOPper member of the North Dakota legislature. Under a bill he has introduced, any state form that asks for racial information would be required to list "American" as the first choice.

Why? Because, he says, he's "disgusted" with how race is used by bad actors to divide the country. "Bad actors," I expect, refers to people such as the Black Lives Matter movement who point out the racism in US society because, jeez, if we would only just all call ourselves "Americans," all that rac - I mean all that "division caused by bad actors" - would just disappear. Obviously.

Asked how "American" can be a race, he answered by defining the word as "a group of people that has lived under common laws for mutual benefits." How that differs from "nationality" went unexplained.

He did even worse in asserting his bill would unite the country, claiming not only that people of all backgrounds are proud to be Americans, but Black Americans are "glad their ancestors were brought here as slaves." He knows that because he remembers reading an article in the Reader's Digest 30 or 40 years ago where in that one article one black doctor said something more or less to that effect. And with evidence like that, who could argue with him?

Rep. Gretchen Dobervich another member of the North Dakota House, said "I don't think (the bill) is meant to be racist, but the optics are not good."

Okay, screw the optics business, but I agree. I don't think it is meant to be racist; I doubt Jones was thinking "This will stick it to those" fill in the racial epithet of your choice.

But that's the point! That's the problem! The kind of routine, unaware, ingrained,  unconscious racism endemic to our society that can move someone to dismiss both the past and the present pain and damage and suffering wrought by that racism and convince themselves that the problem is not racism but divisions created by "bad actors" and so imagine all we need is to engage om some greeting card sentimentality. That is the problem.

As I said, the desire is to laugh at how astonishingly stupid this is. But we can no longer afford to. It's an outrage.

==

This also lies in the space between between Clown and Outrage, because there is a clownish aspect to it, but this one clearly sits on the Outrage side of that gap.

Okay. On January 15, Tweetie-pie received Morocco's highest award for his work in advancing a normalization deal between Israel and Morocco.

That's the Clown part: the idea of Tweetie-pie deserving any kind of peace award, especially on the Middle East, especially after his sycophantic support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians.

The Outrage part is everything else about this, centered on the fact that Tweetie-pie secured the deal by making the United States the first western nation to recognize Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara.

Western Sahara had been a colony of Spain for over a hundred years until Spain withdrew in 1975. I, fact, I own a world atlas from 1969 that shows what it called Spanish Sahara as a separate country.

Immediately after the Spanish left, Western Sahara was invaded - by Morocco from the north and Mauritania from the south, both seeking control over the natural resources to be found there. Morocco sent not only troops, but hundreds of thousands of civilians to settle in and occupy the area.

Mauritania withdrew in a few years, but Morocco is still there, 45 years later. The invasion touched off a 16-year war with the Sahrawi liberation movement known as the Polisario Front, the Sahrawi being the native people of the area. With US military aid, Morocco drove the resistance to Western Sahara’s Eastern Desert, then created world’s longest minefield and a 1700 mile wall to trap them there, dividing Sahrawis into those under occupation and those who fled into exile.

In 1991, the UN brokered a ceasefire to end that 16-year war and promised the Sahrawis a referendum on self-determination. For the 29 years since, Morocco has blocked attempts to organize the vote and the Security Council has refused to act even as the Moroccan government continues torture, disappearances, killings, and repression against pro-independence Sahrawis.

Human Rights Watch, in its World report 2021, describes how the government continued in 2020 to "systematically prevent gatherings supporting Sahrawi self-determination, obstruct the work of local human rights organizations, and beat activists and journalists in their custody and on the streets."

That's what Tweetie-pie has just endorsed as US policy - and did it, obscenely, on December 10: Human Rights Day.

An obscene outrage.

Parenthetically, this is even without noting how the Morocco, labeled by Freedom House's ranking system as the 7th least free country in the world, systematically represses any criticism of the monarchy and subjects women and LGBTQ people to bigotry.

The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22, Page Three: Rhetoric of right wing becomes more violent as auto coup attempts fail

The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22, Page Three: Rhetoric of right wing becomes more violent as auto coup attempts fail

That brings up a related issue: The rhetoric of the Tweetie-pie acolytes has been getting more and more violent and dangerous as his auto coup keeps failing in the courts, in the legislatures, and among the public.

(Sidebar: An "auto coup" is a term used for cases that instead of involving corruptly overthrowing a government to come into power, involves corruptly using the powers of government to remain in power.)

Tom Zawistowski, the executive director of the Portage County (Ohio) Tea Party took out a full-page ad in the Washington Times calling for Tweetie-pie to institute martial law to toss out the November election and stage a military-run election for federal candidates, stating that if there isn't martial law, "we will also have no other choice but to take matters into our own hands, and defend our rights on our own."

Among those who have effectively endorsed this call for military rule by re-tweeting it are retired general and former Tweetie-pie National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood.

A number of commenters noted that such folks are entirely okay with overturning the Constitution but insist that wearing a mask to limit the spread of COVID is "fascism."

Meanwhile:

- Tweetie-pie lawyer Joe diGenova has said former Homeland Security official Chris Krebs "should be taken out and shot" for saying the 2020 election was secure.
- Lin Wood tweeted that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger "are (not) sleeping well at night. Nor should they be. Justice is coming."
- Steve Bannon recently said Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded.
- On November 29, Chris Bedford, senior editor of the right-wing journal The Federalist, called Stacey Abrams "dangerous on many levels" for her advocacy of expanding options for voting.
- Of course there was when Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was the target of a kidnapping and potential murder plot.

DiGenova is now saying that he was merely being rhetorical - of course he did, one he was called out on it. The "can't you take a joke" defense. But words have meaning. Words have impact.

On November 25, Rick Wiles, the senior pastor of the Flowing Streams Church in Florida, said "The Democrats, the news media - if the leftists, if scientists, professors have been working secretly with the Chinese Communist Party, then line 'em up against the wall and shoot them. That's what you do with them."

Do you really think he's be saying that if the idea had not been planted in his head by the drumbeat repetition of "fraud fraud fraud?"

What happens when someone finally does take this too far and someone gets shot and killed? What if the next plot against the next Gretchen Whitmer is not discovered in time? Will any of these people, will one of these people, take any responsibility?

No way in hell. Several years ago, I started a list of what I called "Rules for Right-wingers." It started out rather lightheartedly, but as it expanded over the years it got serious. The most recent version dates from 2017 and this is "Rule #12: Never admit responsibility. Whenever faced with the evil resulting from some other winger following or acting on your arguments, accuse those who point out that fact of 'politicizing a tragedy.' Never, never, never admit any responsibility for the meaning or impact of your own words."

I am dangerously close to saying that the very existence of these people - no, not the people, not the people, but the way of thinking, the thought pattern - its very existence is a moral outrage.