It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, January 06, 2023
Boat Trippers Witness Bloody Birth Of Baby Gray Whale
Boat trippers in California were treated to a rare event Monday when their whale-watching tour happened upon a gray whale giving birth to a calf.
Initially, the passengers of Capt. Dave’s Dolphin & Whale Safari boat tour believed they had stumbled upon a scene of carnage as they spotted blood in the ocean waters before them, the Orange County Register reported. Horror soon turned to amazement as one by one the onlookers realized they were witnessing the birth of a gray whale.
“The range of emotion couldn’t have been more extreme,” Capt. Gary Brighouse with Capt. Dave’s Dolphin and Whale Safari told the Orange County Register. “It went from horror to pure joy and astonishment. It moved me to my core,” he continued.
Brighouse emphasized how lucky they were not only to witness the rarely seen event and catch it on camera, but to come away unscathed. As the calf came up to the surface to take its first breath, it reportedly got so close passengers could see its nostrils.
“We were like, ‘Wait a minute, don’t come too close. That mom wants to protect you,’” Brighouse said, adding the mother was much larger than his 24-foot inflatable boat. As she positioned herself between the boat and the calf, she rubbed up against the raft and lifted it out of the water which Brighouse said, “was a little unsettling.”
“I was screaming my head off, I was super excited,” passenger Stacie Fox told the outlet. “I definitely thought that it was something I would not see unless I was going down to the lagoon. It’s once-in-a-lifetime type stuff.
Groups file complaint over latest proposal for stored hydro projects on Navajo land
The Center for Biological Diversity and two Navajo activist groups have filed a complaint wit the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission over proposals for three stored hydro projects on the Navajo Nation.
The projects would cover nearly 40,000 acres on Black Mesa, located southeast of Kayenta.
The groups say they would damage an area that has already felt the impacts of decades of coal mining.
But pumped hydro storage uses water to create electricity, and the region doesn’t have much water.
Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity says the region’s groundwater supplies were stretched by the mines, and the Colorado River is over allocated.
“These proposals are predicated on a massive amount of water that doesn’t exist, that’s not available, either in the rivers or in the aquifers,” McKinnon said.
A Phoenix firm has proposed similar projects on Navajo land but has withdrawn two of them.
Given the Choice Between Free Money or Sicker Residents, Republicans Chose Sickness
Their refusal to expand Medicaid is making it impossible for rural hospitals to stay in business.
One of the great disappointments of my political life came with the passing of the Affordable Care Act, which included FREE MONEY! for the states through the expansion of Medicaid. Then John Roberts came stumbling in and ruled that states could decline the FREE MONEY!—and almost immediately it became a point of pride for Republican governors and Republican majority state legislatures to turn down the FREE MONEY! because, you know, liberty!
Having grown up in Massachusetts, watching local and state politicians turn down FREE MONEY! from the federal government rocked my political consciousness. Heavens to Jaime Curleo, what kind of politicians were we raising these days? No respect for the classics! And that was not even to mention the fact that the FREE MONEY! would vastly improve the lives of our poorer fellow citizens because, as Adam Serwer warned us, the cruelty is the point.
Now, the proof is stacking up. Hospitals are closing by the bushel, many of them in rural areas where the healthcare facilities are few and far between. From Beckers Health Care: "While many hospitals and health systems are facing unprecedented challenges, those faced in rural America are unique," AHA president and CEO Rick Pollack said in a statement. "We must ensure that hospitals have the support and flexibility they need to continue to be providers of critical services and access points for patients and communities."...Seventy-four percent of rural closures between 2010 and 2021 occurred in states where Medicaid expansion was not in place or had been so for less than a year.
One of those states was (inevitably) Mississippi, where now the shuttering of rural healthcare facilities has long passed the crisis stage. From the Mississippi Free Press:
“The lack of access to healthcare for many Mississippians is currently a crisis, not a new crisis, but one that has been fermenting—and is getting worse,” the Mississippi State Medical Association said in a press release this morning. “As hospitals close across Mississippi, access to life-saving medical care becomes a real threat to all Mississippi. While the debate rages on as to why our hospitals are closing, the immediate crisis progressively engulfs us.” Across the state, several hospitals have closed or cut services in recent months. During a hearing with lawmakers in November, Mississippi State Health Officer Dr. Daniel Edney warned that 38 of Mississippi’s rural hospitals, or about 54%, could close. Mississippi is already the poorest state with some of the worst health outcomes, including during the pandemic.
For years, health-care professionals, including those at MSMA, have said that the State’s refusal to expand Medicaid to more working Mississippians has contributed significantly to hospital closures. Medicaid expansion was part of former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, giving states funds to expand Medicaid access to people who make too much money for traditional Medicaid, but who do not earn enough to afford private insurance and are not eligible for ACA subsidies[...]Since 2013, Mississippi’s Republican leaders have rejected more than $10 billion from the federal government that could have been used to expand Medicaid, even with the federal government offering to pay between 90% and 100% of the cost.
And the Mississippi legislature not only is opposed to the FREE MONEY!, it's also opposed to anything that looks remotely like FREE MONEY! While neither chamber of the House has voted to pass any version of Medicaid expansion, the Senate under Hosemann has passed bills twice since 2021 that would have extended postpartum care for new mothers from 60 days to 12 months. Both times, however, Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn killed the legislation, falsely conflating it with Medicaid expansion earlier this year and telling the Associated Press that he wants to “look for ways to keep people off (Medicaid), not put them on.” Gunn is a past chairman and a current board member of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative organization that provides template legislation to statehouses across the U.S.
The prion disease has many manifestations among its thousands of human hosts. Some of them are garish and public, like the one taking place on television in the House of Representatives; but most of them take place far from the spotlight. Small epidemics with big body counts.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
CALIFORNIA
A wetland area in Hermosillo has officially received protected status
The Los Jagueyes lagoons in Hermosillo are now a Natural Protected Area.
The Sonoran capital Hermosillo has a new protected area, after the status was made official for wetlands on the western extreme of the city.
The lagoon system known as Los Jagueyes has been designated as a Natural Protected Area Restoration Zone.
Located in an area where the Sonora river once flowed through the city, the artificial wetlands are fed by treated wastewater. Officials say the wetlands provide habitat to nearly 200 plants and animals, including more than a dozen protected species, and will be a place both locals and tourists can visit for recreation and bird watching.
Sergio Muller, conservation coordinator with the nonprofit Caminantes del Desierto, called the new protections a step in the right direction, helping to secure funds and resources for restoration. The designation is also the culmination of efforts by a coalition of local conservations that recognize the ecological importance of the lagoons.
Still, Muller said, Los Jagueyes is just a small section of a larger biological corridor with other important wetland sites that conservation groups hope will receive similar protections.
The protected status was initially approved by Sonora’s municipal council in June 2021, but wasn't officially published until the end of last year. That means the process of securing funds for restoration is just getting under way, Muller said.
Class action charging Tesla with racial discrimination will proceed in California
The appellate court decision means workers can make Tesla face class action discrimination claims rather than hiding behind "overbroad" arbitration agreements.
Vehicles are seen parked at the Tesla car plant Monday, May 11, 2020, in Fremont, Calif. The parking lot was nearly full at Tesla's California electric car factory Monday, an indication that the company could be resuming production in defiance of an order from county health authorities. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Tesla must face a class action alleging racial discrimination against Black workers at its Fremont factory in California — after losing an appeal of a decision to deny its ability to compel arbitrating workers' claims.
The outcome stems from an appeals court panel upholding a county court’s ruling that the company can’t force employees to arbitrate discrimination allegations only within the period they worked through a staffing agency.
The First Appellate District panel’s ruling released Wednesday upholds Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo’s decision to exclude from arbitration claims based on conduct occurring during periods plaintiffs were employed by staffing agencies, rather than directly by Tesla. The panel concluded that Grillo properly declined to mandate arbitration of plaintiffs’ request for a public injunction, and rejected Tesla’s primary contentions.
Tesla appealed the denial of its motion to compel arbitration of discrimination claims brought by Monica Chatman and Evie Hall. The plaintiffs worked for Tesla through staffing agencies before signing employment letters in July 2017 and alleged discrimination occurred before and after the letters were signed.
In November 2017, Marcus Vaughn filed a complaint alleging he suffered a racially hostile work environment at the Fremont factory and he never signed an offer letter or arbitration agreement with Tesla. For that reason, the trial court denied Tesla's motion to compel arbitration of Vaughn’s claims. Joining Vaughn’s complaint in 2017, Chatman and Hall seek to represent a subclass of workers who worked for staffing agencies for a portion of the time they worked at the company's factory, seeking relief for discrimination claims.
Tesla argued in 2021 that the plaintiffs’ claims distinguished between the time they were employed by staffing companies and the time they were directly employed, and argued that the Arbitration Provision mandated arbitration. Tesla also argued plaintiffs could not seek a public injunction under the Fair Employment and Housing Act.
The plaintiffs argued that they were not obligated to arbitrate claims based on conduct before employment began in 2017, and that they had the right to seek a public injunction in court outside of arbitration.
Grillo handed down a mixed ruling, saying the arbitration clauses require plaintiffs to arbitrate disputes that arise on or after August 2017. He also concluded, “any claims based on alleged wrongs before (8/2/17) are not within the temporal scope of the agreements.” The trial court also denied the motion to compel arbitration to the extent that Plaintiffs sought a public injunction.
The panel said in a ruling by Justice Mark Simons — with Justices Gordon Burns and Rebacca Wiseman concurring — that injunctions sought under the Fair Employment and Housing Act may be considered “public injunctions.” The ruling added that the Federal Arbitration Act does not preempt the California rule prohibiting waiver of the right to seek such injunctions.
“It is clear that ‘employment’ as used throughout the Arbitration Provision and specifically in the phrase ‘arising from or relating to your employment’ refers to the period of direct,contractual employment, not prior periods during which plaintiffs were employed by staffing agencies and assigned to work at defendant’s factory,” the panel said. “Defendant is mistaken in suggesting the Arbitration Provision must be applied to pre-contract disputes in order to give meaning to the inclusion of the words ‘relating to’ in addition to ‘arising from.’” They said Tesla’s proposed wording lacks support and would expand application of the Arbitration Provision “beyond the reasonable expectations of the parties.”
Plaintiffs seek a public injunction to prevent Tesla from further violations of the FEHA with race discrimination and harassment against Black workers. The prayer for relief asks for implementation of policies to prevent and correct race harassment, mandatory training regarding harassment for all employees and a public declaration that Tesla’s “widely- known racist practices” contravene California law.
The panel said Tesla’s claim that the trial court erred because the Act “does not authorize plaintiffs to obtain public injunctions” failed, as did their claim that the FAA preempts California’s rule against contractual waivers of the right to seek a public injunction.
“We reject Defendant’s argument that requests for injunctive relief under the statues … may have ‘the primary purpose and effect of’ prohibiting unlawful acts that threaten future injury to the general public but an injunction sought under FEHA may not,” the panel wrote.
The plaintiffs’ attorney Bryan Schwartz said in an interview that this means the plaintiffs can proceed with a class action and seek a public injunction. The panel wrote that any conflict between PAGA and the FAA “derives from the statute’s built-in mechanism of claim joinder,” which permits joinder of the claims of a multitude of other employees to the individual plaintiff’s claims.
“A public injunction claim presents no such possibility. Whether adjudicated in a judicial forum or arbitration, a request for a public injunction is based on the evidence presented in support of the plaintiff’s claims and does not require adjudication of the claims of other parties,” the panel added.
Schwartz said the decision makes clear that Tesla cannot compel individuals to arbitrate claims not covered by arbitration agreements, and protects them from having their statutory rights stripped through an “overbroad arbitration agreement.”
He said his clients hope to make an example of Tesla to other corporations, through this case. The electric vehicle giant has faced many lawsuits alleging discrimination at the Fremont factory for years, including from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Schwartz alluded to the claims in that case of Black workers facing discriminatory treatment, hearing and seeing slurs and finding racist messages "on the walls."
“We can now start to litigate the real issues at stake in this case, which are whether this mega corporation can permit rampant racial harassment unchecked at its factory,” Schwartz said. “Tesla for years has sought to avoid responsibility for their egregious, widespread and despicable racism at the Fremont factory. This case has been pending for more than five years, and they stalled the majority of that time by making frivolous arguments about arbitration agreements instead of confronting head on that racial epithets are widely heard throughout the Fremont factory."
“It’s time for Tesla to face the music,” he added.
Lawyers for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment before deadline.
BAPTIST PRESS SAYS: Congress remains largely Christian despite societal trends
WASHINGTON (BP) – Congress remains a largely Christian institution, bucking two societal trends of declining Christianity and waning religious affiliation, Pew Research said Jan. 3. More than a fifth of Congressional Protestants are Baptists.
At least 88 percent of Congress – 469 of the 534 members – identified as Christian in the poll of the current 118th legislative body that is predominantly Protestant, Pew said in its analysis of poll results gathered by Congressional Quarterly’s Roll Call, with only one member identifying as religiously unaffiliated.
The percentages contrast with a U.S. population, which has dwindled from 78 percent Christian to 63 percent Christian since 2007, Pew said, and is 30 percent religiously unaffiliated.
Among the 303 Protestants in the body are 67 Baptists of various denominations, including approximately 20 Southern Baptists, according to analyses.
U.S. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, a member of Valley Baptist Church in Bakersfield, Calif., is vying for the top seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who identified himself as Baptist in the CQ Roll Call tally, attends Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., and formerly was a longtime member of a Southern Baptist congregation.
The 303 Protestants include six additional members above those counted in the previous Congress, and marks the first time since the 2015-2016 session that the number of Protestants has surpassed 300. Congress includes 148 Catholics, a decline of 10 since the 117th Congress. A handful described themselves as Unitarian Universalists or Humanists, and about 20 refused to answer or said they didn’t know.
Republican U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna from Florida is the first Congress member to identify as a Messianic Jew.
Southern Baptist ethicist Hannah Daniel commended the Christian predominance of the body.
“We desire to see believers live out their faith in all corners of the public square, certainly including in the halls of Congress,” Daniel, policy manager in the D.C. office of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told Baptist Press. “As so many Christ followers have taken up this call of public service, it is always our hope that they perform their duties on behalf of our nation in a manner consistent with Christ’s call to love our neighbors.” Beyond Catholics and Protestants in Congress, there are 34 Jewish members, nine members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, eight Orthodox Christians, three Muslims, two Hindus, and two Buddhists.
Southern Baptist senators, all Republican, are John Boozman, Arkansas; Roger Wicker, Mississippi; Sam Graves, Missouri; James Lankford, Oklahoma; Lindsay Graham, South Carolina, and Ted Cruz, Texas.
Other Southern Baptists serving in Congress include Republican representatives Barry Moore, Alabama; Rick Crawford and Steve Womack, Arkansas; Matt Gaetz, Daniel Webster, Vern Buchanan and Austin Scott, Florida; Harold Rogers, Kentucky; Mike Johnson, Louisiana; Sam Graves, Missouri; and Frank Lucas, Oklahoma.
Pew’s analysis of 534 elected officials includes voting members of Congress sworn in Jan. 3. Virginia’s 4th District is not included. Congressman-elect Donald McEachin of the 4th District died before the swearing-in ceremony.
ALL CONSPIRACIES ARE RIGHT WING FANTASIES OF POWER
WHAT WAS THE PAZZI CONSPIRACY?
BY ANDREW AMELINCKX/
JAN. 4, 2023 7:14 PM EST
On the morning of Sunday, April 26, 1478, Lorenzo de' Medici and his younger brother, the handsome and well-liked Giuliano, attended mass at the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, also known as the Duomo, in Florence. The priest raised the host and the sanctuary bells rang out. This architectural masterpiece filled with Renaissance treasures suddenly became a chaotic and bloody scene as two priests pulled out blades and attacked Lorenzo, the Florentine city-state's de facto ruler known as "the Magnificent." One priest only managed to knick Lorenzo's neck with his weapon before Lorenzo pulled out his sword and counterattacked and then made it to safety, according to ReidsGuides.com.
At the same time, two other men, Francesco Pazzi and Bernardo Baroncelli, rivals of the Medici family, attacked Giuliano. "Here, traitor!" Baroncelli shouted, as he stabbed Giuliano in the chest. Pazzi followed up with a frenzied attack with his blade, per "April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici." Giuliano collapsed on the cathedral floor and died from 19 stab wounds.
WHAT HAD BEEN BEHIND THIS BRUTAL ATTACK?
While the conspirators staged their attack inside the Duomo, Archbishop Francesco Salviati of Pisa and a small band of armed men attacked Florence's city hall but the Florentines overwhelmed and captured them, according to "Papal Bull: Print, Politics, and Propaganda in Renaissance Rome." The conspirators had believed the residents of Florence would rise up against the Medici family. Instead, they hanged every one of the killers and co-conspirators they could lay their hands on.
Since 1434, the Medici family, wealthy bankers, had ruled Florence, with Lorenzo de' Medici and his brother Giuliano ascending as rulers in 1469, per History and Britannica. Lorenzo was a poet and patron of the arts, supporting Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, among others. But he and his brother had made many powerful enemies along the way, especially the Pazzi family, another influential Florentine dynasty involved in banking, per History On This Day. It wasn't only the Pazzi family who wanted the Medici brothers dead. Pope Sixtus IV also had issues with them and unofficially backed the plan to murder Lorenzo and his brother.
A DECODED LETTER REVEALS A SECRET CONSPIRATOR
When Pope Sixtus IV learned of the assassination plot led by the Pazzi family, he declined to actually help in the murders, but remarked, " ... I would not have [Lorenzo de' Medici's] death, but only a change of government," according to "A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome." Lorenzo had refused to loan money to the pope and the two men again butted heads over Sixtus IV's appointment of Francesco Salviati as archbishop of Pisa, which the Medici family refused to acknowledge, and which led Salviati to participate in the conspiracy, per Ultimate History Project.
It wasn't until 2001 that another of the conspirators, possibly its mastermind, came to light, when the historian Marcello Simonetta discovered a coded letter he deciphered, according to his 2008 book "The Montefeltro Conspiracy: A Renaissance Mystery Decoded." The letter showed that Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino, who historians have always portrayed as a humanist, had been in on the plot to kill his friend Lorenzo de' Medici.
Vice president touts bridge funding in Chicago: ‘We will finally fix this problem’
Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Chicago is part of the Biden administration’s united effort to highlight how the bipartisan infrastructure law is driving the economy.
By Tina Sfondeles | Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday, Jan. 4,2023
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks about the Biden administration’s infrastructure investments on a visit Wednesday to Crowley’s Boat Yard, across from the 95th Street Bridge on the Southeast Side. Ashlee Rezin / Chicago Sun-Times
With a very literal backdrop of the 95th Street Bridge on the Southeast Side, Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday came to Chicago to tout the effects of the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure law, which includes a $144 million grant to rehab four bridges along the Calumet River.
Harris’ visit to Illinois — her sixth since taking office — came as President Joe Biden visited the Brent Spence Bridge in Kentucky and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg traveled to Connecticut to visit the Gold Star Bridge, all part of a united effort to highlight how the administration is growing the economy and making an impact on communities throughout the country.
It was also an effort to highlight bipartisanship in a newly divided Congress, as Biden thanked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for his role in passing the massive infrastructure plan.
“After two years in office, I can say with confidence, we are building that better future,” Harris said in Chicago. “We are building an economy, as President Biden often puts it, from the bottom up and the middle out. And I’ll add from the outside in.”
Vice President Kamala Harris discusses the Biden-Harris Administration’s economic plan to rebuild infrastructure during a speech at Crowley’s Boat Yard, across from the 95th Street Bridge over the Calumet River, on the Far South Side, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023. Ashlee Rezin / Chicago Sun-Times
The grant of $144 million through the bipartisan infrastructure law will rehabilitate the 92nd Street, 95th Street, 100th Street and 106th Street bridges along the Calumet River.
Harris said the 95th Street Bridge, built in 1958, hasn’t had major repairs in decades — causing detours and delays, raising delivery costs and disrupting supply chains, all of which trickle down to families, small businesses and workers.
“The consequences of infrastructure underinvestment have been a familiar story in cities and states across our nation,” Harris said. “About 43,000 bridges, almost 1 in 10, show signs of severe distress in our country. And you know, for years people talked about this problem, but now I am proud to say, we will finally fix this problem.”
The funds are part of more than $2 billion in investments from the bipartisan infrastructure law that will be used to upgrade economically significant bridges across the country, the White House said.
The bipartisan infrastructure law invested $40 billion to repair and rebuild the country’s bridges, which the White House touts as the single largest dedicated investment in bridges since the construction of the Eisenhower-era interstate highway system.
“Rehabilitating these bridges will undoubtedly reap massive, local, regional and national benefits, as well as reinforce our city’s many competitive advantages, including our centrality, proximity to critical resources like fresh water, and of course, an unmatched talent pool,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said at the event. “And did I mention? This means, jobs, jobs, jobs.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle also attended the event.
The vice president also snuck in a couple of minutes to visit the nearby Calumet Fisheries, a well-known and beloved smoked seafood stop along the river. She picked up two bags of food, including smoked salmon and trout, and told a Calumet Fisheries employee that trout was her husband’s favorite.
Harris has been a frequent visitor to Illinois since taking office. She last stopped in Chicago for a get-out-the-vote rally Nov. 6.
A neuroscientist had a paper mansplained to her. Plot twist, she wrote it.
Please do not assume that the people that you talk to do not know anything.
Doctor receives unsolicited advice on a paper for which she was the author.
Mansplaining is not a science, but an art. It's when a man explains to a woman what she actually means. It comes with the assumption that the speaker doesn't know what she's talking about, even if she's literally an expert in the field. And it's annoying AF.
Dr. Tasha Stanton, an associate professor of clinical pain neuroscience at the University of South Australia, encountered a mansplainer at an Australian Physiotherapy Association Conference. Her experience is pretty relatable, even if you don't have "Dr." in your title.
After talking with a man, he, unsolicited, told Stanton she should read a paper. A paper that she wrote. "Friends at conferences – please do not assume that the people that you talk to do not know anything. I just got told that I should read what Stanton et al found about pain," she posted on Twitter. "I. Am. Stanton." Mic. Drop.
The man had no idea who he had been talking to. Stanton said she knows she can't expect someone to know what she looked like based on seeing her name on a paper. However, she should be able to expect that the person she's talking to treats her like someone who knows her stuff. "Just to be clear: I would never expect people to know what I look like! The more hilarious part of this was that the earlier part of the conversation had more of a condescending tone with recommendations of what I should read, which happened to be MY paper," she wrote.
Stanton said he was "visibly shocked. There was an "awkward silence" and "some attempted backpedaling." But Stanton took it in good stride. "[W]e both had a laugh. I told him that it was a massive compliment that he recommended my paper, that I am glad he enjoyed it and found it useful ... but that in the future he might want to be careful not to assume that other people don't know things ... especially when you are at a conference. We all make mistakes -- I know I certainly have -- but hopefully the message got across."
After Stanton posted her experiences on Twitter, other women chimed in with their own experiences of getting mansplained
“@Tash_Stanton As a graduate student, I was once standing at my poster, with my name tag on, and was basically asked when "Swann" would be coming. When I said I was "Swann" the person said "Oh, from your work I thought you would be a man." He didn't seem the least bit troubled or embarrassed.”
Stanton said it's important to speak up when someone cuts you off by saying, "Well, actually…" It's the only way we can grow. "It's really important to be able to stand up and call it as it is because that's not a great way to interact with someone at a conference," Stanton told Good Morning America. "People will never learn if you don't call it out."
Why should someone refrain from mansplaining? If anything, it's just good manners. "It's not about trying to be the smartest or showing anyone up. It's literally about connection and the best way you're going to connect with someone is by actually asking questions about them. ... that can result in an amazing collaboration that you might never have thought!" Stanton told GMA. "Don't be that guy."
It is astounding that this many women were able to chime in with their own experiences of being told to read something they wrote. The only silver lining to this story is that the mainsplainer didn't chime in with, "Well actually, what happened was…"
Two years after January 6 attempted coup, Republican fascists deadlock the House
The US House of Representatives adjourned Wednesday night, still deadlocked over the selection of a Speaker, with a group of 20 fascist Republicans refusing to support the party’s nominee, Kevin McCarthy, and denying him the 218 votes required for election. Six votes had taken place on Tuesday and Wednesday, with McCarthy’s total actully declining by two, from 203 to 201, in the course of the series of roll calls. Given the narrow margin for the incoming Republican majority, 222-213, McCarthy could afford to lose only four Republicans, but instead lost five times as many.
McCarthy is no moderate. He is backed by Trump, and voted against certifying the election of Joe Biden, even after the mob attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. His opponents have few political differences with him. They are blocking his election as part of an effort by sections of the US ruling elite to shift the Republican Party and the entire structure of American capitalist politics even further to the right.
Members walk on the House floor in the House chamber in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023. [AP Photo/Andrew Harnik]
The selection of a Speaker is enormously consequential in terms of the functioning of Congress, and the whole American government. It is not at all a ceremonial position. The Speaker is the chief political and administrative officer of the House of Representatives, a position established in the US Constitution, and is second in line of succession to the presidency, after the vice president. Until one is chosen, the House is effectively paralyzed, members cannot even be formally sworn in and take their seats, or committees form and begin to hold hearings.
The Speaker appoints the majority of members of the Rules Committee, which lays down the conditions for debate, amendment and voting on every piece of legislation. He or she decides which committee will handle legislation and when it will be called up for debate and vote, chooses members of select committees and conference committees, oversees the selection of members for each regular committee, and manages the administrative officers of the House, including the Sergeant-at-arms.
McCarthy’s opponents have made increasingly aggressive demands for changes in the rules of the House that would give them effective control over its operations, both legislative and investigative. McCarthy has already agreed to restore a rule allowing a motion to vacate the chair—essentially a new vote for Speaker—at any time during the two-year session, only requiring five members to support it.
The Republican leader also agreed to the establishment of a special committee on “the weaponization of the federal government,” with the power to investigate any federal action which the fascist right could portray as a political attack. This would include, among other things, retaliating against a Justice Department prosecution of Trump or any member of Congress for their role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. It would also “investigate” the cases of hundreds of fascist thugs already prosecuted and jailed for their roles in the violence.
McCarthy only balked at the demand that Representative Scott Perry, a member of the group of 20 and one of the organizers of the January 6 coup, be named chairman of the special committee and be given the power to select all its other members, usurping the power of the Speaker to do so.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., talk to reporters as he walks to his office, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023. [AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana]
Such demands demonstrate the direct connection between the January 6 events and the current crisis on Capitol Hill. The same House members who helped organize the coup attempt and then pleaded with Trump, after its failure, to give them blanket pardons, are now spearheading the campaign against McCarthy: Andy Biggs of Arizona, Matt Gaetz of Florida, Perry of Pennsylvania and similar figures.
Significantly, the Conservative Action Project issued a statement Tuesday night, condemning McCarthy and backing his 20 Republican opponents, signed by dozens of leaders of ultra-right groups. Among these were three key participants in the January 6 coup plot: Virginia (Ginni) Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; John Eastman, the attorney who devised the “theory” that Vice President Pence had the authority to overturn the 2020 election; and Cleta Mitchell, one of Trump’s election lawyers, who set up the notorious phone call in which Trump demanded that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “find” enough votes to win him the election.
The political resurgence of the former coup plotters refutes the report by the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack which put the blame solely on Trump, and sought to whitewash the role of key institutions of the capitalist state, including the military-intelligence apparatus and the Republican Party.
Trump is himself backing McCarthy, at least for now, but that has not resolved the crisis for the Republicans. Far from being chastened by the failure of the January 6 coup, the fascists feel strengthened by the refusal of the Biden administration and the Democrats to take any serious action against them. They should be in prison cells for conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution and overturn an election, but instead are seeking to dictate the operations of the House of Representatives.
An atmosphere of chaos, uncertainty and potential violence again hangs over Capitol Hill. One of the most ominous steps was the removal of metal detectors at the doors of the House chamber at noon Tuesday, with the expiration of the rule adopted by the House after the January 6 attack. Fascists like Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who publicly chafed at the prohibition of weapons on the House floor, are now undoubtedly armed during debates and votes. This raises the prospect of the type of violence that erupted in the halls of Congress before the American Civil War, but with far bloodier results.
The crisis on Capitol Hill, without any parallel for the last 100 years, poses enormous dangers. It is not the negligible matter of the personal fortunes of McCarthy, or of the dysfunction in Congress, one of the key institutions of the capitalist state. What is revealed is the growing power and aggressiveness of the fascist right, which is directed ultimately against the working class and all democratic rights.
These dangers are ignored by the corporate media and covered up by the Democratic Party, which has responded to the crisis in an entirely unserious fashion, treating it either as a joke, which will hurt the Republicans politically, or as an obstacle to the type of bipartisan collaboration to which Biden and the Democratic congressional leadership are committed.
Biden spent his Wednesday at a public relations event where he and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell celebrated the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which paid for a bridge across the Ohio River connecting Covington, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio. On his way there, Biden bemoaned the impact of the House deadlock on the global position of the United States. “I know you know international relations,” he told reporters. “It’s not a good look, it’s not a good thing. This is the United States of America and I hope they get their act together.”
The sole concern of Biden and the Democrats—and of the financial aristocracy that both parties represent—is that the turmoil in the House should not disrupt the US proxy war in Ukraine, or endanger payments on the federal debt. As long as these vital interests are looked after, they are prepared to make concession after concession to the ultra-right.
The aggressiveness of the fascist right does not reflect growing political support in the American population. If the 2022 election showed anything, it was that candidates closely associated with Trump’s claims of a “stolen election” and the violent attack on the Capitol fared poorly, despite only token efforts by the Democrats to raise the question of the coup.
Instead, the fascists feel growing support from within the US ruling class. Class tensions are exploding, with a strike wave sparked by a runaway cost of living, the impact on the working class of a new wave of COVID and other respiratory infections, and the threat of a widening imperialist war in Ukraine.
Already, the capitalist state has resorted to openly authoritarian actions, with bipartisan legislation passed by Congress last month and signed by Biden to outlaw a rail strike and impose contract terms on 115,000 rail workers that they have rejected, and which slash their real wages and worsen working conditions.
As the ruling class increasingly turns to the methods of repression and dictatorship, it requires the mobilization of extreme-right forces against the working class. To defend itself against this threat, the working class must draw the lessons of the whole experience from January 6, 2021 to the present.
The response of the Democratic Party to the attempted coup to keep Trump in power—the first attempt in American history to overturn the results of a presidential election—was to cover up the responsibility of the Republican Party and pin the blame solely on Trump. Biden proclaimed his desire for a “strong Republican Party,” in order to preserve the two-party system on which the political domination of big business depends.
The defense of democratic rights can only be accomplished through the mobilization of the working class against all the institutions of the capitalist state, including the Democratic and Republican parties, the military-intelligence apparatus, Congress and courts.
The working class must mobilize its own vast class strength through the building of an independent mass political movement, based on a socialist and antiwar program.
