Russian propaganda in Slovakia

Slovakia is holding an election later this month, and it looks like a pro-Russian party will win the election.  One of the reasons is because people are believing social media messages that pro-Ukrainian forces have desecrated a cemetery of Russian soldiers buried during World War I.

This cemetery story is a lie spread by a Russian disinformation campaign.  You can see the cemetery.  It was not harmed in any way.  Pictures of it have been published, yet people would prefer to believe lies on the internet rather than their own eyes.  

How can the Slovakian voters be that dumb that they would believe such obviously false propaganda.?  Wouldn’t they be smart enough to separate the truth from lies?

Oh, wait.... 

Impeachment in Wisconsin

I was so happy when Democrat Janet Protasiewicz was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court earlier this year.  She would tip the Court in rulings on abortion and on gerrymandering.  Now, just weeks after she was elected, the Republican legislature is moving to impeach her.  Their reason:  she indicated in the campaign that she opposed gerrymandering.  

This is so much better than what the three Trump appointees said about what they would do about Roe v. Wade.  They implied they would uphold it, talked about the importance of precedents, misled the Senate.  

You would think some Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature would see how wrong and undemocratic they are.  You’d think.  They are so worried about losing power they are willing to ignore the principles upon which this government was founded and act like the one-party dictatorship they evidently aspire to be.

Why are Americans so down on Biden?

You’ve heard the statistics.  Trump, subject of 91 indictments in four cases, a serial liar, a man who tried to overturn a free and fair election, an all-around scumbag, is tied in the polls with a decent man who has integrity, has kept the economy humming, and has defended democracy and the Constitution.  What gives?

Bret Stephens, a New York Times columnist, explained the problem today.  The price of grocery bills keeps rising; the price of gasoline is up 63% since Biden took office.  I didn’t know this, but food and energy are excluded from what economists call the core rate of inflation.  They might be excluded, but people notice the price rise every time they go to the grocery store or fill up their tank.  

Public order has collapsed on the streets of many cities.  People are living on the street and teenagers are shooting each other.  The border is a sieve and migrants are now an issue in northern cities like New York and Chicago.  

And, if you haven’t noticed, Biden looks old.  He shuffles, he forgets, he does not look fit.  And he won’t recognize that if he wins, he would be 84 when he leaves office.  84!  

If Trump does win in 2024, it won’t be because Trump is worthy.  It will be 2016 all over again, when it was more a case of Clinton losing than it was one of Trump winning.  

I feel like we are hurtling over the cliff, and we are all ignoring the fact that it is time for Biden, as much as I like and admire the guy, to step down while there is still time to nominate Gretchen Whitmer or Amy Klobuchar or any number of excellent Democrats now available.

Lesson from my time at Soledad Prison

I taught a political science course on parties and elections at Soledad Prison.  Inmates received college credit if they passed.  Not many prisoners were in the program; the reading level at Soledad was about 4th grade.  During the orientation I was told if there was a riot and I was taken hostage, the authorities would not come and get me.  There were no negotiations for hostages.  

I thought about this when I read that Iran was demanding money to release a Swedish aid worker.  Recently the U.S. paid 6 billion for the release of a prisoner who was a U.S. citizen.  This was Iranian money in U.S. banks that the U.S. had frozen as part of sanctions.  The Biden administration said it wasn’t taxpayer money, and besides the money could only be used for things like medical care.  

This was so stupid.  Money is fungible.  If Iran would have spent 6 billion on medical care, the money they would have spent can be diverted into weapons to sell to Russia.

So now Iran is holding a Swedish diplomat hostage and demanding ransom.  And why wouldn’t it?  The U.S. caved; why wouldn’t Sweden?

Here’s the rule.  You take a hostage, you can have him.  He’s already dead to us.  He is worth nothing.  

So why take a hostage?  Sometimes our government is so dumb it makes my head hurt.

Note:  a few years after I taught that course at Soledad, San José State stopped offering college courses at the prison.  Taxpayers complained that prisoners were getting a free college education while their kids had to pay tuition.  What a short-sighted way to think.

Five Pennsylvania Republicans who hate America

Five Republican members of Congress have endorsed Trump for President in 2024.  They are Dan Meuser, Scott Perry, John Joyce, Gary Reschenthaler, and Mike Keller.  Meuser once was my member of Congress.  He is a multi-millionaire who shopped for a district from which he could get elected.  Calling him a sleaze bag is way too nice.  

I don’t know much about the others.  I do know Scott Perry is an election denier, although he doesn’t deny his own victory in the same election he says was fixed for Trump.  I guess the Democrats forgot to fix the congressional races.

Here is a Republican standing by himself.  Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick didn’t vote for Trump either in 2016 or 2020.  I’m not sure if these were brave votes since he represents a suburban Philadelphia district, but at least Fitzpatrick has some sense.

Scabs

That’s the term used for people who cross a picket line during a labor strike.  I don’t know if young people even know that term.  I was heartened to see all the signs that said “I support my UPS driver” when the union was negotiating the new contract.  Incidentally, FedEX is not unionized, so do the right thing.

I’ve been a member of four unions:  the Bethlehem Municipal Workers, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the California Faculty Association.  As a part-timer at San José State University, I had no retirement benefits, no health care benefits.  Then the faculty voted to join the California Faculty Association. (I had supported the United Professors of California, an AFL-CIO affiliated organization, but the CFA quickly became as militant as the UPC).  I have a pension and a supplement to Medicare.  The CFA did that.

In an incredible irony, many of the non-union chain stores (and most are non-union) are remaining open on Labor Day, a holiday specifically dedicated to American workers.  Please don’t shop at any of them.

Houston shuts down 28 school libraries

Houston schools are having all kinds of problems.  The solution–the state took over the school system, hired a charter school executive to run the schools, and then shut down 28 school libraries, firing the librarians and turning some of the library spaces into disciplinary centers.

Will this really help?  I can’t imagine a school that has no library.  Even the one-room schools I attended for the first six grades had book cases full of books.