Dear Commons Community,

They were the invisible warriors on the home front who became known as “Rosie the Riveters” for their work in helping to lead the United States to victory during World War II. Eighty years later, they were honored Wednesday with a Congressional Gold Medal.

“Rosie the Riveter” was the moniker given to women who went to work during World War II, taking on roles historically dominated by men while men were drafted to fight overseas.

Around 5 million civilian women went to work during the war, many helping to build equipment for the war, while around 350,000 American women served in the military, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

Twenty-eight ‘Rosie the Riveters,’ women who entered the US defense workforce during WWI…  Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA via Shutterstock

“This recognition is long overdue, but today Congress finally bestows this honor on these deserving patriots,” said Republican Sen. Susan Collins, of Maine, a cosponsor of The Rosie the Riveter Congressional Gold Medal Act, legislation that was passed in 2020 and led to the women receiving the medal Wednesday.

One of the dozens of original “Rosie the Riveters” who traveled to Washington, D.C., to receive the medal in person was Lucille “Cille” MacDonald, a 98-year-old who lives in Hawaii.

When the war broke out, MacDonald, then a 17-year-old, left her family’s farm in South Carolina and hopped on a Greyhound bus to Georgia to help.

MacDonald told ABC News that she was “scared to death” when Japan dropped a bomb on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

“That’s when I said, ‘Do something about it. Just do something about it. Stop worrying and do something about it,'” MacDonald recalled. “So I became very patriotic and very much in love with my country.”

MacDonald became a journeyman welder in Brunswick, Georgia.

“I was the best welder in the entire shipyard,” she recalled. “I can’t forget that. I can’t ever forget that. The best, and boy that’s saying a lot. And I launched one huge ship a week. In just a week. I mean, imagine. You know how big a ship is? A ship is huge.”

Another woman honored Wednesday was Mae Krier, a Levittown, Pennsylvania, resident who built B-17 and B-29 bombers in Seattle from 1943 to 1945. Years later, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Krier, 94 years old at the time, began making face masks in the same red polka dot fabric worn in the famed “Rosie the Riveter” poster.

She was credited Wednesday for being an “unrelenting advocate” in making sure the women of her generation received their due.

Krier, dressed in a red polka dot vest, accepted the Congressional Gold Medal on behalf of all the Rosies, calling it a “great honor.”

“Up until 1941, it was a man’s world. They didn’t know how capable us women were, did they,” Krier said to loud applause, later adding that she is most proud of the path she and other women set for future generations.

“We’re so proud of the women and young girls who are following in our lead,” she said. “I think that’s one of the greatest things we left behind is what we’ve done for women.”

Krier ended her remarks with the words that came to symbolize the motto of “Rosie the Riveters,” saying, “We can do it.”

Without as doubt, America’s greatest generation!

Tony

Wall Street Journal

Dear Commons Community,

The far-right Florida Republican Matt Gaetz forced Kevin McCarthy out as House speaker last year “because he slept with a 17-year-old” and wanted a congressional ethics investigation to end, McCarthy charged on Tuesday.  As reported by The Guardian and other media.

“I’ll give you the truth why I’m not speaker,” McCarthy said, at an event at Georgetown University in Washington.

“Because one person, a member of Congress, wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old, an ethics complaint that started before I ever became speaker. And that’s illegal and I’m not gonna get in the middle of it.

“Now, did he do it or not? I don’t know. But ethics was looking at it. There’s other people in jail because of it. And he wanted me to influence it.”

The House ethics investigation of allegations against Gaetz opened in 2021, when Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, was speaker.

The House investigation was paused when Gaetz was investigated by the US Department of Justice for sex trafficking, over allegations that he paid for sex and had sex with an underage woman. In December 2022, Joel Greenberg, a former Florida tax collector whose arrest led to the investigation of Gaetz, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for offenses including sex trafficking a minor.

In February 2023, prosecutors said they would not issue charges. The House ethics investigation then restarted.

Gaetz denies wrongdoing. On Tuesday, he told Politico: “Kevin is a liar. Which, actually, is why he isn’t speaker. Just ask any of the 224 people who voted to remove him.”

McCarthy became the first speaker ever ejected by his own party, last October, after Gaetz introduced a motion to vacate and attracted support from seven other Republicans. Because Democrats refused to come to McCarthy’s aid, that was enough to show him the door. McCarthy left Congress at the end of last year.

Citing a review of private correspondence, the Daily Beast has reported that Gaetz “indicated to a friend that his effort to undercut, isolate and ultimately remove McCarthy was, indeed, payback” for the House ethics investigation.

The Beast said “other Republican congressional sources” also said Gaetz was motivated to move against McCarthy by the ethics investigation, not policy differences.

Gaetz told the Beast: “As I’ve answered likely 100 times on the record, I led the charge to remove Kevin McCarthy from his role as House speaker because he failed to keep his promises.”

McCarthy lost his job shortly after relying on Democratic support to pass a spending package, thereby averting a government shutdown. His successor as speaker, Mike Johnson, now faces a similar threat, a motion to vacate filed by another right-wing extremist, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, but not yet forced to a vote.

At Georgetown, McCarthy said: “So then they come out and they say [I was ejected] because I kept government open. I’d do it all over again. We’re not going to pay our troops? I’m going to pay my troops, you can do the job …

“I think today if you went back for the people that voted [to remove me] they think that was a smart vote? I don’t think so … I made everybody stand up, because I think historically, it’ll be viewed as a very bad thing that happened to our Congress.”

Asked if he thought the same would happen to Johnson, McCarthy said: “No. The Democrats will never let it happen.”

God save us from the Republicans!

Tony

RISMedia

Dear Commons Community

Inflation ticked higher in March, according to new Labor Department data released yesterday.

The consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.4 percent last month and 3.5 percent annually, largely in line with economist projections. Economists had anticipated inflation would increase 0.4 percent in March and 3.4 percent annually.

The latest numbers come after two months of hotter than expected inflation data. Consumers prices were up 3.2 percent year over year in February and 3.1 percent in January.

The American public has been responding to inflation negatively for some time and yesterday’s CPI will only add to their angst.  Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman analyzes people’s perceptions of inflation in his column in today’s New York Times.  Here is an excerpt.

“I wrote recently about a couple of Quinnipiac swing-state polls that asked registered voters about both the economy and their personal finances. In both Michigan and Pennsylvania — states crucial to the outcome of this year’s presidential election — more than 60 percent of respondents rated the economy as not so good or bad; a similar percentage said that their own situation is excellent or good.

Americans are upbeat not just about their own circumstances; they’re also upbeat about their local economies. A recent Wall Street Journal poll of swing state voters found that voters have negative views of the national economy but significantly more positive views about the economy in their state. This is consistent with the Federal Reserve’s report on economic well-being for 2022 (published in 2023), which shows a much higher percentage of Americans assessed their local economy as good or excellent than the percentage who said the same about the national economy.

Basically, Americans are saying, “I’m doing OK, people I know are doing OK, but bad things are happening somewhere out there.” As The Journal’s Greg Ip wrote, “When it comes to the economy, the vibes are at war with the facts.”

What explains this disconnect? Inflation surely contributes to bad feelings about the economy. New research by Harvard’s Stefanie Stantcheva confirms an old insight: When both wages and prices are rising, people tend to believe that they earned their wage increases but that inflation took away their hard-won gains.

However, inflation aversion doesn’t explain why people think their state is doing well but the nation is a mess.

The elephant in the room — and it is mainly an elephant, although there’s a bit of donkey too — is partisanship. These days, Americans’ views of the economy tend to be determined by political affiliation rather than the other way around.

This is true for supporters of both parties, but statistical analysis shows that the effect of partisanship on economic perceptions is much stronger for Republicans — who for much of last year were roughly as negative about the economy as they were in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and during the stagflation of 1980 — so the fact that a Democrat is president drags down average consumer sentiment. Any discussion of economic perceptions that doesn’t take this factor into account is missing a big part of the picture.

It’s not hard to see where this asymmetry comes from. Republican politicians and media are united in trashing the Biden economy, which Donald Trump says is “collapsing into a cesspool of ruin,” in which “stores are not stocked” — something that simply isn’t true. Democrats, on the other hand, are divided, with some progressives talking down the economy because they fear that acknowledging the good news might undermine the case for strengthening that weak social safety net.

If you ask me, more progressives should celebrate the current economy, not just to help Biden get re-elected, but because economic success vindicates the progressive vision. I’d argue that Biden deserves some credit for the good news, but the more important point is that policies like the expansion of Obamacare and student debt relief have not, contrary to conservative predictions, dragged the economy down — which means that it’s OK to call for more.”

Fine analysis!

Tony

Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez | Arizona Mirror

Dear Commons Community,

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in a 4-2 decision that a 150-year-old law criminalizing almost all abortions can go into effect, according to a court filing yesterday.

The law would override a previous 15-week abortion ban in the state, which went into effect in March 2022. The 19th-century law has been stayed for 14 days, allowing for a lower court to hear additional arguments. But if allowed to go into effect, it would be a near-total ban, making exceptions only in the case that the pregnant person’s life is threatened. Health care providers who perform abortions could face prison time between two to five years.

An October 2022 order from the Maricopa County Superior Court requires a delay of 45 days after a mandate in the case is issued before the 1864 law can go into effect.

Citing that order, Planned Parenthood Arizona said in an emailed statement that it will continue to provide abortions on pregnant patients up to the 15-week mark for an unspecified period of time.

The 1864 law is set to face legal challenges if it goes into effect.

Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, stated that during her term, “no woman or doctor will be prosecuted under this draconian law in this state.” Mayes said the ruling was “unconscionable” and “an affront to freedom.”

Several reproductive rights groups in a coalition called Arizona for Abortion Access are pushing forward with a ballot initiative that would allow voters to choose whether language guaranteeing abortion access up to 24 weeks of pregnancy should be added to the state’s constitution. Exceptions could be made after the 24-week mark if a provider finds that an abortion would “protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.”

The groups, which include the state’s Planned Parenthood and ACLU affiliates, have successfully collected the required signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.

An August 2023 poll by Indivisible and Data For Progress, two progressive organizations, suggests that 60% of Arizonans consider themselves “pro-choice.”

“Today’s ruling is devastating. It’s also wildly out of step with where Arizona voters are at. Arizona Republicans in the courts and in public office have been playing political football with abortion rights, and voters are tired of it,” Mari Urbina, Managing Director at Indivisible, said in a statement. “The only course now is going directly to the voters to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution.”

Since the Dobbs decision in June 2022 overturned the landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, abortion has been banned in at least 14 states.

“Today’s decision to allow Arizona’s archaic, near-total abortion ban to be enforced is devastating for reproductive freedom,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said.

“We have already seen the effect of similar bans in states like Texas and Oklahoma, where some patients have been unable to get care even when their lives are at risk and health care providers fear criminalization. This is untenable, and it is not what the majority of Arizonans want.”

The president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Arizona, Angela Florez, said in an email to HuffPost that the ban would disproportionately impact people from marginalized communities and set Arizona back by nearly 150 years.

“We know that today’s ruling does not reflect the will of the people, as Arizonans are overwhelmingly in favor of abortion access. Instead, it is the latest card in anti-abortion extremists’ deck of cruel and harmful tactics to strip Arizonans of their right to live under a rule of law that respects our bodily autonomy and reproductive decisions,” Florez said.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris each condemned the ruling.

“This cruel ban was first enacted in 1864—more than 150 years ago, before Arizona was even a state and well before women had secured the right to vote,” Biden said. “This ruling is a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom.”

Harris largely blamed former President Donald Trump, who has taken credit for overturning Roe v. Wade.

“President Biden and I are doing everything in our power to stop Trump and restore women’s reproductive freedom, but it is going to take all of us,” she said.

Meanwhile, a number Arizona Republicans who previously celebrated the end of federal protections for the procedure sought political cover by distancing themselves from the ruling.

Republicans in the state issued a wave of statements in opposition to the ruling.

Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake, who two years ago called the 1864 statute “a great law,” said yesterday that it was “out of step with Arizonans.”  You can’t have it both ways and go back and forth with your views on such an important issue, Ms. Lake!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The five major broadcast and cable news networks have prepared a joint open letter that urges President Biden and former President Trump to participate in televised debates ahead of Election Day.

The letter — endorsed by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News — thrusts into public view a question that has swirled within media and political circles: whether the presidential debates, one of the nation’s last remaining mass civic rituals in a polarized age, will occur this year at all.

“We, the undersigned national news organizations, urge the presumptive presidential nominees to publicly commit to participating in general election debates before November’s election,” the letter reads, according to a draft version obtained by The New York Times.

The letter is not yet final, and the networks are also seeking endorsements from other leading national news organizations, including newspapers.

Mr. Biden has repeatedly declined to commit to participating in the three debates scheduled for September and October. His aides say they are concerned that the Commission on Presidential Debates, the nonpartisan group that has organized the telecasts since 1988, will be unable to enforce the rules when Mr. Trump takes the stage.

Mr. Trump has vowed to debate, and has taken to taunting Mr. Biden for not following suit. But Mr. Trump’s track record is mixed: In 2020, he pulled out of a debate against Mr. Biden at the last minute, prompting its cancellation, and in the recent Republican primary he refused to appear onstage, even once, with his opponents.

The television networks’ letter was organized as a response to the uncertainty, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions about an ongoing effort.

“General election debates have a rich tradition in our American democracy, having played a vital role in every presidential election of the past 50 years dating to 1976,” the draft letter reads. “In each of those elections, tens of millions have tuned in to watch the candidates debating side by side, in a competition of ideas, for the votes of American citizens.”

This is a good move on the part of the networks!

Tony

Rita Palmer

Dear Commons Community,

A representative for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign admitted in a meeting with New York Republicans what some Democrats have long suspected — that Kennedy’s independent bid is designed to thwart Joe Biden.

“The only way for him, for Bobby, to shake it up and to get rid of Biden is if he’s on the ballot in every state, including New York,” Kennedy campaign representative Rita Palmer told a group of New York Republicans, per CNN, which referred to Palmer as the campaign’s New York state director. “The Kennedy voter and the Trump voter, our mutual enemy is Biden.”

Palmer also reportedly told the group the campaign’s aim is to deny Biden 270 electoral votes so that Congress will ultimately decide the election in favor of Trump. (If no candidate reaches a majority of Electoral College votes, the presidential election is decided in the U.S. House of Representatives; the U.S. Senate would get to pick a vice president.)

Kennedy, according to his own campaign, has only managed to get on the ballot in a handful of states, all of them winner-take-all, meaning Kennedy would need to outright beat Trump or Biden to get any Electoral College votes. Palmer was making the case to New York Republicans that, with Kennedy on the ballot, Trump could potentially win the historically blue state.

Kennedy could muck up the election for Biden or Trump by siphoning enough votes to create an unlikely Electoral College tie between the two major party nominees.

Biden’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Kennedy’s campaign has sought to downplay the role of Palmer in the campaign, referring to her as a ballot access consultant who was not involved with electoral strategy nationally.

“This was not a campaign event. Palma was speaking as a private citizen and her statements in no way reflect the strategy of the Kennedy campaign, which is to win the White House with votes from former Trump and Biden supporters alike,” the campaign said in a statement.

Democrats argue that Kennedy’s campaign is a spoiler for Biden, and top Democratic groups are dedicating significant resources to combating the threat they believe Kennedy’s campaign poses.

Trump had once welcomed Kennedy into the race, but in a sign that Kennedy’s candidacy is now a wild card for both candidates, Trump is lashing out at him. Last month, Trump called Kennedy “the most Radical Left Candidate in the race, by far.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Former Vice President Mike Pence blasted former President Trump on Monday for embracing the position that abortion policy should be determined by states and avoiding taking a stance on whether the federal government should enforce a national ban at a certain cutoff point.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Pence — who was Trump’s running mate in 2016 and 2020 —said Trump’s newly announced position on abortion was a “slap in the face” to opponents of abortion rights who voted for their ticket.  As reported by The Hill.

“President Trump’s retreat on the Right to Life is a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020,” Pence wrote in his post, before praising the steps their administration took to further the anti-abortion effort.

“By nominating and standing by the confirmation of conservative justices, the Trump-Pence Administration helped send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history where it belongs and gave the pro-life movement the opportunity to compassionately support women and unborn children. In the landmark Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court returned the question of abortion to the states and the American people,” Pence wrote.

Pence, who ran for president in 2024 on a fiercely anti-abortion rights platform, has been critical of Trump for equivocating in the past on the issue of abortion.

Pence recently announced he would not endorse Trump’s 2024 candidacy, saying Trump was “walking away” from conservative principles, including “a commitment to the sanctity of life.” Pence also cited Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election as a key reason he was withholding his support.

In his statement Monday, Pence took aim at Republicans who have backed down from boldly embracing an anti-abortion position.

“The American people elect presidents, senators and congressmen, and a majority of Americans long to see minimum national protections for the unborn in federal law. But today, too many Republican politicians are all too ready to wash their hands of the battle for life,” Pence said.

“Republicans win on life when we speak the truth boldly and stand on the principle that we all know to be true — human life begins at conception and should be defended from womb to tomb. However much our Republican nominee or other candidates seek to marginalize the cause of life, I know pro-life Americans will never relent until we see the sanctity of life restored to the center of American law in every state in this country,” he continued.

Pence’s remarks came after Trump made his most comprehensive statement to date on abortion since becoming the party’s presidential nominee.

In a roughly four-minute video posted to Truth Social, Trump said he was proud to have ended Roe v. Wade through the appointment of conservative Supreme Court justices, but he did not endorse any kind of federal abortion legislation despite pressure to do so from some conservative groups. He said states should determine their own abortion policies.

“My view is now that we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint,” Trump said. “The states will determine by vote or legislation or perhaps both, and whatever they decide must be the law of the land. In this case, the law of the state.” 

“Many states will be different. Many will have a different number of weeks or some will have more conservative than others and that’s what they will be,” he added. “At the end of the day, this is all about the will of the people. You must follow your heart, or in many cases your religion or your faith.”

Trump is trying to sit on the fence on the abortion rights issue.

Also, Pence should not worry too much because Trump will lie on any issue at any time.

Tony 

Stephen Shankland/CNET

Dear Commons Community,

Eyes will be on the sky today as a total solar eclipse will be visible to people in large swaths of Mexico, the United States and Canada.

The event will be visible to millions who live along the route the moon’s shadow will travel during the eclipse, known as the path of totality. For those in the areas experiencing totality, the moon will appear to completely cover the sun. Those along the very center line of the path will see an eclipse that lasts between 3½ and 4 minutes, according to NASA.

The next total solar eclipse won’t be visible across the contiguous United States again until August 2044. (It’s been nearly seven years since the “Great American Eclipse” of 2017.) And an annular eclipse won’t appear across this part of the world again until 2046.

Here’s everything you need to know about how to view today’s eclipse safely courtesy of CNN.

Tony

————————————————————————-

What is a total solar eclipse?

A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between Earth and the sun, completely blocking the sun’s face.

Those within the path of totality will see a total solar eclipse. People outside the path of totality will still be able to see a partial solar eclipse, where the moon only blocks part of the sun’s face.

During a total solar eclipse, the sky will darken as it would at dawn or dusk, and there are several phases for sky-gazers to anticipate.

The moon doesn’t suddenly appear between Earth and the sun — the event begins with a partial eclipse in which it looks like the moon is taking a “bite” out of the sun, causing the sun to resemble a crescent. Depending on your location, the partial eclipse can last between 70 and 80 minutes, according to NASA.

When the moon begins to cross in front of the sun, the star’s rays will shine around valleys on the moon’s horizon, creating glowing drops of light around the moon in a phenomenon called Baily’s beads.

Baily’s beads will quickly disappear until a single point of light remains, resembling a glistening giant diamond ring.

The diamond ring will disappear when totality arrives, and there is no longer any sign of direct sunlight. Bright stars or planets like Venus may shine in the dark sky, and the air temperature will drop as the sun disappears. The sudden darkness causes animals to grow quiet.

The chromosphere, or part of the sun’s atmosphere, may glow in a thin pink circle around the moon during totality, while the sun’s hot outer atmosphere, or corona, will appear as white light.

As the moon continues its trek across the sun’s face, the diamond ring and Baily’s beads and the partial solar eclipse will appear on the opposite side of the moon until the sun fully reappears.

Where can I see the eclipse?

The total solar eclipse will be visible in parts of Mexico, Canada and more than 10 US states, while a crescent-shaped partial solar eclipse is expected to appear in 49 states — weather permitting.

The eclipse will first appear over the South Pacific Ocean and begin its journey across North America. Mexico’s Pacific coast is the first point of totality on the path, expected at 11:07 a.m. PT (2:07 p.m. ET).

The pathway will continue across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Then, it will cross over Canada in southern Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, ending on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland at 5:16 p.m. (3:46 p.m. ET).

Use our interactive map to determine what the eclipse will look like from your viewing location.

How do I safely view the eclipse?

The only time it’s safe to view the sun without eye protection is during the “totality” of a total solar eclipse, or the brief moments when the moon completely blocks the light of the sun and no sunlight is visible, according to NASA.

Otherwise, wear certified ISO 12312-2 compliant eclipse glasses or use a handheld solar viewer before and after totality, and at all times during a partial eclipse.
Separately, you can observe the sun with a telescope, binoculars or camera that has a special solar filter on the front, which acts the same way eclipse glasses would.

Directly staring at the sun can result in blindness or disrupted vision. During the 2017 total solar eclipse, a young woman was diagnosed with solar retinopathy, retinal damage from exposure to solar radiation, in both eyes after viewing the eclipse with what doctors believed were eclipse glasses not held to the safety standard. There is no treatment for solar retinopathy. It can improve or worsen, but it is a permanent condition.

The lenses of solar eclipse glasses are made of black polymer, or resin infused with carbon particles, which blocks nearly all visible, infrared and ultraviolet light, according to The Planetary Society. Sunglasses don’t block infrared radiation.

For safe manufacturers and resellers of eclipse glasses and filters for optical devices, including cameras and smartphones, check out the list curated by the American Astronomical Society.

Worried that you might have bought fake eclipse glasses? Test them out indoors first to make sure they’re safe to use while looking at the sun.

Put on your eclipse glasses before looking up and remember to turn away from the sun before you remove them again. Always keep an eye on any children wearing eclipse glasses to make sure they don’t remove them while looking at the sun.

If you normally wear eyeglasses, keep them on and put eclipse glasses over them or hold a handheld viewer in front of them, according to the American Astronomical Society.

Don’t look at the sun through any unfiltered optical devices — camera lenses, telescopes, binoculars — while wearing eclipse glasses or using a handheld solar viewer, according to NASA.

Solar rays can still burn through the filter on the glasses or viewer, given how concentrated they can be through an optical device, and can cause severe eye damage.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, had a piece yesterday entitled, “Donald Trump’s Insatiable Bloodlust.”  In it, she reviews his “apocalyptic vibes and violent rhetoric and talk of blood baths.” Here is an excerpt:

“If he’s not elected, he bellowed in Ohio, there will be a blood bath in the auto industry. At his Michigan rally on Tuesday, he said there would be a blood bath at the border, speaking from a podium with a banner reading, “Stop Biden’s border blood bath.” He has warned that, without him in the Oval, there will be an “Oppenheimer”-like doomsday; we will lose World War III and America will be devastated by “weapons, the likes of which nobody has ever seen before.”

“And the only thing standing between you and its obliteration is me,” Trump has said.

An unspoken Trump threat is that there will be a blood bath again in Washington, like Jan. 6, if he doesn’t win.

That is why he calls the criminals who stormed the Capitol “hostages” and “unbelievable patriots.” He starts some rallies with a dystopian remix of the national anthem, sung by the “J6 Prison Choir,” and his own reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance.

The bloody-minded Trump luxuriates in the language of tyrants.”

She concludes with references to his Republican Party enablers as follows.

“As Stephen Greenblatt writes in “Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics,” usurpers don’t ascend to the throne without complicity. Republican enablers do all they can to cozy up to their would-be dictator, even introducing a bill to rename Dulles airport for Trump. Democrats responded by introducing a bill to name a prison in Florida for Trump.

“Why, in some circumstances, does evidence of mendacity, crudeness or cruelty serve not as a fatal disadvantage but as an allure, attracting ardent followers?” Greenblatt asked. “Why do otherwise proud and self-respecting people submit to the sheer effrontery of the tyrant, his sense that he can get away with saying and doing anything he likes, his spectacular indecency?”

Like Macbeth’s castle, the Trump campaign has, as Lady Macbeth put it, “the smell of blood,” and “all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten” it.”

Read the entire piece!

Tony

Arson Suspect Being Sought for Setting Fire at Bernie Sanders’ Office.  Courtesy of  Daily Mail.

Dear Commons Community,

A fire at Senator Bernie Sanders’ Vermont office is being investigated as arson, the Burlington Fire Department said Friday.

Firefighters were dispatched Friday morning to the building that houses the independent senator’s only congressional office in the state. They found “a fire in the vestibule between the elevator and the entrance door to [Sanders’] office,” the fire department said in a news release. As reported by NBC News and Daily Mail.

Police in Burlington said “an unknown male subject entered the vestibule” of Sanders’ office and then “sprayed an apparent accelerant on the entrance door.”

“He then lit the accelerant and fled,” the police statement said. It also said that a “significant fire engulfed the door and part of the vestibule, impeding the egress of staff members who were working in the office and endangering their lives.”

There were no reported injuries. The door to Sanders’ office was damaged by the fire and other parts of the building had water damage.

The suspect has not been apprehended, and there is no known motive, according to police.

“We are grateful to the Burlington Fire and Police Departments who responded immediately today to a fire incident that took place in our office building,” said Sanders’ state director Kathryn Van Haste in a statement. “We are relieved that no one on our staff and, to our understanding, no one in the building was harmed.”

Van Haste said that U.S. Capitol Police and the Senate Sergeant at Arms are coordinating with local first responders.

The Burlington Fire Marshal’s office, Burlington Police Department and Vermont State Police are conducting a joint investigation.

A spokesperson for the state police did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night.

The suspected arson comes as Capitol Police recorded an uptick in threat assessment cases last year. Police investigated more than 8,000 cases — about 500 more than the previous year — including cases involving “concerning statements and direct threats,” according to a January release.

A few too many sickos in this world!

Tony