Oh right. They only care about them in the womb The right wants children to suffer. There’s no other way to interpret this: In letters sent Monday to the governors of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra urged the states to take up more of the 400 options CMS has offered to ensure coverage. The options include allowing states to use enrollee information they have to auto-renew coverage. HHS also issued new guidance for states Monday, including an option to give kids an additional 12 months to get on the rolls. That option is available through 2024, CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure told reporters. Becerra also asked the states to remove barriers to Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollment for children no longer eligible for Medicaid, reduce call center times for families and expand their Medicaid programs if they haven’t already.
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The U.S. is not immune Rachel Maddow Monday night opened her show by asking why Donald Trump keeps echoing Hitler and Mussolini in his speeches. With the mainstream media finally calling him out for talking like a fascist, he is, as Republicans do, doubling down on it. His speeches, Maddow said, have become a “fascist dictator greatest hits mix tape.” So why does he do it even after being called out? Because “this stuff works.” It gets applause. His audience eats it up. Because his adversaries hate it. And because the terminally insecure Trump will do anything, anything, to draw attention and adulation. Maddow suggests stopping it is not rocket science. One thing to do is to refuse to participate in any politics that relies on treating opponents as monsters, a menace to be elimininated. Stand up for any targeted group. Support the legal and political systems that protect us all. Refuse to give in to the notion that we are “different kinds of humans, that we need an “iron fist more than democracy.” It’s not enough to call it out. Over at Threads *, George Takei re-posted a comment I think all of us are our asking ourselves about now.
He’s a natural Donald Trump believes in eugenics. He really does. Of course his understanding of it is purely based upon his own belief in his superior genes and good “German blood.” He’s said it many times in public: When he said during his first term that he didn’t understand why the US allowed people from “shit-hole countries” to emigrate to the US and suggested that we should encourage people from Norway to come instead, it wasn’t hard to figure out what he meant by that. His xenophobia never applied to white European immigrants. After all, he married two of them and they are the mothers of four of his five children. His problem is with people of different races. If someone of a different race expresses devotion to him then of course he likes them. Think of Kim Jong Un whom he considers to be one of his greatest allies. But it’s a very individual thing. For the most part he believes that people from the “shit-hole” countries are genetically inferior to people like him with his good German blood. Trump’s out campaigning in earnest now as the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary are just weeks away.
The day Tom Sullivan joined Hullabaloo Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Happy Hollandaise this year. As always, I’m incredibly grateful for your support. I’m also incredibly grateful for Tom Sullivan, the man who writes two elegant and important posts here each morning, 7 days a week without fail. While I’m still sleeping out here on the west coast, Tom has already started the day with fresh insights, good humor and principled, meaningful analysis of our chaotic political scene. And then he goes out and works on organizing North Carolina into the blue state it’s meant to be. I’d met Tom and his lovely wife at Netroots Nation years ago and we hit it off right away. But when I came across a great post on his old blog Scrutiny Hooligans I realized that I really needed him over here. I asked him to fill in for me for a few days and the rest is history. I cannot thank him enough. There is never a day that I’m, not reminded how lucky I am that he said yes that day. As you no doubt realize, this is not exactly a big money enterprise. When I moved over to WordPress a couple of years ago I made the decision not to run ads anymore.
This one is from Hussein Ibish in The Atlantic who notes that we are seeing a ton of polls that show Biden in deep trouble and that everyone is on tender hooks, praying that things turn around and quickly. His analysis, however, asserts that Trump is going to lose, full stop. As he says, “Democrats, and any other sensible voters who oppose Trump, need to forcefully remind the American people about how disastrous he was as president and inform them of how much worse a second term would be. Thankfully, that is not a hard case to make.” He points out that Trump has many advantages, starting with his cult (my word not his.) And the tribal nature of politics dictates that most Republicans will vote Republicans no matter what. And then there’s the right wing propaganda machine, particularly Fox News which will help his press his case that he’s a victim of persecution by the “deep state.” The electoral college advantage is obvious and Biden is old and has left some segments of the Democratic coalition dissatisfied so there’s that. However: Trump’s flaws look far worse today than they did eight years ago.
And none too soon The Army will remove a Confederate memorial from Arlington this week and the wingnuts are having a hissy fit, as usual: A woman representing the American South, standing atop a 32-foot pedestal, lords above most other monuments within America’s most revered resting place. It portrays, according to the cemetery’s website, a “mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.” This month, 44 Republican lawmakers cautioned Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the first African American to hold the post, that the Pentagon would overstep its authority by removing the memorial, and they demanded that all efforts to do so stop until Congress works through next year’s appropriations bill. The memorial “commemorates reconciliation and national unity,” not the Confederacy per se, the group led by Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (Ga.) claimed.
“Don’t just vote. Run.” “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” Jesus said from the cross. American women like Allie Phillips, 28, will be less forgiving of politicians who know not what they do and those who do know and don’t care. Remember, first they come for the women. In mid-October, the Guardian reported on Phillips’ confrontation early this year with her nonviable pregnancy and Tennessee’s abortion ban. Allie Phillips thinks of herself as the ordinary neighbor nextdoor. She shops at the Walmart clearance rack. She posts TikTok videos of herself and her six-year-old daughter, Adalie, singing along to Taylor Swift and dancing the Wednesday Addams dance. Up until recently, the most political thing she’d ever done was vote, and only in presidential elections. That was then. This is now. Normally I peruse a lot of headlines before something grabs my attention, but this story via a rural organizing list did that first thing this morning. You need to see this story from Kathie C. Reilly at Elle: Allie Phillips cried into the camera.
The damned spot that won’t wash clean A Threads post from Kurt Andersen (“Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History“) points out the lingering effects of tyranny (map above): So interesting that the Germans in the part of Germany run by tyrants for most of the 20th century—Nazis for 12 years, Soviet-proxy communists for 45—are those now most supportive of the right-wing AfD party. Tragically, enduringly habituated to dislike democracy and outsiders. It got me thinking how often we see U.S. maps reflecting politics and policies that carry traces of the Confederacy that died far longer ago than the Nazi and Soviet regimes. The taint is not uniform over all issues and all states, clearly, but it persists. Happy Hollandaise, you filthy animals!
Another round of Hitler talk for the fascist faithful And some concrete plans to make it happen: Lovin’ those dictators: New promises: Bold predictions: Sure. Remember this? It was November 2, 2020 Not that his followers, enablers and henchmen care of course. It’s just Trump, playing his greatest hits and nothing matters except owning the libs. Dementia: And then there’s just sheer fun for the folks: He hasn’t gotten any better over the years. He’s gotten worse. Oh well, Happy Hollandaise folks. Let’s take a break, shall we?
How the Russia hawks have fallen … for Putin Not that long ago the American right was militarist, love-it-or-leave-it, and rabidly anti-Communist/anti-Russia. To a comical “no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops” and “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” degree, even. Fight ’em over there so we don’t fight ’em over here. War was good business, good politics, and a resume-builder for aspiring politicans. Americans of all political stripes reflexively pulled for the underdogs facing imperialist aggression (unless we were the imperialists). Then came the BIg Shift. Now righties are fans of authoritarians and dictators. They’ve soured on all-American democracy and have turned fascism-curious. Let Russia have Ukraine, whatevs. It’s been in the making since the 1990s. Susan B.