The proxy Civil War goes on, now over statues

Charlottesville, Virginia was the scene of the infamous rally in August 2017 in which white supremacists marched in the night bearing tiki torches and chanting that white dominance must be defended and yelling things like “Jews will not replace us”. The next day there were clashes between them and anti-racist protestors that resulted in a young woman Heather Heyer being killed when a car ran over her. It was driven by a white supremacist who was later convicted of murder.

That rally sparked movements to remove monuments honoring the Confederacy and yesterday two massive statues in the city of the leaders of the rebellion Robert E Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, which the white supremacists had used as their rallying cry, were removed and put into storage. There was a small crowd present to cheer the removal.


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Ranked choice voting and approval voting

There are many problems with the most common voting system in the US which is the plurality system where each voters picks just one candidate and the person who gets the most votes wins, even if they do not reach a 50%+1 majority. The problem with this method is obvious, that if there are three or more candidates, it forces a voter to sometimes have to choose between voting for the person they really like or voting for someone they like less because that person has a better chance of beating the third person whom they really dislike. This voting for the ‘lesser of two evils’ means that an ‘evil’ person or party will always win.
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What the Nina Turner candidacy reveals about the Democratic party establishment

In the US, the two major political parties of Democrats and Republicans are not really distinguished by their class structure. Both parties contain the full spectrum of classes from the very wealthy to the working class, the urban and the rural. The main difference is the relative weight that is given to the various constituencies that make up the parties. The primary races, where each party selects its candidates for general elections, reveal the strength of the various factions. Because of gerrymandering, demographics, and geography, most elected offices are safely Republican or Democratic so the primary elections are where the action is and where the fissures are most clearly revealed, because the need to defeat the Republican opponent is not a major factor in the calculus.
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Recall madness

The state of Missouri is known as the ‘Show-Me state’ but perhaps it should be renamed as the ‘Don’t bother to show me, my mind is already made up’ state. It has one of the lowest rates of vaccination in the country and some of the counties have extremely low rates. Naturally covid-19 cases are surging there. But the good citizens of the small town of Nixa have more important concerns.

Nixa, which has about 21,000 residents, is located about 10 miles (16.09 kilometers) south of Springfield, where hospitals are overflowing with COVID-19 patients.

Health officials are blaming low vaccination rates and the delta variant, first identified in India, for the surge. Just 44.8% of the state’s residents have received at least the first dose of the vaccine, compared to 54.9% nationally.

And the rate is even lower in southwest Missouri. Christian County, where Nixa is located, has a vaccine rate of 35.2%. Some nearby counties have rates in the teens.

The mayor of Nixa instituted a face mask requirement in October of last year, under a mandate authorizing him to do so issued by the city council. The mandate was lifted in April. Now he is facing a recall because of his action. The recall will cost the small town between $10,000 and $15,000. But it appears that for the good people of Nixa, no price is too high to pay for having the freedom to act stupidly contrary to the evidence.

Oc course, the people of the state of California have no reason to feel that smug. They have been able to get enough signatures for a recall election of the governor because of his actions to curb the pandemic.

A surprisingly early California recall election has Gov. Gavin Newsom looking to capitalize on his momentum and Republicans trying to catch up.

State officials have called the election for Sept. 14, and ballots will hit mailboxes weeks before then. The short timeline, enabled by Democratic allies of the governor, buoys Newsom’s prospects as he looks to convert a rebounding economy and stabilizing poll numbers into a vindicating victory. His conservative foes, on the other hand, have just two weeks to declare their candidacies and a tight window to cut into Newsom’s overwhelming fundraising advantage.
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It has been clear for months that voters would decide Newsom’s fate in 2021 after anger over his Covid-19 restrictions led two million Californians to sign recall petitions.

What a waste of time and money.

If you pay people more, they will come

The latest jobs report showed healthy growth in hiring. But more importantly, it also showed a rise in wages.

In an encouraging burst of hiring, America’s employers added 850,000 jobs in June, well above the average of the previous three months and a sign that companies may be having an easier time finding enough workers to fill open jobs.

Friday’s report from the Labor Department was the latest evidence that the reopening of the economy is propelling a powerful rebound from the pandemic recession. Restaurant traffic across the country is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, and more people are shopping, traveling and attending sports and entertainment events. The number of people flying each day has regained about 80% of its pre-COVID-19 levels. And Americans’ confidence in the economic outlook has nearly fully recovered.
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Punitive prison sentences

The US criminal (in)justice system has at least two major flaws. One is some police and prosecutors prioritizing convictions over justice, and the other is them seeking extremely harsh penalties for even minor crimes. Combine that with racial prejudice and the combination is deadly because you can end up with innocent people serving extremely long sentences and even being executed.

As an example of the first type, I wrote recently about how many police line-ups are conducted in a way that witnesses are subtly influenced by the police officers who have arrested a suspect to pick the suspect, instead of using a double-blind method.

As an even more extreme example of the two flaws together, Emily Bazelon writes about a case in 2012 in which 19-year old Yutico Briley was wrongfully convicted of a crime because the prosecutors were more interested in getting a conviction than justice.
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Racist focus in the midst of erratic behavior

It is a measure of how racist sentiment has been inflamed in recent times that people who appear otherwise normal can suddenly act in ways that seem erratic except for the choice of targets of their behavior, as in this case.

An American man who crashed a stolen lorry into a house before shooting two black bystanders was a suspected white supremacist, police say.

Nathan Allen, 28, fatally shot retired policeman Dave Green and military veteran Ramona Cooper in Saturday afternoon’s attack in Massachusetts.

Investigators later found racist and anti-Semitic writings by Allen, who was shot dead by officers at the scene.

He was married, employed and had a PhD and no criminal history, police said.

According to CBS affiliate WBZ-TV, Allen walked through a marsh to a garage in the city of Winthrop where he stole a plumber’s lorry. He crashed the vehicle into an unoccupied home, causing extensive damage.

He then climbed out of the wreckage and attempted unsuccessfully to carjack another vehicle.
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Investigators said they found “troubling white supremacist rhetoric” in the gunman’s handwriting.

Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins told a press conference on Monday that Allen is believed to have acted alone.

The prosecutor said he had “likely appeared unassuming” before unleashing his attack with a firearm that he legally owned.

Her office’s statement said: “This individual wrote about the superiority of the white race. About whites being ‘apex predators’. He drew swastikas.”

The statement added: “He stole a box truck, crashed it into another vehicle and a property, walked away from the wreckage interacting with multiple individuals and choosing only to shoot and kill the two black people he encountered.”

This person was clearly having some kind of breakdown that resulted in him doing seemingly random things. And yet in the midst of it, he was able to think lucidly enough to pick out among all the people he encountered the only two Black people to kill.

Wall Street-backed candidate loses race for Manhattan district attorney

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of the Manhattan district attorney’s office since it overseas Wall Street and others parts of the city where some of the wealthiest people in the country work, and thus is the hub for all manner of white-collar crimes that the rich indulge in, including but not limited to, tax fraud. The current occupant is Cyrus Vance Jr., who has long been friendly to the New York elites including the Trump family but recently seems to be trying to right that balance by using a grand jury to investigate the Trump organization. Just this week, his office issued indictments of grand larceny and fraud against the Trump organization and its chief financial officer and long-time Trump confidante Allen Weisselberg.
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It’s about time: Moratorium on federal death penalty

In a welcome move, US attorney general Merrick Garland has imposed a moratorium on the federal death penalty.

The US attorney general has imposed a moratorium on all federal executions while the justice department reviews its policies and procedures on capital punishment. Civil rights and criminal justice advocates have been pushing for a halt following a wave of controversial executions under the Trump administration.

Citing the disproportionate impact of capital punishment on people of color, and deep controversy over the drugs used to put people to death, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, ordered a temporary pause on scheduling executions.

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