Sen Graham Dies - This Is The Process To Replace Him

 From The New York Times:

South Carolina Republicans are facing a fast-paced scramble to replace him on the general election ballot. (Mr. Graham won the Republican primary by a wide margin this year.)

South Carolina law sets out a timeline for replacing him on the ballot. Its provisions suggest a special primary election will be held on Aug. 11, according to the schedule set out in the law. If no candidate secures a majority, a runoff between the top two finishers would take place two weeks later, on Aug. 25.

Candidates can file for the seat as soon as July 21, the second Tuesday after Mr. Graham’s death, and the filing period will close on July 28. State law says that the election must happen on the second Tuesday after that deadline.

Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, can appoint a replacement to serve out the rest of Mr. Graham’s Senate term, through Jan. 3, 2027, under state law. The replacement could choose to compete for the Republican nomination in the special primary.

Some Interesting Charts On Births And Deaths In The United States

 

From The Washington Post

Norman Lear Is Gone - Here's His Last Message To Americans

 

The great Norman Lear has died at the age of 101. He used television to make our country a better place. In honor of his legacy, here is the op-ed he wrote for The New York Times when he turned 100 years old:

Well, I made it. I am 100 years old today. I wake up every morning grateful to be alive.

Reaching my own personal centennial is cause for a bit of reflection on my first century — and on what the next century will bring for the people and country I love. To be honest, I’m a bit worried that I may be in better shape than our democracy is.

I was deeply troubled by the attack on Congress on Jan. 6, 2021 — by supporters of former President Donald Trump attempting to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. Those concerns have only grown with every revelation about just how far Mr. Trump was willing to go to stay in office after being rejected by voters — and about his ongoing efforts to install loyalists in positions with the power to sway future elections.

I don’t take the threat of authoritarianism lightly. As a young man, I dropped out of college when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and joined the U.S. Army Air Forces. I flew more than 50 missions in a B-17 bomber to defeat fascism consuming Europe. I am a flag-waving believer in truth, justice and the American way, and I don’t understand how so many people who call themselves patriots can support efforts to undermine our democracy and our Constitution. It is alarming.

At the same time, I have been moved by the courage of the handful of conservative Republican lawmakers, lawyers and former White House staffers who resisted Mr. Trump’s bullying. They give me hope that Americans can find unexpected common ground with friends and family whose politics differ but who are not willing to sacrifice core democratic principles.

Encouraging that kind of conversation was a goal of mine when we began broadcasting “All in the Family” in 1971. The kinds of topics Archie Bunker and his family argued about — issues that were dividing Americans from one another, such as racism, feminism, homosexuality, the Vietnam War and Watergate — were certainly being talked about in homes and families. They just weren’t being acknowledged on television.

For all his faults, Archie loved his country and he loved his family, even when they called him out on his ignorance and bigotries. If Archie had been around 50 years later, he probably would have watched Fox News. He probably would have been a Trump voter. But I think that the sight of the American flag being used to attack Capitol Police would have sickened him. I hope that the resolve shown by Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, and their commitment to exposing the truth, would have won his respect.

It is remarkable to consider that television — the medium for which I am most well-known — did not even exist when I was born, in 1922. The internet came along decades later, and then social media. We have seen that each of these technologies can be put to destructive use — spreading lies, sowing hatred and creating the conditions for authoritarianism to take root. But that is not the whole story. Innovative technologies create new ways for us to express ourselves, and, I hope, will allow humanity to learn more about itself and better understand one another’s ideas, failures and achievements. These technologies have also been used to create connection, community and platforms for the kind of ideological sparring that might have drawn Archie to a keyboard. I can only imagine the creative and constructive possibilities that technological innovation might offer us in solving some of our most intractable problems.

I often feel disheartened by the direction that our politics, courts and culture are taking. But I do not lose faith in our country or its future. I remind myself how far we have come. I think of the brilliantly creative people I have had the pleasure to work with in entertainment and politics, and at People for the American Way, a progressive group I co-founded to defend our freedoms and build a country in which all people benefit from the blessings of liberty. Those encounters renew my belief that Americans will find ways to build solidarity on behalf of our values, our country and our fragile planet.

Those closest to me know that I try to stay forward-focused. Two of my favorite words are “over” and “next.” It’s an attitude that has served me well through a long life of ups and downs, along with a deeply felt appreciation for the absurdity of the human condition.

Reaching this birthday with my health and wits mostly intact is a privilege. Approaching it with loving family, friends and creative collaborators to share my days has filled me with a gratitude I can hardly express.

This is our century, dear reader, yours and mine. Let us encourage one another with visions of a shared future. And let us bring all the grit and openheartedness and creative spirit we can muster to gather together and build that future.

No One Needs An Assault Weapon - Ban Them!

The following post is by Robert Reich: 

A woman armed with assault rifles entered a Christian school in Nashville and fatally shot three nine-year-old children and three staff members before she was shot and killed by the police.

It makes me weep. It’s happening gain and again and again. Our children.

President Biden renewed his call for Congress to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, but with Republicans in control of the House there’s little to no chance. 

So far this year, there have been 129 mass shootings in the United States. 

Ten of the 17 deadliest U.S. mass shootings since 2012 have involved AR-15s. In a review of the history of the AR-15, the Washington Post reports that it was originally designed in the 1950s as a soldiers’ rifle. “An outstanding weapon with phenomenal lethality,” according to an internal Pentagon report. It soon became standard issue for U.S. troops in Vietnam (where the weapon was called the M16). 

Few gunmakers envisioned that ordinary people would buy the semiautomatic version, which didn’t seem suited for hunting and appeared overkill for home defense. The National Rifle Association and other industry allies focused on promoting traditional rifles and handguns.

Today, the AR-15 is the best-selling rifle in the United States, owned by about 1 in 20 U.S. adults, or roughly 16 million people. It dominates the walls and websites of gun dealers. (Republican Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama has even introduced a bill to declare the AR-15 the “National Gun of America.”) 

What accounts for this dramatic change? Follow the money. The early 2000s were a tough time for the firearms industry. Gun sales had been flat for several years. But after the Assault Weapons Ban ended in 2004, gun manufacturers saw a chance to ride a post-9/11 surge in military glorification. As America soldiers were seen in Afghanistan and Iraq wearing tactical gear and holding M16 and M4 carbine rifles, gunmakers used the conflict-zone images to market AR-15s. 

“We made it look cool,” said Randy Luth, the founder of gunmaker DPMS, one of the earliest companies to promote AR-15s. “The same reason you buy a Corvette.”

One Smith & Wesson AR-15 ended up in the hands of Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager who fatally shot two people and wounded a third during 2020’s racial justice protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin. As Rittenhouse explained during his trial, he chose an AR-15 because “I thought it looked cool.” 

Another AR-15 was alluring to the gunman who killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo in May 2022. “The AR-15 and its variants are very deadly when used properly,” he wrote in a manifesto filled with racial vitriol. “Which is the reason I picked one.” Ten days later, 19 schoolchildren and two adults were shot to death in Uvalde, Tex., with another AR-15.

The string of attacks prompted President Biden, who as a senator had strongly supported the 1994 assault weapons ban, to promise a renewed effort to stop the sale of military-style weapons. Last year, the Democratic-led House passed a new assault weapons ban on a tight party-line vote of 217-213 — the first time the measure had been voted on in nearly three decades. But the Senate, also run by Democrats, never took action.

***

When Bill Clinton signed the original Assault Weapons Ban in 1994, he was widely condemned by Republicans and gun owners. The Democrats’ subsequent losses of the House and Senate in the 1996 midterm elections were partly blamed on the ban. But it saved lives. 

The 10-year length of the ban has allowed researchers to compare mass shooting deaths before, during, and after the ban. 

Before: From 1981 (the earliest year analyzed) until the ban went into effect in 1994, the proportion of deaths in mass shootings in which an assault rifle was used was lower than it is today, and the average number of yearly deaths attributed to mass shootings was 7.2.

During: In the years after the assault weapons ban went into effect, the average number of yearly deaths from mass shootings fell to 5.3. Even including 1999’s Columbine High School massacre (the deadliest mass shooting during the period of the ban), the 1994 to 2004 period saw lower average annual rates of both mass shootings and deaths resulting from such incidents than before the ban’s inception.

After: In the years after the assault weapons ban expired in 2004, the data shows an almost immediate – and steep – rise in mass shooting deaths to an average of 25.

Researchers have calculated that the risk of a person in the U.S. dying in a mass shooting was 70 percent lower when assault weapons ban was in place than it is today. 

Facts, data, logic, analysis — do they play any role in what our government decides? The Republican Party in particular no longer listens, or thinks. It is owned — lock, stock, and barrel — by the gun industry. 

You might think that preventing young children from being murdered in random mass killings by assailants with assault weapons would be a goal shared by all lawmakers. But you’d be wrong.

 

The Assault Weapons Ban must be reinstated — the greed of gun manufacturers be damned.

The Epidemic Of Gun Violence Won't Be Fixed By Republicans

The United States has more gun murders than any other developed nation.

The United States has more gun suicides than any other developed nation.

The United States has more mass shootings than any other developed nation.

The United States has more mass murders by gun than any other developed nation.

The United States has more injuries from gun violence than any other developed nation.

Those things are not true by a small margin, but by a very large margin. For instance, the United States has about 37 gun murders per 100,000 people, while Italy (which finishes second) has only 0.68 gun murders per 100,000 people.

Republican officials, who refuse to pass stricter gun laws, have offered several excuses. Some say it is because of violent video games. But all of the other developed nations have the same violent video games and it has not caused gun violence to rise in their countries.

Some GOP officials claim it is because religion, especially christianity, is becoming less popular in the country. That doesn't make sense either. The other developed nations are nearly all less christian (and less religious in general) than the United States.

Perhaps the biggest excuse Republicans cling to is to claim the gun violence is due to mental illness. But the percentage of the population with mental illness is not any larger in the United States than in any of the other developed nations.

The excuses simply do not work. We all know why gun violence is so prevalent in the United States, whether Republicans want to admit it or not.

IT IS THE GUNS!!!

The United States has enough guns floating around to arm every single man, woman, and child in the country -- and have a few million guns left over.

And too many states allow anyone to easily get any kind of gun (and as much ammunition) as they want. And many of them allow people to openly carry those guns anywhere they want.

I am not talking about restricting gun ownership by decent and law-abiding citizens (as the Republicans like to claim). We can have sensible gun laws and still protect the right of law-abiding citizens to own a gun. 

Plugging the holes in our background check law would not prevent law-abiding citizens from purchasing to owning a firearm. But failing to do that just makes it easy for dangerous people (criminals, terrorists, the dangerously mentally ill, domestic abusers) to buy and carry the firearm of their choice.

Banning the sales of assault-style rifles would not prevent law-abiding citizens from owning firearms to protect themselves or engage in hunting. Those weapons are only good for killing large amounts of people in a very short period of time. We do not allow citizens to own other weapons of war (like machine guns, rocket launchers, etc.). We should not allow assault-style rifles either, especially since they have become the weapon of choice in mass shootings.

Republicans are not going to pass any sensible gun laws. They only engage in excuses, thoughts, and prayers -- none of which will save any American lives.

Most Americans say they want some stricter (and constitutional) gun laws. But they must carry that conviction to the ballot box. Re-electing gun-loving Republicans will not get anything done. It will just make sure the epidemic of gun violence continues.

We need two parties willing to debate and compromise to solve the country's problems. Sadly, today's Republican Party is not willing to compromise. Until they are, they must be voted out of power.

The lives of many thousands of innocent Americans depends on it.

Another Civil Rights Hero Has Passed Away

The picture above shows Bob Moses counseling civil rights volunteers in Ohio in 1964.

On Sunday, Mr. Moses died at his home in Hollywood, Florida. He was 86 years old.

Moses was the Mississippi director of SNCC. And he risked his life and freedom many times to make this a better country for all of us. He was shot at, beaten repeatedly, and jailed many times in his quest.

Barack Obama said, “Bob Moses was a hero of mine. His quiet confidence helped shape the civil rights movement, and he inspired generations of young people looking to make a difference.” 

Robert Parris Moses was true American Hero!

Defender Of Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Has Died

 

America has suffered a great tragedy. At the age of 87, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died.

She will always be remembered for her fight for equal rights for all Americans and her strong belief in justice for all.

She had been ill for a while now, but had held on to her position on the court to prevent Donald Trump from appointing her replacement. Sadly her failing health would not let her complete that mission.

She will be sorely missed, and will go down in history as one of our greatest Supreme Court Justices.

There is no doubt that Trump will try to appoint a replacement, and Mitch McConnell has said he would try to push any Trump nomination through the Senate -- in spite of the fact that he refused to even consider an Obama nomination four years ago with only months left in his term.

The Republicans have enough senators in this Congress to approve a Trump nominee if they want. Our only hope is that a few senators, struggling to get re-elected, will vote to stop the nomination (of a Kavanaugh-like candidate). Any nomination is going to be controversial, and the Senate might not want to take action close to the election. But there will be two months after the election in which to act -- and they probably will.

This will likely insure a right-wing and corporate-friendly court for many years to come.

The Republican Party, Under Trump, Is A Death Cult

There's simply no other way to put it. The Republican Party, by following and excusing Donald Trump, has become a cult of DEATH!

Here's part of how Tom Nichols puts it in an op-ed in USA Today:

America has now passed the milestone of 4 million COVID cases, and we’re still arguing with doctors and epidemiologists about masks and school closures. I expected some of this, because I literally wrote the book over three years ago on why so many Americans think they’re smarter than experts. What I did not expect is that this resolute and childish opposition to expertise would be hijacked by the president of the United States and an entire American political party, and then turned into a suicide cult.

It did not take a lot of foresight to know, even before the coronavirus arrived, that the United States was leaving itself vulnerable to a crisis that would require the public to trust experts. We long ago became a narcissistic nation whose citizens believe they can become competent in almost any subject by watching enough television and spending enough time on the internet. But I was certain that a true national crisis — a war, a depression, or yes, a pandemic — would snap people back to reality.

I was wrong to be so optimistic. . . .

There is no one more responsible for this particular moment than President Donald Trump, but all he has done is play to a gallery whose seats were already full by the time he ran for office. Trump appealed to a powerful sense of narcissistic grievance among millions of Americans, nurturing it and feeding it. An entire claque of enablers joined in, knowing there was plenty of money to be made feeding this self-centered, anti-social nihilism.

When the pandemic arrived, these enablers in the conservative media and among the cowardly Republican political class took their cues — masks, no masks, closing, opening — from Trump, whose statements for months were a fusillade of nonsense that reflected only his own pouty anger that Mother Nature had the sheer brass to mess up his presidential grift. . . .

Americans who are now driving the pandemic are not sudden skeptics about masks or distancing or expert opinion because of street protests. Some of them reject expertise because of the previous “failures” of experts. This is always one of the reflexive explanations for the refusal to listen to the educated and experienced. Expert failures are real and happen every day, but the people who sullenly refuse to wear a mask during a pandemic are not doing so because the United States failed to find Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, or because the housing market crashed in 2008.

Rather, they are doing so because they see endangering others as empowerment, a way of telling people whom they believe look down on them that no one, no matter how smart or accomplished, can tell them what to do. For these people, our national motto is not “In God We Trust” or “E Pluribus Unum,” but rather: “You’re Not the Boss of Me.”

So committed are these Americans to assuaging their sore egos over their imagined lack of status that they are literally willing to die for it. Unfortunately, they seem all too willing to take many of us with them. This is not Jonestown or Heaven’s Gate, whose cult members fled society to go and die together. This is worse. This is an attempt to create a Jonestown in every American city and town and then invite the rest of us over for a cool drink.

The irony here is that the same people who reject expertise because they believe they are smart and clued in to the mistakes of experts will accept the word of Donald Trump — a man who has obliterated most of the projects he’s ever been involved with and who stands as the uncontested champion of American public liars — as the gospel truth. . . .

On the same day that America hit a grisly new record, President Trump went on television to explain both that he must cancel his cherished plans for a political convention while insisting that children be sent back to school in the coming weeks. Millions of Americans nodded along with him, secure in the knowledge that scientists are quacks and that no one understands viruses like Donald Trump. They will likely still believe that even as they lie in a hospital bed and are given last rites with a ventilator down their throats.

If only the rest of us did not have to risk being in the bed next to them.

John Prine - A Music Legend Has Left Us

(This photo of John Prine in 2006, from Wikipedia, is by Ron Baker.)

From NPR.org:

John Prine, a wry and perceptive writer whose songs often resembled vivid short stories, died Tuesday in Nashville from complications related to COVID-19. His death was confirmed by his publicist, on behalf of his family. He was 73 years old. 

Prine was hospitalized last week after falling ill and put on a ventilator Saturday night, according to a statement from his family.

Even as a young man, Prine — who famously worked as a mailman before turning to music full-time — wrote evocative songs that belied his age. With a conversational vocal approach, he quickly developed a reputation as a performer who empathized with his characters. . . .

Bestowing dignity on the overlooked and marginalized was a common theme throughout Prine's career; he became known for detailed vignettes about ordinary people that illustrated larger truths about society. 

This makes me sad. I loved John Prine and his music. He was a poet and a musician and his lyrics were simple, but they went straight to the heart. He was a troubadour of truth, and he helped us all understand the human condition.

I was lucky enough to see him perform -- at Willie Nelson's first July 4th Picnic in Dripping Springs. He didn't have a band at that time. It was just him and his 12-string guitar -- but he was amazing.

The world is a sadder place because it no longer has John Prine. Thankfully, he left us a rich library of wonderful music.

-----------------------------------------------

Here are the lyrics to one of my favorite Prime songs -- The Great Compromise. It was on his 1972 album titled "Diamonds in the Rough".

I knew a girl who was almost a lady
She had a way with all the men in her life
Every inch of her blossomed in beauty
And she was born on the fourth of July
Well she lived in an aluminum house trailer
And she worked in a juke box saloon
And she spent all the money I give her
Just to see the old man in the moon

[Chorus:]
I used to sleep at the foot of Old Glory
And awake in the dawn's early light
But much to my surprise
When I opened my eyes
I was a victim of the great compromise

Well we'd go out on Saturday evenings
To the drive-in on Route 41
And it was there that I first suspected
That she was doin' what she'd already done
She said "Johnny won't you get me some popcorn"
And she knew I had to walk pretty far
And as soon as I passed through the moonlight
She hopped into a foreign sports car

[Chorus]

Well you know I could have beat up that fellow
But it was her that had hopped into his car
Many times I'd fought to protect her
But this time she was goin' too far
Now some folks they call me a coward
'Cause I left her at the drive-in that night
But I'd druther have names thrown at me
Than to fight for a thing that ain't right

[Chorus]

Now she writes all the fellows love letters
Saying "Greetings, come and see me real soon"
And they go and line up in the barroom
And spend the night in that sick woman's room
But sometimes I get awful lonesome
And I wish she was my girl instead
But she won't let me live with her
And she makes me live in my head

[Chorus]