Anthony Stephen Fauci
@maggieNYT “White House officials say they’ve given Fauci a lot of room to do interviews amid concerns he was being muted. But they question some of the interviews he’s given and how he has so much time for them.” Anthony Fauci has been in the hot seat before. In the eighties, he was blamed for not stopping AIDS. Now, Dr. Fauci is seen as a voice of reason. How did he get there?
“Anthony Stephen Fauci was born in New York City on Christmas Eve 1940, the second of Stephen and Eugenia Fauci’s two children. … Fauci has spent his entire professional career at the National Institutes of Health. He started as a clinical associate in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in 1968, after a two-year residency at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. By 1974, he was head of the clinical physiology section of the lab. In 1980, he became chief of the Laboratory of Immunoregulation (a position he still holds) and since 1984, he has been the director of NIAID.”
Things began to change in 1981. The “aha” moment was- it was the early summer of 1981. The CDC … puts out the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report … reported on their June 5, 1981 MMWR five men from Los Angeles who presented with a very unusual kind of pneumonia that you only see in people who have dramatically-suppressed immune systems. And I looked at it and said, “Wow, five gay men.” Why all gay men, and why this strange disease that you almost never see in healthy people? And they were supposedly completely healthy other than that. I thought it was a fluke.”
“And then one month later, on the July 4th of 1981, the next MMWR appeared … “Now 26 men, not only from L.A., but from San Francisco and New York, with not only this strange pneumonia, but this strange kind of cancer that you only see in people who are immunosuppressed.” And the thing that blew me away is that all of them were gay men. And I said, “Whoa. Something is going on here that’s really bad, and this is likely a new disease.””
“And I made what I consider the transforming decision in my own career: I decided I was going to stop what I had been doing-rather successfully-for the previous nine or ten years and devote myself completely to studying what I felt would be an enormously difficult disease, and it, unfortunately, turned out that that was the case.”
Seven years later, after staggering amounts of deaths and suffering, Dr. Fauci was scheduled to appear at a conference in San Francisco. ACT-UP was there to greet him. “An Open Letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci” San Francisco Examiner, June 26, 1988 “Anthony Fauci, you are a murderer and should not be the guest of honor at any event that reflects on the past decade of the AIDS crisis. Your refusal to hear the screams of AIDS activists early in the crisis resulted in the deaths of thousands of Queers. … You can’t hide the fact that you are nothing but a despicable Reagan-era holdover and drug company mouthpiece. With 270,000 dead from AIDS and millions more infected with HIV, you should not be honored at a dinner. You should be put before a firing squad. … You are a pill-pushing pimp that cooperates with drug companies in forcing dangerous concoctions down the throats of a desperate community that is brainwashed into believing that taking a pill, any pill, will help them. … Ten years of hope? Fuck that. Try a decade of death and greed. Go back to Washington you bastard.”
“Carol Brown Moskowitz … recalls running into a group of leather-clad men, many of them body pierced and draped in chains, in Washington’s Omni Hotel, in the fall of 1988. … When she asked one of them who they were, he told her that they were members of “Act Up,” and that they were going out to make some noise at the FDA about the AIDS epidemic and the lack of funding for research. … Fauci asked the police and the FBI on the NIH campus not to make arrests. He also asked that a handful of the demonstration’s leaders be brought to his office.”
“That began a relationship over many years that allowed me to walk amongst them,” Fauci says. “It was really interesting; they let me into their camp. I went to the gay bath houses and spoke to them. I went to San Francisco, to the Castro District, and I discussed the problems they were having, the degree of suffering that was going on in the community, the need for them to get involved in clinical trials, since there were no other possibilities for them to get access to drugs.”
In 2005, Fauci appeared on C-SPAN. “The toughest decision you’ve ever had to make?””Well, one of the toughest decision-I had a few-was when I made a decision during the middle of the early years of the AIDS pandemic to bring the activist community into our deliberations, because most of the scientific community, including my own staff, were totally against that. They said the activists would be disruptive, that they would get in the way of what the scientific approach would be.”
One of those activists was the infamous Larry Kramer, who wrote the open letter seen above. This 1993 chat with Kramer gives you a small taste.
“Natalie Angier wrote in The New York Times in February of 1994: “And through it all, Dr. Fauci accepts the criticisms, and he accepts that someone must absorb the anger and terror that AIDS has spawned, so why not somebody of strong vertebrae who was raised on the streets of Bensonhurst? “I was on a C-SPAN program a couple of months ago with Tony, and I attacked him for the entire hour,” said Mr. Kramer. “He called me up afterwards and said he thought the program went very well. I said, ‘How can you say that? I did nothing but yell at you.’ He said, ‘You don’t realize that you can say things I can’t. It doesn’t mean I don’t agree with you.” … “Dr. Fauci claims he does not take the intermittent blasts personally. “That’s the activist mode,” he said. “When there’s a disagreement their tendency is to trash somebody. But I know that when Larry Kramer says the reason we’re all in so much trouble is because of Tony Fauci, he’s too smart to believe that.”
A few years later, the outlook started to improve. “We have drugs right now … In the early ’80s, if someone came in to my clinic with AIDS … half of them would be dead in eight months. Now, if …someone comes into a clinic who is 20-plus years old who is relatively recently infected, and I put them on the combination of three drugs … if you take your medicine regularly, you could live an additional 50-five zero-years.”
“Fauci is married to Christine Grady … “I met him (Fauci) here over the bed of a patient who happened to be from Brazil. I was called in as a translator … And so they said, ‘Could you come translate for Dr. Fauci?’ whom I had not met—the inimitable Dr. Fauci— everybody was afraid of. When he came in, I thought, ‘What are they so afraid of him for? He is not so scary.’”
As Fauci tells the story on C-SPAN: “She was just this very attractive young nurse, and I said, “Very interesting.” … I was single. So I went back to my office. About a few days later, I told the head nurse, “Could you tell that nurse, Ms. Grady, to come to my office. I want to talk to her.” … So she walked into my office completely petrified that she was in trouble, and she sat there looking very nervous. I couldn’t figure out why she was nervous. So I looked at her and said, “Well, you know, I didn’t realize you had come here until just last week.” I said, “Would you like to go out for dinner sometime?” She just fell right through the chair, and she said, “Of course, I will.” And we got married a year later.”
In today’s #metoo atmosphere, the director romancing a young nurse might not work as well. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Thanks to Holy Cross Magazine and C-SPAN
Frank Zappa
The first time PG saw the word Zappa, it was on an item at the Poster Hut. It showed a man sitting on a commode, with the words Phi Zappa Krappa rendered above. The poser, Frank Zappa, later said “I’m probably more famous for sitting on the toilet than for anything else that I do.”
It was 1969, give or take a bit. FZ was already well known in some hip circles. His band, the Mothers of Invention, played at something called the Cosmic Carnival at Atlanta Stadium, where the music lovers were actually allowed onto the field. PG paid $1.98 for a copy of We’re Only in It for the Money at the Woolco on Buford Hiway. Years later, he would pay $16.00 for a CD of this piece of work.
The records started to come out like clockwork, with or without the Mothers. FZ started to become a star, with an appeal to druggies who fancied themselves intellectual. It should be noted that FZ was notoriously anti drug. His music made fun of the establishment and counterculture with equal glee. FZ was also a capitalist, known to be tight fisted when it came to paying hired hands. He stayed with his second wife, Gail, until his death, and produced four children… Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan and Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen.
The concerts came to town every year or so, and people liked them. A show at the Fox Theater in 1974 may have caught FZ at his peak. PG heard the raves about this show until he bought a ticket for his next show. This was in 1975, at the Municipal Auditorium. PG brought a half pint in with him, and didn’t remember a lot later, except some song about the Illinois Eneman Bandit.
Life goes on. Nine years later, FZ was in legal hell with a former manager, and could only make money by touring. One night, a friend had an extra ticket to a show. PG arrived after the band had started, and FZ was playing a fine guitar solo. This was going to be good.
Only it wasn’t. The rest of the show was social commentary. The man had opinions on everything, and was generous with them. At one point, the band started to sing “He’s so gay”, while a double headed dildo was lowered from the ceiling. PG thinks he heard FZ sing “one day you might be gay too”, but by then it really didn’t matter.
Frank Zappa was many things to many people. He had lots of opinions, which were dutifully recorded by the press. Here are a few .
Rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, in order to provide articles for people who can’t read.
I think that if a person doesn’t feel cynical then they’re out of phase with the 20th century. Being cynical is the only way to deal with modern civilization, you can’t just swallow it whole.
When God created Republicans, he gave up on everything else.
Let’s not be too rough on our own ignorance; it’s what makes America great!
The U.S. is a mere pup tent of a civilization. We’ve got two hundred years of stupidity behind us. We think we’re right up there with everyone else who’s been doing it for thousands of years.
Beauty is a pair of shoes that makes you wanna die.
He wrote this book here, and in the book it says he made us all to be just like him! So if we’re dumb, then God is dumb — and maybe even a little ugly on the side.
Remember there’s a big difference between kneeling down and bending over.
Do you think you are protecting somebody by taking away seven words?
For the record, folks; I never took a shit on stage and the closest I ever came to eating shit anywhere was at a Holiday Inn buffet in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1973.
There is no hell. There is only France.
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
This is a repost. one, two, three, four posts are used. Your archive is your friend.
Former Dunwoody resident Aquarium Drunkard weighs in today with a nifty video. It is Frank Zappa, appearing on a TV show discussing censorship. FZ more than holds his own, and makes many good points about the nature of language and censorship. His contention is that censorship is about words, and that words in and of themselves are powerless. Wikipedia contributes this quote: “What do you make of a society that is so primitive that it clings to the belief that certain words in its language are so powerful that they could corrupt you the moment you hear them?”
I was in high school when I first heard about Frank Zappa. It was in the original Poster Hut, a ramshackle building on Cheshire Bridge Road that is vacant 50 years later. (The building serves in 2020 as a Hookah Hookup. There was a poster, with the words PHI ZAPPA KRAPPA Below the saying was a picture of Frank Zappa on a commode.
I did not get that poster of PZK, but I did get a dayglo poster of Janis Joplin. I didn’t notice the exposed nipple on the drawing. When Mom saw it, she was horrified. ” I trusted you!” In my shame, I took a magic marker and covered over the fluorescent fuchsia mammary.
Back to FZ on CNN. The guitar picker made a lot of sense. One of the pundits threw the founding fathers at FZ, who replied that the FF were slave owners and that Ben Franklin was a wildman. FZ said we were heading to a fascist theocracy. Are we there yet? One whiner mentioned that his band was called the Mothers of Invention. FZ did not mention that the original name had been the mothers, and a record label made them add “of invention”.Finally, the four man part of the show was over. The two primary whiners agreed that rock music had some gnarly words, but did we really trust the government to intervene.
We have time for one more story. Al Capp, born Alfred Gerald Caplin, was a piece of work. At the age of nine, a trolly accident cost Mr. troll Capp his left leg. Years later, an urban legend arose. “in a televised face-off, either Capp (on the Dick Cavett Show) or (more commonly) conservative talk show host Joe Pyne (on his own show) is supposed to have taunted iconoclastic musician Frank Zappa about his long hair, asking Zappa if he thought he was a girl. Zappa is said to have replied, “You have a wooden leg; does that make you a table?” (Both Capp and Pyne had wooden legs.)
Recently, the world of flaky internet quotes has discovered Frank Zappa. The “sexually incontinent rock innovator” died December 4, 1993. (His wife Gail passed away October 7, 2025.) Recently, some alleged quotes have hit the ether. Some people need to get out more. This is a repost.
This item was recently featured in chamblee54. @SlavojTweezek “”Communism doesn’t work,” Frank Zappa said, “because people like to own stuff.” Idiot. What do people’s likes have to do with communism?” This quote is plausible. Frank Zappa was a capitalist. He liked owning stuff, especially his own music. It should be easy to find a source. However, the best google can come up with is a compilation, “Quotes of Zappa,” in W. C. Privy’s Original Bathroom Companion.”
This morning, facebook had a meme. It had a picture of FZ, with the quote “Politics is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.” In the time that it takes to say Camarillo Brillo, Mr. Google turned up a reddit commentary.
“While the quote is frequently listed as, ““Government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex,” I could find no primary source. It appears to contradict the actual quote from a 1987 interview with Keyboard magazine where he is decidedly pro-government but anti-bullshit politics.” (FZ did say “art in the service of politics usually makes for boring art.” Why do people make up quotes for memes, when the real thing is better?)
Speculating what a dead man would say is a tricky business. FZ was known for strong opinions, and a finely tuned BS detector. (That is bovine excrement, not Bernie Sanders.) FZ died while the internet was just getting started, and years before some of today’s permutations and perversions. It is easy to imagine FZ making rude comments about people misquoting dead guitar heroes.
Speaking of politics and cynical guitar cadavers, the current poster boi for trendy privilege is Bernie Sanders. If you “feel the Bern,” you might want to skip over the rest of this post, and look at the pictures. (These pictures are from The Library of Congress.) While BS is arguably less evil than Hitlery, he still leaves a great deal to be desired. BS is making extravagant promises that he will be totally unable to keep. BS is taking the concept of telling people what they want to hear to new depths. Yes, this is part of what FZ meant when saying rude things about politicians.
Today, PG saw a fundraising appeal for BS. Against his better judgment, PG made the comment “Bernie $anders.” The fun started almost immediately.
This campaign is for monthly recurring contributions. And Luther, campaigning requires money. The alternative to grassroots support is a country run by wealthy interests. Which would you prefer? ~ I realize that campaigning for political office requires money. My comment was a bit of recreational $nark. B$ can take a joke. … “The alternative to grassroots support is a country run by wealthy interests.” I am not sure about that comparison. Hitlery can make more in one corporate blowjob than BS can in a month of grass roots support. BHO did not get a billion dollars for his reelection from five dollar contributions. While the concept of grassroots support is uplifting, the sordid reality is that we live in a bribe-ocracy. ~ Your cynicism is less than accurate and certainly less than appealing. ~ Luther, just don’t vote and stay out of discussions about voting. OK?
The current WTF Podcast features Moon Zappa. At no time does she say grody, gag me with a spoon, or boofoos. Today, she is the divorced mother of an eight year old, and buys quality apple butter.
Moon is the daughter of the late Frank Zappa. FZ did not do drugs, smoked Winston cigarettes, and spent all his time working on music. The four children, Moon Unit, Dweezil, Ahmet and Diva, called the parents Frank and Gail. Mrs. Zappa stays busy these days selling her husbands music.
Once, Moon broke a finger in school. She called Gail, and waited. Eventually, the family Rolls Royce pulled up. Gail was driving, with Frank in the passenger seat. Frank quit driving when his first drivers license expired. Before taking Moon to the ER, they stopped to get Frank a burrito.
Gail and Moon were walking to the store one day, when Moon was very little. A car stopped, and tried to pick up Gail. Moon screamed “Fuck off pervert.”
Captain Beefheart was at the Zappa house one time. He had made a hole in the side of his nose with a pencil. When a finger was put over the other nostril, the nose became a whistle.
While listening to this show, PG was editing pictures from The Library of Congress. Some of these images appear with this feature.
Is Opie A Liberal?
A bit of autolabelism surfaced on facebook last week. The coming out piece, on the theme “I am a liberal,” was said to be written by Ron Howard. PG saw the essay, thought about it, and wanted to know more. A google search quickly revealed @GallagherWitt as the author.
The post begins, in true coming out fashion, with people surprised that the author was, gasp, a liberal. PG began to wonder about Ronald William Howard. PG is the same age as RWH, a fact that PG is well aware of watching “The Andy Griffith Show.” RWH has gone on to direct highly entertaining movies. PG wonders if someone as multi-talented, as the director of big budget movies, would post anything as simplistic as this list of fifteen “liberal beliefs.”
Ron Howard trashes Trump on Twitter, calls him a ‘morally bankrupt ego maniac’ A few weeks ago, RWH was in the news for his politics. PG decided to look on twitter, and see if RWH commented about the facebook hoax. What he saw was a bit surprising. A few spots down from the top, RWH retweeted @MikeBloomberg “As president, I will reverse the Trump tax rules that benefit people like me and undermine the middle class. I’ll raise $5 trillion from the wealthy to pay for public investments in health care, infrastructure, education, climate resilience and affordable housing.” The tweet is dated “10:31 PM · Feb 19, 2020,” right after the Las Vegas debate.
RWH retweeted several more @MikeBloomberg tweets. (one, two, three, four) This cannot be construed as an endorsment, but it does demonstrate a degree of support. Retweeting @MikeBloomberg is not proof that RWH “is a liberal.”
@Moana125 Replying to @RealRonHoward “I love your movies. I know you are a Liberal so you probably won’t agree with me. I respect @ClintEastwood a lot. He has had several movies that have been snubbed by Hollywood. Richard Jewel was excellent! Also 2017!” @RealRonHoward “I have massive respect for #clinteastwood who has made two fine movies for @RealImagine #TheChangling w/ #AngelinaJolie & #JEdgar w/ @LeoDiCaprio He also gave me good & supportive directorial advice after an early screening of #Frost / #Nixon He’s a friend w/ true integrity.”
While their politics may be different, many comparisons can be made between RWH and Clinton Eastwood Jr. Both are popular actors that became directors. Both acting, and directing, require skills that have little to do with the liberal/conservative quagmire.
Hollywood, for all the bleeding heart pretension, is about making money. A major motion picture involves the investment of millions of dollars, with all the strings attached. This is the infrastructure that “I am a liberal” mentions in item 13. “Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc — need to start listening, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that’s causing people to be marginalized.”
“Go ahead, make my day.” In an ironic touch, Clint Eastwood is back in the news. Clint Eastwood endorses Michael Bloomberg over Trump. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
John S. McCain And Bernie Sanders
The latest podcast addiction is a Slate production called Whistlestop. WS (whistlestop, not water sports) is about presidential elections. On top of the home page is a header ad. At first it had a picture of Hillary, with the message “I’m with her.” Now, it is a prescription medication, side effects scrolling slowly on the right. The side effects of Hillary are more obvious. (This repost was first published 02-13-2016) The side effect of the Hillary Clinton candidacy is the Donald Trump presidency.)
Episode 24 is When the Straight Talk Express Rolled Through New Hampshire. In the 2000 election, George W. Bush was the anointed candidate for the Republicans. Challenging him in New Hampshire was John S. McCain. The winner in New Hampshire was Senator McCain. The winner of the nomination, and ultimately the Presidency, was George W. Bush.
The WS story is about how JSM got the 2000 New Hampshire voters on his side. The 2008 story will, no doubt, be a future episode of WS. JSM did the whole Straight Talk routine, and won the nomination. JSM chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Whether JSM had a chance, after eight years of W, is a good question. BHO won the 2008 election. John McCain died August 25, 2018.
In Georgia, the electoral votes are all but conceded to the Republicans. The only time we get to choose is the primary. In 2008, PG saw the two choices were John McCain and Barack Obama. Both had flaws, but both offered alternatives to the nonsense of Mike Huckabee and John Edwards. After thinking about it, PG remembered that John McCain dropped napalm on women and children. So PG voted for Barack Obama. Once elected, BHO would fire hellfire missiles at women and children.
In the 2016 Georgia primary, there were five candidates: Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio. PG did not like any of them. He decided to vote for the best looking candidate, Marco Rubio. On February 13, 2020, we still do not know who will be a viable candidate during the Georgia primary. PG will make up his mind while walking to the school, to cast his vote. PG will probably hold his nose while doing so.
‘The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys and the Shrub’ David Foster Wallace covered the McCain campaign for Rolling Stone. He was always good for a few thousand words, often in the first sentence. DFW had a few thoughts about why JSM was so popular.
“Because we’ve been lied to and lied to, and it hurts to be lied to. It’s ultimately just about that complicated: it hurts. We learn this at like age four—it’s grownups’ first explanation to us of why it’s bad to lie (“How would you like it if … ?”). And we keep learning for years, from hard experience, that getting lied to sucks—that it diminishes you, denies you respect for yourself, for the liar, for the world. Especially if the lies are chronic, systemic, if experience seems to teach that everything you’re supposed to believe in’s really just a game based on lies. … It’s painful to believe that the would-be “public servants” you’re forced to choose between are all phonies whose only real concern is their own care and feeding and who will lie so outrageously and with such a straight face that you know they’ve just got to believe you’re an idiot.”
In 2016, the outlaw candidate was Bernie Sanders, who has no middle name. He won a big victory in New Hampshire. BS is lying through his teeth. He says he will make college tuition free, and install single payer socialized medicine. Everyone knows these are lies (BS²) and yet the Bernoids play along. (Earlier this week, BS won a slim victory over Amy Jean Klobuchar, and Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg, in the New Hampshire primary.)
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These men never voted in a presidential primary.
Two Old Posts About Bernie
What follows are two posts from January 2016. One of them features a video by Robert Reich, and Moveon.org. This past week saw this story: MoveOn calls on Sanders to renounce Joe Rogan endorsement. Chamblee54 does not know, or care, what Robert Reich thinks about Joe Rogan.
When you have a political contest based on what people say, it is not surprising that a lot of what they say is nonsense. Yesterday there was an video on facebook, Six responses to Bernie skeptics. Important person wannabe Robert Reich writes a bunch of stuff on a board. Mr. Reich is on the screen by himself, without any attempt at perspective. Many people do not know that Robert Reich is four foot eleven, just like many people did not know FDR was crippled. The video script is widely available, which will make this counter commentary a bit easier.
The video has comebacks to six things Bernie naysayers might offer. The first is that Bernie cannot beat Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in a general election. Mr. Reich has polls that say BS would beat the Donald, and control Cruz. The election is November 8, two days after the clocks are turned back. This is a long time from now. There will be time for Repub dirty tricksters to come up with dirt on Bernie.
As Hillary Clinton found out, the popular vote is meaningless. The election is decided by the Electoral College. Most states are written off as solid red or true blue. Only “swing state” voters get a vote. A national poll in January cannot predict what Ohio voters will do in November. (BS has been silent on the issue of electoral college reform.)
Reason number two is pure number two. The simple truth is that Republicans control congress, and will defeat the BS agenda. (Those are the initials of Bernard no-middle-name Sanders. Any similarity to bovine excrement is coincidence.) The Republican presence in government is reinforced with gerrymandering, money, lapdog press, money, lawyers, guns, money, Jesus exploiters, and more money. The Reich answer: “But there’s a higher likelihood of kicking Republicans out if Bernie’s “political revolution” continues to surge around America, bringing with it millions of young people and other voters, and keeping them politically engaged.”
Number three is semantic shade. “America would never elect a socialist.” “What we have now is socialism, and people don’t realize it.” Both statements are true. It is just that we don’t call Social Security communism. Just like people say they support small government, while sending half a million boots to a desert eight time zones away. There is a lot of “irony” in today’s political circus. That is how the game is played.
Number four is about the cost of single payer healthcare. The truth is that nobody knows. We have a broken system, and installed a compromise fix. When we finally go to single payer healthcare, there is no way to know how it will play out. Maybe the BS proposal will be cheaper, maybe it will be horribly expensive. The current system is too unfair to live, too profitable to die.
Number five is an argument that few have heard. ““His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules.” When you make up an argument, it is easy to make up the reply. In this case, there is more rhetoric and semantics. The federal government has sent money into the education pipeline for years. The money comes with strings attached. This is no surprise to anyone except Sarah Palin.
Number six is a doozy. Yes, BS is in his seventies. No, we don’t see him huffing on an oxygen tank after he gives a speech. We just have to take the word of his supporters that he is the picture of vigorous health. Why would Robert Reich ever want to lie to you?
“In any event, the issue isn’t age; it’s having the right values. FDR was paralyzed, and JFK had both Addison’s and Crohn’s diseases, but they were great presidents because they fought adamantly for social and economic justice.” FDR and JFK were known by their initials. FDR helped get us involved in World War Two. JFK, who served less than three years, was presented as being full of vi-gah, when in truth he was seriously ill. Both FDR and JFK had extramarital affairs, which only the staunchest BS groupie wants to know about.
Pictures for your politically incorrect repost are from The Library of Congress. These pictures are soldiers from the War Between the States. They did not post food pictures on facebook.
@BernieSanders “I got into politics not to figure out how to become President. I got into politics because I give a damn.” The old tweeter sent this message December 11, 2015, at 4:42 pm Sanders Standard Time. At last glance, it was retweeted 25,901 times, and liked 44,263 times.
What exactly is a damn? When you give one, do you gift wrap it? The dictionary says that damn is a verb, meaning “condemn to a punishment or fate; especially : to condemn to hell.” Giving a verb is not good grammar. Damn is considered a mild profanity, which adds polemic punch.
History gives us a second opinion. “In 1665, Aurangzeb, or Abul Muzaffar Muhi-ud-Din Mohammad Aurangzeb. (A real mouthful of a name!) was the emperor of the Mughal empire. He ruled from 1658 until his death in 1707. Aurangzeb had coins minted in precious metals as well as copper. The copper denominations were one Dam and one half Dam.”
At some point after the invention of the copper dam, Great Britain conquered the Mughal empire. By this time, the dam was worth twice as much as a half dam. According to some unverified sources, British soldiers would say that something was not worth a dam. Some said they would not give a dam. The profaning n was added, and a saying for apathy entered the english language.
How much is a dam/damn worth? To people living downhill from the lake, a dam is valuable. As for the numismatic value of an ancient copper coin: “By looking at both catalog values for copper Dams minted in the Mughal calendar year of 1075 (Western date 1665) … we can provide the following very approximate values for copper half-Dams and Dams minted in the name of Aurangzeb: worn: $4, average circulated: $7, well preserved: $30.”
Getting back to BS, he probably used the conventional meaning of GAD, which is that he cares. Or maybe, he meant that he gives a dollar. If current economic trends hold up, the dollar might not be worth a dam. The welfare state proposals of BS, according to the admittedly biased Wall Street Journal, would cost $18 Trillion. This would effectively double the national debt. If we get mixed up in another war, or if a nuclear power plant blows up, another few trillion might go down the tubes.
Only the most deluded Bernoids expect college tuition to be free in 2018. BS is talking a good game, but most people know his pants are on fire. One person who is offended because BS won’t step up the lies is Ta-Nehisi Coates. If reparations are added onto free college tuition, then the value of the dollar might go below a half dam. Pictures for snowstorm Saturday are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
War Letters
In the winter of 2003, it was obvious that America was going to war. Congress had voted approval, the modern version of a declaration of war. The troops. and supplies, were on the borders of Iraq, waiting for the order to go in.
PG felt the need to make a statement. There was no illusion that it would affect the overall decision to invade Iraq. However, PG wanted to go on record as being opposed to the folly to come.
It was a low risk act. In America, we have freedom of expression. This does not mean that the powers that be listen to the people. The only expression that matters is by people who pay the authorities. The people can say anything, but nobody in charge listens.
There were three representatives in Congress to contact. The two Senators were Saxby Chambliss and Zell Miller. The 4th district was represented in the House of Representatives by Denise Majette. She was new to Congress, having defeated Cynthia McKinney in the 2002 election.
The area that PG lives in is gerrymandered into different districts every ten years by the Georgia legislature. Today, PG is in the 6th district, represented by Democrat Lucy McBath.
The letters are lost in hard drive crash fog. It started out with the phrase “you were elected to represent me.” Apparently, this left Zell Miller out. He has been appointed to finish the term of Paul Coverdell. Democrat Zell Miller was appointed by Democrat Governor Roy Barnes to complete the term of Republican Paul Coverdell. After this, Zell Miller gave the keynote address at the 2004 Republican Convention. This is what Georgia has come to expect from Zig Zag Zell.
The anti war letter was not great writing. It basically said that the invasion of Iraq was not a good idea. The letter did not address the tax cut. In a bizarre move, Congress approved a tax cut, with an economically ruinous war on the horizon.
The responses to the letter are attached here. Denise Majette gave a thoughtful reply. She did not say “I agree with you” in so many words, but it is clear she is not gung ho about killing Iraqis. Miss Majette said, and PG agrees, that once the war begins, the debate should cease.
Saxby Chambliss sent two replies. Both talked about how well the war was going, and how wonderful it was to be killing people in Iraq. It is a good question whether his staff read the original letter from PG, which opposed the war.
In the 2004 election, Denise Majette ran for the Senate. Zell Miller chose to retire, and his seat was up for grabs. Republican Johnny Isakson won the Senate seat. Cynthia McKinney made a comeback, and won the fourth district House seat.
Saxby Chambliss was re-elected in 2008, and retired in 2014. The conflict in Iraq continues to this day. It is a disaster. The withdrawal of American combat troops did not end the civil war. Currently, Iraq is the scene for combat operations from the Islamic State military force.
The financial burden of the war has been immense. The military depends on contractors for many basic services, at increased cost to the Asian war financiers. The National debt has been increasing by a trillion dollars a year. Revenge for nine eleven, directed at a marginally responsible country, has been horribly expensive. Pictures for today’s entertainment message are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This is a repost.
Racist Romance Writer Smackdown
In twitterland, there is a list of trending topics. The other day, the top trend was #IStandWithCourtney The trend topping #ISWC tweet: Jingle Elle Maruska (they/them) @ellle_em “#IStandWithCourtney Calling out racism is not being racist Pointing out someone’s unethical behavior is not being unethical I stand with Courtney because white feelings are in no way more important than fighting for marginalized people’s right to exist in any & all spaces” If you think you know where this is headed, you are probably correct.
Perez Hilton puts it all in a nutshell. “What’s it all about? It’s about racism, injustice, and of course erotic tales of ribald fantasy. Yep, it’s drama in the world of romance novelists! This month the Romance Writers of America suspended author Courtney Milan (presumably asking her to turn in her badge and her quill) over what they called a violation of their code of ethics.”
“So what had Milan, the author of such historical Harlequins as A Kiss For Midwinter … done to deserve this literary excommunication? Apparently fellow novelists Suzan Tisdale (Secrets of the Heart) and Kathryn Lynn Davis (Too Deep For Tears) filed a formal complaint over a twitter thread … in which Milan — a Chinese American author — called out one of Davis’ books for being racist.”
Smart Bitches Trashy Books, LLC has more on this bodice-ripping badass, with documentation galore. (Davis complaint, Tisdale complaint I, Tisdale complaint II) “… whether it’s a publishing house deciding that a contract with a white supremacist is a good idea, or a writer’s organization deciding that white supremacy is the right decision ethically … “
The twitter thread is can’t-miss reading. @courtneymilan read a sample of Somewhere lies the moon. There was a twitter reaction, that will live in infamy. @courtneymilan “And we’ve been talking about Sue Grimshaw? Someone sent me a link to a book written by the other editor, Kathryn Lynn Davis, and is a fucking racist mess.”
The Davis complaint notes that the Milan opinion is based on reading a sample of SLTM. By her own admission, @courtneymilan did not finish the sample, much less read the book. @courtneymilan “Here’s the book. I didn’t finish the sample. I didn’t need to.”
Racism smackdown fans are probably asking, what was so fucking racist messy about SLTM? The accuser is Chinese-American, as is the racially besmirched character. No forbidden words, beginning with N, were used. It is not that type of racism.
The damning nanoagressions are documented in a series of tweets. Here are a few. The part following a link is by @courtneymilan. Transcribed screen shots are identified as (SS). If you click on the link, you can see the entire screen shot. This might help you understand the situation better.
@courtneymilan “This book is like a bingo card of OH GOD DID YOU REALLY. Start out with the heroine, who is the obligatory blue-eyed half-Chinese woman.” (SS) “Lian was twenty-five, tall and lithe, with the thick black hair and bronze skin of the Chinese”@courtneymilan “I mean…. that doesn’t really happen. (Genevra is half-Indian and also blue-eyed.) But also… like. Of course. This is like such a standard racist trope. WHY.”
@courtneymilan “Here is our half-Chinese woman remembering her past, where she is explicitly told that the future is the West, and that for Chinese women, compliance is the rule. SIGH.” (SS)”I am a captive of my own history, but I have raised you to be free, to move forward toward the future – and the future is the West.” “I was no’ askin’ what your parents wanted, but what ye want for yourself” “It is not important. It is not a question I ask myself. In China Shun, compliance, is the rule for women”
@courtneymilan “Here she is, meeting another Chinese family in London. I’m gonna be honest: I don’t know how I feel about “bronze” as the “standard” for Chinese skin (prior tweets), but I *do* know how I feel about “yellow.” And about almond eyes.” (SS) “…their thick blue-black hair and bronze faces, turned slightly yellow by the London climate, were unmistakably Chinese, as were their slanted almond eyes” @courtneymilan “Note that this in Lian’s point of view. She was raised in China. She only describes the Chinese people by skin color/eye slant, not the white people. She’s literally describing absolutely normal people to her as if she were a white woman talking about a foreigner.”
@courtneymilan “Oh, I was searching for something else and found this: In China, women didn’t learn anything.” (SS) “In China, no woman was taught much more than cooking and sewing and the graceful art of pleasing her husband.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Tulsi Clickbait
Tulsi Gabbard and the Return of the Anti-Anti-Trump Left This link turned up on facebook, with a comment. “I’ve read assertions from credible sources (Clinton et al) that Gabbard is a Russian asset. That and her anti-gay past that she suddenly disavowed are causes for concern.”
The “anti gay past” was news to PG. A quick trip to google turned up an article, Gabbard says deploying to the Middle East changed her views on LGBT rights PG replied, “Whatever her shortcomings, Ms. Gabbard has made opposition to regime change wars the focus of her campaign. I can see where this would be disturbing to “credible sources (Clinton et al)”. Remember who is financed by the military industrial complex.” The rest of the thread was facebook back and forth. It ended before anyone made a Hitler comparison.
@NYMag “The stage is set for Tulsi Gabbard to play the role of 2020’s Jill Stein. @jonathanchait writes” This turned up on twitter a bit later. PG decided to take the plunge, and read the article.
1163 words later, PG had a headache. The pastel prose went off on unfathomable tangents, like “Some anti-anti-Trump leftists see impeachment not merely as a distraction from the Sanders revolution but a deliberate effort to marginalize it.”
PG began to wonder. Where was the Gabbard anti-gay rhetoric? For that matter, where was Tulsi, period. PG copied the article into a word document. He replaced “Gabbard” with “GABBARD.” Out of 1163 words, Gabbard appears three times. The last Gabbard sighting was in the third paragraph.
The article is not about Tulsi Gabbard. It is a barely comprehensible @jonathanchait rant about the evils of the incorrect resistance. Tulsi Gabbard has become clickbait. Her candidacy struggles to stay afloat. She has become a renegade who must be shamed. At the same time, Ms. Gabbard is well known enough for her picture to harvest eyeballs.
Tulsi Gabbard preaches opposition to regime change wars. These wars have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims, while enriching the Hillary military-industrial complex. The merchants of death can easily afford to pay pundits to slime incinvenient candidates. And to use this candidate as the attention magnet, for some half witted rambling on the 2020 election.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
About That Ta-Nehisi Coates Video
So there is this video, Ta-Nehisi Coates on words that don’t belong to everyone It is being praised to high heaven. PG has some issues with this entertainment. The transcript is from vox, Ta-Nehisi Coates has an incredibly clear explanation for why white people shouldn’t use the n-word. This is a repost, with pictures from The Library of Congress.
TNC gave an interview once, The Playboy Interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. (The link no longer works.) “The n$$$$$ thing? I understand if you’re black and you say, “Man, I had white people call me this shit all my life. They called me this shit when they hit me upside the head, and I don’t want to hear it.” I understand that. But that ain’t everybody’s experience. I’ve never had a white person call me a n$$$$$. I had somebody call me le négre here in France, but I was 38 years old and I couldn’t have cared less. It didn’t mean anything. So not all of us come out of that experience.”
The monolog starts off with a discussion about how some words are appropriate for some people to use, but others should not say them. “My wife, with her girl friend, will use the word bitch. I do not join in. You know what I’m saying? I don’t do that. I don’t do that. And perhaps more importantly, I don’t have a desire to do it.” The question arises: is his wife a four legged dog? Unless she is, then the b-word does not apply to her.
“Coates pointed to another example — of a white friend who used to have a cabin in upstate New York that he called “the white trash cabin.” “I would never refer to that cabin” in that way. I would never tell him, ‘I’m coming to your white trash cabin.’” Of course, a person with an upstate cabin is likely to be far removed from the trailer park. He is using *white trash* with irony, and would not be the least offended if TNC called it “the white trash cabin.”
“The question one must ask is why so many white people have difficulty extending things that are basic laws of how human beings interact to black people.” (Is TNC saying that black people are not human beings?) … “When you’re white in this country, you’re taught that everything belongs to you. You think you have a right to everything. … You’re conditioned this way. It’s not because your hair is a texture or your skin is light. It’s the fact that the laws and the culture tell you this. You have a right to go where you want to go, do what you want to do, be however — and people just got to accommodate themselves to you.”
At this point, PG turned off the video in anger. He has never been taught that everything belongs to him. Nobody that PG knows has been taught that. PG does not know anyone who teaches that message. This is a lie. It makes PG not want to believe anything else that TNC says. Maybe there is some privilege/culture mumbo-jumbo that explains this concept.
Lets go back a minute to the white trash cabin. TNC does not want to use this phrase. And yet, he feels entitled to make a sweeping generalization like “When you’re white in this country, you’re taught that everything belongs to you.” It is wrong to say white trash, but ok to slander white people.
“So here comes this word that you feel like you invented, And now somebody will tell you how to use the word that you invented. ‘Why can’t I use it? Everyone else gets to use it. You know what? That’s racism that I don’t get to use it. You know, that’s racist against me. You know, I have to inconvenience myself and hear this song and I can’t sing along. How come I can’t sing along?’”
“The experience of being a hip-hop fan and not being able to use the word ‘ni**er’ is actually very, very insightful.” To begin with, why do you assume that PG is a hip hop fan? Many white people think hip hop is garbage. And so, if you are forced to listen to music that you don’t like, how does that make you want to use a word that degrades the user? The logic of TNC is falling apart faster than the Falcons pass defense in the Super Bowl.
“It will give you just a little peek into the world of what it means to be black. Because to be black is to walk through the world and watch people doing things that you cannot do, that you can’t join in and do. So I think there’s actually a lot to be learned from refraining.”
If you are in the mood to get yelled at for a half hour, you can ask someone about “things that you cannot do, that you can’t join in and do.” There might be some. If you go along with the rhetoric so far, you will probably believe what you hear. You might even understand why not using a nasty word will give you “a little peek into the world of what it means to be black.” As for PG, he seriously doubts this. He is not someone who says that this video is “an incredibly clear explanation for why white people shouldn’t use the n-word.”
Once upon a time, cigarettes were advertised on television. One new brand was a cigarette for women, Virginia Slims. The ability to kill yourself with tobacco was presented as being a privilege. Some wondered why women would want to take up this filthy habit. Today, African Americans have the privilege of using the n-word. What a deal. A nasty word, which degrades both the speaker, and the spoken of. Why would anyone want to use that word?
If you don’t have anything good to say, you can talk about the n-word. This *trigger* word is an aphrodisiac for the american body politic. Recently Ta-Nehisi Coates performed in a video, Ta-Nehisi Coates on words that don’t belong to everyone There is much praise for this entertainment, like this: @SneakerWonk “#TaNehisiCoates has an incredibly clear #explanation for why #whitepeople shouldnt use the #nword.” PG has a few paragraphs, about this video, in the text above.
PG has written about racism, anti-racism, and racial attitudes on many occasions. People get angry, and call PG rude names. He must be doing something right. Later, there was a double feature about James Baldwin. In the first half, Mr. Baldwin expresses a few opinions about that word. In the second half, PG substituted racist for the magic word, with interesting results.
One item that keeps coming up is speculation about who invented the n-word. Negro means black in Spanish, and is derived from a latin word. The Oxford English Dictionary has some usages going back to 1577. “1577 E. Hellowes tr. A. de Guevara Familiar Epist. (new ed.) 389 The Massagetes bordering vpon the Indians, and the Nigers of Aethiop [Sp. los negros en Ethiopia], bearing witnesse. ~ 1584 R. Scot Discouerie Witchcraft vii. xv. 153 A skin like a Niger. ~ 1608 A. Marlowe Let. 22 June in E. India Co. Factory Rec. (1896) I. 10 The King and People [of ‘Serro Leona’] N$$$$$$, simple and harmless.
The TNC video is based on the concept that white people want to use the magic word, but should not. This assumes a great deal. Chamblee54 published a piece about the n-word, that spelled out why he does not like to use this noun/verb/adjective/adverb/interjection. Here are four reasons for a white person to refrain from saying america’s favorite dirty word.
1- The n-word hurts people’s feelings. PG has known many fine Black people. He does not want to say anything that will hurt these people.
2- Being heard saying the n-word can cause all sorts of problems. This can include physical retribution, loss of employment, lawsuits, and having to listen to enough loud angry words to make you wish you had never learned how to talk.
3- It is not a fair fight. There is no equivalent phrase for a Black Person to say to a White person. Why give that power to another group of people … to turn you into a mass of incoherent rage, just for hearing a six letter word. The closest thing is “Cracker”, which PG only recently found out was an insult. There used to be a minor league baseball team, the Atlanta Crackers.
4- The use of the n-word demeans the user. When you say an insulting word about another human being, you make yourself look bad. For a Black person, using the n-word degrades them as the object, as well as the speaker. Why would a person would want to do that?
Fifty Six Years
Fifty six years ago, John Kennedy went to the oval office in the sky. The bullets hit Mr.Kennedy at 12:30 pm, CST. He arrived at the hospital at 12:37. He had a faint heartbeat on arrival, but quickly succumbed to his wounds.
In Georgia, PG was nine years old. He was in Miss Mckenzie’s fourth grade class. There was going to be an assembly soon, and the class was going to perform. There was a rehearsal in the cafetorium, and some of the kids were acting up. They went back to the class, and PG thought they were going to be chewed out about the misbehavior in the cafetorium. Instead, Miss Mckenzie came into the room, and told the kids that President Kennedy had been shot during a parade in Dallas Texas. She did not say anything about his condition. One kid cheered the news.
School let out at the regular time, and PG walked home. His mother and brother were crying. He was told that the president had died. The cub scouts meeting that afternoon was canceled.
Later that night, a plane arrived in Washington. The tv cameras showed a gruesome looking man walk up to a microphone. He was introduced as President Lyndon Johnson. This may have been the worst moment of that day. Photographs for this repost today are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Wrestle With A Pig
This is a repost from November 9, 2008. This was written after the 2008 election. This election saw a mixed-race man become President. It also had the passage of something called Proposition 8. This was a California ballot initiative banning same sex marriage. Prop 8 was made obsolete by a SCOTUS decision, on June 26, 2015, legalizing same sex marriage.
The fallout from Prop 8 is what this post is about. The links to much of the content here no longer work. What is still true today is the wisdom of an old saying: Never wrestle with a pig. You will get dirty, and the hog will enjoy himself. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
This blog battle started with the passage of Proposition 8 in California. PG was not surprised at the result. Nor was he surprised that an estimated 70% of black votors opposed the measure.
Some people in LA had a protest outside a Mormon facility. The Mormon church financed a large chunk of the ad campaign supporting Prop 8. At the rally, according to reports, some protesters expressed their displeasure at black people to some African Americans in attendance. The n-word was heard. (The correspondent to the linked report was not at the rally. He is depending on people telling him what they heard.)
PG first heard of this at a local blog. He left this comment: “Two wrongs do not make a right. The African American Jesus Worship Church has been spewing out hatred of Gays and Lesbians for years. They were a big factor in the passage of proposition 8. This does not justify what allegedly happened at that rally. I say allegedly because I was not there. I take what Jasmyne Cannick says with a grain of salt. While a handful of people shouting the n-word is too much, I can’t help but wonder if it was really as bad as these reports say.” PG thought he would hear more. He was correct.
Mr. Pink (not their real name) has butted heads with PG before. Mr. Pink pulled out the rhetorical artillery on this one. The rally was a “glorified klan rally” with “pink robed cross burners”. There were comments about the “Gay Mafia”, why Prop 8 lost, and a lot of other things. The conversation was on Live-Journal. It is difficult to link to in 2019.
The one comment that caught PG’s eye was “Operation: Blame The Negroes rages on as gay leaders continue to scapegoat blacks for the passing of Prop 8 in California. Among those leading the charge are columnists Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage.” PG was curious what Mr. Sullivan had said, and who Dan Savage was. The commentary by Mr. Pink did not have links back to the comments by Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Savage. PG went wading through Mr. Sullivan’s blog, which was quite a chore. Andrew Sullivan posts a lot of material. Finally, PG found a reference to a column by Dan Savage. It turns out Mr. Savage writes a sex advice column for a Seattle Gay Newspaper. PG wonders who appointed him a community leader.
PG made a comment, using the name Chamblee54. The first comment listed the links to Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Savage. He added “As for the rally in Westwood, what I am reading sets off my b.s. detector. While shouting race slurs is wrong, I was not at the rally. I have to take the word of the reports on the internet. Frankly, I don’t believe the race baiting at that rally was more than a few fringe performers. I could be wrong, and there is really no way to find out for sure. The point is, you cannot believe everything you read. You should do a bit of research, and not just paste in verbatim from other sources.”
Mr. Pink was not amused. ”First of all, what happened in Westwood has been covered extensively by everyone from Jasmyne Cannick to the Huffington Post. Those people aren’t making up what happened….Fourth of all don’t f*****g tell me about researching my sources just because you don’t want to hear the truth that the gay community is filled with some bottom-feeding bigots. It’s that blind-eye mentality which is why shit is so f****d up now. Next time you tell somebody to do more research, take your own f*****g advice.” He did not offer any more links.
PG replied “If you are going to say that “Among those leading the charge are columnists Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage,” then you should supply links so we can say what they said.” He also asked for a link to a post at the Huffington Post about the rally in Westwood. PG went looking at the HuffPo, but could not find anything about the rally in Westwood with the race baiting. PG did find a report of a rally in San Diego, where the crowd protested the passage of Prop 8 without apparent incident.
Mr. Pink replied “And once again, still full of fail. Go read Racialicious to read Savage’s bigoted comments blaming black people for the passing of Prop 8. Because we’re all homophobic and we’re all racist…I’ve got the links and I’ve done my research but since you’re so hellbent on defending these bigots regardless, you can look it up yourself as you’re going to believe what you want in spite of what the facts say.” When you lose your cool, you lose the argument.
PG replied ”I am paying you a compliment by paying attention. When you quote someone, or accuse them of “leading the charge”, it is not too much to ask to provide a link so the reader can see for themselves what was said.”
This is no longer about protesters shouting racial slurs at African Americans. He does not doubt that it is possible, while suspecting it was a tiny part of the overall crowd. To PG, the issue is basic journalism. When you say someone is “leading the charge”, you should provide a link to the original comments. The reader can judge what the person says. The reader can also decide whether to get upset, about the musings of a sex advice columnist.
The final reply was by Mr. Pink. He said “fair enough”, and listed a series of links. There was not a link to Huffington Post.
The moral of this story is that you should not believe everything you read. And, when you go telling tales on the internet, it is easy enough to show links to the source of your information. You should do it. If you give a teacher a term paper, you are expected to use footnotes to show where you got your information. When you go posting on your blog, you should use the same standard.
PG condemns the use of racial slurs, including *racist.* PG also condemns the branding of bystanders as bigots, because someone in the same crowd uses a racial slur.
Georgia Voter Registration
This is a repost. This time last year, the election from hell was in hyper-demagouge mode. Stacey Abrams was handed a potent issue, and worked it to death. It wasn’t until after the voting that many of us learned that the counties count the votes, and register voters. While tales of voter suppression cannot be completely ignored, it now appears obvious that we were repeatedly lied to.
@LEBassett “1.Brian Kemp is running for GA gov against Stacey Abrams (a black woman) 2. Kemp is in charge of elections & voter registration 3. Kemp made a new “exact match” rule that is holding up 53,000 voter registrations…. NEARLY 70% OF THEM BLACK 4. THIS IS ALL I WANT TO TALK ABOUT” There is nothing like getting your news from twitter.
Voting rights become a flashpoint in Georgia governor’s race The story gets attention. Georgia is holding up 53k voter registrations. 70% of these registrations are black people, according to an undocumented AP story. These registrations are in the Secretary of State’s office. The current SOS, Brian Kemp, is the Republican candidate for Governor. Mr. Kemp is white. His Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, is black. As you might imagine, the sensation-driven media is in outrage mode.
“An analysis of the records obtained by The Associated Press reveals racial disparity … the list of voter registrations on hold with Kemp’s office is nearly 70 percent black.” No link is provided for the analysis, which is likely to be true. Assuming that is factual … a dangerous proposition three weeks before an election … the next question should be How do they know.? Is the race of the voter on the voter registration application?
STATE OF GEORGIA APPLICATION FOR VOTER REGISTRATION is your basic government form. On line 4, after telephone number, date of birth, and gender (a two check box male/female), we have race/ethnicity: White, Hispanic/Latino, Black, American Indian, Other (with a blank space), Asian/Pacific Islander. Qualifications include: “Have not been found mentally incompetent by a judge.” Does this requirement apply to candidates?
“Why must I indicate my race or ethnic group? The federal government requires South Carolina to document race or ethnic group for voters by the National Voter Registration Act.” This is the standard answer. The documentation for Georgia can be found at Voter Registration Statistics. If you are a statistics junkie, here is your fix for today.
Georgia has an regulation requiring voter registration to have an “exact match” with information already on file with the Georgia Department of Drivers Services (DDS) or Social Security Administration (SSA). “In 2017, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed into law House Bill 268, which codified a voter registration database “exact match” protocol that had been already shown to disproportionately and negatively impact the ability of voting eligible African American, Latino and Asian American applicants to register to vote.” The regulation was not created by Brian Kemp.
Georgia Knew Its Voter Roll Practice Was Discriminatory. It Stuck With It Anyway. The implication of the recent stories is that applications are being targeted by race. Of course, many, if not most, of the clerks reviewing these applications are black. And how would the state know if the voters were black, if it was not on the application?
New FPCA Form Eliminates the Obnoxious Race Question takes a look from another perspective. Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) is designed to help military personnel overseas obtain absentee ballots. With regards to the *race question*, authorities here give the standard answer: “Also, many states ask that you provide your race or ethnic group in order to demonstrate that they are complying with the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act.” This sentence has a footnote. “I have reviewed both the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (“Motor Voter”), “), and I do not find any provision requiring the states to report to the Federal Government on the race of voters.” The article goes on to describe a Texas election. Absentee ballots were disputed because they were cast by non-Hispanic voters.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Chamblee54 
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