https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/pullman-national-monument/

Pullman is a site of railroad and labor and political history. You can google all the details...

My SO grew up in Pullman in the 50's and 60's in very very modest means. Her mother was widowed while the SO was in utero, and she never knew her dad. Her life was rescued by a loving family that secured a home for her in a Pullman brownstone that had been bought by her Slovakian immigrant grandfather from the savings made as a fruit and vegetable peddler. Her mother worked in the Sherwin Williams paint facility there, and she died at age 52.

Nonetheless, like many living in Pullman, the dream of a better life was strong in the family and in the SO. She struggled, earned scholarships, in the end graduating from University of North Carolina. MANY amazing stories of families struggling and kids finally making it have come out of Pullman. There are indeed dozens of MDs, dentists, lawyers, and PhDs from her generation, rising from deep poverty of the depression, and the collapse of the Pullman Railcar industry

Now, her grandpa's rowhouse, the nest place of her life and her 2 preceding generations on Langley Ave, as humble a tenament as ever existed in any immigrant community in America, is saved on the exterior as part of the National Historic Park maybe forever. No greedy Republican president can wipe out the National Park status with the stroke of a pen.

This has been one of her lifes greatest passions... passing on the legacy of the upward dream of Pullman's international and, yes, domestic immigrants from the Great Migration. Every year she helps score essays for "Pullman Scholars" seeking scholarships.

For an elderly white woman she's feeling the celebration pretty good tonite.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-s-new-regiment-sounds-warning-to-finland/ar-AA16rmtZ?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=d3a938124cfa422b8402e2fe65ef9d46

Russians are talking about raising tensions in Karelia, the region that borders most of Finland. It's long been a region where the Russians are uncomfortable. In 98 and 99 I spent summers on research in Karelia and no non-Russian was allowed within miles of the Russo-Finnish border.

It's a naturally beautiful place, if you like Birch and Boreal forest, tremendously reminiscent of northern MN

a time when small majorities lead to blackmail hacks by radicals?

I remember a time when the US democracy was taught to students in Civics classes as a game of compromise. But that no longer holds.

We've seen Sinema and Manchin obstructing the Democratic Party's goals in the waning weeks of Democratic control of both houses and the presidency. In that special window we might have wished to have been spent on getting everything that could be done, done.

And now we see a similar problem with intra-party obstructionism in the R's trying to elect a speaker.

It's a time of peculiar math. More and more equal representation of the left and right produces smaller majorities... under the old paradigm we might have expected legislators to recognize that and invoke compromise and cooperation that seems to become -more- necessary.

But, at least as it is represented in the media, we don't see an increase in compromise or sharing between the parties. What we see is that smaller and smaller majorities mean radicals have greater and greater ability to successfully obstruct projects/agendas of their own parties. Rather than promoting broad consensus on less radical bills, this hacking/highjacking/blackmailing of compromise maintains the politics of radical minority agendas

This obstructionism also seems to be confused with true leadership power. It isn't. Obstructing radicals are no more leaders of the legislative bodies than a hostage taking blackmailer is a community leader.

But they ARE opportunists, of the worst type. They exploit small majorities for radical advantage where, for practical math reasons, compromise ought to be promoted.

Yes, this is what our Democracy looks like. We either tolerate/endorse this as a feature, or find paths to bigger majorities, or evolve/accept systems of voting which protect against radical minorities blackmailing the will of the majorities.

From the Youngbloods



Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand, listen
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command
Come on, people now

Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Younger folks may have no knowlege of that time

Control of Control of
House Senate in that order left to right
73rd (1933–1935) Democrats Democrats
74th (1935–1937) Democrats Democrats
75th (1937–1939) Democrats Democrats
76th (1939–1941) Democrats Democrats
77th (1941–1943) Democrats Democrats
78th (1943–1945) Democrats Democrats
79th (1945–1947) Democrats Democrats
80th (1947–1949) Republicans Republicans
81st (1949–1951) Democrats Democrats
82nd (1951–1953) Democrats Democrats
83rd (1953–1955) Republicans Republicans
84th (1955–1957) Democrats Democrats
85th (1957–1959) Democrats Democrats
86th (1959–1961) Democrats Democrats
87th (1961–1963) Democrats Democrats
88th (1963–1965) Democrats Democrats
89th (1965–1967) Democrats Democrats
90th (1967–1969) Democrats Democrats
91st (1969–1971) Democrats Democrats
92nd (1971–1973) Democrats Democrats
93rd (1973–1975) Democrats Democrats
94th (1975–1977) Democrats Democrats
95th(1977–1979) Democrats Democrats
96th (1979–1981) Democrats Democrats
97th (1981–1983) Democrats Republicans
98th (1983–1985) Democrats Republicans
99th (1985–1987) Democrats Republicans
100th (1987–1989) Democrats Democrats
101st (1989–1991) Democrats Democrats
102nd (1991–1993) Democrats Democrats

then

103rd (1993–1995) Democrats Democrats
104th (1995–1997) Republicans Republicans
105th (1997–1999) Republicans Republicans
106th (1999–2001) Republicans Republicans
107th (2001–2003) Republicans Republicans/Democrats
108th (2003–2005) Republicans Republicans
109th (2005–2007) Republicans Republicans
110th (2007–2009) Democrats Democrats
111th (2009–2011) Democrats Democrats
112th (2011–2013) Republicans Democrats
113th (2013–2015) Republicans Democrats
114th (2015–2017) Republicans Republicans
115th (2017–2019) Republicans Republicans
116th (2019–2021) Democrats Republicans

In this morning's array of stories on MSN.COM

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/leaked-documents-indicate-over-300-members-of-far-right-paramilitary-oath-keepers-may-be-current-or-former-dhs-employees-project-on-government-oversight-reports/ar-AA15co6u?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=37fa99cdf93c4c818f8dfa70e8255b10

story actually by cdavis@insider.com

A leaked membership list suggests that Oath Keepers have infiltrated the Department of Homeland Security.
More than 300 members of the paramilitary group describe themselves as current or former DHS employees.
DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

I'm looking for texts that cover discussions and/or history of any of the following...

The contemporary geography of US anti-federalism,

The wash-and-repeat cycle of anti-federalist popularity,

Anti-federalism and the radical right,

Anti-federalism, the religious right

Anti-federalism and Jurisprudence, which is to say anti-federalism and the contemporary Federal Court System... In this vein I'm thinking of criticism of such as anti-federalism and originalism, anti-federalist interpretations of the Constitution, the role of anti-federalism in guiding the direction of contemporary American governance, regulation/management of society, etc.

Thanks.

I know this site as lots more collective experience than me, and I look forward to recommendations

Lots of thanks to veterans over the last few days... certainly deserved, and I think mostly appreciated although many of my contemporary vets don't think their efforts were special or heroic...

Be that as it may be, I'd like to take a turn in a different direction.

Thank-you, the American people, for Veteran's benefits. Neither all nations, or even this nation over its history has cared for its veterans as you, the American people, care for and support spending of tax-dollars on Veterans benefits.

Your concern impacted me greatly and it deserves to be acknowledged.

In my freshman year of high school, the Iowa Test of Educational Development projected me to be in the top 5 in my High School class. But that same year, my oldest brother flunked out of junior college and my father turned against education, declaring that he wouldn't support the other 4 of us in the pursuit of becoming in his words educated idiots (it is disappointing to have your fair haired first born collapse academically). And so knowing that as the middle son of 2 janitors, in the era before National Defense Loans to help needy kids pay tuition, I wasn't going to be in a position of familial support to even think about applying to attend college. I gave up, expecting to find my way into the world of work without education. And I graduated 535th in a class of just shy of 600.

My birthdate came up a low draft number, and I was forced to make decisions for which I really wasn't much prepared to deal. I chose to volunteer for the draft. I know that's strange, it requires understanding concepts like being drafted into the military, and making the choice to have some fraction of choice in doing so. At the time, I wanted inches of steel or concrete between me and VietCong bullets. So I enlisted into the Army with a choice of an unknow job in an Armored unit.

While being inducted, a nice young specialist 5 called me out of a line and along with 5 or 6 others suggested that maybe we should think about serving in military intelligence, which according to him could be completed in air-conditioned buildings surrounded by thick concrete walls. Sounded just like something I was looking for, except the 4 year enlistment. Among the options of things to do was being a computer terminal repairman, of course back then, a computer terminal was an eight level code model 35 teletype (hence my handle above). I did 9 months of training an went off to Vietnam. And there, I legitimately earned my VA benefits, and I legitimately got exposed to Agent Orange although I didn't know that was how the base I was on controlled the weeds in it's perimeter fencing and antenna field.

So, after 2 years 9 months and 12 days the US Army Security Agency said they didn't need me anymore and asked if I wanted to end my service. Being incredibly bored and not stupid, I signed that piece of paper. Promised not to go to places like Isreal, Russia or China for a decade or so and departed for the rest of my life.

The rest of my life didn't start like I had ever thought. I did a bit of teletype repair for RCA Data Services, and decided to use my VA benefits to go to College. That choice took me thru the BA I thought I'd never have an opportunity to pursue, because VA educational benefits and as I did reasonably well, launched me in pursuit of an MA and PHD, then a career teaching at mostly undergraduate colleges and universities.

Well into my career I developed a host of medical problems. Problems that the VA thought could be presumed to follow from the Agent Orange exposures I had back so many years before. And so under examination of VA clinics I was found to have diabetes and coronary artery disease. And, amazingly, the treatments were (and for the diabetes continue to be) covered by the VA.

So most all of the most significant events of my recent life have turned around that care. I earned the eligibility, but you all paid taxes that made it possible. And I think I really owe you some thanks. Thank-you as a nation for caring about veterans and extending that compassion to vets like me. I did my service not with a fire arm or in a unit of the line, I did it in electronic warefare centers, and my 'weapons' were most often a tiny 1/4 inch wrench and a flat bladed screw-driver. I have no real idea what I was part of, because that's the nature of working in intelligence.

I'm pretty sure that I am far far from being a hero. I am pretty sure that VA benefits opened gateways for my life that let me into a life I couldn't have otherwise had. And then, 35 years later, those VA benefits repaired my heart, and continue to deal with chronic problems presumed to be from Agent Orange.

I'm not bitter about any of it, I actually feel indebted to all of you who pay taxes and accept with not too much angst providing Veteran's benefits.

So, THANK-YOU for your service to veterans. It is so significant to the lives of so many, multiply your compassion on my life times hundreds of thousands.

Really.

Meanwhile, Russian forces are demolishing bridges, energy and communications infrastructure in an attempt to forestall the inevitable and long awaited Ukrainian advance.

This afternoon's Ukraine interactive map is really a sight/site to be seen!

https://liveuamap.com/

A play on Gatoraide I suppose. Likely long in use, but as I don't get around much, I'm sure I'm late to the party.

The commentator was complaining about people whose only commentary on sport is limited to complaints (hmm. maybe some irony there).

I think this is a word that describes a lot of what passes for political discussion in the US.

Now, I no longer feel limited to talking about people who've drunk the kool-aid because Hateraide is that energy drink of political discourse that perfumes your speech with rankle.

And it comes in the diet version "Rant", as well as full strength "Rage"