DL Open Thread: Friday, September 2, 2022

Trump And MAGAts Threaten Democracy, Biden Says.  Yes, they do.  Or, at least, what passes for democracy:

“We are still at our core a democracy — yet history tells us that blind loyalty to a single leader, and the willingness to engage in political violence, is fatal to democracy,” Biden said. “There is no question that the Republican Party is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans.”

Many Democrats and activists have long complained that Biden was doing too little, and speaking too mildly, to take on the threat from a pro-Trump movement that is seeking to undermine past and future elections, and Thursday’s speech was one of his most forceful since taking office. Biden can often stumble over his words or abandon a sentence in midstream, but on Thursday he appeared focused and energized.

“Russians Keep Falling On My Head,  That Doesn’t Mean That Putin Said They Must Be Dead.”  Or does it?

Ravil Maganov, the chairman of Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil (LKOH.MM), died on Thursday after falling from a hospital window in Moscow, two sources familiar with the situation said, becoming the latest in a series of businessmen to meet with sudden unexplained deaths.

The sources confirmed reports by several Russian media that the 67-year-old had plunged to his death, but the circumstances surrounding his fall were unclear (aren’t they always?).

At least six other Russian businessmen, most with ties to the energy industry, have died suddenly in unclear circumstances in the past few months.

Unusually among Russian companies, Lukoil took a public stand over Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine. In a March 3 statement, the company’s board of directors expressed its concern over the “tragic events” in Ukraine and called for the “soonest possible end to armed conflict” via negotiations.

BTW, there used to be a LUKOIL station at the corner of Marsh and Silverside in Brandywine Hundred.  The Russian mob is/was everywhere.  It’s been a string of ‘auto repair’ places ever since.

Texas Guv Goes After Trans Kids And Their Families.  Because inflicting misery while promoting hatred is the point:

After Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered state officials in February to launch child abuse investigations targeting parents who helped their transgender kids get gender-affirming health care, a 14-year-old trans girl became so anxious about the prospect of losing access to her medications that she was pulled out of school and hospitalized for days. Some doctors and pharmacies around the state stopped offering teenagers life-saving puberty blockers and hormone treatments. A mental health provider in Austin abruptly withdrew care from a suicidal trans boy, leaving his parents to sleep on his bedroom floor night after night to ensure he didn’t kill himself. Many families fled the state.

Those are just some of the stories in a legal brief submitted to a state court last week on behalf of two LGBTQ-focused nonprofits and 13 Texas families with transgender kids. The families are begging the court to make permanent a prior temporary injunction prohibiting state officials from investigating parents under Abbott’s order. Although Texas’ Department of Family and Protective Services hasn’t yet ripped any trans children in Texas from their homes and sent them to foster care, the families argue its investigations have already had tragic consequences.

Patriot Front: White Nationalism With Production Values.

Patriot Front was founded after the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville by Thomas Rousseau, a former member of the small, neo-Nazi group Vanguard America.

Disaffected members of Vanguard America left to join Rousseau’s organization, and for two years, primarily stickered college campuses and dropped banners with slogans like “Reclaim America” over highway overpasses.

Since last December, the group has organized five such flash demonstrations. Two of them – the event in Idaho and a contentious march along Boston’s Freedom Trail on the Fourth of July holiday – resulted in national media attention.

At the rallies, Rousseau typically addresses the crowd, urging onlookers to rise up physically and “reclaim your country”.

To capture different angles of a rally, several camera operators circulate and shoot video while members wear body-worn cameras, according to Jeff Tischauser, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Then, the media team edits the footage and circulates a video package on alt-tech platforms like Gab, Odyssey and Telegram.

“No other white supremacist group operating in the US today is able to match Patriot Front’s ability to produce media, ability to mobilize across the country, and ability to finance,” says Morgan Moon, investigative researcher with the ADL Center on Extremism. “That’s what makes them a particular concern.”

RIP: Bob Aulgur.  So sorry to read of the passing of Bob Aulgur.  Bob was the lead attorney for the House Of Representatives’ Democratic Caucus when I first went to work in Dover.  I remember him as an inclusive guy who certainly made me feel welcome.  He was whip-smart as an attorney and had the ability to explain complicated matters so that people could understand them.   And that smile.  Seeing that really hit home for me.  That’s how I’ll remember him.  My deepest condolences to his family.  He was a good person who made a difference.

What do you want to talk about?