Check out our slate of Daily Kos-endorsed candidates

I am the parent of a high school varsity wrestler. His mother and I have shown him nothing but support for his chosen athletic activity. He is at school at 6:00 AM some mornings for weight lifting, and he doesn’t get home until after 6:00 PM at night. On Friday nights he wrestles a dual meet, and every Saturday during wrestling season we watch him wrestle in tournaments that can last 10 hours—and on top of all of that, he is on the honor roll. He is one of 15 teenagers (male and female) on the wrestling team. They are some of the hardest-working kids I have ever seen, often the first at school in the morning, and the last ones to leave at night. But my son and his teammates are not the story here—I’m just setting the stage for what my ex-wife and I see and hear from the mouths of other parents during these tournaments. What happens at my son’s school happens all around the country: Kids working hard at a sport that does not bring in revenue, and that no one comes to see except their parents.

Some of you may recall, if you watch ESPN, that the WIAA (Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association) caused a bit of a stir when it sent out a memo to athletic directors reminding them of the code of conduct for spectators of high school athletic events. It read, in part:

"Any action directed at opposing teams or their spectators with the intent to taunt, disrespect, distract or entice an unsporting behavior in response is not acceptable sportsmanship," the December email from WIAA director of communications Todd Clark said.

The email detailed certain phrases it considers unacceptable, including: "You can't do that," "Fun-da-men-tals," "Air ball," "There's a net there," "Sieve," and "We can't hear you" -- as well as "scoreboard" and "Season's over" jeers during tournament play.

A student athlete was suspended for tweeting a bad word about this policy, which has been in place for more than 30 years (I still remember Mr. McPike walking around hockey games enforcing it). This is not a new policy.

But the problem isn’t the students. I don’t think student fans cheering Airball or Season’s over! are where the problem lies. Now, the parents? That is where the problem with taunting lies.

Let me give you a heads up: First, I’m going to tell you some things that will make you ill. Then I’m going to present a cure. It will make you feel better—until, of course, you realize that knowing the cure brings us as close to implementing it as buying an electric guitar does to making you a rock star. Then you’ll feel ill again. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Corporations don’t like to pay taxes. More importantly, our tax code makes it crazy easy for them to avoid paying taxes. Thanks to Citizens for Tax Justice, we know that 15 companies in the Fortune 500 earned a collective $23 billion in profits in 2014, yet their corporate income tax bill that year was—you can probably guess where this is going—zero. (The federal government actually paid rebates to all but two of them). And not the kind of Zero that entertains. This is the kind of zero that makes people want to occupy a park in Manhattan’s Financial District.

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders won overwhelming victories in last week’s New Hampshire primaries. 

While their base of support is very different, these “outsider” candidates are both attracting voters who are feeling alienated by a political and economic system which they perceive as unfair and rigged against average Americans. 

Ultimately, “Feel the Bern” and “Trumpmania” are populist uprisings inspired by protecting the American Dream and its foundational promise that with enough hard work, intelligence, and chutzpah anyone can enjoy upward class mobility in the United States. 

A complication: The progressive and forward-thinking dreamers who support Bernie Sanders want to expand those opportunities to all Americans. The nightmare-channeling fearmongers and authoritarians who are Trump’s base want to protect what they have by denying opportunities to others. 

There is a second problem for Republicans and those others who are attracted to Donald Trump’s particular brand of right-wing populism: His proposed policies will likely do little to improve the life chances of the working- and middle-class white voters who are attracted to his carnival barker, con man, professional wrestling “heel” routine. 

In Trump, they see a savior. He is a man whose (inherited) financial success and wealth is a marker of his greatness and political savvy. In reality, Trump’s rabble is suckered by dime store novel fictions masquerading as substantive politics. 

The first presidential election I voted in was in 1996. I voted for a third-party candidate—I don’t remember more than that it was the one with “socialist” in the party name—because after welfare reform, I was not voting for Bill Clinton. The first time I voted for a Democrat in a presidential election was John Kerry in 2004—I had voted against him in the 2002 Massachusetts Senate election, voting for write-in candidate Randall Forsberg in protest over Iraq. 

I’m not a natural Hillary Clinton supporter, is what I’m saying. When she looked like the only meaningful Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential election, I was fine with that, committed to a Democratic win but also committed to the work of pushing from her left whenever and wherever possible. When Bernie Sanders got into the race, I was pleased to be able to support a candidate on Clinton’s left. I gave him a little money and assumed I’d give him more.

Then he lost me. Not all at once, but, by now, thoroughly. And along the way, Clinton impressed me more than she ever had. 

Economic inequality is at the top of the list of issues I care about. I basically spend my life trying to work it into discussions of every other issue, because I usually think it belongs there. I had a lot of training on that front: When I once described having fled a shoe store after two salespeople began arguing, in front of me, over which of them had approached me first and should get my business, my father said “that’s what decades of stagnating wages will get you.” So a presidential candidate who wanted to talk seriously about inequality? Great!

Except … somehow Sanders has lost me on even that. I simultaneously want a more serious and nuanced class analysis—something deeper than the talking points, more flexibly targeted to specific questions rather than broad strokes—and more willingness to depart from the talking points, to acknowledge that sometimes you really can’t turn a question to your subject of choice. When the time is right to talk about inequality, try to fit the statistics to the moment. When the time is wrong, at least pretend to notice. Clearly Sanders’ talking points are working for lots of people, and I don’t doubt his commitment on these issues, but the repetition has failed to give me anything new or interesting to hang onto. And beyond inequality, the repetition is a problem with how he talks about—or avoids talking about—other major issues, which he so often dismisses. A president has to be willing to take on issues they don’t necessarily care the most about, able to become an expert on anything, able to pivot and start to care. I need more than “trust me,” and I don’t see Sanders failing to give me that, I see him refusing to do so. That’s not confidence-inspiring.

… Then maybe Beyonce would have dedicated the Super Bowl halftime show to him.

That seems to be the sentiment and level of understanding on the issue of race relations and the Constitution we’re receiving from certain circles. Nevada State Assembly Member Shelley Shelton even said that Finicum, who was killed by the FBI while being arrested along with several other members of the domestic terrorist cult who “occupied” federal property in Oregon for more than one month, was just like Jesus, or Moses, or something.

“In any given generation there are men who are willing to stand for what they believe,” Shelton said in a Facebook post. “Most of the time they are demonized and the uninformed are made to believe they are criminals.”

“From Moses who killed an Egyptian for abusing his people, to Jesus who died on a cross as a condemned criminal, many of those who operate outside the box and promote love and justice over the current form of government are treated as outcasts and many times murdered,” she added.

And of course if Finicum had not been white, there would be hell to pay over his death at the hands of law enforcement.

“This has to be the most amazing and blatant attempt at trickery I have ever witnessed,” Shelton wrote. “America, are we are supposed to believe that LaVoy Finicum got out of the truck with his hands raised, with guns pointed at him from all directions, walked out in the open away from the truck, his only cover, and THEN decided to reach for a firearm?”

“If this happened anywhere else, with any other race or class of American the media would be throwing a fit AND SO WOULD I,” the Nevada Republican wrote. “Where are you now? I spent the entire session in Carson City fighting for the rights of every citizen of every race, creed or social class to gain protection from this very type of tragedy. Where are you now? Can we finally drop the labels and the race cards and come together for justice for all Americans? Democrats, ACLU, I worked with you there for justice. Where are you now?”

Yes, clearly it’s Finicum’s lack of pigment that has the media cowed and reluctant to create a frenzy over his shooting. As this essay was being written, the FBI had begun to move in to end the Oregon standoff with a siege of the remaining occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (Editor’s note: The last of the occupiers was ousted Thursday). But a fascinating aspect is the dainty patience that has been afforded these people. The same patience certainly has never been afforded to persons of color who similarly protested the government.

What do excessive testing in schools, the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, speed cameras, and the recent lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan, all have in common?

They’re all symptoms of a new America. An America that is no longer a democracy. An America that is under the control of corporate special interest groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And an America that is being micromanaged by a mid-level tier of bought-and-paid for politicians who no longer work in the interests of the public.

The media keeps presenting these crises as one-off events, singularities.

If you take a step back though, there are clearly common threads. The first thread is that corporate special interests keep buying themselves out of responsibility (privatize the profit, socialize the risk). The second is that in order to keep people in check and execute on these plans, increasingly they’re relying on a tier of mid-level micromanagers. The poisoning of Flint is just the latest symptom of a country that seems to be more and more under corporate special interest micromanagement. 

What does this look like?

Back in the early 80s there was a breeding colony of least terns, near the mouth of the Santa Margarita River, that occasionally hosted the endangered Western snowy plover. During the nesting season, Marines were unable to access the Pacific Ocean in their amphibious vehicles from the sandy beaches of Camp Pendleton that were adjacent to the nesting site. Marine Corps bases in California are scrupulous about protecting the environment that they occupy. 

There were buffalo herds that were guaranteed the right-of-way while crossing roads further inland on the base. Their presence near firing ranges was enough for a cease fire to be called until they ambled out of range, as it was feared that they would be too great a temptation for the young Marines who were in training.

In 1991, the Marine Corps base at Twentynine Palms re-introduced Nelson’s bighorn sheep back into the Bullion Mountains, their historic range. The price of a pair of horns was $40,000 on the black market at the time, and the sheep were safer in the middle of an artillery range than they were on the mountain slopes of the nearby Joshua Tree National Monument (now Park). They are still there today, thriving.

The military is capable of doing a competent job of protecting the environment at the same time that it is training its forces for combat. They can multi-task with the best of them. Which is why the uproar on the right over the latest Department of Defense (DoD) directive is rather insulting to our military forces.

I was about five or six years old when my mom told me the story of Frederick Douglass. In my memories, his history was woven into her tales of my enslaved ancestors, which were lovingly and proudly passed down to me. The first time I saw a portrait of him, he reminded me of a fierce and protective lion, probably because of his mane of silvered hair and noble mien. It’s more than 60 years later, and I am still in love with Douglass. It’s a love wrapped in awe, honor, and respect for a man who stands as one of our greatest Americans. 

Since those days of childhood, I’ve learned much more about him—thanks to both his own words and the works of many historians. He, like all men and women, had fears and flaws. His very humanity and his ability to move through and transcend the myriad obstacles placed in his path—of enslavement, illiteracy, and virulent racism—to rise to the heights of national and international prominence speaks volumes. This, in a time when black Americans were most often viewed as sub-human chattel. This was a time when so many of us were held in bondage. This was a time when murderous gangs of whites—in the South and the North—targeted free black people to be tarred, lynched, burned out, and dragged back into enslavement.

My Valentine’s card for you today, on the day he chose as his birthday, is a tribute to this warrior for social justice. This abolitionist, feminist, orator, writer, and statesman.

Like many of those born into slavery, Frederick Douglass had no idea of the date of his birth. He knew neither his age nor the day on which to commemorate each new year that was added to it. Escaping slavery in Maryland for freedom in the North, Douglass thus had to select a day on which to celebrate his birthday. He chose St. Valentine’s Day, after recalling that his mother had so often called him her “Little Valentine.”

When actual news happens, writing APR can be a bit frustrating. Like posting a set of Superbowl predictions the morning after the big game, reading the columns put together by the, ahem, cream of beltway journalism several days before the world takes a lurch, offers little more than a forensic level of interest. 

In this case, somewhere between now and when Maureen Dowd wrote her six hundredth piece on how upset she is that Hillary Clinton stood by Bill, Atonin Scalia died.

In writing about the Civil War, historian Barbara Fields said that it might have been a “very ugly filthy war with no redeeming characteristics at all” except that the cause of emancipation “ennobled what otherwise would have been meaningless carnage into something higher.”  

In more democratic (small d or big D, take your pick) times, we might expect that President Obama nominates a replacement for Scalia, that replacement receives some weeks of Senate review, and is then approved. It’s happened that way just over one hundred times. However, as the howling on the right already indicates, the replacement of Scalia might easily stretch into the election.

In which case, Fields’ quote will have a new use. This election, which has been ugly, filthy, and above all blindingly silly and disheartening, may be elevated into a direct referendum on compelling, divisive issues which have roiled the country for decades. Americans will step into a voting booth knowing that they are as close to voting directly on a woman’s right to choose, on affirmative action, on the right to organize, on the continuation of the Voting Rights Act as we are ever likely to achieve.

Don’t expect the election to stop being ugly, filthy, silly or disheartening. But we just got a reminder: it’s also of staggering import.

The New York Times on this decision...

Justice Antonin Scalia… served on the Supreme Court for 30 years and made as big a mark on the court and on American law and politics as some of the chief justices under whom he served. It took about 10 minutes after the announcement of his death for the right wing to start screaming that the Senate should not confirm a replacement while President Obama is in office.

Given how blindly ideological the Republicans in the Senate are, after nearly eight years of doing little besides trying to thwart Mr. Obama, it is disturbingly likely that Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader and architect of the just-say-no approach, will lead his colleagues in keeping Justice Scalia’s seat open, and the highest court in the land essentially paralyzed, in the hope that one of the hard-right Republicans running for the presidency will win.

Mr. McConnell announced on Saturday night that “this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president,” claiming that he wanted to give American voters the chance to decide.

If you don’t hear the drum-roll and the bugles being sounded, you’re not listening. What’s that tune? This is important. This is important. This is important. 

Justice Scalia, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986... was more than any other conservative justice responsible for bringing ideology to the foreground in the court’s deliberations and, sometimes, its decisions. The conservative justices who preceded him, including Justice Rehnquist, and who followed him, like Anthony Kennedy, were not ideological animals in the same sense as Justice Scalia. …

Justice Scalia wrote few of the divided court’s 5-to-4 decisions, perhaps because the chief justices were aware that Justice Scalia’s lack of self-control in his judgments made him unreliable in those cases.

One prominent exception was his majority decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the court ruled for the first time that the Second Amendment granted an individual right to bear arms. But Justice Scalia did say that that right was not absolute, and that certain weapons like assault rifles could be banned, but the case still set the court’s fundamentalist approach to gun rights.

Now. Let’s go inside and see what else is up. But before you do, get Glory playing on the speakers. You’re going to need it.

From the moment that the Republican presidential contenders took the stage—or, more accurately, attempted to take the stage—for their final pre-New Hampshire debate last Saturday night, it was clear that the GOP was in trouble (with a capital "T").

The establishment's would-be savior, Marco Rubio, immediately dispelled with the notion (perpetuated by the "liberal media") that he's a strong candidate.

And then, much to Chris Christie's (and the internet's) delight, he dispelled with it again ... and again ... and again.

And once more for good measure.

When all was said and done, Rubio had thoroughly dispelled with the notion—and, in the process, thoroughly discredited himself.

The next day, his campaign tried to (literally) tackle their growing "robot problem" head-on, to no avail.

In fact, they probably made the situation worse.

After finishing a disappointing (though not at all surprising) 5th place in the New Hampshire primary, a contrite Rubio promised his supporters that he'd never again embarrass them—but, given his history, it seems likely that he'll repeat himself (again).

What’s coming up on Sunday Kos …

• Should we ban parents from kids sporting events, by Mark E Andersen
• He holds my heart. Frederick Douglass, by Denise Oliver Velez
• US military to assess and manage risks of climate change, by Susan Grigsby
• Only fundamental change, not micromanagement, will prevent more lead poisoning after Flint, by David Akadjian
• Big corporations will always cheat (yep, I said cheat) on their taxes. Here's how to deal with it, by Ian Reifowitz
• If only Lavoy Finicum had not been a white man…, by Frank Vyan Walton
• How Bernie Sanders lost me ... and Hillary Clinton won me over, by Laura Clawson
• Presidents and cartoons: You think Obama gets dissed? Look what Abe Lincoln faced, by Sher Watts Spooner
• A rose by any other name, by DarkSyde
• Sanders, Trump, the Horatio Alger myth, and the lie of American meritocracy, by Chauncey DeVega
• Is it time for grassroots movements to coalesce around The Bernie Sanders Revolution, by Egberto Willies

Did you know that today is officially “Share a link about your favorite new continuing science fiction novel broken into a series of blog posts and podcasts Day”? Well, that’s probably because it isn’t. But it should be.

It’s Skimsday on the planet Rusk, a day when the two suns of the planet where Denny lives are both skating the horizon. But let’s call this Sharesday. As in “press that Twitter button, or that Facebook button, or post a url out there somewhere because I need the eyeballs.” Sharesday. Because it sounds better than Shamelessselfpromotionday.

This is the third episode of On Whetsday. Denny has danced at the spaceport and he’s shared a meal with friends. Now he’s off to the market—such as it is.

And while you’re clicking, be sure and click through to the On Whetsday podcast where actor Raymond Shinn is reading the book in weekly segments.

Okay, pull the ripcord, we’re going in ...