Sorry again, Joe Costello

Joe Costello loses me a lesser bit here, in this piece, where he claims that there is no real difference between a democracy and a republic and that James Madison made it all up.

Yes, republican Rome had the plebian assembly or council, but long before Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus got offed, it was moving toward becoming more and more a glorified debating society more than anything else. Their deaths confirmed that. 

There's other "issues" with the idea of Republican Rome as a democracy.

First, the tribal assemblies, which elected a number of Roman officials at the height of the Republic, per that Wiki page, were "cracked and packed," to use a modern political term I know Costello used, to have the urban poor deliberately under-represented. 

Second, the plebian council, also per Wiki, had no political power until the creation of the plebian tribunes. And, that piece also notes that, in the late Republic, Sulla neutered it officially. As noted above, this had already happened de facto; Sulla just made it de jure.

Wiki's long backgrounder piece on the constitution of the Roman Republic provides yet more info.

No, Joe, it was a republic not a democracy, and per the Latin words "res publica" rather than a Latin borrowing at any time of the concept or the actual word "demos" from the Greek, it was called that for a reason.

You're losing me more and more, Joe. 

Ten Commandments in Texas schools — poorly focused first lawsuit

Yes, it's nice that interfaith leaders have sued the state.

And, their personal concerns about the state teaching their kids morality are noted.

But, as a real get-on-and-ride vehicle? 

This ain't it.

Nowhere, from what I can tell from the Trib story, do they raise the REAL issue:

WHOSE Ten Commandments?

Setting aside the definitely different Jewish and Samaritan versions, are we talking

The Catholic / Anglican-Episcopalian / Orthodox / (and some other Christians) version?

The Lutheran version?

The Calvinist / Anabapist version?

This is like trying to shove coerced school prayer into Texas and dueling between a "Jesus, we just want to ..." Baptist prayer and a Catholic asking everybody to pray the rosary.

I didn't need Wiki to tell me any of this, but if you do (and we know the Lege does) here you go.

The haters of Ivan Katchanovski, and other Ukrainian "traitors" like Marta Havryshko

Per reviewing an old piece on my philosophy site about the Self-Besotted Philosopher, Jonathan MS Pearce, I did a deeper dive, without too much time waste, on Ivan Katchanovski.

Pearce, an Islamophobe, Gnu Atheist or lite, and Jesus mythicist or fellow traveler, and, for purposes of this story, a Nat-Sec Nutsacks™supporter and warmonger on Russia-Ukraine issues all documented at that link, called Katchanovski a "Kremlin apologist," and cited this blog with his name on it, full of post-Maidan smears and half truths, plus the Bulwark, as proof. (If the author's purported name is real, of course a Ukrainian Lt. Gen, retired, Igor Romanenko, is going to make up bullshit.) 

More on the background of these haters of Katchanovski is at my piece from June 20, with a detailed debunking, from his own book. 

Romanenko's first piece is a repost of Cathy Young at The Bulwark. Katchanovski addresses that in his book (open source, free download), page 30, starting with identifying it as an opinion piece. Second? From Ian Roms at British site The Sceptic. Roms himself appears to be some sort of all-around wingnut, and a Zionist genocidalist. The site he writes at was formerly "Lockdown Sceptics." In other words, COVID bullshitters.

Taras Kuzio, cited in multiple pieces? Much of his early work, per that Wiki link, was funded by the CIA, even if he was personally unaware. He also has beaucoup research ties to neocons and general US (and UK) Nat-Sec Nutsacks,™ 

Later smears on Katchanovski portray him as not really an academic and more. In reality, though not having a Wiki page, sadly, he is very much an academic. He is cited in both the English and Polish Wiki pages about the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, and is polite enough to describe the OUN as nationalist-fascist rather than Nazi-fascist, as some others do. He also, interestingly, studied under Seymour Martin Lipset, known as "one of the first neocons," when Lipset was at George Mason. Maybe some Ukrainians, and some Nat-Sec Nutsacks, expected a Katchanovski would not turn out as he did?

I've wasted enough time on Romanenko other than to note his slurs extend well before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

I don't know the pre-war dislike of Katchanovski other than his refusal to spout the post-Maidan party line on the Maidan. The first piece by Romanenko, a massive undigested lump in both English and Ukrainian, is from 2015. 

That said, per Wiki's article on the original EuroMaidan, let us remember that while Putin may have pressured Yanukovich fiscally, the EU wouldn't assist and the IMF was pressuring it with a crushing neoliberal loan. 

Per its article on the actual Revolution of Dignity, the Right Sector, at least, was intransigent about the February settlement deal.  

Actually, that's not the real bottom line.

THAT is that the Pearces of the world, the Nat-Sec Nutsacks of the world, whether in government, in media, or elsewhere, simply will not accept any nuance, any hedging, anything but total surrender to the Western narrative of the Euromaidan and Revolution. Of course, with Pearce, that's of a piece. There's no nuance in his Islamophobia, for example. 

We know this today. 

And, we're getting closer to that bottom line. 

As anybody who has in detail followed the last 5-6 years of Ukrainian history knows, in the years before the Russian invasion, the Azov Battalion in particular, along with to various degrees, Svoboda, tthe Right Sector, and other far right organizations, whether outrightly neo-Nazi or not, got written up regularly in the likes of the New York Times, Guardian, Washington Post, etc. After the invasion, it's like they don't exist.

Or take Katchanovski's "blacklisting" by Ukraine and their Western flak. Claims that he's a Russian agent, claims from a wingnut and thuggish Ukrainian list and comments to that end on Reddit that he profits personally over his exposé and more? No nuance allowed. More on this below. Per Reddit, I'm talking that 5 months ago, he and Marta Havryshko were put on the Myrotvorets list.

More laughable yet, but also more disgusting, Havryshko, whose academic study and academic work background are in Holocaust issues, is accused of anti-semitism. What she has done is expose Ukrainian ethno-nationalism in general, and as at Jacobin, traced its roots back to the OUN and World War II.

These paragraphs are key:

The alternative history of the Ukrainian nationalist movement existed in the West during the Soviet times and was developed by members of the OUN and UPA who ended up there. It was weaponized by the Western political powers as a part of the Cold War. That’s why the Ukrainian diaspora was the main actor in memory politics. It whitewashed the history of the Ukrainian nationalist movement and wanted to construct a very different narrative that opposed the official Soviet one. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this narrative was exported to Ukraine and favored by some far-right political parties like Svoboda.

In 2010, President Viktor Yushchenko awarded Bandera the title of Hero of Ukraine, which sparked heated debates inside Ukraine and abroad. Many people whose grandpas and grandmas fought the Nazis in the ranks of the Red Army felt deeply offended by this decision. They were not comfortable with celebration of Nazi collaborators, when they had their own, true heroes who sacrificed their lives.

These two main memory regimes — the Soviet and the Ukrainian-nationalist — coexisted in Ukraine for a long time. Their influence and dynamic depended heavily on which political forces were in power. Thus, during the presidency of pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych, the OUN and UPA were not glorified on the national level, but its cult remained in the local level, in Western Ukraine.

Gee, this all sounds familiar. (I also blocked one nutter at that subreddit.)

More laughable yet, is that Myrotvorets, per its Wiki page, is the Ukrainian word for "peacemaker." What it actually is, from its 2014 creation, just after the revolution, is a thuggish attempt at media intimidation and a pack of lies, that while not formally connected to the Ukrainian government, is clearly informally connected as much as Yevgeny Prigozhin was to Russia's government. Per other info there, it's surely another reason Hungarian supremo Viktor Orban doesn't like Ukraine.

Someone else on a different sub, about global defense issues, raised the Orange Revolution a decade earlier. Yes, and as soon as he became president, Yushchenko started rehabilitating the OUN and UPA overall, and Stepan Bandera by name. See above. Note that the West's "export" ramped up, again per the above, after the Orange Revolution. And, he did so less than a year after his election, as if he didn't have better things to do.

As for that person? I don't know what all Wikipedia editors have laid hands on that piece, but on the Euromaidan piece, and another on Maidan casualties, Katchanovski identifies several editors and their far-right backgrounds:

Such Wikipedia editors, who misrepresented the Maidan massacre and whitewashed the contemporary and historical far-right in Ukraine, in particular, Nazi collaborators, included Nangaf, Wise2 (Prohoshka, Slav70), Bobfrombrockley, Lute88, My Very Best Wishes, and Volunteer Marek. The last five were identified in various publications and online sources, respectively, as far-right Svoboda-linked activist Svyatoslav Gut, Ben Gidley, Tsetsilia Cecilia Tsypina, Andrei Lomize, and Radek Szulga. The last two were also identified as involved in the Wikipedia’s intentional distortion of the Holocaust in Poland (see Grabowski & Klein, 2023). The Wikipedia editor Wise2, who also edited under names of Prohoshka and Slav70, propagated “scientific anti-Semitism” and whitewashed the involvement of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) in the 1941 Lviv pogroms during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, justifying it on the basis of “Jewish collaboration.”

Ooops. 

NOW, we're close to the wrap.

Here's what seems to be an OK but not great, relatively neutral analysis of Katchanovski's claims about the Maidan. But, it's really anything but that, as I explained last week. 

And, with that, while not knowing as much about Havryshko, I think you could call Katchanovski the real Ukrainian patriot. Per that link and his book, he is from the "Ukraianian" Western Ukraine, has called Putin's invasion illegal and more. 

And, in his book, he has a callout of that piece's author William Risch, Kuzio, and one other person:

Kuzio, David Marples, and William Risch published their criticism in non-academic and non-peer-reviewed online publications.

No wonder Commons didn't ask him to respond. 

Texas Progressives talk Trump, Iran, more

Off the Kuff rounds up a bunch of coverage on Flock, the automated license plate reader that could be the surveillance tech of any autocrat's dreams.  

SocraticGadfly talked about Donald Trump and foreign policy incoherence, along with Tulsi Gabbard and opportunism-cum-hypocrisy.

Related to that is Democrats who claim to oppose war with Iran yet join in the hypocrisy of claiming Iran is about to build nuclear weapons. 

Strangeabbott signed the Ten Commandments bill, which will surely, like the similar one in Louisiana, be struck down by the Fifth Circuit. At that point, he and Kenny Boy Paxton will call members of that court RINOs. 

The Trib produces a left-right analysis of the state Senate.

Neil at Houston Democracy Project urged Houstonians to contact far-right Houston Councilmember Twila Carter. Ms. Carter said the peaceful No Kings protest should be avoided while at same time she supports the Republicans attacking democracy.

G. Elliott Morris shows how protest activity in 2025 is higher than it was at this point in 2017.

Olivia Julianna sees a turning point in the culture wars.

City of Yes wonders where the people are in downtown Fort Worth. 

 Law Dork analyzes SCOTUS' terrible decision upholding Tennessee's ban on gender affirming care for minors. 

The Texas Signal reports from a recent Dem strategy session. 

 The Bloggess found a secret room in their new house.

Iran "fallout" from Trump's stupidity

The fallout is primarily metaphorical — for now.

That's because, per CNN, an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency and a leaker of its analysis (called a "low-level loser" by actual un-Christian, not submitting to her husband low-level loser Karoline Leavitt) Trump's "MOABs" did little more than bupkis. Oh, there's some damage, but nothing major or long-term. 

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” 

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

So, yeah. 

The details:

While US B-2 bombers dropped over a dozen of the bombs on two of the nuclear facilities, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant and the Natanz Enrichment Complex, the bombs did not fully eliminate the sites’ centrifuges and highly enriched uranium, according to the people familiar with the assessment. 

Instead, the impact to all three sites — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — was largely restricted to aboveground structures, which were severely damaged, the sources said. That includes the sites’ power infrastructure and some of the aboveground facilities used to turn uranium into metal for bomb-making.

So, yeah. 

Presidents in general don't like to be seen as wrong, let alone told they're wrong, in public. Trump, a dementia-edged toddler, really has this. And, while many presidents might grudgingly accept wrongness in private, Trump will never even do that.

That's part of why classified House and Senate briefings got moved from Tuesday to Thursday. Trump wanted Pete Hegseth to find some DIA flunky who will massage the research better. Oh, he'll find somebody. Who?

Update: Iran's foreign minister has now partially undercut Ayatollah Khamenei, calling damage to the trio of nuclear sites "serious and excessive." It's unclear why Abbas Araghchi went public, but something within Iranian domestic politics is surely the lead reason.

That said, will anybody in either House or Senate call Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to the witness stand, if nothing else to make her squirm while past Tulsi Gabbard (loopholes and all) is confronted with present Tulsi Gabbard, a TACO? (With his staff and administration, it's Trumpistas or Trump team Always Chickens Out [on confronting him]. And it's true.) 

Let's add to to Trump's idiocy in general on Iran this stupidity, in the last graf:

US officials believe Iran also maintains secret nuclear facilities that were not targeted in the strike and remain operational, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

So, you deliberately irritate Iran, which went to 60 percent enrichment in 2021 because of your rejecting the Obama deal, but held at 60 percent through Biden's administration, knowing you couldn't finish the job even if some DIA flunky claims it was done better than now reported? 

Oh, contra the wingnuts clutching pearls on the enrichment percentage? It means little per the site Iran Watch without BOTH

• Enrichment to bomb-grade 90 percent, which is tougher AND
• A delivery mechanism.

A U-235 gun weapon is pretty much limited to an actual bomb. It CAN be done at lower enrichment levels, but then it’s low yield for sure, and is nothing more than running something up the flag. That's why the US nuclear world, even though details of its mechanism are classified, doesn't sweat too much over it. Now, reveal details of the implosion lensing or the detonator for a plutonium implosion bomb and your ass is grass. (And, if you’re Iran and you know the details of lensing an implosion bomb, would you do that with U-235, or wait until you create sufficient Pt-239? I’m assuming you haven’t already.)

Beyond that, the link above deserves a longer look:

Iran’s nuclear program has reached the point at which Iran might be able to enrich enough uranium for five fission weapons within about one week and enough for eight weapons in less than two weeks. For that uranium to pose a nuclear weapon threat, however, it would have to be processed further into weapon components. Also, the other parts of a successful weapon would have to be ready to receive the uranium. Fabricating these other components could be done in parallel with uranium enrichment and could take place on a laboratory scale, which would make them difficult to detect.

The site goes on to talk implosion vs gun bombs with U-235 and other things. The thing of note is that, just as Iran has not enriched beyond 60 percent for four years now, it has not test-detonated anything. And, whether U-235 or Pt-239, it would want to do that with an implosion bomb. The US did at Trinity and so has every other nuclear weapons power.

Meanwhile, Iran's parliament is playing with fully suspending cooperation with the IAEA. NOTE: That is NOT "leaving" the organization. The government is playing both ends against the middle.

It's already been less than fully cooperative since 2021, when it boosted its enrichment. Again, Iran Watch:

Since February 2021, Iran has denied IAEA access to recorded data from centrifuge production plants and in June 2022 forced the IAEA to remove monitoring equipment altogether from such plants as well as from uranium enrichment and uranium concentrate (yellowcake) production facilities. Although a few cameras were re-installed at centrifuge production plants in May 2023, the Agency still cannot access the recordings. Iran has also refused to cooperate with the Agency’s investigation of uranium particles found at two undeclared sites. The overall effect has caused the IAEA to lose knowledge of essential elements of Iran’s program.

So, part of this is on Biden. Yes, Trump 1.0 screwed the pooch, but Team Biden didn't make more of an effort to unscrew it in the first 30 months, and then Oct. 7, 2023 happened.

At the same time, Iran hasn't fully rejected the IAEA. Nor has it withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And, we all know the Middle East nuclear power that never signed the NPT.

 And, Iran Watch's top research associate has past ties to the warmonger Institute for the Study of War.

And, executive director Valerie Lincy, I can easily tell, is a Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ fellow traveler on Russia-Ukraine. Related? A piece about reining in Iranian drones. Don't let the name "Wisconsin Project" that heads Iran Watch fool you. It's an inside-the-Beltway org.

The point is that even these folks can't totally throw Iran under the bus because they're being honest with information. As part of that, they don't claim Iran is creating plutonium. Because it's not.

And now, Trump has announced a meeting with Iran next week, and Iran has said "we ain't heard nothing." 

Side note: Per Mondoweiss, there is no such thing as right-wing anti-Zionism, so don't get fooled by Tucker Carlson. Or Tulsi Gabbard of either past or present, since she's a Hindutva-fascist Islamophobe and has gotten into bed with Zionists. Or Thomas Massie. Carlson, or Pat Buchanan and others from the past? They're not dispensationalist millennialist Protestant Christians, so Israel doesn't really matter, and therefore neither does Palestine.

Texas Lege: Democrats vs themselves

At the Observer, a week after Gene Wu largely self-destructed, Justin Miller wondered about the future of Texas Democrats and the future of much of their often still-unchanged mindset in the Lege. 

Per Miller's big point, as long as Wu is House minority leader, that mindset won't change, or at a minimum, he'll offer no encouragement in its change. 

The whole second half of Miller deserves quoting:

On the matter of property tax relief—perhaps the most important, broadly salient policy issue in the state—the policy divide was largely between the two Republican-run chambers, not the two parties. Democrats did not offer any sort of alternative policy message of their own, such as demanding that the state exclude downtown skyscrapers or Gulf Coast refineries from the property tax cuts, or ensure that the roughly one-third of Texas households that are renters are also provided some semblance of direct relief. 

Perhaps it’s time for House Democrats to toss out the old playbook that centers around speaker selection—one that increasingly comes at the expense of diluting Democratic politics. 

Having spent so long as the minority party in the Texas Capitol, Democrats’ emphasis on playing an inside game—to quietly make some bad bills less bad, while individual members get some traction on their own piecemeal legislation—has seemingly become the consuming identity of the party. 

Still, in that time, abortion has become near-totally outlawed. The public education system has been pushed to the brink and local school districts made the target of fear-mongering and social conservative dictates. The floodgates of publicly funded privatization have been opened with the passage of vouchers. Medicaid, far from being expanded, is hollowed out. Corporate welfare programs run rampant. 

And yet, Democrats are no closer to controlling the Texas House, to say nothing of statewide office, than they were 10 years ago. 

The time may have come for Democrats in the Legislature to withhold their cooperation, sacrifice some of the bipartisan chumminess that prevails in the House, and focus on building a party that knows why Texans should vote for it.

There we are. 

And, as long as at least some elements of that mindset percolate beyond House Democrats here in Tex-ass, the party will remain shut out of statewide offices. That's the bottom line.

And, it's a bottom line that Wu doesn't recognize. 

I think Texas House Dems need a leader from the left edge of the party, and someone, to riff on Miller, young enough to have not been in the House when Joe Straus was still there. That excludes Wu not just once but twice.