Scott Boehmer

Category: Politics

  • The Bitter Southerner

    The other day, I was watching a video from Carolina Forward and liked the shirt that Blair Reeves was wearing. Looking for it led me to the Bitter Southerner General Store. I didn’t end up ordering that shirt, but only because I ended up finding others there that I liked even more. As I mentioned last week, I like biscuits, so this Make More Biscuits one won me over. Then I also got the Product of Public Schools and Wild Places Matter tees for myself and a Libraries are Essential one for Stef.

    Beyond the store, the Bitter Southerner’s main purpose is telling stories about the South and pushing for a Better South. Towards that end, it publishes a magazine, newsletter, podcast, and books. So in addition to a few new shirts, I’m also now subscribed to their newsletter.

  • The Tyrant Test

    It would be absurd to say that American presidents have always been principled defenders of freedom and democracy, but their long-shared, bipartisan definition of tyrant is one who oppresses his own. So it’s striking that these warnings about tyrants in distant lands, who were supposedly the opposite of the kind of legitimate, democratic leaders elected in the United States of America, now apply to the sitting U.S. president, Donald Trump. It is a simple but morally powerful formulation: A leader who uses military force to suppress their political opposition forfeits the right to govern. You could call this the “tyrant test,” and Trump is already failing it.

    Adam Serwer

    The Tyrant Test (The Atlantic)

  • Standing Up Against Trump is Good for Business

    Standing up against Trump is not only important politically and morally. It’s also profitable.

    Robert Reich

    Why Standing Up Against Trump is Good for Business (Robert Reich)

  • Billionaires Are Not Like Us

    Now, here we are, an era in which the men of cyber industry — having monopolized goods distribution, security algorithms, internet satellites, social networks, and our attention — have seen fit to attempt a sort of siege on the American government. Is this techno-­fascism? Sure! Should it concern us that power and tech — and the power of tech — are so concentrated in so few hands and that Trump appears to be a Trojan horse for Silicon Valley’s most neo-reactionary ambitions? Absolutely! Do we want America remade in the image of a tech startup by men who like to move fast and break things (especially when most of the systems they’re breaking are ones that they, in fact, would never rely on)? Not I! But also: What is going on with this idea that humans should even want to live in space? What sort of lack of reality testing are we dealing with here?

    Alex Morris

    What You’ve Suspected Is True: Billionaires Are Not Like Us (Rolling Stone)

  • Climate Crisis and Carolina Coastlines

    North Carolina’s coastlines are an inescapable reminder of the climate crisis as they face accelerating sea level rise, intensifying storms, and increasing coastal erosion. These environmental changes threaten not only invaluable ecosystems, but also the cultural heritage and economic stability of communities along the shores of North and South Carolina.

    Zanetta Sirleaf

    Climate Crisis and Carolina Coastlines: A Looming Threat to Communities and Ecosystems (Carolina Forward)

  • What Is Israel’s Endgame In Iran?

    What I did not imagine was that Israel would act alone, even assuming a “green light” from Washington. Isn’t Iran, even weakened, 10 times Israel’s population and 75 times the landmass; doesn’t it graduate five times the number of engineers a year? With the planet’s fourth largest reserves of oil, has it no staying power? This isn’t Hezbollah.

    Bernard Avishai

    Opinion | The Endgame of the Iran Attacks Isn’t Clear, Even in Jerusalem (Politico)

  • Read Past the Headlines

    This video from Molly White is a good example of why it is important to not just trust news headlines.

    Reading past the headlines: WSJ story about Democratic wariness sourced to Republican strategist (Molly White – YouTube)

  • A Bad Week for the Army

    “This has been a bad week for the Army for anyone who cares about us being a neutral institution,” one commander at Fort Bragg told Military.com on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation. “This was shameful. I don’t expect anything to come out of it, but I hope maybe we can learn from it long term.”

    Konstantin Toropin, Steve Beynon

    Bragg Soldiers Who Cheered Trump’s Political Attacks While in Uniform Were Checked for Allegiance, Appearance (Military.com)

    President Trump announced Tuesday that he will restore several more Army base names that originally honored Confederate military figures, undoing a renaming process ordered by Congress and completed under President Biden – though the bases will officially recognize other service members, not Confederates, going forward.

    Joe Walsh, Eleanor Watson

    Trump says he’s restoring the original Confederate names of these Army bases – but with new namesakes (CBS News)

    Donald Trump’s less than subtle commandeering of the Army’s 250th anniversary celebration was an obnoxious, high security spectacle of absurd self-gratification. Instead of allowing citizens to get educated about the role the armed services played in the founding of the country, and its current function, the National Mall was covered in the same high fencing used to secure the Capitol after the January 6th insurrection so helicopters and APCs and various small arms could be staged for photo ops.

    The whole thing culminated in a rather dreary parade with tanks, drones, flyovers, parajumpers. And it all just happened to fall on Trump’s birthday.

    Dominic Gwinn

    Trump’s Single Finger Salute to America (Wonkette)

    It was apropos to drive tanks over something named for the Constitution. It’s a perfect metaphor for what the birthday boy and his gang of thugs do every day.

    A.R. Moxon

    Shows of Weakness (The Reframe)

    “Despite the threat of rain, over 250,000 patriots showed up to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army,” White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote on X. “God Bless the USA!”

    Outside estimates, meanwhile, suggest there were far fewer in attendance than the 200,000 people expected to view the parade, which coincided with the president’s birthday.

    …

    In terms of sheer numbers, the “No Kings” events that took place the same day as the parade dwarfed the Trump administration’s event, drawing between four and six million people, according to an estimate from data journalist G. Elliot Morris and outside analysts. The event’s organizers have put the number at more than 5 million.

    Trump’s team claims 250,000 supporters watched his military parade. ‘No Kings’ protests drew at least 4 million, experts say (The Independent)

  • It Matters

    “Who cares? It doesn’t matter anyway.” I’ve come to expect these words in my social media replies to my own work, and elsewhere in response to other journalists doing critical reporting on the abuses of the Trump regime.

    …

    And these aren’t just a few social media responses, they’re expressions of a much broader resignation I’m seeing on- and offline: That caring is somehow naive. That documenting the truth is pointless. That hope is for fools.

    Let me be clear: It fucking matters. Truth matters. Documentation matters. Fighting corruption matters. That accountability seems out of reach right now doesn’t change that.

    Molly White

    It matters. I care. (Citation Needed)

  • No Kings in the USA

    There are no kings in the USA. It’s kind of the point.

    No Kings In The USA (YouTube)