The Washington Post has a well researched and written story about why the US Republican party is defined by their racism. Oh, maybe I should say spoiler alert:

…slavery’s enduring legacy is evident not only in statistics on black poverty and education. The institution continues to influence how white Southerners think and feel about race — and how they vote. Slavery still divides the American people

That’s right, the GOP uses racism to win, according to scientists who look at the data and patterns of voting. What they key in on is evidence that white children in racist families of the US south aren’t being educated away from their racism, and cling instead, which means racist sentiment will last many generations.

It is no coincidence that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III, with his ties to the Klan in Georgia, was named Attorney General of the US in 2016 by the son of a Klansman.

In case it isn’t clear what that name represents…three generations of traitor-ship founded on racism:

The question is who today would vote white supremacists into office to represent all people, given hateful statements and overt support from Klansmen. And the answer is clearly Republicans, using a signaling method called “personal responsibility” that denies slavery was a hardship, let alone requires restoration.

GOP doctrine on the importance of personal responsibility, together with elevated rates of black poverty and unemployment, help some Republicans rationalize their belief that people of color are inferior — beliefs they probably developed in childhood.

Today this is much easier to discuss than just eight years ago. Back then people were still trying to say Republicans had things to say that weren’t necessarily racist in foundation. Take for example this story from 2010:

Shame on the 14 Republican congressmen who last week proposed substituting Ronald Reagan for Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill. Their action suggests they need a history lesson about the Northern general who won the Civil War and went on to lead the country.

That’s a great piece by a historian that doesn’t mention Republicans being racist.

To put this into context, a black president is elected in 2008. White Republicans then set about trying to remove President Grant from the $50 (despite being famous for being the greatest General in American history, one of the top three presidents in American history, and globally respected as a champion for human rights) and replace him with President Reagan, a man notorious for ties to white supremacists, campaigning on white supremacy, denigrating civil rights leaders like MLK (until he was forced to concede), and that’s not to mention supporting genocidal dictators. Here’s your Republican icon history right here:

Reagan chose [theme of violent white resistance to integration] to kick off his Deep South presidential campaign in 1980

Let’s look a little closer at the people trying to push Grant off the $50.

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C…introduced the legislation last month. He says it’s not about Grant but about honoring Reagan in the same fashion as Democratic presidents…

You have to marvel at the fact that McHenry doesn’t know that Grant was a Republican. Then you have to marvel at the fact McHenry is saying that pushing Grant off the bill isn’t about Grant. Do you think he meant that? Check out his own words, when he tried to explain:

…it has very little to do with Grant and so my response is very simple. I believe that Ronald Reagan, as most historians do, was the better president…

That means it absolutely is about Grant. McHenry is touting a white-supremacist line that Grant wasn’t a better president than Reagan. Grant won the civil war, introduced civil rights, created the DoJ, created the national parks, wrote an amazing autobiography in a race to finish before death from cancer…I mean his long list of accomplishments and massive popularity at his death should speak for themselves.

Reagan (perhaps most infamous for being absent minded, a figure-head and aloof while in office) has nothing on Grant, which we’re only talking about here because McHenry tried to argue Grant wasn’t better than Reagan, while saying it’s not about Grant. Reagan literally was almost removed by his own aides for being inept at his job, as they had to give him competency tests:

Most high-level White House aides believed that President Reagan was so depressed, inept and inattentive early last year in the wake of disclosures in November 1986 about the Iran-contra scandal that the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office was raised in a memo to Howard H. Baker Jr., who was just taking office as Reagan’s chief of staff.

Former Baker aide James Cannon, confirming facts reported in a newly published book, said in an interview yesterday that he wrote a March 1, 1987, memorandum based on the aides’ concern and raising the possibility of applying the amendment.

Baker took the recommendation seriously and, with Cannon and two of his own aides, spent part of a day observing Reagan’s behavior before concluding that the president was sufficiently competent to perform his duties, according to the book.

Reagan is not a man who has any business threatening the amazing legacy of Grant, the warrior and patriot who reluctantly became president to continue to help save the nation and fight for freedom for all by destroying the KKK.

I combine the Washington Post story above with this one about their attempts to erase Grant from their own party to replace him with a barely competent Reagan who feted dictators and funded genocides… and it seems what the maps of the poor south really need is an infusion of Grant bills.

Send Grant back into the areas that are to this day being oppressed by the present-day Republicans who are perpetuating America’s racist legacy among their children and who refuse to end their family battle against civil rights.

Also let’s get Jackson off the $20 already…sheesh, talk about an awful legacy that should be deprecated ASAP.

“United States history is not Andrew Jackson vs. Harriet Tubman,” the Tennessee Republican said.

This week’s announcement that Jackson, a white slave owner from Tennessee, will be booted to the back of the $20 bill to make room for Tubman, a black anti-slavery activist, has left many in Jackson’s home state feeling that the change [will] diminish Jackson’s legacy [and] celebrate Tubman’s accomplishments.

That’s right. A Republican actually said US history is not about a white supremacist president who actively perpetuated slavery to expressly deny rights to black Americans, versus a black American who wanted rights.

That is so patently wrong. US history literally is about Jackson perpetuating slavery 30 years longer than the rest of the world. It is about all the moves he made from a white supremacist power position to block Tubman, and anyone else like her in the underdog reformer and freedom advocate seat, from being successful.

Time to send some Grant, send some Tubman, and tell the children in the US south all the real history of America that will help people be realists about how and why the Republican party is so racist.

It is great to see someone is trying to drill into Russia’s technical hiring practices as some sort of example for study or exception, rather than the other way around (why does America suck at allowing women equal treatment).

She believes there are several reasons for that: girls are expected to take up computer science from an early age and perform well, and there’s no stigma associated with studying technology.

But there’s something more: “Culturally, women in Eastern Europe are characterized as having a forthright nature and this means they’re more inclined to speak up for themselves, and be hardy to rejection, which is typically needed in a male-dominated environment,” Frankland says.

“Characterized” is the operative word here. Let’s take a step back into the history of the region and from where the caricatures emanate.

Many hoped the Bolshevik Revolution one hundred years ago would usher in a new era of gender and class equality. Following the revolution, Soviet Russia declared “International Women’s Day” an official holiday, and “Marxist feminists” romanticize communism to this day. Women of the Gulag, both a remarkable book and a documentary film, highlights the disparity between the Soviet Union’s alleged gender equality and the reality of life for women under communism.

It is now popular to claim — in the New York Times no less — that Soviet women “enjoyed many rights and privileges unknown in liberal democracies at the time,” so it is worth noting some of the ways that communism tyrannized women in particular. Those who claim the Soviet Union liberated women would do well to learn the stories of the women of the Gulag.

Now, to be fair, the above opinion piece is from the Cato institute, an unabashedly extreme right-wing propaganda outlet. Cato is hoping to bash Communism for attempting gender equality and failing miserably. So let’s take a moment to acknowledge that under Communism women were characterized as equals, alleged to be equal.

That’s notable because under the Cato manifesto women aren’t even alleged to be equals and aren’t allowed to try, which objectively seems worse than trying and failing. Exceptions are made for women who use “masculinity” (I believe that’s how Marx referred to it) to adapt themselves to the capitalist machines.

After the fall of Communism we actually have seen a reversion of women’s rights and abject oppression. While we see characterization of women as equally skilled for technical roles has lasted, keep in mind Russia has been busy decriminalizing physical abuse of women.

Why Russia is about to decriminalise wife-beating. It fits with traditional values, lawmakers say

Communism had a method of setting a characterization apart from these nonsensical “traditional values”, if you will. There was a time of messaging women as equals. Propaganda or not, such messaging under Communism had a lasting impact.

Anyway, without reading two much into either the Communist or the Libertarian messaging about the role of women in society, I always try to remind people that 60% of code-breakers in Bletchley Park during WWII were women, and we see a similar percentage today in countries like Israel where merit is measured instead of masculinity for technology jobs.

Personally I wish someone had pushed for the phrase “Future Updated Ghillie Suits” (FUGS) when they were thinking about “future warfare”. Instead the US Army is talking about Improved Ghillie Suits (IGS) to address the shortcomings of past designs.

Notable issues:

• If you dress like a tree, you may be as flammable as one (several snipers have burned to death)
• If you dress like a woolly mammoth, you may be as heavy and hot as one (ok, that’s really two issues)
• If your suit is singular instead of modular, the above two properties are greater

Innovation is happening in the field, by snipers working to stay alive, blend better and also function more efficiently/safely, so the textile department of the Army decided to incorporate some of these ideas.

Maj. WaiWah Ellison, assistant product manager, Durable Goods, Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment with Program Executive Office Soldier, explained the need for the update: “The current kit is thick and heavy and comes with a lot of pieces that aren’t used.

“Soldiers are creating ghillie suits with their own materials to match their personal preference. We want to make the IGS simpler and modular so the snipers will use what is issued to them instead of relying on outside resources,” Ellison said.

While this all makes sense from a product manager view in terms of updating the suits, relying on outside resources does kinda sound more like what camouflage is all about… especially if you live near places that use fishing nets and do a lot of knitting with thick yarns (the basic ingredients to make your own ghillie suit).

And you have to marvel at the fact nobody thought forward enough to realize how a Scottish concept of wearing heavy and fluffy suits for a rainy cold climate would end up being very hot and flammable elsewhere.

Yes, I said Scottish. Did I mention fishing and knitting?

Just in case you’re wondering what a Ghillie is…Scotland Magazine breaks the meaning down over the centuries:

Since the Victorians discovered their passion for stalking, the life of the ghillie has had less to do with carrying Highland chiefs across raging torrents and more to do with the management of the landscape and looking after stalkers on the hill.

Fast forward to today:

It’s nice if you don’t have to take time to gather local capabilities to blend in, but that does presume accurate and fast feedback loops reaching the top of a very large organization.

A recent IDF investigation into a failed operation gives insight into how local knowledge — required for blending into the most dangerous environments — can be very dangerous to underestimate or get wrong.

…based on interviews with Hamas officials, a picture is emerging of a carefully planned Israeli intelligence operation in which agents posing as Palestinian aid workers may have gone undetected for up to two weeks before it went awry.