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Book report: The Earth Transformed

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

I just finished reading Peter Frankopan’s The Earth Transformed. I have to admit that it was a bit of a slog, as there’s only so much depressing reading you can do at one time. Still, I highly recommend it as it emphatically brings home the horrors we may face as a result of climate change.

The book, which is clearly well researched, recounts the many times humans have had to deal with climate changes caused by various natural events, such as volcanic eruptions, and the many and varied ways in which humans have altered the natural environment, most often in ways that come back to haunt them. Anthropogenic changes to the environment are nothing new, but our current technology, combined with globalization, has enabled those living today to alter the environment more quickly, and more profoundly than was possible in the past. One can’t read this book without coming to the conclusion that the entire human race is approaching a crisis that will be devastating. How it will play out is not a certainty, but there are few optimistic scenarios, and all of them require political leadership that takes the problem seriously and takes serious action to minimize the effects of climate change. As Frankopan observes:

It is worth bearing in mind, however, that much of human history has been about the failure to understand or adapt to changing circumstances in the physical and natural world around us, and the consequences that ensue.

Those failures have wreaked havoc in the past, but they tended to be somewhat localized, while our current failure promises worldwide havoc.

The book should be required reading for every member of every legislative body in this country. You never know. Maybe one or two congressional Republicans would decide that saving the planet is more important than stopping drag shows or persecuting trans people, though I admit that’s unlikely. Unfortunately, if history, both of the sort Frankopan recounts and we have experienced from Republicans recently, is any guide, then we have little hope that the coming crisis will be averted or its impact mitigated by constructive action. I now have three little grandchildren, and I am truly afraid of how they will fare in the world that we have inflicted on them.

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Republicans in disarray

Sunday, June 4, 2023

The Democrats in Disarray! trope has been a favorite of the mainstream media for some time now. There are a lot of reasons they have pounded on it, often manufacturing the disarray in order, for instance, to prove their evenhandedness for, after all, both sides!.

It will be interesting to see if we’ll be hearing about Republicans in Disarray, for they most certainly appear to be.

A few days ago I posited that we might be seeing the beginning of Republicans eating their own, focusing on the current move in Texas to impeach Ken Paxton, something their doing now though he has been a known criminal for years.

Now, we have another example: Steve Bannon exhorting his griftees (new word, but if there are grifters there are of necessity griftees) not to donate to the RNC because that awful Kevin McCarthy didn’t tank the economy in service to fascism.

A few days before the final vote on the debt limit my wife was watching someone on TikTok who predicted that McCarthy would eventually cave because the money people behind him aren’t interested in destroying the economy in service to fascism. Not that they’re necessarily against fascism, they just don’t want to lose any money in the process. The argument sounded right to me, and I suspect that it was indeed such pressure that led McCarthy to go along with a deal in which he got a few fig leafs, but essentially caved. That, and the probability that destroying the economy might lead to him losing his job in 2024.

It seems highly likely that the full on fascists like Bannon, Greene, et. al., will continue to cause turmoil, (i.e., “disarray”) within the Republican ranks, by increasingly attacking the mere fascist enablers. It’s also highly likely that many Republican incumbents will spend as much time running away from other Republicans as they spend running against Democratic opponents.

It is to be hoped that the Democrats can take advantage of this. It will require that they speak with one voice. Unfortunately, that’s something they have been incapable of doing in the past, but maybe they’ve learned.

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Why are the Republicans in Texas impeaching Paxton just because he’s a criminal?

Monday, May 29, 2023

I have been mulling over the Ken Paxton situation in Texas, ever since I read this article. He has been impeached, the argument being that he has committed various crimes, which is undoubtedly true.

However, we are long past the time when Republicans care about criminal behavior by their fellow Republicans. The standard response is to portray criminal Republicans as victims of a leftist press or some other fictional bogeyman. Paxton himself has been under criminal indictment for years. It is a mystery to me why he had not gone to trial in all that time, but he hasn’t. Moreover, for all of that time until recently there has been no move to impeach him, and he has been renominated and reelected.

The article to which I’ve linked was written just before the impeachment process came to fruition. Paxton was calling for the resignation of the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, claiming that he had been drunk while presiding over a session of the House. Paxton hadn’t been impeached, but he no doubt knew it was coming.

Again, we must ponder: since Republicans don’t mind if their fellow Republicans engage in criminal conduct, precisely what do the vast majority of Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives have against Paxton. I’m not sure, but it brings to mind the old saw about revolutions eventually eating their own. You know, Robespierre and all that. The Republican Party has been taken over by a cult, and there are no doubt some within it that are not terribly happy about that. Moreover, cultists tend to fight among themselves, for deviations from the one true way are not tolerated, and the definition of the one true way tends to become a bone of contention. I think it’s entirely possible, no make that probable, that we’ll be seeing a lot more internecine fighting within the Republican ranks, especially if Trump is consigned to a position in which he must attack other Republicans, as he is currently doing with DeSantis.

Maybe I’m looking too much on the bright side, but I’m betting we’ll be seeing more of this sort of thing.

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How will the Supreme Court get around this. They will you know.

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

This is interesting. It appears that there’s been some language missing from one of the most important Reconstruction statutes, 42 USC 1983, a statute that has been used to protect Americans from “deprivation of any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States”. There has been a lot of important litigation filed using this statute to protect or establish constitutional rights. It can be used to seek declaratory relief, such as a declaration that a given state policy is unconstitutional, or can be used to seek damages against a state actor that has deprived a person or persons of constitutional rights.

The Supreme Court has, however, carved out a massive loophole in the law, known as qualified immunity. Police, for instance, have taken advantage of the loophole for years. Basically, a plaintiff is thrown out of court unless he, she or they can prove that a court has already ruled that the constitutional violation in question is in fact a constitutional violation. So, unless you can find a previous case with an identical fact pattern in which another cop was allowed to escape liability,but the court found that the actions in question did indeed violate the constitution, you are entitled to no more than a judge telling the cop that he or she violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights, but they are free to walk out of court without penalty, for how were they to know that the particular conduct in which they engaged, heinous as it may have been, violated the constitution.

Apparently, when the federal statutes were first compiled the compiler, whether intentionally or unintentionally, omitted some qualifying language, to the effect that a defendant was liable “any such law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage of the state to the contrary notwithstanding”.

The Supreme Court based its “qualified immunity” jurisprudence on its assertion that 1983 did not “displace immunities protecting officials that existed when the law was enacted”. In my own humble opinion that was a rather tortured reading of the bowdlerized version of the statute, but it doesn’t pass the sniff test if you consider the language of the statute as actually enacted. The court should certainly reconsider its qualified immunity decisions in light of this discovery.

The cops and similar constitution violaters need not fear however. I’m sure the Supreme Court will find a way to preserve their right to deprive us of our rights. My guess is they’ll give the job to Sammy Alito, who did such a good job of explaining that women have no right to abortion because a 17th century witch hunter said they didn’t.

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Rudy’s been naughty

Monday, May 15, 2023

So Rudy is being sued by a former employee for sexual harassment in the extreme. You can read many of the gory details here. Among them:

[The] 70-page suit cites audio recordings and accuses Giuliani, 78, in graphic detail of subjecting her to sexual assault and harassment throughout her employment, forcing her to engage in “violent sex” and attend work video conferences naked and work in short shorts he bought printed with an American flag.

“He often demanded oral sex while he took phone calls on speaker phone from high-profile friends and clients, including then-President Trump. Giuliani told Ms. Dunphy that he enjoyed engaging in this conduct while on the telephone because it made him ‘feel like Bill Clinton,’” reads Dunphy’s suit.

You have to wonder why anyone would continue to work under such conditions. I don’t doubt that the allegations are true, but if I were Rudy’s lawyer I think the defense I’d try (after, apparently (since in this hypothetical I am indeed his lawyer), trying in vain to avoid the job), though I wouldn’t have much confidence in it, would be that it couldn’t have happened because no reasonable person would continue to work under those conditions. What other defense could there possibly be. Lest I be accused of sexism, I must add that my wife had the same initial reaction. Why didn’t she quit? I guess we’ll find out when the case goes to trial.

Despite my incredulity that anyone would continue to work under those conditions, I hope she wins and she probably will.

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More bad messaging, and something completely different

Monday, May 15, 2023

This article at the American Independent got me thinking yet again about the left’s ham-handedness when it comes to framing it’s message, a trait shared by the Democratic Party generally. The article is about the fact that Tommy Tuberville, one in a now long line of stupid Southern Senators (it’s a selling point down there) emitted a statement in support of “white nationalists”. No question that his remarks were stupid, though he’ll pay no price for them.

What I take issue with is the use of the word “white nationalist” as a synonym for “white racist”, “America hating Nazi”, or any number of terms that more accurately describe the people to whom he was referring.

I don’t know who originated the term “white nationalist”, but it has found a home in the language of the left and the Democratic Party. Read the linked article and you will see that the Biden folks use the term in condemning Tuberville.

It reminds me of the fact that for years the people who favored abortion rights were fine with calling their opponents “pro-life”, a term those proponents had conferred on themselves, rather than a pejorative term that more accurately described them. It also reminds me of the ridiculous term “defund the police”, terminology that it was obvious would be used against calling for a policy that really amounted to rethinking the role of the police in our society. “White nationalism” is not quite as bad, but if the point of coining these terms is to sway the opinion of those who are not already afraid that the country is being Nazified (new word there) then the term should make the threat clear. The term “nationalism” is one that is open to interpretation, particularly by people who don’t pay a lot of attention to politics. After all, they might ask, what’s wrong with being a nationalist, so long as you’re a nationalist for the USA! It seems to make sense to avoid ambiguities or language that requires people to do a bit of research to understand completely.

Speaking of research, after writing the above I did a bit of research in my Merriam-Webster. The term “nationalist” is defined as follows;

a member of a political party or group advocating national independence or strong national government

So, by that definition, the Founding Fathers were all nationalists.

However, Merriam-Webster further enlightens me regarding the term “white nationalist”. It’s definition:

one of a group of militant white people who espouse white supremacy (see WHITE SUPREMACY sense 1) and advocate enforced racial segregation

According to the dictionary, the term goes back to 1951, though in my experience, it has been rarely used until recently. In any event, it is still asking too much of the unengaged voter to parse the language. The message should be clear. Call a racist fascist a racist fascist.

AFTERWORD: It’s been a while since I posted anything, one reason being that I’ve spent a lot of time recently performing my duties as treasurer for our local party committee, preparing for a fundraiser that we held this past Saturday. This post was drafted a few days ago, as the article to which it refers is now about a week old, but I never got around to posting it. It seems to be the case that the more time you have on your hands, the less you tend to do.

By the way, the fundraiser to which I referred was held to honor two of Groton’s finest, Joe DelaCruz and RIta Schmidt. Joe represented part of Groton and part of New London in the State legislature for a couple of terms. He’s a sheet metal worker, and decided not to run again because he couldn’t afford to live on a state legislator’s stipend. Most state legislators have sources of income that enable them to spend time in Hartford without any economic loss to speak of. In any event, Joe did a great job while representing us, and we’re all hoping he will re-enter politics soon. Joe has an uncanny ability to communicate our issues well to people, and I think he’d do well in the Trumpish locales to the north of us.

Rita has been involved in community improvement projects and has held political office here in Groton for decades. I helped draft her bio for the ad book we put together for the fundraiser, and we had trouble cutting it down to one page. She has been instrumental in making Mystic the tourist destination it has become. She was also the first Democratic mayor of Groton, which had a Republican majority town council for decades until Trump helped us turn it around.

I realize this Afterword is not exactly relevant to the first part of the post, but it’s my blog and I can write whatever I want, so long as I don’t get in trouble with Ron DeSantis.

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A clear and present danger

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

I’ve read in various places that Robert Kennedy, Jr. has the support, at this time, of a little more than 20% of potential Democratic Primary voters. I think it’s safe to say that 95% of those folks feel Biden is too old, responded to the Kennedy name, and have no idea what a nutjob he is.

I think it’s clear he can’t get the nomination, but he can make life miserable for the Democrats during the primary process, particularly since the media will just love it if he gains any traction at all, traction they shall no doubt want to help him get. They will pump him up and cover for him. Consider that when he was interviewed on ABC instead of calling out his vaccine lies, they edited them out of an interview. Expect even more kid glove treatment if he gains any traction at all.

It’s up to the Democrats and the Biden campaign to educate the uninformed about the facts. The vaccine denial, the fact that Steve Bannon pushed him to run, etc. In an ideal world, some of the sane members of the Kennedy family, most of whom have already distanced themselves from his campaign, would agree to be the face of the anti-Junior push. It would be best if he could be relegated to Marianne Williamson status as quickly as possible.

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A bit about Biden

Thursday, April 27, 2023

It’s my understanding that Joe Biden isn’t terribly popular. He is with me, though in all truth in a perfect world I’d be happy if he was replaced by someone a lot younger, but given current realities, he is our bulwark against fascism, and, give him credit, he seems to understand that. He’s done better than I thought he would. In particular he has apparently long given up on his campaign prediction that the post-Trump Republicans would have a come to Jesus moment.

The fact that he is not overwhelmingly popular is not surprising. I think he has flaws similar to those I perceived in Ned Lamont. He seems to think that the job of the president is to do the job of being president, and not spending your time telling everyone how great you are. Lamont did a decent job as governor from the day he was elected, but his numbers were not great. I think the COVID crisis was good for him, because it actually got through to people that he had done a good job responding to it. But still, as a self promoter, he wasn’t great, and neither is Biden.

The genius, on the other hand, couldn’t stop bragging about what a terrible great job he was doing, and of course the press dutifully covered his boasts. Perhaps they didn’t endorse them, but they certainly helped spread them. He also had Republican flunkies that continually sang his praises, while Democrats don’t do that sort of thing. Far be it from them to try to influence the narrative.

Lucky for us and for Biden, the probabilities are that the Republicans will be so unpopular by 2024 that he’ll have no problem getting re-elected, though you never know. Right now the Republicans are doing their best, and it is unquestionably their intent, to tank the economy and blame the results on Biden. It might work, unless the Democrats finally learn something about pushing their message.

After I wrote the above I happened on this post at Crooks and Liars. Here’s the relevant quote:

The unemployment rate is now at its lowest since 1969. According to recent GDP data, the U.S. economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.6% in the fourth quarter of 2022. Trump knows this. Democrats are not very good at messaging. If Trump had accomplished that, he would post about it daily while shouting the numbers from the rooftops.

So, someone out there agrees with me.

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Good news today

Monday, April 24, 2023

So, Tucker Carlson has been fired by Fox. It truly couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. I’ve read all kinds of speculation about why Fox canned him, with the weight of the evidence seeming to be that he documented his hypocrisy in texts and emails, which included criticisms of Fox management for not consistently lying to its audience because, for instance, it accurately called the election for Biden. It is extremely unlikely that they are firing him for lying to their audience, since he might very well have been less of a liar than the likes of Maria Bartiromo.

It will be interesting to see where he goes from here. Will he stoop to going to OAN or one of the other fringe purveyors of right wing filth, or will he try to go back to pretending to be a responsible conservative like he played on MSNBC? There may be an opening at CNN, whose CEO has been trying to move right. I don’t think he’d have any problem condemning the filth he pushed at Fox, since, after all, he was just asking questions.

It will also be interesting to see who Fox finds to replace him. When he took over for Bill O’Reilly I actually thought he’d be unable to fill O’Reilly’s shoes. I was wrong about that, as he was both more toxic and more popular than the loofah/falafel guy. I’m sure there’s someone out there who can out-Tucker Tucker, and you can be sure Fox will find him. (My bet is that it will definitely be a him.)

Afterword: After writing the above, I heard that the likely reason for his firing is that, like Bill O’Reilly before him, he is being sued for sexual harassment, in his case by a woman who worked at Fox. One must wonder why Murdoch doesn’t get all his women employees to waive their rights to be free of sexual harassment, or perhaps they should pull out the old defense employers used against employees injured as a result of unsafe conditions before the days of worker’s compensation: assumption of the risk.

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It takes all kinds

Sunday, April 23, 2023

I’ve never been a big Twitter fan (or a fan at all), and I deleted my hardly used account shortly after Elon Musk took over. Still, I can’t avoid reading about his serial displays of ineptitude as he continues to do his best to destroy the platform. This article at Above the Law discusses the possibility that he has exposed Twitter to possible defamation actions by celebs like Stephen King and Lebron James by falsely stating that they have paid for or otherwise endorsed his recent move to charge users for blue checkmarks that allegedly verify that the account is the genuine account of the given user. Apparently Musk left the blue checkmarks on the accounts of the aforementioned celebrities, and presumably other celebrities, despite their refusal to pay up. Their account information states “This account is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.” Neither statement is true, and Twitter knows the statements are untrue.

Whether any of the affected celebrities would bother to sue is an open question, but as with almost everything else about Musk’s Twitter acquisition, this leaves him looking very inept. It makes you think about the nature of human intelligence. It’s a multifaceted thing.

For reasons I can’t quite fathom, Musk is one of the richest people on earth, and he must have had some sort of intelligence, or a certain sort of capability, to get himself there. An obvious parallel is the person who was elected to be president in 2016, who is obviously not a very intelligent person if one were to apply the sort of definition to intelligence that one would utilize in an academic setting.

Still, Trump obviously has a deep seated understanding of a certain type of human nature. He is a born snake oil salesman, and he’s good at it. Before becoming president, he never had to worry about the folks who weren’t suckers, as he stuck to fleecing the gullible, which he did well, and evading the law, which his access to money allowed him to do. He wasn’t intelligent enough, fortunately or unfortunately, to realize that he was exposing himself by entering the political arena. Musk too, has a bit of Trump’s talent, perhaps more in some respects, as he has managed to found a profitable (Trump never really turned a profit on anything) car company even while hyping bullshit like self driving cars and tunnel boring machines that never seem to deliver the goods. We can only hope that he will crash and burn like the genius, as he too presents a clear and present danger to the nation.

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