We can't let the Trump regime try to sell off Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, and the Grand Canyon. I expect he'd love a Trump hotel monstrosity to add to his family's holdings.
Stay vigilant. Tell your members of Congress you expect them to stop Trump's horrors. Get active with Indivisible.org or other democracy groups. Courage is contagious. Dissent is patriotic.
Imagine if members of Congress wore sports jackets or blazers while in session. They could sell sponsorships to corporations and wear badges that showed who had bought them (the sponsorships and the members). At least it would be visible.
They COULD sell sponsorship patches?! Hell, they ought to have to wear on their clothing the current donors who have bought them off. “The love of money is the root of all evil.”
Yes. The gun of choice for school mass murderers is the AR15. Inexplicably, those lapel pins are still worn by Republicans in Congress. It's doubly inexplicable because Republicans sporting those (figuratively) blood-drenched, aggressive badges act, in the halls of Congress, like nothing so much as a flock of sheep.
Made me ill to hear of the plans to 'sell off' a wonderful holiday tradition to the highest bidder. I would feel sorry for the children but, I wish the parents had chosen to not attend the corporate fiasco.
Papa, also a town in California destroyed in a CA wildfire. And we should pave paradise and put in a parking lot. I have just finished reading The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the same person who wrote Braiding Sweetgrass. The former is very short, but she talks about the giving economy and the commodity economy. For a very long time the prevailing view has been the commodity economy which has brought us to our current problem of climate change. I am a long time gardener and I have gratitude for the gifts of my garden. I view the land as sacred and also stolen from indigenous people. We try to take good care of it. And we have a little giving economy in the neighborhood, sharing things with our neighbors or taking surplus to an organization that helps people, mainly the houseless. I view with deep sadness what is happening under death star and the party of death.
Oh, WOW, Michele! I’m about to get vicious and sarcastic about those who can’t honor our planet and do everything they can to persevere it for the future….but, I’m gonna hold the sarcasm in and hope for a brighter future for my grandkids….
Yup, another one of my favorites. Tom Paxton!! I am putting together a songbook (called Papa’s Songbag) that I will be passing along to my grandchildren. Already one of them has picked up playing guitar and doing some singing.
Native American tribes proclaimed "these are OUR lands," Palestinians and Lebanese are the latest to suffer genocide by proclaiming "these are OUR lands." The same kinds of people and political parties committing the genocides (there ARE two) are going to ensure the same happens to OUR public lands. Readers here even support, hold memberships in, and rally behind the same cartel parties and ruling class operatives that enact the genocides and the displacement of the people while considering themselves "exceptional" rather than the sociopaths they became by placing Party over people. Isn't that pathetic?
As an earth scientist who gave Earth Day lectures to my students on the first Earth Day, I knew how lucky and privileged I was to be enjoying these Parks and public lands with my students and realized that some day OUR access to these would be gone too. As a scientist and educator, I did what I could to instill the appreciation that might at least postpone the inevitable triumph of corruption and greed. I've no regrets that I put my time into that.
Jean, I ask where the adults are every single day since Trump was first elected. Republicans it seems have decided that remaining toddlers emotionally and to some extent intellectually is "cool" and are sticking to it.
They might want to watch documentaries on the past wars and corruption poured upon the innocent because of a lack of moral inner peace in those who lust for power.
I'm not trying to pick on anyone, but I feel the need to be a contrarian today. I agree that we have work to do, but what is the necessary work that will be sufficient?
DJT celebrated Earth Day by announcing that “we finally have a president who follows science.” But what is science?
According to Wikipedia’s “Scientific Method” article, science involves subjecting our assumptions to rigorous skepticism because they will otherwise distort how we interpret our observations. That could and should be an elementary school level understanding of science, and it is the polar opposite of how DJT thinks.
I’m currently reading Oliver Sacks book, Hallucinations (2012), in which he describes an experiment where eight perfectly sane “pseudo-patients” were sent to eight hospitals across the US with made-up complaints about hearing voices. Solely based on that one symptom, they were all hospitalized, some for up to two months. Seven were diagnosed with schizophrenia and one with manic-depressive psychosis.
Hallucinating voices is a symptom of schizophrenia, but most people who exhibit the symptom are perfectly sane. The people who diagnosed those pseudo-patients had scientific credentials despite lacking what could and should be an elementary school level understanding of the concept.
I’d love to be able to say that this was just an isolated incident, but finding people with scientific credentials who behave as if they lack what could and should be an elementary school level understanding of the concept is like finding pebbles on a beach, and DJT’s definition of science is based on their example.
The second Earth Day, April 22, 1971, was when the comic strip character Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
The issue here is that science when applied to human mental health is somewhat different than the physical sciences. Diagnosis of mental illness is a very subjective process and the DSM, the bible of diagnosis has been found to not have much science to support it. One person deemed to have a mental illness can have a chart full of an array of diagnoses. However, science applied to the physical environment has checks and balances built in. Sure there are scientists who can be "bought", but the scientific method is designed to vastly reduce bias.
I agree that the scientific method is designed to address the bias issue, and I agree that psychology is more subjective than the physical sciences, but I don’t agree that it’s okay for someone who has scientific credentials to behave as if they lack an elementary school level understanding of the concept in any context.
I know an emergency room physician who behaves like a real scientist. He told me the story of a child who had been in an accident. He advised the parents that tetanus was unlikely but fatal, recommended the 100% effective vaccine, and they turned down his advice. Then I told him what I said in my above comment, and he started telling me stories of his physician colleagues behaving as if they lacked an elementary school level understanding of science.
The scientific method is designed to reduce bias, but it doesn’t work when people understand the method but don't understand its purpose. Either the collective that is the scientific community (of which I am a member) wants to be trusted because its behavior is trustworthy, or it doesn't.
The inspiration that led to producing the Science Literacy Concept Inventory (https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jmbe.v17i1.1036) was the discovery that many people with graduate and professional degrees in science could not explain science's way of knowing, what constitutes science, or how it works. Every metadiscipline (science, social science, humanities, arts, technology) has uniqueness in its ways of knowing.
I don’t see anything in your comment or the study that conflicts with my position.
Just because I haven’t caught a fish yet doesn't mean I’m not going to catch a fish, and just because different fields of science don’t have a common “scientific way of knowing” explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t a common explanation.
Can you give me one example of someone doing science without subjecting their assumptions to rigorous skepticism? I can give you lots of examples of people who talk like scientist while their actions (not allowing their assumptions to be challenged) are saying they don’t understand the concept.
Comparing scientific methods to psychiatric diagnosis, or medical diagnosis period is your first mistake. This is not a relevant comparison James. Medical diagnosis requires scientific training, but also a deep understanding of humanity and sociology as well as no small part of art and language. Humans are tricky creatures and cultural differences will dramatically change how they communicate about their symptoms, causes, ect. And that is when they are being honest, and giving a clear history. The science comes into play after interpretation of history and exams. This is far more complex than you would like to think. 30+ years of medicine under my belt and i am still regularly surprised…
We can agree on this. At least one of us is making a mistake.
If two people observe the same evidence and draw conflicting conclusions, then it’s not because the evidence conflicts with itself. Instead, it’s because the two are interpret the same evidence using conflicting assumptions.
They don’t have to be scientists to openly share and challenge each others’ assumptions, but If they do, then they are behaving like real scientists and learning something of value from the experience. Otherwise, at least one of them is doing something so their assumptions can’t be challenged. That person might be the head of a science department at Harvard University, but they’re behaving like someone who lacks what can and should be an elementary school level understanding of science.
So, science is both far more complex than either of us can possibly imagine, and simple enough that every child with an elementary school graduation certificate can and should understand.
If two providers talk to a patient and get completely different stories. Either because they asked different questions, or the patient responded in a different fashion, or even felt differently because the interview was taken at a different time. Or possibly the patient gave a history to achieve a different outcome. That is medicine! We are not working on toyotas, therefore assuming different treatment for the same problems, or lack thereof (such as in this example ) is all related to the providers skill is a mistake. Yes, a better Doc is more likely to get to the heart of the problem, but I would argue that is art, and not science.
I understand your position. Your description of the scenario is accurate. However, you have not addressed my point.
The purpose of science is to limit the negative impact of bias. The only way I know to eliminate bias is for me to subject my assumptions to rigorous skepticism. That applies to someone implementing the Toyota production system and to two physicians disagreeing about a diagnosis.
If someone doesn’t understand the scientific method, but they behave as if their philosophy is “I think, therefore I am making testable assumptions,” then they are behaving as if they understand the scientific principle.
If someone understands the scientific method, but they behave as if their philosophy is “I think, therefore I am right,” then they are behaving as if they lack an elementary school level understanding of the scientific principle.
For example, Elon Musk has a Bachelor of Science degree, and every child with an elementary school graduation certificate could and should be able to see that he does not understand the concept.
If what you are saying to people is, “it’s too complicated for you to understand so you’ll just have to trust me,” then they will know that you are wrong even if they can’t explain how they know, and they will be angry at you, and your behavior might be turning them toward con artists like DJT.
And that make would make me angry at you for having a significant negative impact on my life, on my family and friends, and on all of DJT's innocent victims.
Which has to include treating each other with respect, right? The more human beings treat other human beings with respect, the lesser the destruction of our environment.
I have backpacked in these mountains and other areas in the country. Well, I'm glad I had this opportunity before they are lost to scorched earth policies.
Resist having these lands lost to Trump and wealthy cronies. Call your representatives in Congress and tell them to resist. We the People have to fight in whatever way possible.
Stephanie, we hiked and backpacked for years in the Santiam Canyon and the Mt Jefferson and other wilderness areas here in Oregon. Then in 2020 everything burned and up the canyon there is still the smell of woodsmoke. I can only imagine what will happen now. And of course, let's fire park employees, forest service employees, and wildfire fighters as well as refusing to fund any research. We also already had a segment of the population who did not understand how to take care of the wilderness and who have trampled through it with no care. We also had a fool of a kid throw a fire cracker into a canyon in the Gorge despite being told not to do it with the resultant fire that burned a popular hiking area.
I agree. The Adirondacks in NY have been trampled to the point of serious soil erosion; hikers defecate on the trails; walk off trails on sensitive vegetation; leave food and food packaging at the summits!! I no longer hike those trails because they are crowded and visited by inexperienced hikers (how many times have the park police had to rescue a hiker who had no business in the high peaks w/out adequate water, shelter, etc. at the taxpayers' expense).
People here now have to get permits for certain popular areas. We were always very careful to pack everything out and to bury any poop off the trail somewhere. Ah yes, rescue. Do people ever even read the weather report for starters. Mt. Hood is a popular mountain to climb and has been the scene of many rescues. Yes, inexperience, but also a bit of arrogance from people who are veteran hikers, skiers, too, because they decided they were good enough to ignore avalanche warnings, etc.
Think of all the morbidly rich asses who would LOVE to develop the oceanfront in Acadia National Park, should it be privatized. Mt. Desert Island already has to bear the burden of the presence of Leonard Leo. Why is too much never enough for them???
Once they sell off all our assets so they can make the rich richer with more tax breaks there will be nothing left. No sources of income because it’s abundantly clear the rich don’t want to pay taxes, they don’t want the minimum wage increased so the working people will have higher incomes thereby paying more taxes. These people are so selfish they think money is the only way they can be happy and it’s never enough. Honestly Musk seems like a really miserable person to me.
"I believe we ought to have a deep inventory of all the assets in America. We ought to understand…what is our assets, 100 trillion, 200 trillion? We could be in great shape as a country.” Professor usually concludes her letters with a key warning. "great shape as a country" in today's conclusion sounds great for uninformed. But here "country" by a Trump administrator means a group of wealthy people and rest living with contaminated water and polluted air.
"God gave us the oil and coal for us to burn" says neo-fascist Christian autocracy.... yet in Texas it is now cheaper to generate electricity with wind and solar power... which presumably a similar god might give you.
And one of these "Christians" celebrated the death of the Pope as the defeat of evil. I'm an atheist, but Pope Francis was the best Pope of my lifetime -- inclusive, humble, caring; and to call him evil reveals everything about these monsters.
I've been rereading Timothy Snyder's "The Road to Unfreedom." Much, much in it on analogies between the oligarchs of Putin's Russia, and their similar counterpart billionaires in the U.S.
Even better -- for what I may occasion for you in near future -- the many citations in that book on the oligarch strategies directly overlapping similar strategies in the testing (and corporate text packaging) swamping all U.S. ed.
So does Trump use that "Christian" label. Even has a "unit" in the White House, The Prayer Unit, so to speak. Has people "praying on him with laying on of hands", As he said years ago when asked about forgiveness; I don't need forgiveness; I have done nothing to forgive." (paraphrased).
It's going to take a hundred Jasmine Crockett's to straighten out this corrupt, lying, disgusting mess of MAGA. We are not fighting yet... Time is wasting.
My reading of what is reported to be Jesus's message was that he would exhort but never hate. Samaritans were enemies of the Jews. "Love thy enemy"? Nominal Christians who insist that every detail of Noah's Ark and The Tower of Babel is literal fact sometimes also say that the words of Jesus about love cannot be taken literally.
These regional insults to political opponents do not help unite those we might eventually need to band together with. Not hoping for an MTG conversion, just those that may eventually see common ground.
Agreed, Luke. With political opponents, would love to unite, converse.
But the specimen before us now has no political programs in view, has never in her life had any references to any sources with any care for any segments of our population.
She breathes theater only. Vitriolic hatreds. Wild, lewd fantasies. Deprecating stereotypes. Getting oneself on center stage adolescent foolishness only. And all for noting but sycophancy for the nation's #1 con man, rapist, felonious narcissist also only.
Women's lib produced Nancy Mace, Joni Ernst, Lauren Boebert, Elise Stefanik, and Marjorie Taylor Gazpacho?
I'm an agnostic, Laurie, and feel the same as you about Pope Francis. If one extracts the parts of the bible that offer the most humane teachings for all of us, regardless of belief in a deity, this was what he preached and lived. I believe it was MTG who made that despicable remark following his death--the same MTG who published a photo of herself "reading" a bible surrounded by crosses - on the wall behind herself and hanging on a chain around her neck. Like the autocrat she serves, it is all performative, meant to signal her base, who must be as dense and shallow as she is.
I agree with you about Pope Francis. He walked in the footsteps of St. Francis as best he could. He emulated kindness and compassion for all living beings. A true Bodhisattva.
I understand your feeling but I do have to disagree. I do not consider Pope Francis as poorly as some recent popes (and he did do some good things) but I had hopes he would cross the Rubicon and declare that life does not begin at conception but rather at the point when a full fledged human exists in vitro and move Catholicism into the modern age where pre- human embryos were no longer "protected" by religious dogma (please don't misunderstand I do NOT advocate for abortion at all, just the right for people to decide on their own about the embryo that they hope to bring into the world once it is a life).
His failing to do that left me with very mixed feelings about this pope.
Politics is the art of the possible, even in the Vatican. Francis got a lot done, over objection and obstruction from the 'conservatives' there. Changing the dogma on when life begins - even if he had wanted to -was probably a few steps too far.
It helps to understand the background for the beginning-of-life issue, and why the RC Church won't ever budge.
All of Christendom, which of course came after Judaism, followed Hebrew tradition which held – and still does – that human life begins when the newborn infant draws its first breath, called "Ruah," meaning "the breath of God."
Thanks to the subjective nature of religious doctrine, The Church started splitting into various factions, first dominated by the Eastern Orthodox Church which morphed into the Roman Catholic Church. About that time, Muhammad began expanding his realm of religious influence from the Middle East. This expansion threatened the church in Rome. The solution developed in the Vatican was to outnumber Muslims with more Catholics, which necessitated criminalizing all forms of birth control, including abortion. Of course, they couldn't divulge their real reason for this change of direction, so they couched it in doctrine promoting "the sanctity of life."
The added bonus was more offerings deposited into the Church's coffers.
Thirteen hundred years later, it's still a numbers game for the Catholic Church, and all churches, for that matter. As scandals and enlightenment cause thinking people to flee church, those defectors must be replaced. Forced births are an important tool.
Excellent statement Dale. As a preacher's kid, I have heard all sides & I still wrestle with when human life begins. I tend to favor "the breath of God".
He was imperfect and had only so much energy and political pull and influence. I too was disappointed but layers and layers of history and corrupt influence over the centuries sothe fact he championed the earth and used the metaphor as a field hospital great.
The problem is the patriarchy and it’s not only in the Vatican.
And we females raised these men so we also have played a role.
I would just let to get in clean mode all over the country and works and stop the malicious lying sprees at every turn, face the truths of where we are on all levels, and clean up and repair what we are able.
Me too! He has made it known that the Pope was a nobody. He pretends to be a show- off- my christianity guy. I see no need for him or melanoma to pollute the event. I hope the press ignores him!
A little off subject, but two ethnic groups in the county where I reside (and I won't name them) have won a Supreme Court ruling where books that they don't like are now banned in our public schools - PUBLIC, supported by the STATE - where is the separation of same? (Now I'm waiting for the Project 2025 to announce we are now a Christian nation - whatever rules and regulations that might bring?)
His slur against Gays and putting his voice into our 2024 Election did not endear him to me. Pope John XXIII was the only Pope who loved all the people no matter their religion, their beliefs, or the color of their skin. He tried to unite the people of the world, but conservatives were against that idea.
Of course the denatured, dehumanized, craven rich want more money, but they want it as part of a lifestyle whereby all the masses with less and less just reduce more and more to nothing but numbers.
Numbers of students in student loan debts profiting banks. Consumer demographic numbers profiting advertisers. Ranking numbers on testing. Numbers of potential voters of color to be suppressed and gerrymandered away. Numbers registered on hate algorithms responding to Putin's techies trolling from Russia and to U.S. billionaires' incel boys provoking more hate across MAGA. Numbers of AR-15 sales. Numbers of opioid sales.
From the arrival of the first Europeans, we have exploited the natural resources, exploited the Indigenous persons, exploited Black slaves to exploit the land.
Not to mention the continued exploitation of marginalized people in our country for the political and economic interests of an elite few. We are far from the ideal of all people being created equal and the implication thereof that every person should be treated with respect for their rights and their dignity. But it seems even simple courtesy is too much to ask of those who are ravenous with greed for wealth and power. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad and we are inundated with madness these days.
And the sociopathic madness of some very rich and powerful people has plagued humanity for eons. The weird thing is the degree to which victims support and will even sacrifice their own lives for them. It's a security hole in our DNA we desperately need a workaround for, not that people haven't tried, but our efforts are clearly still not adequate. Reflexive vigilance against significant and provable lies would help a lot. Free speech is one thing and fraud another. The URL to Sander's decades old explanation I posted elsewhere in this discussion is relevant here.
Matt Damon who was a neighbor of the late Howard Zinn did a documentary I think The People Speak I think a new version and also the songs both old and new and big names doing some kind of concerts in whatever format.
If I could sing I would I like my mother was banned by the nuns and specifically told just use your lips. I am still recovering from that!
As someone who never could sing myself, I am learning that there are some things that can let us use our voice. (I’m learning solfège for the first time—in a band full of musicians who learned it early— it’s not easy, but I’m getting better.
I completely agree, Mr. Rosen. Our stained past (and more recent past, as well) has become baggage that grows heavier and heavier the more we attempt to deny or ignore it. Let's own it and let it get lighter!
Pythagoras: claimed that "There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.", which there is.
The periodic chart which describes the building blocks of everything is numerical. The physics that is the bones of everything is geometric, and I am no mathematician, but my impression is that our whole physical universe is molecular geometry from the "tuning fork" simplicity of crystals to our own sentient bodies, and numerical math is in many ways shorthand for that, and quality is a quality.
Math is a tool not a tyranny. People make tyrannies, be it de-contextualized math classed that fail to highlight the method in the madness, or garbage numbers corrupt politicians make up or misapply, or present without the rest of the story. People are saying that "Figures don't lie, but liars figure".
Lincoln said (not a quote here but his meaning) if we enslave any people we can all be enslaved—everyone is vulnerable if we allow any one group to be exploited. Well we allowed our Black citizens to continue to be exploited after chattel slavery was outlawed. New versions over the years pretty much yielded the same results. Always benefitting white folks. And we looked away and took advantage. Well guess what? Everyone, no matter the color of their skin is in the cross hairs now. Even the MAGA people will be hurt plenty too you can bet! I notice the Hand’s Off rallies are white people. This is exactly as it should be. It is up to white folks to finally face this awful thing we built—this thing now running amuck. Our Black neighbors have done their bit. It is OK with me if they want to say « I told you so! »
I know I risk being annoying by posting this too often, but it is poetic, vivid, and so, so relevant:
"Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men (sic) , in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." - Lincoln
Phil, let’s be careful not to amplify the notion of numbers being somehow evil in and of themselves. Numbers provide and propel many, if not most, of the facts in science as well as an effective government. Numbers provided Rachel Carson with the tools of her discoveries and the power of her arguments. In the end, numbers are facts and like facts can be misused, altered and misunderstood in which case they become the "alternate facts” or propaganda or Orwellian newspeak which seems to have become so ubiquitous for tRump, Muskrat and their legions of MAGAt followers.
I said above the math is a tool, and of course, a pencil is a tool, a sculptor's chisel is a tool, language is a tool. Tools help us to create and manage our circumstances in arts and science and everything, though it may take the right tool for the right job, and the outcome lies in how we use it. An ordinary hammer, a screw driver, a kitchen knife, and tools and object of many other sorts, can be murder weapons in the wrong hands.
OPEC revenues have plummeted since Biden allowed the oil companies to drill, drill. drill. And if the Canadian tariff's ever expand to Canada add 25% to the 4 million BPD the midwest receives from the tar sands in Alberta. The Canadian government has a no-fly zone over the tar sands so no one can see how destructive they are to the environment. And to no one's surprise, it seems that Koch enterprises is involved in the extraction of oil from the tar sands.
At $60 a barrel and below, the oil companies aren't likely to drill or do much exploration. As the Trump recession worsens, the demand for oil will decrease as well. Hopefully, we can buy some time before Trump sells off America's public lands.
Good points, Gary. The economics will drive much of what happens to the Earth. Not only will a general drop in demand impact this, but the ever declining prices of sustainable energy sources will gradually make fossil fuel extraction less competitive. Even China is moving in the direction of solar and wind.
I find Burghum's focus on "American assets" to pay down the Republican debt to be outrageous - especially when their Congress is passing bills to add $5 trillion more to THEIR debt.
There's plenty of money in them thar hills to pay for much of our needs. How many huge energy sucking homes and yachts do they really need?
These Republicans haven't among them anyone in touch with any novels, memoirs, essay collections, biographies, or histories. That's a phenomenon -- but it's on par with the larger phenomenon of the tens of millions of their supporters who went to the same schools all similarly void.
You can fly over them but after reading this it’s clear we should leave that stuff right where it is. Turning it into a usable product is so dangerous to the climate and environment.
Rob Portman from Ohio used to be an environmental stalwart. He left his Senate position. One would think the grandchildren but I think Musk and Theil Timothy Busch , Harlan Crow, Caroline Wren, and Leo all have Mars in their minds. Kind of like Jesus Christ Super Star song Heaven in their minds de
For those of us with critical thinking skills, global warming/climate crisis is science. There are those who walk among us who's opinion is that it is a hoax, foisted upon them; their "information" sources have drummed that into them for 40 years. It's kinda like their belief in the Bible, to my way of thinking.
Of course, I am a non-theist who does not believe in the concept of Christianity, so there is that.
Well the whole concept of the historical Jesus and 19 th Century German bible scholars did lots of research. Most folks have no conceptions of the history of the texts . Elaine Pagels has a new book out in that topic. And the Bible Museum in DC was caught with many illegal and or fake items.
The old relic study from the Canterbury Takes. And a funny book is Christopher Buckley take on a medieval relic seller.
I agree but Trump & co call it a hoax or a scam. Some of them do admit the earth is warming but don’t believe it’s due to CO2. I’ve encountered many like this.
While their state burns the fuck up for 6 to 9 months of the year. A great read is, "The Worst Hard Time", by Timothy Egan about the dust bowl of the 20's and 30's across the great plains. It's applicable to so much of the environment today and maggot thinking.
You are welcome and I think you will like it. It was one of the first environmental disasters caused by man that is recorded in this book and why it happened, how it exacerbated the great depression of the 20's and 30's, and ultimately who came to the rescue. As you can tell, I thoroughly enjoyed it and the parallels to today are very telling.
Yup, drove through the Texas panhandle a few months ago and was amazed (and pleasantly surprised) to see the wind generators and solar fields. Poor EXXON… but, if EXXON is smart, they can become a TRUE energy company and “sell” electricity at their Energy Stations (used to be Gas Stations).
Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway are buying shares of Occidental Petroleum. Currently, they own about 34% of OXY and about 7% of Chevron shares. They also own the former utility Mid-America Energy.
They are committed to reducing emissions. This from their website-
Our Net-Zero Pathway
Oxy engages with our shareholders, government leaders, our value chain partners and environmental NGOs to strengthen our sustainability program and industry-leading pathway to net zero. The Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) identified Oxy in November 2021 as one of only three oil and gas companies that "have set emissions reduction targets which are ambitious enough to reach Net Zero by 2050 and to align with TPI’s 1.5°C benchmark.” We have provided more details on our net-zero strategy, including interim 2024 and 2032 goals. We also have endorsed the Oil & Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 and published our Climate Policy Positions and Climate Advocacy and Engagement. We were the first U.S. upstream oil and gas company to enter into sustainability-linked credit facilities, under which the fees we pay are tied to GHG emission reductions.
Hello Patricia.... Some Hope on the 'Elon-Front'... Today it was announced during the Tesla Earnings Call that Earnings were down 71%... Seems that the Popular Resistance to Elon is Working.... Automotive Financial Analysts are now pointing out what the Serious Techies have known about Teslas.... Dodgy Quality, overblown tech promises, and over-priced products... California Liberals are Fleeing Them... MAGA Rednecks don't buy them... Tesla is Elon, Elon is Tesla... When Elon leaves to tend to his Tesla Garden, his Minions will probably leave with him.... Tyler Hassen could be gone.... We The People, The 'Market' has Spoken... Good Work People!!! ... I know that the Indigenous will Fight For Our Lands... We Will Continue To Honor What The Creator Has Given Us...
We have a Tesla which we bought 2 years ago before - you know- Elon went crazy. We are thinking of removing the Tesla logo and replacing it with a Hudson Hornet logo....
We bought one in 2020, there weren’t a lot of options in EV’s then. Traded it in in February for a Mini Countryman EV. Amazingly the mileage is way better on the charge, the car is more comfortable, I can put roof racks on it that will hold more than 100 pounds. Now I’m reading about how inefficient the Tesla battery is which is funny coming from Mr efficiency himself. Plus if they’re recording more miles than you’re driving to invalidate the warranty it’s also costing you more for car insurance.
We were behind a Tesla with a little sticker under the back logo that said F ELON. could be taken 2 ways; felon or f@ck Elon. Very clever.
Stephanie, I can't guess the significance of the Hudson Hornet logo. We had an apple green Hudson Hornet when I was a little boy. It was huge! And a gas guzzler, at around 6 mpg in town.
The first popular American EV was the Baker Electric. You can get nice chrome lettering online to spell out "B A K E R." It would look nice until you can unload that vehicle that has lost all its value.
You don't need to believe everything in the Bible to agree that a monomaniacal obsession with money and power somehow bleeds into evil. Illustrations are overwhelming. Trace a whole lot of nasty stuff and find that raison d'etre at the base of it. Who doesn't like having money? But what are you willing to sell out to get it? Clearly Trump holds nothing sacred, except his own opportunity to dominate.
When it comes to human behavior it seems that very little is really simple, but there is a generic script for oppression that has persisted through ages, new players in familiar roles. Even when the "bad guys" are defeated, the "same old serpent" seems to reappear like whack a mole, sometimes from unexpected quarters. We can lock up the worst of the bad guys if we are lucky (and diligent) but I think we have to get better at somehow seeing that some roles should never be played.
They had been the enemy, they were still the enemy, even my ggggrandfather. But he never returned. So many still were racists above all else. At church, in government, in all aspects of daily life. I’m old, I remember.
Sadly true. We need to focus on regime change in Congress in 2026 and then in the Executive in 2028. But patience is required. There are too many people who demand immediate change and that is not going to happen. And if that discouragement leads to people becoming disaffected, we are doomed.
The huge problem I see: How, just HOW do we repair the colossal, humongous damage they have done. How do we reconstruct democracy to make descent into authoritarianism MUCH harder? How do we recover online systems and information? How do we install new security to protect online systems? How do we find the kind of excellent and experienced people they have fired to revive the sciences? How do we…? ? ?
We better start writing our own Project 2027 and Project 2029. We will have precious little time to think “How this?” “How that?” Centrist Democrats have disappointed far too often and too long. We’ll be lucky to have 4 years to produce really significant improvement in at least some areas.
Repairing damage and putting safe-guards in place? How about starting with mandatory voting, ensuring that democracy is not a spectator sport. Then maybe expand the Supreme Court and end lifetime appointments, introducing term limits that reflect democratic accountability rather than dynastic entrenchment. And while you're at it, cap political donations and close loopholes that allow billionaires and corporations to buy elections. Just a few radical ideas for the mop-up once tRump's been carted off and hung Mussolini-style from the nearest fencepost.
Make gerrymandering, voter purges, and deliberate voter disenfranchisement illegal. In fact, we need a national voting rights act, and to provide civics education in our schools, and not the wingnut variety either.
I’d start with overturning Citizens United. Unlimited campaign contributions from largely unaccountable individuals and groups have had a corrosive effect on elections at every level of government. No “dark money” should be allowed. The danger of funneling money into campaigns via crypto has made this problem much, much worse. We should strictly limit the amount of time campaigns run and we should have much more public financing. Next, I’d limit Supreme Court appointments to 12 years. The lifetime appointments were supposed to insulate Justices from political pressure, but that is now a fiction. Third, the truly horrible decision handing Trump, and all future presidents, a presumption of criminal immunity for official acts while in the White House has to be reversed. Combined with the presidential pardon power, this decision has given presidents virtually unfettered authority. The court’s ruling has handed a loaded gun to an unstable, grievance-driven maniac.
It was only a matter of time before a maniac would come along. In general I agree with you down the line but as a pragmatic myself, I think we need to figure out a game plan that might actually work. Doing all this stuff that everyone has suggested isn't going to happen overnight.
I do tend to agree that Citizens United needs to be revisited not necessarily by a new decision but by a law which makes what it empowers illegal and if necessary unconstitutional. The legal fiction that corporations can function as "persons" and have similar rights is long overdue to be reversed. My law professors in 1976 were arguing thar we needed to fix that and here we are 50 years later with nothing accomplished.
If JUST THAT were fixed, we could go a long way towards improvement.
Jon, I fully agree. I also note that nothing in the Citizen’s United SCOTUS decision requires the anonymity of the SOURCES of that supposedly "free speech.” It seems the Republicans have envisioned the free speakers to be individuals with hoods over their heads or balaclavas so they can’t be identified. WHY? Legislation simply requiring the identity of the source of any money contributed to a political campaign would go a long way, notwithstanding having already entered the age of Orwellian renaming of things (see the SAVES Act currently before Congress).
Thanks pilgrimRVW... Time for Fresh Younger Leadership among the Democrats.... Every Crisis generates its own Heroes... Seems to Me that the Current Democrat Leaders were forged in the Struggles of the '60s. and '70s... The Current Crisis is a Counter-Revolution... Time To Formulate, Plan, and Implement a Better Vision for the New Generation coming into Power...
Follow the money, and the costs to others, including posterity. It's not that we don't know we a dumping on their future.
In 1958 a Bell Labs funded science film included the observation:
“Well, it’s been calculated a few degrees rise in the earths temperature would melt the polar ice caps. And if this happens, an inland sea would fill a good portion of the Mississippi valley. Tourists in glass bottom boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami through 150 feet of tropical water."
One of the reasons the older generation gets to hang on to power is that they know you can't have it all - though they try. But, needs must when the devil drives, and they ARE prepared to bend, albeit unwillingly and denying all along that they are doing so.
When you are young and idealistic, it's so much hard to let your perfect dreams get tweaked for expediencies sake.
Listening to this right now. Harry is eloquent. I'll be following him. Thank you! My only complaint with Jim is that he talks too much when he interviews! I like what he is saying...but it makes the show too long :)
PilgrimRVW there was a discussion not too long ago about developing a "shadow cabinet” as is often done in British and European politics, admittedly parliamentary politics, but a cadre of politician/experts in each of the major categories of government, perhaps one for each department of the cabinet. It would be their responsibility to log not only what has been done to distort or destroy the effective functioning of government but to provide viable plans for reconstructing a new and improved version, “building back better.” This Shadow cabinet could construct the blueprint similar to Project 2025, like a repair manual. It would also provide a ready source of active knowledge and expertise for whoever is able to fill the role of our next leader.
I agree. What protests do is keep people fired up. They are a "feel good" activity. And being active is good. We can't get discouraged and disaffected. Or we will be doomed. We need to be ready to GOTV in droves, like have never been seen before. What we can do between now and then is keep folks pumped up AND donate to those organizations who have the structure in place to fight back and take this administration to the courts. Slow their progress. Gum up the works.
Jon, we need both. We need an energized display of peaceful resistance on the streets to show those in power that we won't go willingly along with their plans. Visible resistance, in whatever form it takes, is contagious and leads to ever greater numbers joining the ranks. Participation in street demonstrations, consumer boycotts, postcard-writing, calls to Congresspeople etc. give hope to the otherwise discouraged that we can do something, however small, as we inexorably move toward midterms, and hopefully, change, as the felon will be a lame duck hanging around the necks of his supporters.
What option would you suggest? A coup? A revolution?
Keep in mind, WE (the American people) voted for this guy, like it or not. And in this case he even won the plurality of actual votes not just the electoral college as he did in 2016.
So what to do? We have a system we are supposed to follow. I have my doubts it will be followed, yes, but until it is clearly not, I think there are serious practical and moral questions regarding violating the stated norms. We need to be prepared to act but we also need to be patient and not jump the gun. If we act before there is a real danger that would support a coup, we ourselves would be the ones who would be in the wrong.
And so far, Trump had managed to stay "within the lines" for the most part. Even in the cases of the immigration deportations, he is MOSTLY following the law. We need to use the system to push back as we are doing but any attempt to go further will need to be carefully thought out because the results will be ugly and probably deadly for many.
Such is what happens when you give up your democracy.
Yes, we want to work within the law, but if for example gangsters are attacking from within, appropriate defense may become necessary. The way they’re going makes me very concerned we won’t make it to the midterms.
Read the latest from David Brooks. The protests are just part of a great effort. A great rebellion. We need to attack this from every possible angle. Protests send a message to Congress and to those who would run for office. Protests are also therapy for those of us whose heads are exploding with outrage. I marched on the 5th - I felt better. That means something. I did a "pop up" protest on the 19th - I was joined by others. If nothing else I felt the support of hundreds of people driving by. So yes to protests.
But there is also sending a deluge of messages to members of Congress. Call, write, email - not just complaints. Applaud them when they stand up!
And there is an amazing array of legal efforts that are making a difference. You probably read Hubbell and Vance - I am bolstered by the efforts of the ACLU and Mark Elias.
So you are right. Magic isn't going to do it. Protests can only accomplish so much. But if enough of us do SOMETHING all the time we reach a "critical mass" of opposition.
I wake up each day absolutely astounded. "Is this the real life? Or just a fantasy?" Then I remember it is real and I get really, really pissed off. So I will be on a street corner again real soon. It's going to take a zillion little efforts to add up to a change. And change, it will.
Musk says his DOGE days are "over" in May this year hmmm that's 8 days on my calendar, Tesla profits ere reported down🔻71% yesterday but, not as far down 🔻as his credibility 🔻0 .
That is similar to what happened in the 17th century defenestration of Prague, when the imperial envoys failed to die when they were thrown out of a castle window and landed in a pile of horse manure. The second defenestration of Prague was more tragic. The Soviet backed Communists threw Jan Masaryk, the Czechoslovak president, out of a window and killed him. Maybe that is where Putin got the idea of using defenestration as a form of punishment.
Pat, I agree with you completely… And while I would certainly encourage the sentiments of Lori Oregon above to have people write to their congressman and all that I think that is futile. Even with a Democratic Congress and Senate, he is already demonstrated that he ignores Congress, laws, the courts, playing only to His pocketbook and the pocketbook of his Padre of clothes supporters. I don’t know how it will end it needs to end it needs to end before too much irreversible damage is done to the environment, to our country, to our economy, to our position in the world There are only a few options
Thank you, Heather, for highlighting Earth Day. The lack of respect these so-called developers show for the delicate balance of the natural world demonstrates their profound ignorance as well as their rapacity. It is the love of money that trips up the human animal every time.
Nixon did establish the EPA. That is the only credit I ever gave or will give to him. Now, it is being destroyed by billionaires who want to reap from the “revenues” when they sell off our public lands. Who do you think they will sell them to? Why, the highest bidder, of course! Putin’s flock will no doubt be given first dibs with Hungary and China to follow. In San Francisco, there is The Presidio. A beautiful area adorned with landscapes,buildings, and artifacts that depict its place as an important military base. Many generations of soldiers are buried there. Its history is rich and we can thank Nancy Pelosi for helping to make the Presidio a public park. The Presidio is precisely one of the parks that this nasty regime wants to put up for sale. It is horrid! They have to be stopped NOW!
TC, there was a judge in DC’s Superior Court, in the 70’s, who was also on his enemies list. Tricky Dick didn’t like him because he gave probation to those who were caught with “nickel bags” of weed. Dickie wanted them in the slammer! He established a stupid law called “The No Knock Law”. Do you remember that?
Nixon also oversaw the inception of the Wilderness Act, the Clean Water Act & the Clean Air Act. His was unfortunately the last Republican administration to seriously try to protect our environment. Starting Reagan, succeeding Republican administrations were primarily interested in exploiting our natural areas, and rejected established climate science, leading to the increasing threats of global warming. Nixon's recognition of the importance of protecting our environment was very significant. Too bad the succeeding Republican administrations, including the appalling ignorance of this current one, didn't follow his example.
Nixon did some dreadful stuff, but he repeatedly encouraged environmental responsibility. He even proposed government support for developing alternatives to the internal combustion automobile engine. Reagan despised environmental protection and wanted to shutter the EPA.
"He strengthened the Clean Air Act, arguably America's most important piece of environmental legislation, and was the first president to raise climate change as a major issue of concern for the federal government."
The American public loves national parks. Millions of people visit them every year. When millions of people see the parks suffer under this kind of mindless vandalism posing as cost-cutting, surely that will have an effect. The regional economies of several solid Republican states are deeply dependent on a functional US National Park system.
They may be dependent on National Parks, but don't bet on them acknowledging it or bucking their party to reverse course. This is the end-result of a stupid ideology which worships the "free market" and hates the very concept of public goods. Burgum's idiocy will turn it all into private ranch land, private mines, private logging operations. What Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir labored so hard to create and sustain, they will undo in a few years unless stopped politically. It will be very hard to do this.
Yes, those national parks have an enormously positive economic impact on surrounding communities. It is outrageous to attempt to sell OUR public lands to the highest bidder so they can exploit them.
Nature is something that is keeping me sane in these chaotic times. Now they want to take that away, too?! As if our birds and insects and wildlife aren't already under threat, thanks to habitat loss and neonics (today's DDT, which ought to be banned as well). Grrrr.
People are sadly disconnected from the land, i doubt many would even recognize the difference if parks were sold off to corporate interests. 😢🤬. They would likely be happy to have familiar stores and malls in the parks so they could get their favorite fast food. Wouldn’t even notice the logging of old growth in Yosemite because they would have to hike to see it.
“Silent Spring” was required reading in our freshman core program in college. I remember the first Earth Day. Everything that we have achieved in rolling back the polluting of our environment will be undone. Holden Village in the Cascade Mountains was the site of an abandoned copper mine that was given to the Lutheran Church that has spent decades trying to undo the pollution caused by that mine. It is a stunningly beautiful place. Now all those beautiful natural landscapes are at risk. We will undo all the progress we have made in protecting our natural heritage for what? Money? There is so much violation of the law now and nothing can be done to stop this? No confirmation of appointments? When will our legislators of both parties grow a spine to stand up against this plundering of our natural resources? And no this is not something to blame on just Democrats who effectively have no power. Shame on all of us for allowing these yahoos to run rampant over the rule of law. The checks and balances that our forefathers put into place have failed us. Teddy Roosevelt must be rolling over in his grave.
It is right to consider our assets when discussing our debt. But Burgum's idea of assets is to consume them. Then they are no longer assets. They must be conserved. The great physical and financial assets of the nation, acquired by conquest and economic predation, belong to all of us collectively and may be apportioned by us at will. The great intangible assets, our military strength and honesty and trustworthiness, create our greatest asset: confidence, confidence in our economy, in our determiniation to do good for all people. All of that is disappearing.
And we must remember that all wealth is continually generated by all of us. All accumulated profit and capital, the great trickle-up, is in fact tax revenue that never makes it to the Treasury. All of it is OUR money. Oligarchs are scared to death that we will understand this. That's why they must destroy democracy and the rule of law.
More pollution? Cutting back public land resources again for privatizing profiteers? More PR lies?
The convicted criminal in the White House needs the lies and cover-up language in the proportion that he resents his vast corruptions being seen for what they are.
It’s not just that, as a criminal, he wants to do what he wants to do, but that the entirety of facts, evidence, and individuals just impedes all the packaged theater, clichéd phrases, and outrage slogans on which all dictators depend.
Some argue that the fat orange felon learned his outrage-&-paranoia theater from Putin, Orban, Erdogan, and Netanyahu. Yes, he did.
But his American audience by the tens of millions learned their vulgar drama receptivity elsewhere. None could have sunk to that had their schools kept the writing of essays and reading of whole books focused on skills for individuals, facts, and evidence in its contexts.
They did the opposite. They fell to rule by testing, which allows nothing personal ever, instead the relentless logic of keeping to proper categories and hewing to causality as if it were always linear, chronological only.
You can see the evidence for this in Diane Ravitch’s “The Language Police.” Then compare the packaging she describes with how Timothy Snyder in “The Road to Unfreedom” describes dictators bundling all for the next outrage campaign, while of course, too, all dead to the human.
Don't forget the widespread adoption of the words "un-born baby." This is pure propaganda. It's a fetus!!! This was a scare tactic of the anti-abortion crowd and it worked. They are very clever to say up is down, out is in, forward is backward. The Department of State is really the Department of War, etc. Pay attention to every phrase they use, as they are all PR driven and usually cover the exact opposite of what they claim.
Certainly “anti-abortion” is the correct term. If they were “pro-life,” as some claim, the falsehood of that claim is proved by their complete carelessness of that life once it is out of the womb.
I am an ecologist. The “assets mentioned for large scale selloff are by and large non-renewable on a human time scale. That deep, rich, top soil in the midwest did not develop overnight; rather over millennia of actions by wind, water, heat, cold, and microbial life.
The Dust Bowl was not that long ago and made the Depression even more severe and ongoing. All the rich topsoil in the midwest you mention began to blow all the way out to the Atlantic. It took some time to achieve better management of the lands but it takes so much more time for that rich soil to replenish. So many chemical fertilizers and pesticides are now used to compensate for nutrients needed for cropland that there are dead zones from all the runoff in the Mississippi River Delta flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.
Apparently these inept fools and greedy billionaires think they can live off their money, seems they're going for the repeat cycle with the tariff/crypto economic turmoil and diabolical plans for strip mining every last piece of the planet.
How many issues we now face make us concerned for our collective future. Certainly, the environment is among those issues. The move to alternative energy, however, is still going strong. Windmills and solar farms have spread to almost every corner of our country. EVs are still popular. We have reduced coal burning. Let’s hope we don’t turn back to climate changing, polluting fossil fuels for the sake of near term profit.
There is a moral/ethical issue regarding the unnecessary consumption of irreplaceable finite natural resources. If it were necessary for the survival of Life on Earth or something equally important, that would be one thing. But it's not necessary. The extraction and consumption of natural resources is being done for the financial enrichment of a very small portion of the world's humans. They are not concerned about our ruining the planet for all creatures who will live here in the long-term future. The oligarchs are selfish, thinking only of themselves in their own lifetimes. They are not righteous and they are not humble.
We can build a new economy dedicated to healing the damage we have inflicted over the course of the past few centuries. In our new economy we will teach our children how to think, instead of what to think. We can guide and coach our children on how to build a sustainable economy, and how to leave the world in better health than the world they found after they arrived here.
I don't understand how so-called Christians can justify the destruction of nature, if they believe that God created the world. You'd think they would want to protect it. Instead, we are seeing more and more species of birds, plants, wildlife, etc. moving towards extinction.
Some days I am glad that I don't have children or grandchildren, and no more than a few decades left here on Earth. 😢
Phil, my reply was meant to be tongue in cheek. Your comment was well taken. It's just that I worked for a forward thinking public utility for 28 years, and was marginally involved with wind turbines from time to time. And the first time I heard them called windmills was from the mouth of you know coup, so that doesn't help. I always considered his use of windmill to be anti-environment. Obviously that's not true in your case. 😉
I understand. My Dad was a career meteorologist, first with the Weather Bureau, then with NOAA. He would be devastated were he to see what is going on for NOAA today.
Then you know the contributions made by the civil servants who served day to day through many administrations. When I was hired for my mid-level position, I took an oath to carry out my duties in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution as they applied to the work I was doing.
I'm sure your father would be appalled, as am I, at the idea of swearing allegiance to a President, as the current one wants all to do.
I'm a retired Sheriff's deputy who served 28 years full time and 7 years part time. I, too, swore an oath to the constitution and I am APPALLED at the fealty to the president instead of the Constitution.
The maga's we'll fight against everything that isn't something that trump administration tells them to do, to feel, or how to think.
The maga's are angry and feel that they've been forgotten by the rich. Especially the rich in the government. That's why in desperation they voted for trump. He promised he would help them. But it makes absolutely no sense because trump is the epitome of what they did not want. They just got conned.
That's why the maga's I see are so so angry and so so defensive now. They see what's happening and they don't like it either. But they've been duped and lied to and know nothing else.
trump and musk are Bullys. And sooner than later everyone... including all the maga's... will become the BULLY's target. And Bullys are never satiated. The more you suck up to a bully, the more they disrespect you, and pick on you all the more.
This will not end well for anyone, maga or not.
Because remember, as the past decades have shown us all, EVERYTHING trump TOUCHES DIES.
This might be the scariest thing I have read since this regime took over. And that includes seeing the Dow drop almost 6000 points. We need to protest in huge numbers!
Lynne, This element of the sea change in policy also hits me hardest at some level. It’s so destructive to this and future generations of humans but also to nonhuman co-inhabitants of the planet, who have no power to stop this gross power and nihilistic resource grab. Seems like the Senate could step in to stop the delegation of power to a non-approved oil tycoon but that is a wish upon a star. From Deb Holland to this DOGE oil tycoon wannabe it’s just whiplash. Seems to me that this issue needs to take a prominent and visible lead so people understand that their neighbors also want environmental protection. Seehttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/spiral-of-silence-climate-action-very-popular-why-dont-people-realise?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Use this spreadsheet to call/email/write any of our representatives as often as possible. Not just your own state reps, reach out to those in other states. Be as loud as you can and share this. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
“Burgum’s order says that his order is designed “to effectuate the consolidation, unification and optimization of administrative functions within the Department of the Interior…”
It’s interesting that they know and approve of the word “effectuate” when referring to dismantling nature but when a judge uses the word effectuate to order the release of a wrongful deportation they act helpless and perplexed. Selective comprehension is the new “I do not recall.”
Selective comprehension is the best description of people whose consciences have been severely damaged if they ever existed at all. It’s really called carefully planned propaganda to flim flam those with wormy brains. As W said, you can fool some of the people all of the time. And those are the ones you want to concentrate on. And I add, they are the mini-traitors who destroy from within all that they claim to love and protect. In fact, that describes the whole of the Republican Party on Earth Day 2025.
Trump's scheme mirrors Project 2025, to take public lands and sell it to billionaires. Imagine you may not be able to visit Yellow Stone or their may be oil rigs all over the Grand Canyon! Check this map of all the national parks in America that are now open for oil drilling and real estate development.
The Heritage Foundation is presumptuous to think that they and their billionaire financiers have the legal and moral authority to direct our government and to tell us what to do, think and believe.
We can't let the Trump regime try to sell off Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, and the Grand Canyon. I expect he'd love a Trump hotel monstrosity to add to his family's holdings.
Stay vigilant. Tell your members of Congress you expect them to stop Trump's horrors. Get active with Indivisible.org or other democracy groups. Courage is contagious. Dissent is patriotic.
He already sold off corporate sponsorships for the WH Egg Roll. We are fully in the middle of the Cronyism that we’d declared illegal decades ago.
Imagine if members of Congress wore sports jackets or blazers while in session. They could sell sponsorships to corporations and wear badges that showed who had bought them (the sponsorships and the members). At least it would be visible.
They COULD sell sponsorship patches?! Hell, they ought to have to wear on their clothing the current donors who have bought them off. “The love of money is the root of all evil.”
I Timothy 6:10
In every thread in every Letter, corruption is the underlying cause of everything the writer laments.
I think their AR15 lapel pins qualify.
Yes. The gun of choice for school mass murderers is the AR15. Inexplicably, those lapel pins are still worn by Republicans in Congress. It's doubly inexplicable because Republicans sporting those (figuratively) blood-drenched, aggressive badges act, in the halls of Congress, like nothing so much as a flock of sheep.
Plenty of memes exist already. They look like nascar drivers.
My first thoughts exactly!
Made me ill to hear of the plans to 'sell off' a wonderful holiday tradition to the highest bidder. I would feel sorry for the children but, I wish the parents had chosen to not attend the corporate fiasco.
🤬
All public lands are OUR lands— not to be exploited by a few grifting sociopaths.
Song of the day: Paradise by John Prine - RIP
One of the greatest Covid losses. I miss his music.
"Well coal company came with the world’s largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
And they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
And they marked it all down as the progress of man"
One of my absolute favorite songs. Last verse - “when I die, let my ashes flow down the Green River,” and when he did die a few years ago….yup!
Paradise - a real town (used to be) until Mr. Peabody’s coal train hauled it away. Paradise was destroyed. True irony.
Papa, also a town in California destroyed in a CA wildfire. And we should pave paradise and put in a parking lot. I have just finished reading The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, the same person who wrote Braiding Sweetgrass. The former is very short, but she talks about the giving economy and the commodity economy. For a very long time the prevailing view has been the commodity economy which has brought us to our current problem of climate change. I am a long time gardener and I have gratitude for the gifts of my garden. I view the land as sacred and also stolen from indigenous people. We try to take good care of it. And we have a little giving economy in the neighborhood, sharing things with our neighbors or taking surplus to an organization that helps people, mainly the houseless. I view with deep sadness what is happening under death star and the party of death.
Oh, WOW, Michele! I’m about to get vicious and sarcastic about those who can’t honor our planet and do everything they can to persevere it for the future….but, I’m gonna hold the sarcasm in and hope for a brighter future for my grandkids….
The irony is that the more people we create the greater the pressure on the natural world.
I am already there, Papa. By the way, I love your blog name. I wish I could see a brighter future.
I love John Prine. His songs are often a bit sardonic, but for the apogee of sardonicness, you need Randy Newman and his ode to the Cuyahoga River
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDVIFVy1MXQ
Stephanie, another great song for Earth Day is "Whose Garden Was This" by Tom Paxton.
Yup, another one of my favorites. Tom Paxton!! I am putting together a songbook (called Papa’s Songbag) that I will be passing along to my grandchildren. Already one of them has picked up playing guitar and doing some singing.
Native American tribes proclaimed "these are OUR lands," Palestinians and Lebanese are the latest to suffer genocide by proclaiming "these are OUR lands." The same kinds of people and political parties committing the genocides (there ARE two) are going to ensure the same happens to OUR public lands. Readers here even support, hold memberships in, and rally behind the same cartel parties and ruling class operatives that enact the genocides and the displacement of the people while considering themselves "exceptional" rather than the sociopaths they became by placing Party over people. Isn't that pathetic?
As an earth scientist who gave Earth Day lectures to my students on the first Earth Day, I knew how lucky and privileged I was to be enjoying these Parks and public lands with my students and realized that some day OUR access to these would be gone too. As a scientist and educator, I did what I could to instill the appreciation that might at least postpone the inevitable triumph of corruption and greed. I've no regrets that I put my time into that.
Jesus Christ. Where are the grown ups???
Jean, I ask where the adults are every single day since Trump was first elected. Republicans it seems have decided that remaining toddlers emotionally and to some extent intellectually is "cool" and are sticking to it.
They might want to watch documentaries on the past wars and corruption poured upon the innocent because of a lack of moral inner peace in those who lust for power.
We’ve ALL Got W O R K to do . Every Day for our FAMILIES ,
and our COUNTRY!
I'm not trying to pick on anyone, but I feel the need to be a contrarian today. I agree that we have work to do, but what is the necessary work that will be sufficient?
DJT celebrated Earth Day by announcing that “we finally have a president who follows science.” But what is science?
According to Wikipedia’s “Scientific Method” article, science involves subjecting our assumptions to rigorous skepticism because they will otherwise distort how we interpret our observations. That could and should be an elementary school level understanding of science, and it is the polar opposite of how DJT thinks.
I’m currently reading Oliver Sacks book, Hallucinations (2012), in which he describes an experiment where eight perfectly sane “pseudo-patients” were sent to eight hospitals across the US with made-up complaints about hearing voices. Solely based on that one symptom, they were all hospitalized, some for up to two months. Seven were diagnosed with schizophrenia and one with manic-depressive psychosis.
Hallucinating voices is a symptom of schizophrenia, but most people who exhibit the symptom are perfectly sane. The people who diagnosed those pseudo-patients had scientific credentials despite lacking what could and should be an elementary school level understanding of the concept.
I’d love to be able to say that this was just an isolated incident, but finding people with scientific credentials who behave as if they lack what could and should be an elementary school level understanding of the concept is like finding pebbles on a beach, and DJT’s definition of science is based on their example.
The second Earth Day, April 22, 1971, was when the comic strip character Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
The issue here is that science when applied to human mental health is somewhat different than the physical sciences. Diagnosis of mental illness is a very subjective process and the DSM, the bible of diagnosis has been found to not have much science to support it. One person deemed to have a mental illness can have a chart full of an array of diagnoses. However, science applied to the physical environment has checks and balances built in. Sure there are scientists who can be "bought", but the scientific method is designed to vastly reduce bias.
I agree that the scientific method is designed to address the bias issue, and I agree that psychology is more subjective than the physical sciences, but I don’t agree that it’s okay for someone who has scientific credentials to behave as if they lack an elementary school level understanding of the concept in any context.
I know an emergency room physician who behaves like a real scientist. He told me the story of a child who had been in an accident. He advised the parents that tetanus was unlikely but fatal, recommended the 100% effective vaccine, and they turned down his advice. Then I told him what I said in my above comment, and he started telling me stories of his physician colleagues behaving as if they lacked an elementary school level understanding of science.
The scientific method is designed to reduce bias, but it doesn’t work when people understand the method but don't understand its purpose. Either the collective that is the scientific community (of which I am a member) wants to be trusted because its behavior is trustworthy, or it doesn't.
The inspiration that led to producing the Science Literacy Concept Inventory (https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jmbe.v17i1.1036) was the discovery that many people with graduate and professional degrees in science could not explain science's way of knowing, what constitutes science, or how it works. Every metadiscipline (science, social science, humanities, arts, technology) has uniqueness in its ways of knowing.
Thanks for that response.
I don’t see anything in your comment or the study that conflicts with my position.
Just because I haven’t caught a fish yet doesn't mean I’m not going to catch a fish, and just because different fields of science don’t have a common “scientific way of knowing” explanation doesn’t mean there isn’t a common explanation.
Can you give me one example of someone doing science without subjecting their assumptions to rigorous skepticism? I can give you lots of examples of people who talk like scientist while their actions (not allowing their assumptions to be challenged) are saying they don’t understand the concept.
Comparing scientific methods to psychiatric diagnosis, or medical diagnosis period is your first mistake. This is not a relevant comparison James. Medical diagnosis requires scientific training, but also a deep understanding of humanity and sociology as well as no small part of art and language. Humans are tricky creatures and cultural differences will dramatically change how they communicate about their symptoms, causes, ect. And that is when they are being honest, and giving a clear history. The science comes into play after interpretation of history and exams. This is far more complex than you would like to think. 30+ years of medicine under my belt and i am still regularly surprised…
We can agree on this. At least one of us is making a mistake.
If two people observe the same evidence and draw conflicting conclusions, then it’s not because the evidence conflicts with itself. Instead, it’s because the two are interpret the same evidence using conflicting assumptions.
They don’t have to be scientists to openly share and challenge each others’ assumptions, but If they do, then they are behaving like real scientists and learning something of value from the experience. Otherwise, at least one of them is doing something so their assumptions can’t be challenged. That person might be the head of a science department at Harvard University, but they’re behaving like someone who lacks what can and should be an elementary school level understanding of science.
So, science is both far more complex than either of us can possibly imagine, and simple enough that every child with an elementary school graduation certificate can and should understand.
If two providers talk to a patient and get completely different stories. Either because they asked different questions, or the patient responded in a different fashion, or even felt differently because the interview was taken at a different time. Or possibly the patient gave a history to achieve a different outcome. That is medicine! We are not working on toyotas, therefore assuming different treatment for the same problems, or lack thereof (such as in this example ) is all related to the providers skill is a mistake. Yes, a better Doc is more likely to get to the heart of the problem, but I would argue that is art, and not science.
I understand your position. Your description of the scenario is accurate. However, you have not addressed my point.
The purpose of science is to limit the negative impact of bias. The only way I know to eliminate bias is for me to subject my assumptions to rigorous skepticism. That applies to someone implementing the Toyota production system and to two physicians disagreeing about a diagnosis.
If someone doesn’t understand the scientific method, but they behave as if their philosophy is “I think, therefore I am making testable assumptions,” then they are behaving as if they understand the scientific principle.
If someone understands the scientific method, but they behave as if their philosophy is “I think, therefore I am right,” then they are behaving as if they lack an elementary school level understanding of the scientific principle.
For example, Elon Musk has a Bachelor of Science degree, and every child with an elementary school graduation certificate could and should be able to see that he does not understand the concept.
If what you are saying to people is, “it’s too complicated for you to understand so you’ll just have to trust me,” then they will know that you are wrong even if they can’t explain how they know, and they will be angry at you, and your behavior might be turning them toward con artists like DJT.
And that make would make me angry at you for having a significant negative impact on my life, on my family and friends, and on all of DJT's innocent victims.
I loved Oliver Sacks and so sad when he died. His interest in medical history and his own life of trying to process who he was was so brave.
Which has to include not having so many children, right? The more human beings on the planet the greater the destruction of our environment.
Which has to include treating each other with respect, right? The more human beings treat other human beings with respect, the lesser the destruction of our environment.
I have backpacked in these mountains and other areas in the country. Well, I'm glad I had this opportunity before they are lost to scorched earth policies.
Resist having these lands lost to Trump and wealthy cronies. Call your representatives in Congress and tell them to resist. We the People have to fight in whatever way possible.
Stephanie, we hiked and backpacked for years in the Santiam Canyon and the Mt Jefferson and other wilderness areas here in Oregon. Then in 2020 everything burned and up the canyon there is still the smell of woodsmoke. I can only imagine what will happen now. And of course, let's fire park employees, forest service employees, and wildfire fighters as well as refusing to fund any research. We also already had a segment of the population who did not understand how to take care of the wilderness and who have trampled through it with no care. We also had a fool of a kid throw a fire cracker into a canyon in the Gorge despite being told not to do it with the resultant fire that burned a popular hiking area.
I agree. The Adirondacks in NY have been trampled to the point of serious soil erosion; hikers defecate on the trails; walk off trails on sensitive vegetation; leave food and food packaging at the summits!! I no longer hike those trails because they are crowded and visited by inexperienced hikers (how many times have the park police had to rescue a hiker who had no business in the high peaks w/out adequate water, shelter, etc. at the taxpayers' expense).
People here now have to get permits for certain popular areas. We were always very careful to pack everything out and to bury any poop off the trail somewhere. Ah yes, rescue. Do people ever even read the weather report for starters. Mt. Hood is a popular mountain to climb and has been the scene of many rescues. Yes, inexperience, but also a bit of arrogance from people who are veteran hikers, skiers, too, because they decided they were good enough to ignore avalanche warnings, etc.
Only if we let greed win
Think of all the morbidly rich asses who would LOVE to develop the oceanfront in Acadia National Park, should it be privatized. Mt. Desert Island already has to bear the burden of the presence of Leonard Leo. Why is too much never enough for them???
I weep
I am livid! 😡
Looks like we put on our hiking boots and protest!
I have blocked you. I will not open any comments from you. Not interested in your anger.
Once they sell off all our assets so they can make the rich richer with more tax breaks there will be nothing left. No sources of income because it’s abundantly clear the rich don’t want to pay taxes, they don’t want the minimum wage increased so the working people will have higher incomes thereby paying more taxes. These people are so selfish they think money is the only way they can be happy and it’s never enough. Honestly Musk seems like a really miserable person to me.
"I believe we ought to have a deep inventory of all the assets in America. We ought to understand…what is our assets, 100 trillion, 200 trillion? We could be in great shape as a country.” Professor usually concludes her letters with a key warning. "great shape as a country" in today's conclusion sounds great for uninformed. But here "country" by a Trump administrator means a group of wealthy people and rest living with contaminated water and polluted air.
The only hope is for this regime to be gone, somehow.
Not the only hope, Patricia
"God gave us the oil and coal for us to burn" says neo-fascist Christian autocracy.... yet in Texas it is now cheaper to generate electricity with wind and solar power... which presumably a similar god might give you.
This is about money in the end.
And one of these "Christians" celebrated the death of the Pope as the defeat of evil. I'm an atheist, but Pope Francis was the best Pope of my lifetime -- inclusive, humble, caring; and to call him evil reveals everything about these monsters.
Not sure, laurie, Marjorie Taylor Gazpacho gets "Christian" label even with quotation marks.
"Christian" nationalist, yes. Rabid lunatic, yes. Marble Mouth, too. Just another illiterate MAGA ridge runner, also.
Wow we agree on something 100%!
Well said Phil!
I was waiting for "thug" but ridge runner works!
Not to worry, Jon.
I've been rereading Timothy Snyder's "The Road to Unfreedom." Much, much in it on analogies between the oligarchs of Putin's Russia, and their similar counterpart billionaires in the U.S.
Even better -- for what I may occasion for you in near future -- the many citations in that book on the oligarch strategies directly overlapping similar strategies in the testing (and corporate text packaging) swamping all U.S. ed.
So does Trump use that "Christian" label. Even has a "unit" in the White House, The Prayer Unit, so to speak. Has people "praying on him with laying on of hands", As he said years ago when asked about forgiveness; I don't need forgiveness; I have done nothing to forgive." (paraphrased).
🤮
God holds a lightening bolt........
I think you just outdid Jasmine Crockett in the name-calling category.
It's going to take a hundred Jasmine Crockett's to straighten out this corrupt, lying, disgusting mess of MAGA. We are not fighting yet... Time is wasting.
Phil, I don't think she was the only one who opened her ugly mouth. Then we have death star and melanoma attending (tainting) his funeral.
My reading of what is reported to be Jesus's message was that he would exhort but never hate. Samaritans were enemies of the Jews. "Love thy enemy"? Nominal Christians who insist that every detail of Noah's Ark and The Tower of Babel is literal fact sometimes also say that the words of Jesus about love cannot be taken literally.
These regional insults to political opponents do not help unite those we might eventually need to band together with. Not hoping for an MTG conversion, just those that may eventually see common ground.
Agreed, Luke. With political opponents, would love to unite, converse.
But the specimen before us now has no political programs in view, has never in her life had any references to any sources with any care for any segments of our population.
She breathes theater only. Vitriolic hatreds. Wild, lewd fantasies. Deprecating stereotypes. Getting oneself on center stage adolescent foolishness only. And all for noting but sycophancy for the nation's #1 con man, rapist, felonious narcissist also only.
Women's lib produced Nancy Mace, Joni Ernst, Lauren Boebert, Elise Stefanik, and Marjorie Taylor Gazpacho?
Nothing I can defend in any of these individuals either and I try not to give them any airtime in my life just to stay relatively sane.
Trump will be the only one smiling at the funeral. He might even try to sell some merchandise. Thumbs up.
Bibles or vodka?
He actually said "I look forward to being there." Looking forward to a funeral...this guy is sicker than sick.
It's just another chance to get the attention denied to him by his parents.
Exactly
We can hope for lightning or the roof to fall in on him.
Oh... I hope he is shunned by everyone there. To conceive of such a fake and hypocritical person to pretend to show any sympathy is diabolical.
Grossly hypocritical at the very least.
Wondering who Trump will push aside to secure the most privileged spot in front of cameras.
The guy in the casket.
Hahaha!
He'll blame Biden.
His constant references to Biden and the 2020 election, make him look very petty and small. Fascinating display.
Yeah I so look forward to seeing what crassly embarrassing American moment he can next cause. /s
He will also be telling some funny jokes to have his fellow "mourners" laughing like at Biden's funeral.
You mean Jimmy's funeral?
I'm an agnostic, Laurie, and feel the same as you about Pope Francis. If one extracts the parts of the bible that offer the most humane teachings for all of us, regardless of belief in a deity, this was what he preached and lived. I believe it was MTG who made that despicable remark following his death--the same MTG who published a photo of herself "reading" a bible surrounded by crosses - on the wall behind herself and hanging on a chain around her neck. Like the autocrat she serves, it is all performative, meant to signal her base, who must be as dense and shallow as she is.
That’s her idea of living a Christian life. Then she walks out into the world and creates evil.
Emptyg makes me so ill! There are places where people like her playing up their religion go & it's not heaven!
I agree with you about Pope Francis. He walked in the footsteps of St. Francis as best he could. He emulated kindness and compassion for all living beings. A true Bodhisattva.
I understand your feeling but I do have to disagree. I do not consider Pope Francis as poorly as some recent popes (and he did do some good things) but I had hopes he would cross the Rubicon and declare that life does not begin at conception but rather at the point when a full fledged human exists in vitro and move Catholicism into the modern age where pre- human embryos were no longer "protected" by religious dogma (please don't misunderstand I do NOT advocate for abortion at all, just the right for people to decide on their own about the embryo that they hope to bring into the world once it is a life).
His failing to do that left me with very mixed feelings about this pope.
Politics is the art of the possible, even in the Vatican. Francis got a lot done, over objection and obstruction from the 'conservatives' there. Changing the dogma on when life begins - even if he had wanted to -was probably a few steps too far.
Whether you're Catholic or not, he was a great man for our time. He embodied Christ better than any pope I know of.
It helps to understand the background for the beginning-of-life issue, and why the RC Church won't ever budge.
All of Christendom, which of course came after Judaism, followed Hebrew tradition which held – and still does – that human life begins when the newborn infant draws its first breath, called "Ruah," meaning "the breath of God."
Thanks to the subjective nature of religious doctrine, The Church started splitting into various factions, first dominated by the Eastern Orthodox Church which morphed into the Roman Catholic Church. About that time, Muhammad began expanding his realm of religious influence from the Middle East. This expansion threatened the church in Rome. The solution developed in the Vatican was to outnumber Muslims with more Catholics, which necessitated criminalizing all forms of birth control, including abortion. Of course, they couldn't divulge their real reason for this change of direction, so they couched it in doctrine promoting "the sanctity of life."
The added bonus was more offerings deposited into the Church's coffers.
Thirteen hundred years later, it's still a numbers game for the Catholic Church, and all churches, for that matter. As scandals and enlightenment cause thinking people to flee church, those defectors must be replaced. Forced births are an important tool.
Excellent statement Dale. As a preacher's kid, I have heard all sides & I still wrestle with when human life begins. I tend to favor "the breath of God".
He was imperfect and had only so much energy and political pull and influence. I too was disappointed but layers and layers of history and corrupt influence over the centuries sothe fact he championed the earth and used the metaphor as a field hospital great.
The problem is the patriarchy and it’s not only in the Vatican.
And we females raised these men so we also have played a role.
I would just let to get in clean mode all over the country and works and stop the malicious lying sprees at every turn, face the truths of where we are on all levels, and clean up and repair what we are able.
I was hoping someone would tell him he wasn’t welcome, not invited…
Me too! He has made it known that the Pope was a nobody. He pretends to be a show- off- my christianity guy. I see no need for him or melanoma to pollute the event. I hope the press ignores him!
A little off subject, but two ethnic groups in the county where I reside (and I won't name them) have won a Supreme Court ruling where books that they don't like are now banned in our public schools - PUBLIC, supported by the STATE - where is the separation of same? (Now I'm waiting for the Project 2025 to announce we are now a Christian nation - whatever rules and regulations that might bring?)
His slur against Gays and putting his voice into our 2024 Election did not endear him to me. Pope John XXIII was the only Pope who loved all the people no matter their religion, their beliefs, or the color of their skin. He tried to unite the people of the world, but conservatives were against that idea.
Yes, Christopher, but combined with numbers.
Of course the denatured, dehumanized, craven rich want more money, but they want it as part of a lifestyle whereby all the masses with less and less just reduce more and more to nothing but numbers.
Numbers of students in student loan debts profiting banks. Consumer demographic numbers profiting advertisers. Ranking numbers on testing. Numbers of potential voters of color to be suppressed and gerrymandered away. Numbers registered on hate algorithms responding to Putin's techies trolling from Russia and to U.S. billionaires' incel boys provoking more hate across MAGA. Numbers of AR-15 sales. Numbers of opioid sales.
Exploitation is America’s original sin and it will kill us all if it is not stopped.
Outstanding statement, Barry.
From the arrival of the first Europeans, we have exploited the natural resources, exploited the Indigenous persons, exploited Black slaves to exploit the land.
Not to mention the continued exploitation of marginalized people in our country for the political and economic interests of an elite few. We are far from the ideal of all people being created equal and the implication thereof that every person should be treated with respect for their rights and their dignity. But it seems even simple courtesy is too much to ask of those who are ravenous with greed for wealth and power. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad and we are inundated with madness these days.
And the sociopathic madness of some very rich and powerful people has plagued humanity for eons. The weird thing is the degree to which victims support and will even sacrifice their own lives for them. It's a security hole in our DNA we desperately need a workaround for, not that people haven't tried, but our efforts are clearly still not adequate. Reflexive vigilance against significant and provable lies would help a lot. Free speech is one thing and fraud another. The URL to Sander's decades old explanation I posted elsewhere in this discussion is relevant here.
https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-2003-b2644075.html
Matt Damon who was a neighbor of the late Howard Zinn did a documentary I think The People Speak I think a new version and also the songs both old and new and big names doing some kind of concerts in whatever format.
If I could sing I would I like my mother was banned by the nuns and specifically told just use your lips. I am still recovering from that!
As someone who never could sing myself, I am learning that there are some things that can let us use our voice. (I’m learning solfège for the first time—in a band full of musicians who learned it early— it’s not easy, but I’m getting better.
This is a great point. Until we own our historical and modern day sins (a multitude) we are doomed.
I completely agree, Mr. Rosen. Our stained past (and more recent past, as well) has become baggage that grows heavier and heavier the more we attempt to deny or ignore it. Let's own it and let it get lighter!
You can't "get it right" if you are "living a lie".
The tyranny of numbers infects more than computers.
The poetry of numbers..
Pythagoras: claimed that "There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.", which there is.
The periodic chart which describes the building blocks of everything is numerical. The physics that is the bones of everything is geometric, and I am no mathematician, but my impression is that our whole physical universe is molecular geometry from the "tuning fork" simplicity of crystals to our own sentient bodies, and numerical math is in many ways shorthand for that, and quality is a quality.
Math is a tool not a tyranny. People make tyrannies, be it de-contextualized math classed that fail to highlight the method in the madness, or garbage numbers corrupt politicians make up or misapply, or present without the rest of the story. People are saying that "Figures don't lie, but liars figure".
Lincoln said (not a quote here but his meaning) if we enslave any people we can all be enslaved—everyone is vulnerable if we allow any one group to be exploited. Well we allowed our Black citizens to continue to be exploited after chattel slavery was outlawed. New versions over the years pretty much yielded the same results. Always benefitting white folks. And we looked away and took advantage. Well guess what? Everyone, no matter the color of their skin is in the cross hairs now. Even the MAGA people will be hurt plenty too you can bet! I notice the Hand’s Off rallies are white people. This is exactly as it should be. It is up to white folks to finally face this awful thing we built—this thing now running amuck. Our Black neighbors have done their bit. It is OK with me if they want to say « I told you so! »
I know I risk being annoying by posting this too often, but it is poetic, vivid, and so, so relevant:
"Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men (sic) , in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you are preparing your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of those around you, you have lost the genius of your own independence, and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises." - Lincoln
Phil, let’s be careful not to amplify the notion of numbers being somehow evil in and of themselves. Numbers provide and propel many, if not most, of the facts in science as well as an effective government. Numbers provided Rachel Carson with the tools of her discoveries and the power of her arguments. In the end, numbers are facts and like facts can be misused, altered and misunderstood in which case they become the "alternate facts” or propaganda or Orwellian newspeak which seems to have become so ubiquitous for tRump, Muskrat and their legions of MAGAt followers.
I said above the math is a tool, and of course, a pencil is a tool, a sculptor's chisel is a tool, language is a tool. Tools help us to create and manage our circumstances in arts and science and everything, though it may take the right tool for the right job, and the outcome lies in how we use it. An ordinary hammer, a screw driver, a kitchen knife, and tools and object of many other sorts, can be murder weapons in the wrong hands.
Well-put, John.
As a boy in the Detroit suburbs, I followed the Tigers. And that also meant stats.
So I can happily report today that my boyhood team stands at 15-10. A stat. Numbers.
Phil, dehumanization of the masses.
Yes, George, that happens.
But not so guaranteed, is it, as dehumanization of the rich?
And we agree again Phil! Quite an achievement for one night!
Indeed it is!!
This is so, so about money and power. The one ring to rule them all.
OPEC revenues have plummeted since Biden allowed the oil companies to drill, drill. drill. And if the Canadian tariff's ever expand to Canada add 25% to the 4 million BPD the midwest receives from the tar sands in Alberta. The Canadian government has a no-fly zone over the tar sands so no one can see how destructive they are to the environment. And to no one's surprise, it seems that Koch enterprises is involved in the extraction of oil from the tar sands.
At $60 a barrel and below, the oil companies aren't likely to drill or do much exploration. As the Trump recession worsens, the demand for oil will decrease as well. Hopefully, we can buy some time before Trump sells off America's public lands.
Good points, Gary. The economics will drive much of what happens to the Earth. Not only will a general drop in demand impact this, but the ever declining prices of sustainable energy sources will gradually make fossil fuel extraction less competitive. Even China is moving in the direction of solar and wind.
I find Burghum's focus on "American assets" to pay down the Republican debt to be outrageous - especially when their Congress is passing bills to add $5 trillion more to THEIR debt.
There's plenty of money in them thar hills to pay for much of our needs. How many huge energy sucking homes and yachts do they really need?
Another "Let them eat cake" moment IMO.
Power means money, doesn't it, Bill?
Money, that is, for oneself and one's ilk.
These Republicans haven't among them anyone in touch with any novels, memoirs, essay collections, biographies, or histories. That's a phenomenon -- but it's on par with the larger phenomenon of the tens of millions of their supporters who went to the same schools all similarly void.
That’s not true about a no fly zone over the tar sands.
The old law of, "Supply and Demand", it drives all commerce and has forever.
You can fly over them but after reading this it’s clear we should leave that stuff right where it is. Turning it into a usable product is so dangerous to the climate and environment.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/25012024/canada-tar-sands-air-pollution/
Are there any Congressional Republicans who stand for ecology? Would only take a few to flip Trump policy.
https://jerryweiss.substack.com/
Well, there used to be. I don't know anymore, because of their scared silence.
Someone has to ask them!
Thankfully, my reps are Democrats. I have written them many letters about environmental issues, and know where they stand.
Rob Portman from Ohio used to be an environmental stalwart. He left his Senate position. One would think the grandchildren but I think Musk and Theil Timothy Busch , Harlan Crow, Caroline Wren, and Leo all have Mars in their minds. Kind of like Jesus Christ Super Star song Heaven in their minds de
Aha, a Tolkien reference at last!
but "money and power" - so two rings?
Yet, Texas is ruled by chump lovers, because they cheat in myriad legal ways as much as subverting voting.
Cheat being the common word…🙄
They hate wind and solar power on principle because they don’t believe in global warming.
Frau Katze.... "they don't believe in global warming" That's stupid.
You can't believe in facts.
It's like - I believe in angels, that's ok ✅
I believe in fairies, fine ✅
But I believe in gravity, that's a no ❌
The climate crisis is real
Things that are not real - you have to believe in them, you have to have faith.
For those of us with critical thinking skills, global warming/climate crisis is science. There are those who walk among us who's opinion is that it is a hoax, foisted upon them; their "information" sources have drummed that into them for 40 years. It's kinda like their belief in the Bible, to my way of thinking.
Of course, I am a non-theist who does not believe in the concept of Christianity, so there is that.
Right on, both cults
Well the whole concept of the historical Jesus and 19 th Century German bible scholars did lots of research. Most folks have no conceptions of the history of the texts . Elaine Pagels has a new book out in that topic. And the Bible Museum in DC was caught with many illegal and or fake items.
The old relic study from the Canterbury Takes. And a funny book is Christopher Buckley take on a medieval relic seller.
I agree but Trump & co call it a hoax or a scam. Some of them do admit the earth is warming but don’t believe it’s due to CO2. I’ve encountered many like this.
While their state burns the fuck up for 6 to 9 months of the year. A great read is, "The Worst Hard Time", by Timothy Egan about the dust bowl of the 20's and 30's across the great plains. It's applicable to so much of the environment today and maggot thinking.
Thanks for the reading tip. I’ll check it out.
You are welcome and I think you will like it. It was one of the first environmental disasters caused by man that is recorded in this book and why it happened, how it exacerbated the great depression of the 20's and 30's, and ultimately who came to the rescue. As you can tell, I thoroughly enjoyed it and the parallels to today are very telling.
I ordered it.
Yup, drove through the Texas panhandle a few months ago and was amazed (and pleasantly surprised) to see the wind generators and solar fields. Poor EXXON… but, if EXXON is smart, they can become a TRUE energy company and “sell” electricity at their Energy Stations (used to be Gas Stations).
Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway are buying shares of Occidental Petroleum. Currently, they own about 34% of OXY and about 7% of Chevron shares. They also own the former utility Mid-America Energy.
They are committed to reducing emissions. This from their website-
Our Net-Zero Pathway
Oxy engages with our shareholders, government leaders, our value chain partners and environmental NGOs to strengthen our sustainability program and industry-leading pathway to net zero. The Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) identified Oxy in November 2021 as one of only three oil and gas companies that "have set emissions reduction targets which are ambitious enough to reach Net Zero by 2050 and to align with TPI’s 1.5°C benchmark.” We have provided more details on our net-zero strategy, including interim 2024 and 2032 goals. We also have endorsed the Oil & Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 and published our Climate Policy Positions and Climate Advocacy and Engagement. We were the first U.S. upstream oil and gas company to enter into sustainability-linked credit facilities, under which the fees we pay are tied to GHG emission reductions.
BRK also owns 34% of OXY.
It ALWAYS is; because money begets power.
and vice versa - a virtuous circle, for some.
Christopher, it is always about money and greed.
Hello Patricia.... Some Hope on the 'Elon-Front'... Today it was announced during the Tesla Earnings Call that Earnings were down 71%... Seems that the Popular Resistance to Elon is Working.... Automotive Financial Analysts are now pointing out what the Serious Techies have known about Teslas.... Dodgy Quality, overblown tech promises, and over-priced products... California Liberals are Fleeing Them... MAGA Rednecks don't buy them... Tesla is Elon, Elon is Tesla... When Elon leaves to tend to his Tesla Garden, his Minions will probably leave with him.... Tyler Hassen could be gone.... We The People, The 'Market' has Spoken... Good Work People!!! ... I know that the Indigenous will Fight For Our Lands... We Will Continue To Honor What The Creator Has Given Us...
We have a Tesla which we bought 2 years ago before - you know- Elon went crazy. We are thinking of removing the Tesla logo and replacing it with a Hudson Hornet logo....
How about an Edsel logo??? It carries a reputation as a dud, rather than a pretty cool car.
Studebaker, Ally.
You can get bumper stickers that say “I bought this before Elon went crazy.”
I saw two of those this weekend!
We have affixed that sticker to the car already. We are anticipating going a step further - as a joke.
We bought one in 2020, there weren’t a lot of options in EV’s then. Traded it in in February for a Mini Countryman EV. Amazingly the mileage is way better on the charge, the car is more comfortable, I can put roof racks on it that will hold more than 100 pounds. Now I’m reading about how inefficient the Tesla battery is which is funny coming from Mr efficiency himself. Plus if they’re recording more miles than you’re driving to invalidate the warranty it’s also costing you more for car insurance.
We were behind a Tesla with a little sticker under the back logo that said F ELON. could be taken 2 ways; felon or f@ck Elon. Very clever.
How about buying a Hudson Hornet and putting a Tesla logo on it...... That would make a point AND you wouldn't have to drive a Tesla
Stephanie, I can't guess the significance of the Hudson Hornet logo. We had an apple green Hudson Hornet when I was a little boy. It was huge! And a gas guzzler, at around 6 mpg in town.
The first popular American EV was the Baker Electric. You can get nice chrome lettering online to spell out "B A K E R." It would look nice until you can unload that vehicle that has lost all its value.
More like remove the Tesla from your ownership
It should scare every Tesla owner for him to give it more attention. He has caught the worm disease
Terminated. Every last single one of them. In Congress too. We didn't kill enough of their ancestors when we had the opportunity 165 years ago.
You don't need to believe everything in the Bible to agree that a monomaniacal obsession with money and power somehow bleeds into evil. Illustrations are overwhelming. Trace a whole lot of nasty stuff and find that raison d'etre at the base of it. Who doesn't like having money? But what are you willing to sell out to get it? Clearly Trump holds nothing sacred, except his own opportunity to dominate.
When it comes to human behavior it seems that very little is really simple, but there is a generic script for oppression that has persisted through ages, new players in familiar roles. Even when the "bad guys" are defeated, the "same old serpent" seems to reappear like whack a mole, sometimes from unexpected quarters. We can lock up the worst of the bad guys if we are lucky (and diligent) but I think we have to get better at somehow seeing that some roles should never be played.
That is a big reason why so many sociopaths wind up in C suites.
Shakespeare said it best: “Same Play, Different Actors”
He did have a way with words.
Yes, the Confederacy is still very much alive and kickin’.
“Niggers Aren’t Acting Like Colored People,” circa 1963, missile tech ‘A’ school, still applies in places.
Cosplay Confederacy anyway, with "same old serpent" behind it. Racism is tried and true strategy to divide and conquer.
They had been the enemy, they were still the enemy, even my ggggrandfather. But he never returned. So many still were racists above all else. At church, in government, in all aspects of daily life. I’m old, I remember.
It's not going to happen by magic, or by protests.
Sadly true. We need to focus on regime change in Congress in 2026 and then in the Executive in 2028. But patience is required. There are too many people who demand immediate change and that is not going to happen. And if that discouragement leads to people becoming disaffected, we are doomed.
The huge problem I see: How, just HOW do we repair the colossal, humongous damage they have done. How do we reconstruct democracy to make descent into authoritarianism MUCH harder? How do we recover online systems and information? How do we install new security to protect online systems? How do we find the kind of excellent and experienced people they have fired to revive the sciences? How do we…? ? ?
We better start writing our own Project 2027 and Project 2029. We will have precious little time to think “How this?” “How that?” Centrist Democrats have disappointed far too often and too long. We’ll be lucky to have 4 years to produce really significant improvement in at least some areas.
Repairing damage and putting safe-guards in place? How about starting with mandatory voting, ensuring that democracy is not a spectator sport. Then maybe expand the Supreme Court and end lifetime appointments, introducing term limits that reflect democratic accountability rather than dynastic entrenchment. And while you're at it, cap political donations and close loopholes that allow billionaires and corporations to buy elections. Just a few radical ideas for the mop-up once tRump's been carted off and hung Mussolini-style from the nearest fencepost.
Make gerrymandering, voter purges, and deliberate voter disenfranchisement illegal. In fact, we need a national voting rights act, and to provide civics education in our schools, and not the wingnut variety either.
And amend the constitution to disallow a convicted felon and/or rapist to hold office in the government of the United States of America.
That’s got to be number one on the list.
YES! Why isn't there such a law? Or, maybe there is & it's being hidden?
Please! At least from a lamppost. By his little toes.
I’d start with overturning Citizens United. Unlimited campaign contributions from largely unaccountable individuals and groups have had a corrosive effect on elections at every level of government. No “dark money” should be allowed. The danger of funneling money into campaigns via crypto has made this problem much, much worse. We should strictly limit the amount of time campaigns run and we should have much more public financing. Next, I’d limit Supreme Court appointments to 12 years. The lifetime appointments were supposed to insulate Justices from political pressure, but that is now a fiction. Third, the truly horrible decision handing Trump, and all future presidents, a presumption of criminal immunity for official acts while in the White House has to be reversed. Combined with the presidential pardon power, this decision has given presidents virtually unfettered authority. The court’s ruling has handed a loaded gun to an unstable, grievance-driven maniac.
It was only a matter of time before a maniac would come along. In general I agree with you down the line but as a pragmatic myself, I think we need to figure out a game plan that might actually work. Doing all this stuff that everyone has suggested isn't going to happen overnight.
I do tend to agree that Citizens United needs to be revisited not necessarily by a new decision but by a law which makes what it empowers illegal and if necessary unconstitutional. The legal fiction that corporations can function as "persons" and have similar rights is long overdue to be reversed. My law professors in 1976 were arguing thar we needed to fix that and here we are 50 years later with nothing accomplished.
If JUST THAT were fixed, we could go a long way towards improvement.
Jon, I fully agree. I also note that nothing in the Citizen’s United SCOTUS decision requires the anonymity of the SOURCES of that supposedly "free speech.” It seems the Republicans have envisioned the free speakers to be individuals with hoods over their heads or balaclavas so they can’t be identified. WHY? Legislation simply requiring the identity of the source of any money contributed to a political campaign would go a long way, notwithstanding having already entered the age of Orwellian renaming of things (see the SAVES Act currently before Congress).
Thanks pilgrimRVW... Time for Fresh Younger Leadership among the Democrats.... Every Crisis generates its own Heroes... Seems to Me that the Current Democrat Leaders were forged in the Struggles of the '60s. and '70s... The Current Crisis is a Counter-Revolution... Time To Formulate, Plan, and Implement a Better Vision for the New Generation coming into Power...
Follow the money, and the costs to others, including posterity. It's not that we don't know we a dumping on their future.
In 1958 a Bell Labs funded science film included the observation:
“Well, it’s been calculated a few degrees rise in the earths temperature would melt the polar ice caps. And if this happens, an inland sea would fill a good portion of the Mississippi valley. Tourists in glass bottom boats would be viewing the drowned towers of Miami through 150 feet of tropical water."
https://ossfoundation.org/projects/environment/global-warming/frank-capra-warns-of-global-warming-1958/
Twenty one years ago Bernie Sanders nailed the modus operandi of MAGA:
https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-2003-b2644075.html
Seems to me we need to focus. And encourage focus, 'cause things are getting hot.
One of the reasons the older generation gets to hang on to power is that they know you can't have it all - though they try. But, needs must when the devil drives, and they ARE prepared to bend, albeit unwillingly and denying all along that they are doing so.
When you are young and idealistic, it's so much hard to let your perfect dreams get tweaked for expediencies sake.
Thanks Lady... Another Reason for Term, and Age-Limits... Those that Truly Wish for the Success of their Legacies would Groom Their Successors.
Better hurry.
Consider watching this conversation between Jim Acosta and 22 year old Harry Sassen: https://jimacosta.substack.com/p/new-media-star-harry-sisson-former
Listening to this right now. Harry is eloquent. I'll be following him. Thank you! My only complaint with Jim is that he talks too much when he interviews! I like what he is saying...but it makes the show too long :)
But thanks again. Harry is a wow.
Thanks Joan.... :-)
David Hogg from Florida is trying to do this.
PilgrimRVW there was a discussion not too long ago about developing a "shadow cabinet” as is often done in British and European politics, admittedly parliamentary politics, but a cadre of politician/experts in each of the major categories of government, perhaps one for each department of the cabinet. It would be their responsibility to log not only what has been done to distort or destroy the effective functioning of government but to provide viable plans for reconstructing a new and improved version, “building back better.” This Shadow cabinet could construct the blueprint similar to Project 2025, like a repair manual. It would also provide a ready source of active knowledge and expertise for whoever is able to fill the role of our next leader.
We need to create America 2.0
I agree. What protests do is keep people fired up. They are a "feel good" activity. And being active is good. We can't get discouraged and disaffected. Or we will be doomed. We need to be ready to GOTV in droves, like have never been seen before. What we can do between now and then is keep folks pumped up AND donate to those organizations who have the structure in place to fight back and take this administration to the courts. Slow their progress. Gum up the works.
Protests should be directed to Congressional Republicans. We may never get another election.
Talk talk talk
Jon, we need both. We need an energized display of peaceful resistance on the streets to show those in power that we won't go willingly along with their plans. Visible resistance, in whatever form it takes, is contagious and leads to ever greater numbers joining the ranks. Participation in street demonstrations, consumer boycotts, postcard-writing, calls to Congresspeople etc. give hope to the otherwise discouraged that we can do something, however small, as we inexorably move toward midterms, and hopefully, change, as the felon will be a lame duck hanging around the necks of his supporters.
Does anyone here think waiting for the midterms will be too late? Look at the speed of their destruction.
What option would you suggest? A coup? A revolution?
Keep in mind, WE (the American people) voted for this guy, like it or not. And in this case he even won the plurality of actual votes not just the electoral college as he did in 2016.
So what to do? We have a system we are supposed to follow. I have my doubts it will be followed, yes, but until it is clearly not, I think there are serious practical and moral questions regarding violating the stated norms. We need to be prepared to act but we also need to be patient and not jump the gun. If we act before there is a real danger that would support a coup, we ourselves would be the ones who would be in the wrong.
And so far, Trump had managed to stay "within the lines" for the most part. Even in the cases of the immigration deportations, he is MOSTLY following the law. We need to use the system to push back as we are doing but any attempt to go further will need to be carefully thought out because the results will be ugly and probably deadly for many.
Such is what happens when you give up your democracy.
It is hard to get it back.
Sigh...
Yes, we want to work within the law, but if for example gangsters are attacking from within, appropriate defense may become necessary. The way they’re going makes me very concerned we won’t make it to the midterms.
No, but the protests keep them VERY aware that we are watching them - and questioning every move they try to make "under the table".
You are right Talia,
Read the latest from David Brooks. The protests are just part of a great effort. A great rebellion. We need to attack this from every possible angle. Protests send a message to Congress and to those who would run for office. Protests are also therapy for those of us whose heads are exploding with outrage. I marched on the 5th - I felt better. That means something. I did a "pop up" protest on the 19th - I was joined by others. If nothing else I felt the support of hundreds of people driving by. So yes to protests.
But there is also sending a deluge of messages to members of Congress. Call, write, email - not just complaints. Applaud them when they stand up!
And there is an amazing array of legal efforts that are making a difference. You probably read Hubbell and Vance - I am bolstered by the efforts of the ACLU and Mark Elias.
So you are right. Magic isn't going to do it. Protests can only accomplish so much. But if enough of us do SOMETHING all the time we reach a "critical mass" of opposition.
I wake up each day absolutely astounded. "Is this the real life? Or just a fantasy?" Then I remember it is real and I get really, really pissed off. So I will be on a street corner again real soon. It's going to take a zillion little efforts to add up to a change. And change, it will.
Musk says his DOGE days are "over" in May this year hmmm that's 8 days on my calendar, Tesla profits ere reported down🔻71% yesterday but, not as far down 🔻as his credibility 🔻0 .
I think end of May. So don't get TOO excited yet!
Should scare any potential owners, as well as current ones.
Impeachment or Defenestration?
With trump's luck, if he were defenestrated it would be just when a truck load of mattresses was being delivered. . .
That is similar to what happened in the 17th century defenestration of Prague, when the imperial envoys failed to die when they were thrown out of a castle window and landed in a pile of horse manure. The second defenestration of Prague was more tragic. The Soviet backed Communists threw Jan Masaryk, the Czechoslovak president, out of a window and killed him. Maybe that is where Putin got the idea of using defenestration as a form of punishment.
And soon.
Pat, I agree with you completely… And while I would certainly encourage the sentiments of Lori Oregon above to have people write to their congressman and all that I think that is futile. Even with a Democratic Congress and Senate, he is already demonstrated that he ignores Congress, laws, the courts, playing only to His pocketbook and the pocketbook of his Padre of clothes supporters. I don’t know how it will end it needs to end it needs to end before too much irreversible damage is done to the environment, to our country, to our economy, to our position in the world There are only a few options
DISOBEY it
Thank you, Heather, for highlighting Earth Day. The lack of respect these so-called developers show for the delicate balance of the natural world demonstrates their profound ignorance as well as their rapacity. It is the love of money that trips up the human animal every time.
Remember Pogo's statement "We have met the enemy, and he is us"
Used to post that cartoon a lot before I got banned. Thanks for the reminder
Nixon did establish the EPA. That is the only credit I ever gave or will give to him. Now, it is being destroyed by billionaires who want to reap from the “revenues” when they sell off our public lands. Who do you think they will sell them to? Why, the highest bidder, of course! Putin’s flock will no doubt be given first dibs with Hungary and China to follow. In San Francisco, there is The Presidio. A beautiful area adorned with landscapes,buildings, and artifacts that depict its place as an important military base. Many generations of soldiers are buried there. Its history is rich and we can thank Nancy Pelosi for helping to make the Presidio a public park. The Presidio is precisely one of the parks that this nasty regime wants to put up for sale. It is horrid! They have to be stopped NOW!
Compared to today's criminals, Nixon was a choir boy. And I say that as someone victimized by COINTELPRO who was on his enemies list.
TC, there was a judge in DC’s Superior Court, in the 70’s, who was also on his enemies list. Tricky Dick didn’t like him because he gave probation to those who were caught with “nickel bags” of weed. Dickie wanted them in the slammer! He established a stupid law called “The No Knock Law”. Do you remember that?
Trump could have taught Nixon more than a few tricks.
Maybe, but there’s a big difference. Dictator is stupid, Nixon was wicked smart. Evil, but smart.
And a paranoid drunk.
Those were Nixon's good points.
And I used to think my hatred for Tricky Dick and Shrub couldn’t be topped.
Nixon also oversaw the inception of the Wilderness Act, the Clean Water Act & the Clean Air Act. His was unfortunately the last Republican administration to seriously try to protect our environment. Starting Reagan, succeeding Republican administrations were primarily interested in exploiting our natural areas, and rejected established climate science, leading to the increasing threats of global warming. Nixon's recognition of the importance of protecting our environment was very significant. Too bad the succeeding Republican administrations, including the appalling ignorance of this current one, didn't follow his example.
Nixon did some dreadful stuff, but he repeatedly encouraged environmental responsibility. He even proposed government support for developing alternatives to the internal combustion automobile engine. Reagan despised environmental protection and wanted to shutter the EPA.
HWBush was a good EPA administrator, but its ca ca after him from GOP.
I didn't remember that HW was an EPA administrator. Too bad those values didnt rub off on GW.
https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/remembering-george-h.w.-bush-the-environmental-president
"He strengthened the Clean Air Act, arguably America's most important piece of environmental legislation, and was the first president to raise climate change as a major issue of concern for the federal government."
Talk talk talk
The American public loves national parks. Millions of people visit them every year. When millions of people see the parks suffer under this kind of mindless vandalism posing as cost-cutting, surely that will have an effect. The regional economies of several solid Republican states are deeply dependent on a functional US National Park system.
They may be dependent on National Parks, but don't bet on them acknowledging it or bucking their party to reverse course. This is the end-result of a stupid ideology which worships the "free market" and hates the very concept of public goods. Burgum's idiocy will turn it all into private ranch land, private mines, private logging operations. What Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir labored so hard to create and sustain, they will undo in a few years unless stopped politically. It will be very hard to do this.
Yes, those national parks have an enormously positive economic impact on surrounding communities. It is outrageous to attempt to sell OUR public lands to the highest bidder so they can exploit them.
Nature is something that is keeping me sane in these chaotic times. Now they want to take that away, too?! As if our birds and insects and wildlife aren't already under threat, thanks to habitat loss and neonics (today's DDT, which ought to be banned as well). Grrrr.
I have supported National parks for decades. Now I don’t have the money to replace the losses coming.
I don't think that will "get" the MAGAts as much as you think it will.
People are sadly disconnected from the land, i doubt many would even recognize the difference if parks were sold off to corporate interests. 😢🤬. They would likely be happy to have familiar stores and malls in the parks so they could get their favorite fast food. Wouldn’t even notice the logging of old growth in Yosemite because they would have to hike to see it.
“Silent Spring” was required reading in our freshman core program in college. I remember the first Earth Day. Everything that we have achieved in rolling back the polluting of our environment will be undone. Holden Village in the Cascade Mountains was the site of an abandoned copper mine that was given to the Lutheran Church that has spent decades trying to undo the pollution caused by that mine. It is a stunningly beautiful place. Now all those beautiful natural landscapes are at risk. We will undo all the progress we have made in protecting our natural heritage for what? Money? There is so much violation of the law now and nothing can be done to stop this? No confirmation of appointments? When will our legislators of both parties grow a spine to stand up against this plundering of our natural resources? And no this is not something to blame on just Democrats who effectively have no power. Shame on all of us for allowing these yahoos to run rampant over the rule of law. The checks and balances that our forefathers put into place have failed us. Teddy Roosevelt must be rolling over in his grave.
There are no innocent bystanders in our democracy.
Lots of law firms specialize in environmental law. You can google them.
A friend started the "Environmental Law Review" about 1972....didn't have a course or hornbook at the time. Today entire bar sections....
California and other several states have current lawsuits that can break big oil. https://climateintegrity.org/lawsuits
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/climate/supreme-court-climate-lawsuits-states.html#:~:text=Those%20states%20include%20California%2C%20Connecticut,of%20their%20greenhouse%20gas%20emissions.
It is right to consider our assets when discussing our debt. But Burgum's idea of assets is to consume them. Then they are no longer assets. They must be conserved. The great physical and financial assets of the nation, acquired by conquest and economic predation, belong to all of us collectively and may be apportioned by us at will. The great intangible assets, our military strength and honesty and trustworthiness, create our greatest asset: confidence, confidence in our economy, in our determiniation to do good for all people. All of that is disappearing.
Our debt is a republican thing. Their tax give aways suck up more than any “expensive” Dem program.
Exactly, JD.
Assets on the Balance Sheet: accumulated wealth of citizens/corporations who evaded/avoided taxes to amass fortunes. Time to make a withdrawal.
At least a hundred “LIKES” — one little LIKE just doest’t do it.
And don’t forget the reason our debt is so big. It has to do with money that has gone into the pockets of rich people in the form of tax breaks.
And we must remember that all wealth is continually generated by all of us. All accumulated profit and capital, the great trickle-up, is in fact tax revenue that never makes it to the Treasury. All of it is OUR money. Oligarchs are scared to death that we will understand this. That's why they must destroy democracy and the rule of law.
excellent point -- they want to exploit all resources and save nothing.
More pollution? Cutting back public land resources again for privatizing profiteers? More PR lies?
The convicted criminal in the White House needs the lies and cover-up language in the proportion that he resents his vast corruptions being seen for what they are.
It’s not just that, as a criminal, he wants to do what he wants to do, but that the entirety of facts, evidence, and individuals just impedes all the packaged theater, clichéd phrases, and outrage slogans on which all dictators depend.
Some argue that the fat orange felon learned his outrage-&-paranoia theater from Putin, Orban, Erdogan, and Netanyahu. Yes, he did.
But his American audience by the tens of millions learned their vulgar drama receptivity elsewhere. None could have sunk to that had their schools kept the writing of essays and reading of whole books focused on skills for individuals, facts, and evidence in its contexts.
They did the opposite. They fell to rule by testing, which allows nothing personal ever, instead the relentless logic of keeping to proper categories and hewing to causality as if it were always linear, chronological only.
You can see the evidence for this in Diane Ravitch’s “The Language Police.” Then compare the packaging she describes with how Timothy Snyder in “The Road to Unfreedom” describes dictators bundling all for the next outrage campaign, while of course, too, all dead to the human.
Don't forget the widespread adoption of the words "un-born baby." This is pure propaganda. It's a fetus!!! This was a scare tactic of the anti-abortion crowd and it worked. They are very clever to say up is down, out is in, forward is backward. The Department of State is really the Department of War, etc. Pay attention to every phrase they use, as they are all PR driven and usually cover the exact opposite of what they claim.
Certainly “anti-abortion” is the correct term. If they were “pro-life,” as some claim, the falsehood of that claim is proved by their complete carelessness of that life once it is out of the womb.
Exactly, messaging has been their priority for most of my adult life. It has never matched reality, but attracts greedy bastards like a honey pot.
Every time I hear someone refer to “unborn babies”, I think “aren’t you just a pre-dead corpse?”
Love that response!!! Will use it.
I'm a gonna steal that, Marcia. Thank you.
The messaging of the far-right is punchy and sadly more effective than much of the messaging of the left.
More PR lies, or just Goebbels master class
Groan...
I am an ecologist. The “assets mentioned for large scale selloff are by and large non-renewable on a human time scale. That deep, rich, top soil in the midwest did not develop overnight; rather over millennia of actions by wind, water, heat, cold, and microbial life.
The Dust Bowl was not that long ago and made the Depression even more severe and ongoing. All the rich topsoil in the midwest you mention began to blow all the way out to the Atlantic. It took some time to achieve better management of the lands but it takes so much more time for that rich soil to replenish. So many chemical fertilizers and pesticides are now used to compensate for nutrients needed for cropland that there are dead zones from all the runoff in the Mississippi River Delta flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.
Apparently these inept fools and greedy billionaires think they can live off their money, seems they're going for the repeat cycle with the tariff/crypto economic turmoil and diabolical plans for strip mining every last piece of the planet.
I’m stunned l
How many issues we now face make us concerned for our collective future. Certainly, the environment is among those issues. The move to alternative energy, however, is still going strong. Windmills and solar farms have spread to almost every corner of our country. EVs are still popular. We have reduced coal burning. Let’s hope we don’t turn back to climate changing, polluting fossil fuels for the sake of near term profit.
Well said, Phil. Right on!
There is a moral/ethical issue regarding the unnecessary consumption of irreplaceable finite natural resources. If it were necessary for the survival of Life on Earth or something equally important, that would be one thing. But it's not necessary. The extraction and consumption of natural resources is being done for the financial enrichment of a very small portion of the world's humans. They are not concerned about our ruining the planet for all creatures who will live here in the long-term future. The oligarchs are selfish, thinking only of themselves in their own lifetimes. They are not righteous and they are not humble.
We can build a new economy dedicated to healing the damage we have inflicted over the course of the past few centuries. In our new economy we will teach our children how to think, instead of what to think. We can guide and coach our children on how to build a sustainable economy, and how to leave the world in better health than the world they found after they arrived here.
I don't understand how so-called Christians can justify the destruction of nature, if they believe that God created the world. You'd think they would want to protect it. Instead, we are seeing more and more species of birds, plants, wildlife, etc. moving towards extinction.
Some days I am glad that I don't have children or grandchildren, and no more than a few decades left here on Earth. 😢
Yes Phil. But where I live we generate electricity with wind turbines. Agent Orange calls them windmills of course.
Thanks for the volcabulary lesson.
Phil, my reply was meant to be tongue in cheek. Your comment was well taken. It's just that I worked for a forward thinking public utility for 28 years, and was marginally involved with wind turbines from time to time. And the first time I heard them called windmills was from the mouth of you know coup, so that doesn't help. I always considered his use of windmill to be anti-environment. Obviously that's not true in your case. 😉
As a 25 year employee of the EPA (now retired), I am proud of the work we did.
I am sad and angry to see it all being torn down.
The rest of us are grateful for the work you did.
I understand. My Dad was a career meteorologist, first with the Weather Bureau, then with NOAA. He would be devastated were he to see what is going on for NOAA today.
Then you know the contributions made by the civil servants who served day to day through many administrations. When I was hired for my mid-level position, I took an oath to carry out my duties in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution as they applied to the work I was doing.
I'm sure your father would be appalled, as am I, at the idea of swearing allegiance to a President, as the current one wants all to do.
Thanks for your reply.
I'm a retired Sheriff's deputy who served 28 years full time and 7 years part time. I, too, swore an oath to the constitution and I am APPALLED at the fealty to the president instead of the Constitution.
The maga's we'll fight against everything that isn't something that trump administration tells them to do, to feel, or how to think.
The maga's are angry and feel that they've been forgotten by the rich. Especially the rich in the government. That's why in desperation they voted for trump. He promised he would help them. But it makes absolutely no sense because trump is the epitome of what they did not want. They just got conned.
That's why the maga's I see are so so angry and so so defensive now. They see what's happening and they don't like it either. But they've been duped and lied to and know nothing else.
trump and musk are Bullys. And sooner than later everyone... including all the maga's... will become the BULLY's target. And Bullys are never satiated. The more you suck up to a bully, the more they disrespect you, and pick on you all the more.
This will not end well for anyone, maga or not.
Because remember, as the past decades have shown us all, EVERYTHING trump TOUCHES DIES.
Evidently, including our environment.
I meant the maga's will fight against everything that isn't something that the trump regime tells them to do, to feel, or how to think.
This might be the scariest thing I have read since this regime took over. And that includes seeing the Dow drop almost 6000 points. We need to protest in huge numbers!
Lynne, This element of the sea change in policy also hits me hardest at some level. It’s so destructive to this and future generations of humans but also to nonhuman co-inhabitants of the planet, who have no power to stop this gross power and nihilistic resource grab. Seems like the Senate could step in to stop the delegation of power to a non-approved oil tycoon but that is a wish upon a star. From Deb Holland to this DOGE oil tycoon wannabe it’s just whiplash. Seems to me that this issue needs to take a prominent and visible lead so people understand that their neighbors also want environmental protection. Seehttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/spiral-of-silence-climate-action-very-popular-why-dont-people-realise?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Keep being loud!
Use this spreadsheet to call/email/write any of our representatives as often as possible. Not just your own state reps, reach out to those in other states. Be as loud as you can and share this. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit
“Burgum’s order says that his order is designed “to effectuate the consolidation, unification and optimization of administrative functions within the Department of the Interior…”
It’s interesting that they know and approve of the word “effectuate” when referring to dismantling nature but when a judge uses the word effectuate to order the release of a wrongful deportation they act helpless and perplexed. Selective comprehension is the new “I do not recall.”
Selective comprehension is the best description of people whose consciences have been severely damaged if they ever existed at all. It’s really called carefully planned propaganda to flim flam those with wormy brains. As W said, you can fool some of the people all of the time. And those are the ones you want to concentrate on. And I add, they are the mini-traitors who destroy from within all that they claim to love and protect. In fact, that describes the whole of the Republican Party on Earth Day 2025.
Trump's scheme mirrors Project 2025, to take public lands and sell it to billionaires. Imagine you may not be able to visit Yellow Stone or their may be oil rigs all over the Grand Canyon! Check this map of all the national parks in America that are now open for oil drilling and real estate development.
https://thedemlabs.org/2025/04/04/trump-issues-license-to-mine-public-lands-national-parks/
The Heritage Foundation is presumptuous to think that they and their billionaire financiers have the legal and moral authority to direct our government and to tell us what to do, think and believe.