Heather, thanks so much for laying out the causes of and solutions for inflation. How refreshing it is that at least one source of price inflation (shipping) is being dealt with by the Senate. There appears to be no appetite to deal with gasoline and diesel price gouging, perhaps because half the Senate sees the high gas and product pric…
Heather, thanks so much for laying out the causes of and solutions for inflation. How refreshing it is that at least one source of price inflation (shipping) is being dealt with by the Senate. There appears to be no appetite to deal with gasoline and diesel price gouging, perhaps because half the Senate sees the high gas and product prices as something that they can hang on Biden (and, by association, the Democrats). Once again, partisan power grabbing trumps the welfare of the American people.
“In May the House passed the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act by a vote of 217 to 207 with only Democrats in the yes column and all Republicans and four Democrats voting no. The bill provided a vague warning that it is unlawful to charge “unconscionably excessive” prices for consumer fuel during presidentially declared energy emergencies, and it gave the Federal Trade Commission more power to punish price gouging. “
So, what is President Biden supposed to do about gas prices? Nationalize the petroleum industry and then dictate pricing? Yea, that would go over like a lead, or unleaded, balloon.
The POTUS, any POTUS, has as much power to change the cost at the pump as, say, he/she does at the availability of toilet paper.
I’ve decided to stop trying to engage the right who’ve drunk the Kool Aid. I am pushing
the sleep walking left to get involved, step up, speak up, run for office and get involved in local government. It all starts there. We had a big win in southern Maine today, Democrat Jackie Sartoris DA won big time. All these little steps will make a big one.
Yeah, there is really no reasoning with those folks, since their ability to think critically and to comprehend anything more complex than a soundbite or meme has been coopted.
They choose to believe what suits them rather than knowing the truth. Blaming Biden for anything and everything in some weird way makes them feel better about themselves. They'd be shocked to see how much higher inflation is in other countries.
I don't know, they have not been the brightest of lightbulbs for as long as I have been trolling them. I accidentally typed "slightbulbs" which I really liked, but spellcheck had to intervene!
Correction - Republicans get money from oil and gas companies. From Open Secrets (which tracks campaign donations): “Led by the oil and gas industry, this sector regularly pumps the vast majority of its campaign contributions into Republican coffers. Even as other traditionally GOP-inclined industries have shifted somewhat to the left, this sector has remained rock-solid red.” https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01
Yes. And this is why the gas prices go down especially around election time when a Republican is in office. And they go up when a Democrat is in office. This has been going on for decades.
Ummmm. The stockholders are not responsible for gouging the public. Stockholders of all companies invest according to their ability to and expect profit or manage stock to avoid loss. This “gouging” and making insane profit is squarely on the companies.
The classic business ranking of corporate stakeholders puts stockholders first, then customers, then employees, then community. It’s hard to separate companies from stockholders - stockholders are the owners of the company. The interests of the stockholders are the primary driver of executive business decisions. CEOs who don’t serve the stockholders get fired. So I’d say that stockholders have significant responsibility for price gouging and “insane profits”.
Exactly....the pain people are feeling is calculated and the only thing Rs are interested in is power and money. This is part of the reason I call the Rs the party of death. Here in Oregon Schrader showed once again his true colors and announced the McLeod-Skinner will lose in November and then hung the socialist label on her. This week a person who has her ear close to the political ground said he wants to be a lobbyist like his wife. Meanwhile we are inundated with TV ads for Machine Gun Betsy, but some group is posting anti-Betsy ads on Facebook. Then there was an article, maybe Huff Post, on the drying up of the Great Salt Lake and all the problems that is and will cause. The good thing about today is that I am having my two hour massage.
The USSR was a few decades ahead of America. The virtually dried up the Aral Sea, the fourth largest lake in the world at the time. Water was siphoned off the two rivers flowing into it to irrigate cotton in the desert. Water was wasted and in no way managed. Part of the lake has been rescued but it will never be the same.
Yes, it's heartbreaking. Destroyed all of the sea life along with the lives of all who had relied on the sea for a living. I've seen terrible photos of the dry seabed with grounded boats rusting or rotting away.
Los Angeles perpetrated similar destruction in the Owens Valley, draining it dry as a bone. Ironically, the Native name for the Valley was "place of flowing waters". From Wikipedia: "The valley provides water to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the source of one-third of the water for Los Angeles, and was the area at the center of one of the fiercest and longest-running episodes of the California Water Wars.[4] These episodes inspired aspects of the 1974 film Chinatown. The current arid nature of the valley is mostly due to LADWP diverting the water of the region. For example, Owens Lake was completely emptied by 1926, only 13 years after LA began diverting water.
{snip}
"In 1997, Inyo County, Los Angeles, the Owens Valley Committee, the Sierra Club, and other concerned parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding that specified terms by which the lower Owens River would be rewatered by June 2003.[12] LADWP missed this deadline and was sued again. Under another settlement, this time including the State of California, Los Angeles promised to rewater the lower Owens River by September 2005. As of February 2005, LADWP announced it was unlikely to meet this extended deadline. Finally, in 2008, Los Angeles fulfilled its promise and rewatered the lower Owens River.[13]
In July 2004, Los Angeles mayor James Hahn proposed barring all future development on its Owens Valley holdings, by proposing a conservation easement for all LADWP land.[14] As of October 2004, Inyo County officials seemed to be resisting the offer of the easement, perhaps due to the prior history of mistrust over LADWP actions.[citation needed] Los Angeles began using a new, organic method of suppressing airborne dust from the dry bed of Owens Lake in 2014 pursuant to an agreement between the city and Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, the Owens Valley air quality regulators, ending a bitter decades-long dispute over the water and dust."
Even more scary, there's this LA Times article: "Major water cutbacks loom as shrinking Colorado River nears ‘moment of reckoning". [BY IAN JAMES STAFF WRITER JUNE 14, 2022]. I'm no longer a subscriber so can't gift the article but here's an excerpt from the full text a friend sent out in the body of his email:
"The Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in cities from Denver to Los Angeles and farmlands from the Rocky Mountains to the U.S.-Mexico border. The river has long been over-allocated, and its reservoirs have declined dramatically since 2000 during a severe drought that research shows is being intensified by global warming and that some scientists describe as the long-term “aridification” of the Southwest.
“What has been a slow-motion train wreck for 20 years is accelerating, and the moment of reckoning is near,” said John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which supplies the Las Vegas area.
He pointed out that Lake Mead’s water level, now at 1,045 feet above sea level, has continued to decline toward critically low levels. Hoover Dam could still release water down to a level of 895 feet, but below that, water would no longer pass through the dam to supply California, Arizona and Mexico — a level known as “dead pool.”
“We are 150 feet from 25 million Americans losing access to the Colorado River, and the rate of decline is accelerating,” Entsminger told the senators."
Yes, and yet so many assume things will go on as before. Our neighbors travel for a few months of the year to the southwest in the winter time and they have reported the steady decline of the the reservoirs. We have family who live in Burbank and we wonder how they will fare as things become more dire.
The loss of Colorado River water is only a part of it. Most of southern California gets its water from the State Water Project, canals from multiple reservoirs from northern California, reservoirs which rely on water from snow pack and slow melting of the snow so it can refill the reservoirs.
San Diego County has the best situation because of a desal plant on the coast and a couple of wastewater-to-potable water facilities. That water presently is used for irrigation and industrial needs, a portion eventually will go into a local reservoir (which reservoir water mix with Colorado River water then be treated a final time for release into our potable water systems citywide. Already a substantial percentage of water is now developed locally.
I agree, the republicans are pretty rough but remember people like Pelosi who does insider trading and other democrats who manipulate laws to get rich. The whole system stinks.
This Letter needs to be amplified and shared widely, to counter the false narratives out there and to shed light on the deliberate efforts of the GOP to KEEP gas prices high as a political tool.
Heather, thanks so much for laying out the causes of and solutions for inflation. How refreshing it is that at least one source of price inflation (shipping) is being dealt with by the Senate. There appears to be no appetite to deal with gasoline and diesel price gouging, perhaps because half the Senate sees the high gas and product prices as something that they can hang on Biden (and, by association, the Democrats). Once again, partisan power grabbing trumps the welfare of the American people.
Agreed, Mary! It’s so disconcerting to read that:
“In May the House passed the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act by a vote of 217 to 207 with only Democrats in the yes column and all Republicans and four Democrats voting no. The bill provided a vague warning that it is unlawful to charge “unconscionably excessive” prices for consumer fuel during presidentially declared energy emergencies, and it gave the Federal Trade Commission more power to punish price gouging. “
So, what is President Biden supposed to do about gas prices? Nationalize the petroleum industry and then dictate pricing? Yea, that would go over like a lead, or unleaded, balloon.
The POTUS, any POTUS, has as much power to change the cost at the pump as, say, he/she does at the availability of toilet paper.
Who were the four Dems voting NO on price-gouging prevention?
Gonna track that tidbit down.
Let the faux viewers know that little tidbit!
I’ve decided to stop trying to engage the right who’ve drunk the Kool Aid. I am pushing
the sleep walking left to get involved, step up, speak up, run for office and get involved in local government. It all starts there. We had a big win in southern Maine today, Democrat Jackie Sartoris DA won big time. All these little steps will make a big one.
Yeah, there is really no reasoning with those folks, since their ability to think critically and to comprehend anything more complex than a soundbite or meme has been coopted.
They choose to believe what suits them rather than knowing the truth. Blaming Biden for anything and everything in some weird way makes them feel better about themselves. They'd be shocked to see how much higher inflation is in other countries.
I still go out on faux to distribute a little Truth now and then...just in case anyone might be ready to wake up to reality. One never knows!
Is it me, or are their responses getting lamer?
I don't know, they have not been the brightest of lightbulbs for as long as I have been trolling them. I accidentally typed "slightbulbs" which I really liked, but spellcheck had to intervene!
Rupert will never tell. They still label Joe Biden as a parasite, as does the old crone at the assisted living facility where I live.
Parasite? Why parasite?
I'd guess simply because it's a pejorative term when applied to a human being, no logic behind it.
She also said it will not pass a senate that is still controlled solely by Mitch McConnell and the dirty industries he truly represents.
Senators get money from oil and gas companies. Stockholders of oil and gas companies want to gouge the public.
Correction - Republicans get money from oil and gas companies. From Open Secrets (which tracks campaign donations): “Led by the oil and gas industry, this sector regularly pumps the vast majority of its campaign contributions into Republican coffers. Even as other traditionally GOP-inclined industries have shifted somewhat to the left, this sector has remained rock-solid red.” https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=E01
Yes. And this is why the gas prices go down especially around election time when a Republican is in office. And they go up when a Democrat is in office. This has been going on for decades.
The power of oil and corruption of the GOP; a marriage of civil parasites.
👍🏼
Ummmm. The stockholders are not responsible for gouging the public. Stockholders of all companies invest according to their ability to and expect profit or manage stock to avoid loss. This “gouging” and making insane profit is squarely on the companies.
The classic business ranking of corporate stakeholders puts stockholders first, then customers, then employees, then community. It’s hard to separate companies from stockholders - stockholders are the owners of the company. The interests of the stockholders are the primary driver of executive business decisions. CEOs who don’t serve the stockholders get fired. So I’d say that stockholders have significant responsibility for price gouging and “insane profits”.
Exactly....the pain people are feeling is calculated and the only thing Rs are interested in is power and money. This is part of the reason I call the Rs the party of death. Here in Oregon Schrader showed once again his true colors and announced the McLeod-Skinner will lose in November and then hung the socialist label on her. This week a person who has her ear close to the political ground said he wants to be a lobbyist like his wife. Meanwhile we are inundated with TV ads for Machine Gun Betsy, but some group is posting anti-Betsy ads on Facebook. Then there was an article, maybe Huff Post, on the drying up of the Great Salt Lake and all the problems that is and will cause. The good thing about today is that I am having my two hour massage.
That info about Great Salt Lake was scary, wasn't it? And no, I don't remember the source, else I'd link it.
Found it! Gift article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/climate/salt-lake-city-climate-disaster.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DLDm4diO8RAo2J50qKfqNne5431jeWAdRALK5qT_hzy-ZDMglhShKhuYeJgtIFPyAx48qVb18B4qjsD_o-4CO4KS6wMvt-z7my-BzbOmO6D6zVzXVycAd6pcNhJkX523cN2qfHGuRw3NYu269yBYtoBmtVPFn8tPfiCB9-Od-Df0ucvlFwA7cFLGmVyd2M6LsAcxFQDkbFSB5842U779BaOLAHLfq1bk5gKIel3-JnWiE_J5ypBpYxW4HRi71t1LbMohCIw8e1rO4kU40yeiVedC2f1AO7eAOdKg&smid=url-share
The USSR was a few decades ahead of America. The virtually dried up the Aral Sea, the fourth largest lake in the world at the time. Water was siphoned off the two rivers flowing into it to irrigate cotton in the desert. Water was wasted and in no way managed. Part of the lake has been rescued but it will never be the same.
https://youtu.be/5N-_69cWyKo
Yes, it's heartbreaking. Destroyed all of the sea life along with the lives of all who had relied on the sea for a living. I've seen terrible photos of the dry seabed with grounded boats rusting or rotting away.
Los Angeles perpetrated similar destruction in the Owens Valley, draining it dry as a bone. Ironically, the Native name for the Valley was "place of flowing waters". From Wikipedia: "The valley provides water to the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the source of one-third of the water for Los Angeles, and was the area at the center of one of the fiercest and longest-running episodes of the California Water Wars.[4] These episodes inspired aspects of the 1974 film Chinatown. The current arid nature of the valley is mostly due to LADWP diverting the water of the region. For example, Owens Lake was completely emptied by 1926, only 13 years after LA began diverting water.
{snip}
"In 1997, Inyo County, Los Angeles, the Owens Valley Committee, the Sierra Club, and other concerned parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding that specified terms by which the lower Owens River would be rewatered by June 2003.[12] LADWP missed this deadline and was sued again. Under another settlement, this time including the State of California, Los Angeles promised to rewater the lower Owens River by September 2005. As of February 2005, LADWP announced it was unlikely to meet this extended deadline. Finally, in 2008, Los Angeles fulfilled its promise and rewatered the lower Owens River.[13]
In July 2004, Los Angeles mayor James Hahn proposed barring all future development on its Owens Valley holdings, by proposing a conservation easement for all LADWP land.[14] As of October 2004, Inyo County officials seemed to be resisting the offer of the easement, perhaps due to the prior history of mistrust over LADWP actions.[citation needed] Los Angeles began using a new, organic method of suppressing airborne dust from the dry bed of Owens Lake in 2014 pursuant to an agreement between the city and Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, the Owens Valley air quality regulators, ending a bitter decades-long dispute over the water and dust."
Someone said Chinatown was a documentary.
The dust off the dry Great Salt Lake is going to kill many people and ruin lots of land
Thanks Ally.
Even more scary, there's this LA Times article: "Major water cutbacks loom as shrinking Colorado River nears ‘moment of reckoning". [BY IAN JAMES STAFF WRITER JUNE 14, 2022]. I'm no longer a subscriber so can't gift the article but here's an excerpt from the full text a friend sent out in the body of his email:
"The Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in cities from Denver to Los Angeles and farmlands from the Rocky Mountains to the U.S.-Mexico border. The river has long been over-allocated, and its reservoirs have declined dramatically since 2000 during a severe drought that research shows is being intensified by global warming and that some scientists describe as the long-term “aridification” of the Southwest.
“What has been a slow-motion train wreck for 20 years is accelerating, and the moment of reckoning is near,” said John Entsminger, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which supplies the Las Vegas area.
He pointed out that Lake Mead’s water level, now at 1,045 feet above sea level, has continued to decline toward critically low levels. Hoover Dam could still release water down to a level of 895 feet, but below that, water would no longer pass through the dam to supply California, Arizona and Mexico — a level known as “dead pool.”
“We are 150 feet from 25 million Americans losing access to the Colorado River, and the rate of decline is accelerating,” Entsminger told the senators."
Yes, and yet so many assume things will go on as before. Our neighbors travel for a few months of the year to the southwest in the winter time and they have reported the steady decline of the the reservoirs. We have family who live in Burbank and we wonder how they will fare as things become more dire.
The loss of Colorado River water is only a part of it. Most of southern California gets its water from the State Water Project, canals from multiple reservoirs from northern California, reservoirs which rely on water from snow pack and slow melting of the snow so it can refill the reservoirs.
San Diego County has the best situation because of a desal plant on the coast and a couple of wastewater-to-potable water facilities. That water presently is used for irrigation and industrial needs, a portion eventually will go into a local reservoir (which reservoir water mix with Colorado River water then be treated a final time for release into our potable water systems citywide. Already a substantial percentage of water is now developed locally.
I want to say the Huff Post or the Oregonian. And yes, it was scary.
I agree, the republicans are pretty rough but remember people like Pelosi who does insider trading and other democrats who manipulate laws to get rich. The whole system stinks.
I understand that Ds sometimes do things we would rather they would not including Pelosi. However, the two parties are not the same right now.
This Letter needs to be amplified and shared widely, to counter the false narratives out there and to shed light on the deliberate efforts of the GOP to KEEP gas prices high as a political tool.
More than half of congress profits personally from that fraught relationship.