…the term performative gets a lot of use these days
The forest protection carbon offsetting market used by major airlines for claims of carbon-neutral flying faces a significant credibility problem, with experts warning the system is not fit for purpose, an investigation has found.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/04/carbon-offsets-used-by-major-airlines-based-on-flawed-system-warn-experts
…maybe too much
New climate targets announced by the US and other rich nations in recent weeks have put the world on track for global heating of about 2.4C by – the end of the century, research has found.
That is a 0.2C improvement on the previous forecast of 2.6C, but still substantially above the Paris goal of holding temperature rises to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspiration to limit heating to 1.5C.
[…]
While countries responsible for nearly three-quarters of global emissions have set or are considering goals to reduce carbon to net zero, Climate Action Tracker found that for most countries, policies are lagging well behind targets.Many countries’ policies do not yet match their pledges. The analysis found that based on current policies, the world would be expected to warm by 2.9C.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/04/rich-nations-climate-targets-will-mean-global-heating-of-24c-study
The United States has a schizophrenic relationship with the environment.
It boasts a spectacular system of more than 400 national park sites; a robust environmental lobby; and strong federal environmental law, including the landmark Endangered Species Act, which is credited with saving the bald eagle and the grizzly bear from extinction.
Yet it also harbors a dark side, including an insatiable appetite for fossil fuels; a longstanding romance with behemoth, gas-guzzling vehicles; and perhaps the highest per capita generation of plastic waste in the world.
‘Climate Change Is Not a Subjective Thing.’ How Does the U.S. Approach to the Environment Look From Abroad?
Global heating pace risks ‘unstoppable’ sea level rise as Antarctic ice sheet melts [Guardian]
…but…if not performatively subjective
Ballots have been left unattended on counting tables.
Laptop computers sit abandoned, at times — open, unlocked and unmonitored.
Procedures are constantly shifting, with untrained workers using different rules to count ballots.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) on Wednesday sent a letter outlining a string of problems that she said observers from her office have witnessed at a Republican-led recount of the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona’s largest county.
In the six-page letter, Hobbs wrote that elections are “governed by a complex framework of laws and procedures designed to ensure accuracy, security, and transparency” but that the procedures governing the ongoing recount in Phoenix “ensure none of those things.”
Observers report ballots and laptop computers have been left unattended in Arizona recount, according to secretary of state [WaPo]
…what else are you going to call some of the efforts of these assholes?
A student-organized Zoom lecture about The University of Texas at Austin’s school song, “The Eyes of Texas,” turned frightening when a masked man loaded and brandished a gun in view of some participants.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/man-brandishes-gun-zoom-lecture-racism-eyes-texas-song
The Three-Fifths Compromise, an agreement reached during the negotiations in 1787 to create the United States Constitution, found that, for the purposes of representation and taxation, only three-fifths of a state’s enslaved people would be counted toward its total population. It is regarded as one of the most racist deals among the states during the country’s founding.
Tennessee Lawmaker Is Criticized for Remarks on Three-Fifths Compromise
Republican lawmakers across the country are moving to restrict teaching about systemic racism in our education system, targeting critical race theory. But in the course of doing so, some are attempting to rewrite a very pertinent part of that history.
Twice in recent weeks, Republican state lawmakers have defended the infamous “Three-Fifths Compromise” — the constitutional agreement by which enslaved people would count as three-fifths of a person for representation purposes — by arguing that it was actually somehow anti-slavery.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/04/gop-state-lawmakers-three-fifths-compromise-was-actually-good/
…I’m pretty sure a break from reality this severe used to be considered grounds for a diagnosis of severe mental health issues
President Biden’s early success in getting Americans vaccinated, pushing out stimulus checks and generally calming the surface of American life has been a blessing for the country. But it’s also lulled many into thinking that Donald Trump’s Big Lie that the election was stolen, which propelled the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, would surely fade away and everything would return to normal. It hasn’t.
We are not OK. America’s democracy is still in real danger. In fact, we are closer to a political civil war — more than at any other time in our modern history. Today’s seeming political calm is actually resting on a false bottom that we’re at risk of crashing through at any moment.
Because, instead of Trump’s Big Lie fading away, just the opposite is happening — first slowly and now quickly.
Under Trump’s command and control from Mar-a-Largo, and with the complicity of most of his party’s leaders, that Big Lie — that the greatest election in our history, when more Republicans and Democrats voted than ever before, in the midst of a pandemic, must have been rigged because Trump lost — has metastasized. It’s being embraced by a solid majority of elected Republicans and ordinary party members — local, state and national.
Trump’s Big Lie Devoured the G.O.P. and Now Eyes Our Democracy [NYT]
The House Republican leadership skirmish that has simmered for weeks — one that has pitted House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., against House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. — appears to have reached its boiling point this week.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/pelosi-s-office-steps-fight-between-republican-leaders-cheney-mccarthy-reaching-boiling-point
…I mean it’s hard to figure how the ex-lawyer of the ex-president has any allies left at this point…& maybe not suprising that they’d be deluded…but the more-impeached-than-elected ex-president in question doesn’t even pay his own lawyers…so what’s the point of even asking…he’s clearly far too busy re-platforming himself
Former president Donald Trump and other Republicans expressed outrage Wednesday over the Facebook Oversight Board’s decision to extend Trump’s ban from the social media platform — and at least one House lawmaker threatened that the company will “pay the price.”
Trump, Republicans express outrage over extension of Facebook ban [WaPo]
…I mean
Facebook ruling on Trump renews criticism of oversight board [Guardian]
As so often is the case, Donald Trump gets to the heart of the problem. On 6 January, he was the president of the United States: probably the most powerful man in the world. He should be free to speak his mind, and voters should be free to listen. But he was also a habitual liar who, by the end of his term, had edged into repudiating the very democracy that had elevated him.
The inside story of how we reached the Facebook-Trump verdict
Facebook Ban Hits Trump Where It Hurts: Messaging and Money [NYT]
British Political Veteran Steers Facebook’s Trump Decision [NYT]
…describing clegg as a “political veteran” is arguably a bit misleading to say the least…a casualty might be closer to the truth…but then there’s desperate
Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at three of the biggest tech giants after Facebook’s quasi-independent Oversight Board upheld the social media platform’s ban on Trump earlier this year.
“What Facebook, Twitter, and Google have done is a total disgrace and an embarrassment to our Country,” Trump said in a statement.
“Free Speech has been taken away from the President of the United States because the Radical Left Lunatics are afraid of the truth
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/total-disgrace-trump-lashes-out-big-tech-companies-after-facebook-ban-upheld
…& then there’s begging sycophants to regurgitate your bullshit in places you’re not allowed to on account of having been recognized as dangerously full of self-serving shite
Banned by Facebook and Twitter, Donald Trump has gone back to the future with an online communication tool that might be described as a glorified blog.
His retro webpage, billed “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump”, appears at DonaldJTrump.com/desk and features a small photo of the 45th president writing in a book on his desk.
A video includes archive material announcing Trump’s ban from Twitter and images of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and of a desktop, overlaid by captions: “In a time of silence and lies, a beacon of freedom arises. A place to speak freely and safely. Straight from the desk of Donald J. Trump.”
[…]
Tabs on Trump’s new website allow users to like or share the posts on their own Facebook or Twitter accounts, but there is no option for them to reply.Visitors are also invited to “sign up for alerts”, so that Trump’s musings can be beamed directly into their inboxes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, options to “shop” and “contribute” figure prominently.
A footnote says the tool is funded jointly by the ex-president’s Save America and Make America Great Again political action committees.
Donald Trump returns to social media with glorified blog [Guardian]
“This is something that I think will be the hottest ticket in social media,” adviser Jason Miller told Fox News in March. “It’s going to completely redefine the game, and everybody is going to be waiting and watching to see what exactly President Trump does.”
That last part was true; people were certainly curious about what Trump might develop. And then on Tuesday afternoon came the answer: Trump’s team had made a blog.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/05/trump-scrambles-reestablish-his-direct-line-communication-with-his-base/
…mostly lapped up by the sort of people who want that miasma of mendacity to quite literally blow up in some faces
Federal government documents obtained by the Guardian show a wide range of explosives, flamethrowers and incendiary devices found by law enforcement agencies outside political conventions, public buildings and protests during 2020 and 2021.
The extent of the weaponry – including timed devices deposited as part of a suspected pro-Trump bomb plot –reveals the perils and potential violence circulating through American politics in the grip of unrest linked to pandemic shutdowns, anti-racism protests and rightwing activism and insurrection that culminated in the attack on the Capitol in Washington.
A separate New York police department intelligence document circulated in the wake of the Capitol attack defines groups including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters, QAnon adherents and the Oath Keepers as potential risks to officer safety, characterizing all of the rightwing groups as extremists in the strongest terms yet seen from any law enforcement agency.
Explosives and weaponry found at US far-right protests, documents reveal [Guardian]
…but for some no pretext is too thin
Derek Chauvin: ex-officer convicted in George Floyd’s murder asks for new trial [Guardian]
The expected legal motion came on the same day that one of the jurors was being criticized for his participation in the March on Washington last year.
Derek Chauvin’s Lawyer Asks for a New Trial After Guilty Verdict [NYT]
…meanwhile you have to wonder about quite why some performances are keen not to put themselves on the record
…well…okay…so that one kind of answers itself
‘We’re terrorized’: LA sheriffs frequently harass families of people they kill, says report
…but then the forces of law enforcement are somewhat wedded to a view that they ought to be allowed to be a law unto themselves
Atlanta officer involved in shooting death of Rayshard Brooks is reinstated [Guardian]
Over the last several decades, the police who were originally envisioned as localized public safety units to “serve and protect” have instead embraced key elements of the military, from its tactical gear to its “warrior” ethos — with, at times, disastrous results. Sadly, those same police departments have too often ignored a crucial aspect of military dogma: Service members are trained to respect the need to avoid using your weapon and then to use supreme discipline when deploying it. American troops are, more often than not, taught that the most important part of carrying a weapon is that you ought to use it as rarely as possible.
In the heat of combat, “trigger discipline” should reign supreme — and that elision in police training is costing lives.
Andrew Brown’s shooting shows the police militarized, but without more training or rules
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/andrew-brown-s-shooting-shows-police-militarized-but-without-more-training-or-rules
…which…not that I imagine any of you need reminding of this…is just another reason why the A.G. isn’t supposed to consider keeping the president’s criminal tendencies under wraps to be his sole preoccupation
A federal judge has accused the Justice Department and then-Attorney General William P. Barr of misleading the court and public to hide how he decided that President Donald Trump should not be charged with obstructing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation.
Judge blasts Barr, Justice Dept. for ‘disingenuous’ handling of secret Trump obstruction memo [WaPo]
[…]
Jackson wrote in a blistering opinion after viewing the memo and other evidence that the department’s claims “are so inconsistent with evidence in the record, they are not worthy of credence.”
The Justice Department had refused to give the March 24, 2019, memorandum to a government transparency group that requested it under the Freedom of Information Act, saying the document represented the private advice of lawyers and was produced before any formal decision had been made and was therefore exempt from disclosure under public records law.
But U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, in a sharp rebuke of Barr, said the Justice Department had obscured “the true purpose of the memorandum” when it withheld the document.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/judge-orders-doj-release-trump-obstruction-memo-prepared-barr-russia
A federal judge in Washington accused the Justice Department under Attorney General William P. Barr of misleading her and Congress about advice he had received from top department officials on whether President Donald J. Trump should have been charged with obstructing the Russia investigation and ordered that a related memo be released.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the United States District Court in Washington said in a ruling late Monday that the Justice Department’s obfuscation appeared to be part of a pattern in which top officials like Mr. Barr were untruthful to Congress and the public about the investigation.
The department had argued that the memo was exempt from public records laws because it consisted of private advice from lawyers whom Mr. Barr had relied on to make the call on prosecuting Mr. Trump. But Judge Jackson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011, ruled that the memo contained strategic advice, and that Mr. Barr and his aides already understood what his decision would be.
Judge Says Barr Misled on How His Justice Dept. Viewed Trump’s Actions [NYT]
[…]
Her rebuke shed new light on Mr. Barr’s decision not to prosecute Mr. Trump. She also wrote that although the department portrayed the advice memo as a legal document protected by attorney-client privilege, it was done in concert with Mr. Barr’s publicly released summary, “written by the very same people at the very same time.”
Judge orders release of memo on Trump obstruction decision [Guardian]
…for reference…this is what it looks like when someone actually does that job
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday pressed Congress for increased funding on a variety of Justice Department priorities, including combating domestic terrorism, protecting civil rights, prosecuting hate crimes and battling the opioid epidemic.
Testifying for the first time as attorney general before a House Appropriations subcommittee, Garland also spoke about policing reforms, including a budget request to enhance community-oriented policing.
“Promoting public trust between communities and law enforcement is essential to making both communities and policing safe. Our budget proposes increased investment in programs supporting community oriented policing and addressing systemic inequities,” Garland said.
Attorney general calls for increased funding to combat domestic terrorism
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/attorney-general-calls-for-increased-funding-to-combat-domestic-terrorism
…& much as “the cruelty is the point” has become something of a cliché…there’s a reason that some things are being given the full-court press
If the sweeping voting rights bill that the House passed in March overcomes substantial hurdles in the Senate to become law, it would reshape American elections and represent a triumph for Democrats eager to combat the wave of election restrictions moving through Republican-controlled state legislatures.
But passage of the bill, known as H.R. 1, would end a legislative fight and start a legal war that could dwarf the court challenges aimed at the Affordable Care Act over the past decade.
Constitutional Challenges Loom Over Proposed Voting Bill [NYT]
[…]
The potential for the bill to set off a sprawling constitutional battle is largely a function of its ambitions. It would end felon disenfranchisement, require independent commissions to draw congressional districts, establish public financing for congressional candidates, order presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, address dark money in political advertising and restructure the Federal Election Commission.
…while others prefer to work in the background
Why won’t this giant oil pipeline reveal its secret backers? [Guardian]
…while some stuff literally happens underground
…there’s some disturbing trends that are more by way of “out of sight, out of mind”
A 30-year-old American is three times more likely to die at that age than his or her European peers. In fact, Americans do worse at just about every age. To make matters more grim, the American disadvantage is growing over time.
In 2017, for example, higher American mortality translated into roughly 401,000 excess deaths – deaths that would not have occurred if the US had Europe’s lower age-specific death rates. Pre-pandemic, that 401,000 is about 12% of all American deaths. The percentage is even higher below age 85, where one in four Americans die simply because they do not live in Europe.
The tremendous losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have been widely publicized. The US government estimates that 377,000 deaths in 2020 were attributable to Covid-19. This means that the mortality penalty that the US pays every year is equivalent to the number of American pandemic deaths in 2020. And since people tend to die from Covid at much older ages than America’s typical excess deaths, the total number of years of potential life lost in an average year is three times greater than those lost to Covid in 2020 (13.0 million versus 4.4 million).
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/04/why-do-americans-die-earlier-than-europeans
…which, well
…it’s not a good look…& depending on who you ask…the US isn’t exactly looking all that great from the outside, either
The US faces an uphill task presenting itself as the chief guardian of global democracy, according to a new poll that shows the US is seen around the world as more of a threat to democracy than even Russia and China.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/05/us-threat-democracy-russia-china-global-poll
…so it seems only natural to think that now might be a good time to buy some goodwill
Biden commits to waiving vaccine patents, driving wedge with pharmaceutical companies [WaPo]
The Biden administration, siding with some world leaders over the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, came out in favor of waiving intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines.
Taking ‘Extraordinary Measures,’ Biden Backs Suspending Patents on Vaccines [NYT]
Biden administration supports waiving patent protections for Covid vaccines in bid to raise global production
…& hard to figure how the ones claiming that hurts their interests wouldn’t still be coming out ahead?
Drug giant says it made $3.5 billion in global sales of its coronavirus shot in the first quarter of 2021 and expects sales to rise throughout the year
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/05/04/pfizer-covid-vaccine-revenue/
…& when you get down to it…the population isn’t exactly signalling that life’s looking up just yet
The US birth rate has fallen 4% in the largest single-year drop in nearly 50 years, according to a government report.
The rate dropped for mothers of every major race and ethnicity, and in nearly all age groups, falling to the lowest point since federal health officials started tracking it more than a century ago, the report due to be published on Wednesday said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/05/us-birth-rate-sees-biggest-fall-for-nearly-50-years
U.S. birth rate falls to lowest point in more than a century
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-birth-rate-falls-to-lowest-point-more-than-a-century
…not that it’s exactly confusing why prospective parents might have put that idea on hold
Over all, the birthrate declined by 4 percent in 2020. Births were down most sharply in December, when babies conceived at the start of the health crisis would have been born.
The U.S. Birthrate Has Dropped Again. The Pandemic May Be Accelerating the Decline. [NYT]
…not least the ones who aren’t sure they’ll have a roof over their heads
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention overstepped its legal authority by issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium, a ruling that could affect millions of struggling Americans.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/05/05/federal-judge-vacates-cdcs-nationwide-eviction-moratorium/
…hell, you can’t even claim that schooling is a clear case of “a good thing”
There is a quote from Ralph Reed that I often return to when trying to understand how the right builds political power. “I would rather have a thousand school board members than one president and no school board members,” the former leader of the Christian Coalition said in 1996. School board elections are a great training ground for national activism. They can pull parents, particularly mothers, into politics around intensely emotional issues, building a thriving grass roots and keeping it mobilized.
You could easily write a history of the modern right that’s about nothing but schools. The battles were initially about race, particularly segregation and busing. Out of those fights came the Christian right, born in reaction to the revocation of tax exemptions for segregated Christian schools. As the Christian right grew, political struggles over control of schools became more explicitly religious. There were campaigns against allowing gay people to work in schools and against teaching sex education and evolution.
Now the Christian right has more or less collapsed as anything but an identity category. There are still lots of religious fundamentalists, but not, post-Donald Trump, a movement confidently asserting itself as the repository of wholesome family values. Instead, with the drive to eradicate the teaching of “critical race theory,” race has moved back to the center of the public-school culture wars.
Why the Right Loves Public School Culture Wars
…meanwhile…over the waters…well…there’s some stating of the obvious going on there, too
Britain’s post-Brexit future was determined by “the quarrels, low blows, multiple betrayals and thwarted ambitions of a certain number of Tory MPs”, the EU’s chief negotiator has said in his long-awaited diaries.
The UK’s early problem, writes Michel Barnier in The Great Illusion, his 500-page account, was that they began by “talking to themselves. And they underestimate the legal complexity of this divorce, and many of its consequences.”
Soon, however, the talking turned to Conservative party infighting, and by the end it had become “political piracy … They will go to any length. The current team in Downing St is not up to the challenges of Brexit nor to the responsibility that is theirs for having wanted Brexit. Simply, I no longer trust them.”
Tory quarrels determined UK’s post-Brexit future, says Barnier [Guardian]
…which brings us back to the performative thing, I guess
Boris Johnson has dispatched two Royal Navy patrol boats to protect Jersey from a feared blockade by French fishing vessels, in an escalation of a dispute over post-Brexit access to waters around the Channel island.
[…]
A No 10 spokesperson had described the threats to Jersey’s energy supply, 95% of which comes from sub-marine cables from France, as “unacceptable and disproportionate”.The row has been triggered by changes wrought by Brexit to the fishing rights of UK and EU fleets. On Tuesday, Girardin had said she was “revolted” by the lack of access given to French boats that had operated for decades in Jersey’s waters. She had claimed Paris was ready to retaliate, warning that the Channel island relied on “the transmission of electricity by underwater cables” from France.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/05/uk-hits-back-at-french-threat-to-cut-jerseys-electricity-supply
I laughed at the Cheeto quotes but immediately regretted it, we ignore the danger at our own peril.
Anyway, here is some baseball news to gnash teeth over. The perfect not perfect game.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/05/05/sport/john-means-orioles-pitcher-no-hitter-mariners-spt/index.html
I meant to put the game on since I was at home, but I forgot. My kid called me after the 7th and told me to put it on, so at least I got to see him finish.
Cool that the manager left him in, managers get pretty hung up on pitch counts and limits these days.
So, when I read the story about the eviction moratorium being struck down, I suspected it was a Republican judge, and I was correct. What I should have also assumed is that it was one of Trump’s completely unqualified judges.
Yes, let’s evict people and then sell the story that homeless people are homeless coz they want to be. Every fucking time I sit here and wonder how people don’t see through this shit.
One of the things that has always struck me about right wingers is their complete lack of the ability to think beyond the immediate. OK, so now landlords can throw people out into the street. How, precisely, do they anticipate being able to rent those properties out again when there are a shitload of people still out of work who can’t pay the fucking rent? Better to leave them in the rental unit and provide assistance to both the renters and the landlords–but if the money went to renters then that’s communism, so we can’t have that.
Same principle as Medicare for all or even Obamacare. No, we can’t make insurance available to poor people because then they will use it or some shit. So instead we let them suffer until they have to go to the emergency room, where they are treated and taxpayers fund that treatment. Of course, earlier treatment would be cheaper and have better outcomes, but that’s fucking socialism and we can’t have that either. Nossir. Republicans opt for the short-term least effective “solution” every. goddamn. time.
welp..i cant speak for the states…but over here there is a housing shortage
sooo..the solution apparently is…fuck anyone what cant pay rent…theres always someone else willing to pay
(turns out if you put housing in the private market they will charge what they can get…which is why we have a lot of state subsidized housing over here…so poor people can has somewhere to live too… no where near enough mind..waiting lists are a bitch..but yeah….)
(as a side note) quite recently (loosely put..i cant remember how many years its been) they changed the law so theres a maximum income for the subsidized housing
as it turned out a good chunk of the cheapo housing was going to high earners who werent about to leave their sweet little deals
funny how having money turns people into tight fisted bastards
Thank you for “miasma of mendacity”. Really, it is no wonder that you do not sleep well, as you absorb, organize, and present this compendium of current events.
I hadn’t thought about Wonkette in a long time, but they just won a case against grifter* lawyer Larry Klayman who sued them for defamation. The judge dismissed it before trial, saying what they wrote that Klayman was whining about was clearly covered by First Amendment law.
*I can legally call him a grifter. The decision includes the great line “Defendants’ references to Plaintiff as “Batshit”, a “grifter” and a “bigot”, are the types of “vigorous epithets” the Supreme Court characterizes as rhetorical hyperbole.”
https://www.wonkette.com/court-ordered-judge-approved-wonkette-believes-the-following-rhetorical-hyperboles-about-larry-klayman
Well that seems like some batshit reasoning. Better they had proved him as a grifter and a bigot.
Also, Biden deserves some serious props for the vaccine IP decision. I have no doubt that corporate lobbyist continue to have extra access to the White House, regardless of party, but this is a decision the stock market was not expecting. Bill Gates didn’t want it. Liberal foreign policy advocates didn’t expect it.
There will be disappointments to follow, but this is a clear example of how both parties are not the same and there are differences in how they deal with corporate money.
I highly recommend…
https://www.theroot.com/we-found-the-textbooks-of-senators-who-oppose-the-1619-1846832317
Need a good laugh at the expense of Ted Cruz? Who doesn’t?