Category Archives: science

Trump’s Attack on Higher Education-Go on Offense

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I have made a habit through my adult life of, when possible, avoiding talking about my education. When asked where I went to college, I have usually just said, “in the east.” I did this because disclosing that I went to Yale would often lead to uncomfortable statements about things about which the inquirer usually knew little. I was certainly not ashamed of having attended Yale, but I also didn’t want to be seen as bragging about having an Ivy League education and conversations about it were often awkward.

The same was true of my law school experience at Harvard. Truth be told, my attendance at both Yale and Harvard were the product of teachers who cared enough to intervene on my behalf, to encourage me to reach high, to achieve way beyond what I imagined was possible for me. The result was an enriched life beyond anything I ever dreamed of. I became a life-long learner, driven perhaps beyond what was healthy at times, but determined not to fail. Yale, in particular, taught me that working hard, and harder still, was the key to success.

My Yale experience, in the early 1960s, was extraordinary in many ways. I will not detail them here. My purpose is different. The Yale of today is, I think, quite different and more imposing than the school I attended. I am certain that Harvard College has also evolved well beyond what was already back then a world-class education and research institution.

The current Trump administration’s attack on these and other major research and institutions of higher learning reflects a view of the world that is alien to everything these schools represent. I have just read that the President of the University of Virginia has resigned to avoid damaging conflict with the federal government under Trump. While the details of President Ryan’s situation at UVA are perhaps unique (he says he was doing to step down next year anyway), the fact remains that the Trump assault on higher education will have profoundly damaging consequences throughout our society.

Since I know Yale the best, I will focus on it. Yale has produced a website entitled Yale’s Impact on America. https://www.yale.edu/yales-impact-america

Did you know, for example, that “Yale’s large-scale clinical trials – 38,000 patients are currently enrolled in over 2,000 clinical trials – are yielding key discoveries that translate into life-saving therapies.” The health issues involve patients with heart issues, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes among other life-threatening maladies.

Did you know that chemotherapy was developed at Yale and is used to help about one million people each year? And the first insulin pump was developed at Yale as well, now helping 350,000 patients a year. The first U.S. artificial heart pump was also produced at Yale and helps six million people suffering from heart failure. And “Yale research led to the discovery of esketamine as a therapy for major depression, which the FDA approved in 2019 as the first new medication in decades for people suffering from treatment-resistant depression.”

I subscribe to Yale Today, a daily publication of the University. It is a rare day that some remarkable achievement in science, medicine or other discipline is not detailed there. On June 27:

Yale School of the Environment researchers have pioneered a novel method for measuring how urbanization is affecting biodiversity in cities, a tool that will help scientists and officials better manage human-wildlife interactions around the world.

On June 23:

Cutting-edge lab technique hints at new era for neuroscience

In a new study, Yale researchers unveil a more efficient method of simultaneously capturing the electrical activity of large numbers of neurons — an advance that opens doors to understanding and treating neurological diseases.

Yale is not alone in this. Harvard makes similar discoveries through original research constantly, as do the other major research universities. Trump and his goons don’t know and don’t care about the potential loss of these benefits as they attempt to reshape the country into a low-education, all-white society.

Yale needs to wake up to the reality that defensive posturing is not going to solve the real problem Trump poses. Yale, like Harvard, has massive resources, including obviously the law school’s cadre of brilliant lawyers. It needs to make clear to the administration that if it does not back off completely, Yale will lead/join a coalition of universities across the country to litigate the administration to death, including, I suggest, asserting personal liability against the perpetrators of these obviously unlawful actions.

Trump and his drone followers (male and female) have shown that they believe they can act as they wish without consequence to themselves. It is no loss to them personally if they disregard the First and Fifth Amendments and other laws by demanding submission to their will and then lose in court. They’ll just come back with something else as bad or worse. The universities should test that, I think. Make the bastards work hard. Put them on defense.

It’s not good enough to talk or call Senators. Even if victorious today politically, Trump will be back tomorrow with another outrage. Having been attacked as Harvard has and as have all the others with tax increases on their endowments, the universities need to recognize this is not a one-off situation. Trump is coming for them. Prepare for the end game and go on offense. Trump and gang are not doing normal politics, and the defense must not be based on the premise that they are.

Democrats and others who believe in preserving democracy must wake up and fight the fight that’s in front of them, not some policy-based game of old-fashioned politics. Those days are over probably forever. Just look at the contents of the bill the House just passed by one vote. One of the two political parties is off the range. and we must fight the fight that is staring at us with dead eyes before it’s too late.

Take the offense and use the considerable communications resources of the universities to inform the public of what they stand to lose if Trump’s no-nothings succeed in suppressing the vital work that the universities perform in addition to teaching some of our best and brightest future leaders. Time is short.

Only the Best People

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Que Theme from The Twilight Zone

And:

But where are the clowns
Send in the clowns
Don’t bother, they’re here

[4th stanza of Send in the Clowns by Stephen Sondheim]

To understand the musical reference, see Wikipedia at https://tinyurl.com/27nxhtxh

The majority of Americans who voted are about to get the full dose of what they chose. Unfortunately, the rest of us will too. You may decide for yourself who are the fools here.

Donald Trump has boasted many times that based on his deep knowledge of people, his administration would and did hire only “the best people.” Now that he has managed to bamboozle a majority of Americans into reinstalling him in the presidency, we can, once again, see this claim playing out in real time with real effects on the country. It is impossible to see his appointments as anything but political payoffs to a collection of traitors and incompetents who have no chance of successfully managing the federal government, even the reduced (emasculated?) one that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (in the new Department of Government Efficiency) imagine in their fever dreams. Hard to imagine Musk co-leading anything with anyone but time will tell.

Trump has said these two acolytes will “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.” None of these people seem to have the slightest insight into the complexity of the federal government’s operations or their impact on the economy and the welfare of the American people. Rough times ahead.

Maybe that is what Trump really wants: destroy the government to prove what a giant of … something … he is. Catastrophic failure seems inevitable. In the last Trump administration, Trump’s goals, to the extent he had any well-formed thoughts about goals other than enhancing his personal wealth, were largely defeated by the Keystone Kops character of many of his appointees. It was also true that working for Trump was an ordeal beyond the tolerance of many of his appointees, so much so that Cabinet-level appointees quit or were fired in numbers that equaled the total of Reagan and George HW Bush combined and far exceeded the combined total for Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama.

We also know that many of Trump’s former Cabinet members, and his Vice President, have stated flatly that he is unfit for office. Nevertheless, the American people have spoken, rejecting an intelligent, experienced Democrat in favor of a multiply-convicted felon, rapist, corrupt, racist, dishonest remorseless serial liar, insurrectionist traitor, and violator of his oath of office. What can go wrong? Everything. And we’re still more than two months from Trump’s assuming office.

Announcements of his intended nominations for Cabinet and other critical high positions in the government are chilling beyond anything one might have imagined. If there is any good news in any of these appointments, it is that some of these people will no longer be in Congress. But that is killing with faint praise because they will be positioned to impose much more serious harm on the nation and the world.

Trump has, for example, chosen Matt Gaetz as the next Attorney General. As recently as June 18, 2024, the House Committee on Ethics has had this to say about the estimable Mr. Gaetz:

Notwithstanding the difficulty in obtaining relevant information from Representative Gaetz and others, the Committee has spoken with more than a dozen witnesses, issued 25 subpoenas, and reviewed thousands of pages of documents in this matter.  Based on its review to date, the Committee has determined that certain of the allegations merit continued review.  During the course of its investigation, the Committee has also identified additional allegations that merit review.

Accordingly, the Committee is reviewing allegations pursuant to Committee Rules 14(a)(3) and 18(a) that Representative Gaetz may have:  engaged in sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, accepted improper gifts, dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship, and sought to obstruct government investigations of his conduct.  The Committee will take no further action at this time on the allegations that he may have shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe or improper gratuity.

Recall that in Trump v United States, the worst decision in American legal history, the Supreme Court held that the President’s “discussions” with the Justice Department seeking to suborn DOJ into supporting false claims of 2020 election impropriety were “absolutely immune” from criminal prosecution.

The Gaetz appointment appears to be causing something of a stir among some Republicans, too much even for the Wall Street Journal.

This is a bad choice for AG that would undermine confidence in the law. Mr. Trump lauded Mr. Gaetz’s law degree from William and Mary, but it might as well be a doctorate in outrage theater. He’s a performer and provocateur, and his view is that the more explosions he can cause, the more attention he can get. “It’s impossible to get canceled if you’re on every channel,” he once said. “If you aren’t making news, you aren’t governing.”

The larger objections to Mr. Gaetz concern judgment and credibility. The U.S. Attorney General has to make calls on countless difficult questions of whom to investigate and indict. Mr. Gaetz’s decisions simply wouldn’t be trusted. He’s a nominee for those who want the law used for political revenge, and it won’t end well.

Contesting for the most insane actions by an elected president in history, I have just seen that Trump has, as predicted, appointed anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy, Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services. While Kennedy has had many jobs and roles during his lifetime, he has never had a management responsibility even remotely on the scale of HHS. This appointment, like many others, seems destined to produce a nightmarish disaster for the country.

Even the Wall Street Journal found RFK Jr to much to choke down:

Only months ago Mr. Trump was calling the Kennedy family scion a “liberal lunatic,” yet now he wants to hand RFK Jr. the power to “make America healthy again.” Good luck making sense of this nomination.

Mr. Trump’s desire to focus on America’s health agencies is welcome, but RFK Jr. won’t make America healthier. He’s more likely to harm public health by spreading confusion and attacking the American companies that are saving lives and feeding the world.

Trump selected Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence. Russian media has gleefully reported her claims that the Biden administration was intent upon prolonging the war in Ukraine, “out to destroy Russia” and that the Democratic Party was the enemy of democracy driven by an “insatiable hunger for power.” Armed with those deep thoughts, Gabbard joined the Republican Party and endorsed Trump’s candidacy. Given her positions and statements, some commenters have labeled her a “Russian asset.” Quite possible.

Trump chose Elise Stefanik to be Ambassador to the United Nations. This is the same Elise Stefanik who supported the January 6 attack on the Capitol and stated that she would have violated the law, the Constitution, and her oath of office by refusing to certify the 2020 election result. A solid Trumpian choice to represent the country in the council of nations.

Trump anointed South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security – you remember her, the person who shot her dog because she disapproved of his behavior. She will likely struggle with Trump’s related selection of Tom Homan as “border czar.” Homan served as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration. About this appointment, Trump reportedly said that in addition to overseeing the southern and northern borders along with maritime, and aviation security, Homan “will be in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.” Homan’s appointment apparently does not require Senate confirmation.

The reference to aviation security being under Homan is curious in that the Transportation Security Administration is part of the Department of Homeland Security. Trump may be signaling an intention to move it. I will leave to your imagination the implications of that for the travel security process at airports. Or maybe Trump simply doesn’t know anything about the organization of the federal government.

As the lead lunatic and merciless serial killer played by Woody Harrelson in the 1974 movie, Natural Born Killers, said when asked what he had to say to his fans, “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Trump has chosen a Fox News anchor, Pete Hegseth, for Secretary of Defense. Hegseth’s qualifications are that he was a soldier once and wrote some books attacking our current military policies. He is well-educated with a bachelor’s degree in politics from Princeton University and a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Axios reports that Hegseth opposes using women in combat roles, believes the military is too “woke,” has (per CNN) urged Trump to pardon some U.S. servicemen accused of war crimes and to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. A quote attributed to him says, “You’ve got top-down political generals who’ve gained rank by playing by all the wrong rules that cater to the ideologues in Washington, D.C.”

It seems likely that Hegseth, who has been with Fox since 2014, is going to disrupt the chain of command while the U.S. is involved in large support roles in at least two wars: Middle East and Ukraine. Do you feel safer? Oh, and check out the photos of his tattoos. Oh, and check out the stories about his alleged sexual assault, that Hegseth denied but paid hush money anyway to secure the obligatory non-disclosure agreement. Curiously the stories I have seen don’t mention anything about DNA testing. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung reportedly has crowed that “Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his administration.” No doubt, Trump will be pleased with Cheung’s praise.

Trump also picked for Secretary of State the man he referred to as “little Marco” during the 2016 primaries. Rubio will exit the Senate, but Florida will no doubt elect a “suitable” MAGA replacement, so no joy there.

Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Michael Waltz, another Florida Republican, is reported to be a “China hawk” and likely opposed to giving more aid to Ukraine. If so, the seeds of internal conflict among Trump’s Cabinet on the Ukraine may be sown. Republican leaders generally seem disinclined to support Ukraine, and NATO itself, against Russia’s expansionist agenda, so Trump may well be on the verge of giving “aid and comfort” to one of our country’s principal adversaries. Treason, anyone?

Perhaps driven by his problematic experience with the gaggle of lawyers trying to help his campaign undermine the electoral process in 2020 and thereafter (also 2016, don’t forget), Trump has chosen William McGinley as White House counsel. Without a hint of awareness of the irony of it, Trump touted McGinley as someone who would resist the “weaponization of law enforcement.” Reportedly, McGinley’s MAGA credentials are solid: he was White House Cabinet secretary, Republican National Committee outside counsel for election integrity and general counsel for the GOP Senate campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Trump also chose right-wing Christian religious fanatic former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Likely this means the slaughter in Gaza will continue. One report I saw indicates Muslims in Pennsylvania and Michigan who supported Trump are now upset with his pro-Israel nominations. This is what you get for single-issue protest votes.

In a related development, Trump appointed Steven Witkoff, a New York real estate baron, his special envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff, co-chair of Trump’s inaugural committee and a regular Trump golf partner, has reportedly been central to Trump’s connection with the Jewish business community.

Perhaps the least surprising and least interesting appointment so far is that of White House Chief of Staff that went to Trump campaign co-chair Susie Wiles, a Florida political operative. Lots of political folks from Florida in Trump’s crew.

Semi-finally, based on reports I’ve seen so far, the new CIA Director will be John Ratcliffe who was Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence. Ratcliffe previously was a Republican House member from, where else, Texas.

I will close this post for today with further observations about the Gaetz appointment. While Hegseth’s appointment as Secretary of Defense is shocking even for someone like Trump, it is put to shame by the elevation of Gaetz to the top federal law enforcement post.

USAToday noted that “Trump chose Gaetz to end ‘weaponization’ of Justice Department.” Again, awareness of irony is in short supply among these MAGA Republicans. USAToday notes

Trump and Gaetz both became fierce critics of the Justice Department after being investigated.”

Yes, that is to be expected, I suppose, but the idea that Gaetz is going to “end the weaponization of DOJ,” the agency Trump tried so hard to weaponize, is absurd. Trump only desisted because of threats by multiple DOJ leaders to resign if he put Jeffrey Clark in charge. Then the Supreme Court came along and found that Trump didn’t need to worry about weaponization of DOJ or any other federal agency because he was “absolutely immune” from prosecution for doing that very thing.

In replay of the replay of the replay, two female senators, Murkowski and Collins, engaged in brief public “shock” at the Gaetz nominations. Five will get you ten they will vote for confirmation.

Finally, here are some reactions among former government officials with knowledge:

“I cannot imagine a worse pick for Attorney General than Matt Gaetz.” [Edward Whelan, a deputy assistant attorney general during the George W. Bush administration]

“On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d call it a disaster.” [Harry Litman, a top Justice Department official during the Clinton administration]

“Our next Attorney General will be tasked with the safekeeping of the rule of law and our democracy, and Matt Gaetz is not fit for that job.” [Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee]

“He’s just trolling America at this point.” [Alyssa Farah Griffin, White House and Pentagon spokesperson in the first Trump administration]

“it must be the worst nomination for a Cabinet position in American history. Gaetz is not only totally incompetent for this job, he doesn’t have the character.” [John Bolton, Trump’s first term national security adviser]

Meanwhile, Jack Smith is closing his criminal prosecutions of Trump who will walk away unscathed for his traitorous behavior in office.

To end, finally, I turn to one of the smartest humans to share his brilliance with us in modern times: Edward O. Wilson (two Pulitzer Prizes), requoted from Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen & Ivy Ross:

Along with ants, bees, wasps, and termites, we humans are one of the only nineteen species on the entire planet that are eusocial. In other words, we work together to ensure our collective future. Group selection over individual survival developed with the core huma traits we have honed to this day including sympathy, empathy, and teamwork.

Altruism was essential to build and support community as a portion of the group members made sacrifices for the good of the group as a whole.

The authors added:

While it might not always seem the case, humans throughout history have more often chosen community and altruism over isolation and selfishness because irresolvable rivalry, from an evolutionary perspective, is deadly.

 

The Strongman Fantasy (And Dictatorship in Real Life)

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Professor Timothy Snyder, an expert in, among other things, the theory and reality of politics and law, has written an extraordinary summary of the result of electing a “strongman” to power. Professor Snyder, the author of, among other works, On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, wrote this for Substack and encouraged sharing of his thoughts.

Here they are, verbatim but with hyperlinks removed. Pay attention. It may be your last chance.

“Quite a few Americans like the idea of strongman rule.  Why not a dictator who will get things done?

I lived in eastern Europe when memories of communism were fresh.  I have visited regions in Ukraine where Russia imposed its occupation regime.  I have spent decades reading testimonies of people who lived under Nazi or Stalinist rule.  I have seen death pits, some old, some freshly dug. And I have friends who have lived under authoritarian regimes, including political prisoners and survivors of torture. Some of the people I trusted most have been assassinated.

So I think that there is an answer to this question.

Strongman rule is a fantasy.  Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman. He won’t.  In a democracy, elected representatives listen to constituents.  We take this for granted, and imagine that a dictator would owe us something. But the vote you cast for him affirms your irrelevance.  The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing.  We get abused and we get used to it.

Another pleasant illusion is that the strongman will unite the nation.  But an aspiring dictator will always claim that some belong and others don’t.  He will define one group after another as the enemy.  This might feel good, so long as you feel that you are on the right side of the line.  But now fear is the essence of life.  The politics of us-and-them, once begun, never ends.

We dream that a strongman will let us focus on America.  But dictatorship opens our country to the worst the world has to offer.  An American strongman will measure himself by the wealth and power of other dictators.  He will befriend them and compete with them.  From them he will learn new ways to oppress and to exploit his own people.

At least, the fantasy goes, the strongman will get things done.  But dictatorial power today is not about achieving anything positive.  It is about preventing anyone else from achieving anything.  The strongman is really the weak man: his secret is that he makes everyone else weaker.

Unaccountable to the law and to voters, the dictator has no reason to consider anything beyond his own personal interests.  In the twenty-first century, those are simple: dying in bed as a billionaire.  To enrich himself and to stay out of prison, the strongman dismantles the justice system and replaces civil servants with loyalists.

The new bureaucrats will have no sense of accountability.  Basic government functions will break down. Citizens who want access will learn to pay bribes.  Bureaucrats in office thanks to patronage will be corrupt, and citizens will be desperate.  Quickly the corruption becomes normal, even unquestioned.

As the fantasy of strongman rule fades into everyday dictatorship, people realize that they need things like water or schools or Social Security checks.  Insofar as such goods are available under a dictatorship, they come with a moral as well as a financial price.  When you go to a government office, you will be expected to declare your personal loyalty to the strongman.

If you have a complaint about these practices, too bad.  Americans are litigious people, and many of us assume that we can go to the police or sue.  But when you vote a strong man in, you vote out the rule of law.  In court, only loyalism and wealth will matter.  Americans who do not fear the police will learn to do so.  Those who wear the uniform must either resign or become the enforcers of the whims of one man.

Everybody (except the dictator and his family and friends) gets poorer.  The market system depends upon competition.  Under a strongman, there will be no such thing.  The strongman’s clan will be favored by government.  Our wealth inequality, bad enough already, will get worse.  Anyone hoping for prosperity will have to seek the patronage of the official oligarchs. Running a small business will become impossible.  As soon as you achieve any sort of success, someone who wants your business denounces you.

In the fantasy of the strongman, politics vanishes and all is clear and bright.  In fact, a dreary politics penetrates everything.  You can’t run a business without the threat of denunciation.  You can’t get basic services without humiliation.  You feel bad about yourself.  You think about what you say, since it can be used against you later.  What you do on the internet is recorded forever, and can land you in prison.

Public space closes down around you.  You cannot escape to the bar or the bowling alley, since everything you say is monitored.  The person on the next stool or in the next lane might not turn you in, but you have to assume they will.  If you have a t-shirt or a bumper sticker with a message, someone will report you.  Even if you just repeat the dictator’s words, someone can lie about you and denounce you. And then, if you voted for the strongman, you will be confused.  But you should not be.  This is what you voted for.

Denunciation becomes normal behavior.  Without law and voting, denouncing others helps people to feel safe.  Under strongman rule, you cannot trust your colleagues or your friends or even your family.  Political fear not only takes away all public space; it also corrupts all private relationships.  And soon it consumes your thoughts.  If you cannot say what you think, you lose track of what you believe.  You cease to be yourself.

If you have a heart attack and go to the hospital, you have to worry that your name is on a list.  Care of elderly parents is suddenly in jeopardy.  That hospital bed or place in a retirement home is no longer assured.  If you draw attention to yourself, aged relatives will be dumped in the street.  This is not how America works now, but it is how authoritarian regimes always work.

In the strongman fantasy, no one thinks about children.  But fear around children is the essence of dictatorial power.  Even courageous people restrain themselves to protect their children.  Parents know that children can be singled out and beaten up.  If parents step out of line, children lose any chance of going to university, or lose their jobs.

Schools collapse anyway, since a dictator only wants myths that justify his power.  Children learn in school to denounce one another.  Each coming generation must be more tame and ignorant than the prior one.  Time with young children stresses parents.  Either your children repeat propaganda and tell you things you know are wrong, or you worry that they will find out what is right and get in trouble.

In a dictatorship, parents no longer say what they think to their children, because they fear that their children will repeat it in public.  And once parents no longer speak their minds at home, they can no longer create a trusting family.  Even parents who give up on honesty have to fear that their children will one day learn the truth, take action, and get imprisoned.

Once this process begins, it is hard to stop.  At the present stage of the strongman fantasy, people imagine an exciting experiment.  If they don’t like strongman rule, they think, they can just elect someone else the next time.  This misses the point.  If you help a strongman come to power, you are eliminating democracy.  You burn that bridge behind you.  The strongman fantasy dissolves, and real dictatorship remains.

Most likely you won’t be killed or be required to kill. But amid the dreariness of life under dictatorship is dark responsibility for others’ death. By the time the killing starts, you will know that it is not about unity, or the nation, or getting things done. The best Americans, betrayed by you when you cast your vote, will be murdered at the whim and for the wealth of a dictator. Your tragedy will be living long enough to understand this.”

More Book News

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Amazon now has Not to Yield, Volumes One & Two, in softcover and also in the Kindle version.

amazon.com

 

 

The America Trump Wants for You & Your Children

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Meidas+ (meidastouch@substack.com) published a list of 200 reasons to vote against Donald Trump. The list was originally created by Mark Jacob, former editor at the Chicago Tribune, author, and writer of the newsletter Stop The Presses. It contains many duplications. I have reorganized and supplemented the list. None of these points is in doubt. None.

Iif this is the country you want to live in and that you want your children and grandchildren to live in, vote for Trump/Vance. You will be doing so knowing that Trump plans to turn the United States into a gulag-ridden hellscape for everyone and particularly for women and children. You will know that the United States will no longer support action to control climate change.

Consider that if Trump attempts to execute his plan for the country, and there is every reason to think he will, can you reasonably expect the Russian government under the thumb of dictator Vladimir Putin to just sit quietly by and send Trump a congratulatory cake? Can you reasonably expect America’s current allies in NATO and elsewhere around the world to just say, “well, OK, no worries, the US is destroyed as a democracy, but we’re still fully aligned?” Historically, isolationist policies have led the United States into wars. If Trump wins, Russia will overrun Ukraine, and the NATO allies will be next.

Consider the implications of the dismantling of the federal system of Cabinet-level departments and administrative agencies responsible for implementing the multitude of laws enacted by Congress. Trump says he going to “shut down,” among others, the Department of Education.

Consider the implications of replacing the federal workforce with people whose primary “skill” is unquestioning obedience to whatever Trump decides he wants any given day. Here is the list of some of Trump’s past conduct showing that he is an existential threat to the nation:

  1. Trump incited a deadly assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; he has resisted every effort at accountability; the Supreme Court has held that he is above the law when, for example, he tries to compel the Justice Department to support his false claims of a stolen election. Trump will not accept defeat in 2024.
    • Trump pushed the fake-electors scheme to overturn a fair election, knowing the scheme had no lawful basis. He knew it and every Republican who still supports knew and knows it.
    • Trump lied that there were “205,000 more ballots than you had voters” in PA.
    • Trump lied that “the entire Database of Maricopa County in Arizona has been DELETED!”
    • Trump falsely accused 2 Georgia election workers of election fraud – the same allegations that led to a $148M judgment vs. Rudy Giuliani.
    • In late 2020,  Trump delayed transition talks with the Biden team even though the stonewalling hurt public health efforts during a pandemic.
    • Trump’s coup attempt projected such instability that Gen. Mark Milley assured his Chinese counterpart that the U.S. planned no attack. This infuriated Trump, who suggested Milley deserved execution: “In times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
    • Trump plans to pardon the rioters who beat up police officers at the Capitol.
    • Trump did nothing but watch for 187 minutes as his followers stormed the Capitol.
    • Trump spread false claims that mail-in voting would lead to massive fraud, even though it’s been used safely for decades.
    • Trump repeatedly lied about voter fraud to undermine confidence in the 2020 election.
    • Trump tried to overturn the election results by pressuring Georgia officials to “find” votes in his favor.
    • Trump tried to use the Department of Justice as his personal legal defense team, undermining the rule of law.
    • Trump pushed baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, including claims of rigged voting machines.
    • Trump repeatedly undermined the credibility of U.S. elections, a cornerstone of democracy.
    • Trump attempted to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service ahead of the 2020 election to disrupt mail-in voting.

2. Trump’s extremist justices took away women’s right to control their own bodies.

3. Trump wants more huge tariff increases, which are a tax on American consumers; the Tax Foundation estimates loss of more than 684,000 full-time equivalent jobs as result.

4. Trump stole top secrets, lied about what he had, refused to return them, and left them exposed to unauthorized viewers in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom.

5. Trump bragged about grabbing the private parts of women he’d just met. Trump regards women as property.

6. Trump called for a “day of violence” in which police could do whatever they wanted with no accountability.

7. Trump threatens mass deportation of undocumented immigrants – imagine what will happen when many resist and others come to their aid. Read this: https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/twelve-million-deportations?r=4gbf6r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

8. Trump called his opponents “vermin,” echoing hate speech from the Holocaust and the 1994 Rwanda massacre.

9. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement on climate change. He means to give the oil companies and others free rein to destroy the climate. Read this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/17/oil-industry-trump-climate-lobbying/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3f56fd8%2F6712886b1ab9a5507

10. Trump said his next administration would give a major health policy role to anti-vaxxer RFK Jr., a disturbed person who dumped a dead bear cub in Central Park and cut off the head of a dead whale with a chainsaw and strapped it to the roof of his minivan.

    • Trump’s lies and incompetence likely led to hundreds of thousands of avoidable deaths from Covid-19.
    • Trump lied publicly that Covid-19 was “like a regular flu that we have flu shots for” while he privately said it was “more deadly than even your strenuous flu.” He continued lying throughout the worst of the pandemic, claiming repeatedly that COVID “will just go away.”
    • Trump suggested that putting light in people’s bodies and injecting them with disinfectant could kill Covid.
    • After the right demonized Anthony Fauci, Trump claimed not to know who gave Fauci a presidential commendation. It was Trump.
    • Trump secretly shipped Covid test equipment to Putin when it was needed in the U.S.
    • Trump downplayed the importance of wearing masks during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to unnecessary deaths.
    • Trump undermined pandemic relief efforts by refusing to sign stimulus bills until they included unrelated demands.
    • Trump downplayed the threat of Covid-19 despite knowing how dangerous it was.
    • Trump pressured governors to reopen their states during the Covid-19 pandemic against public health advice.
    • Trump’s administration ignored early warnings about the Covid-19 pandemic, delaying critical responses.

11. Trump helped the Saudis cover up the murder and dismemberment of a U.S.-based journalist.

12. Trump wants to use the military to put down “the enemy from within” – meaning anyone who opposes his agenda.

13. Trump lied that “Dems want to shut your churches down, permanently.”

14. Trump’s administration separated migrant children from their parents and then lost track of the parents. They didn’t and don’t care.

15. Trump increased the national debt by 39% in just 4 years while giving the rich a big tax cut.

16. Trump had to pay $2 million in a lawsuit over the Trump Foundation’s misuse of charity funds.

17. On 9/11, Trump bragged that the fall of the Twin Towers meant his building was NYC’s tallest. That’s all he was concerned about.

18. Trump touted his business acumen but couldn’t make a profit from casinos and filed for bankruptcy six times.

19. Trump threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, a key alliance for global stability. Next time, he’ll do it.

20. Trump made false statements more than 30,000 times as President.

21. rump lied that an “extremely credible source” told him Obama’s birth certificate was fake. After years of pushing the birtherism hoax, Trump admitted it was bunk — and he blamed it on Hillary Clinton.

22. Trump took Putin’s word over the word of U.S. intel agencies regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election.

23. Trump insulted Gold Star parents whose son, a U.S. soldier, had been killed in Iraq. The family was Muslim.

24. A court found Trump and his adult sons liable for business fraud and canceled the Trump Organization’s business certification.

25. After a MAGA supporter massacred Latinos in El Paso, Trump and his wife went to the city and used a newly orphaned baby as a prop for a photo op.

26. Trump lied that “we’re the highest taxed nation in the world.”

27. Trump lied by tweet in 2019: “Today I opened a major Apple Manufacturing plant in Texas.” In fact, the plant had opened nearly 6 years earlier.

28. Trump lied when making the absurd claim that people weren’t allowed to say “Merry Christmas” until he came along.

29. Trump denounced 4 women in Congress who are members of minority groups, telling them to go back where they came from, even though 3 were born here and the 4th immigrated as a child.

30. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Trump wanted to shoot social justice protesters. “We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at Gen. Milley and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?'”

31. Trump lied that the strategic oil reserve was “mostly empty” and that he filled it. In fact, the reserve was lower at the end of his term than at the start.

32. Trump overruled experts to give a security clearance to Jared Kushner, who later leveraged his access to get $2B from the Saudis.

33. Trump is a racist bigot. He said in 1991: “I have black guys counting my money. … I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes all day.”

34. Trump said in 2015 he favored the creation of a database to track all Muslims in the U.S.

35. Trump asked in 2016 if women should be charged with a crime for having an abortion despite a ban, he said: “The answer is that there has to be some form of punishment.”

36. Trump defended Putin in 2015: “Nobody’s proven that he’s killed anybody.”

37. In 2016, he called for not only killing terrorists but killing their family members, too.

38. Trump invited Russians into the Oval Office and shared classified information.

39. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, was convicted of 17 tax crimes, including conspiracy and falsifying business records.

40. Trump called for government crackdowns on MSNBC and CBS because he didn’t like their coverage of him.

41. Trump’s pardon got Steve Bannon out of federal fraud charges in a “build the wall” scam. Right-wing disinformation is Bannon’s game: “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.”

42. Trump praised Hungarian despot Viktor Orban as “one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world.”

43. A Trump golf club put up a marker about a “River of Blood” at a Civil War battle that supposedly took place there. But no such battle occurred. It’s a lie.

44. Several Trump golf clubs displayed a Time magazine cover featuring him. You guessed it: It’s fake.

45. Trump pardoned Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been convicted of ignoring a court order to stop profiling Latinos.

46. Trump lied about Mika Brzezinski’s husband/co-host: “When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so.”

47. Trump hired Kellyanne Conway as a professional liar, and she fulfilled that role, saying early in the pandemic that Covid was “contained,” calling lies “alternative facts” and referring to a terrorist attack that never happened: the “Bowling Green Massacre.”

48. Trump praised China’s dictator Xi Jinping as “brilliant” and “strong like granite.”

49. Trump quit the Iran nuclear deal, raising the chances of nuclear war.

50. Trump told his Cabinet that the Soviet Union was justified in invading Afghanistan in 1979.

51. After former Klan leader David Duke endorsed him for president, Trump said: “I don’t know David Duke. … I just don’t know anything about him.” But researchers found video clips showing Trump talking about Duke on national TV multiple times.

52. Trump refused to attend his successor’s inauguration, becoming the first president to boycott the transition since Andrew Johnson in 1869.

53. Trump tore up official documents, forcing aides to tape them together to preserve them as required by federal law.

54. Trump endorsed NC gov candidate Mark Robinson, a Holocaust denier who called Obama a “top-ranking demon” and said, “I absolutely want to go back to the America where women couldn’t vote.”

55. Trump’s social-media Christmas wish for his opponents: “May they rot in hell.”

56. Trump used the South Lawn of the White House for a partisan event, ignoring precedent and propriety, when he gave his 2020 Republican National Convention speech there.

57. Trump, asked about QAnon, the conspiracy cult that claims JFK Jr. is still alive and Democrats kidnap children to harvest their blood, said: “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand that they like me very much, which I appreciate.”

58. Trump lied that U.S. Steel was building 6, 7, 8, or 9 new plants (the number varied). But the company built no new plants.

59. Asked about charges for Ghislaine Maxwell for conspiring with sex predator Jeffrey Epstein, Trump said: “I wish her well, frankly.”

60. Trump lied that he received “the highly honored Bay of Pigs award” from Cuban Americans in Florida. There’s no such award.

61. After a 75-year-old social justice protester in Buffalo, NY, was shoved to the ground by police and suffered a fractured skull, Trump suggested it was a “set-up” by “an antifa provocateur.” Trump tweeted that the activist “fell harder than [he] was pushed.”

62. Trump lied that Obama spied on his campaign.

63. Trump said: “We will be ending the AIDS epidemic shortly in America and curing childhood cancer very shortly.”

64. Trump’s Agriculture Dept. ordered staff to stop referring to “climate change” and call it “weather extremes” instead.

65. Trump is selling watches, crypto, and sneakers. Trump’s “God Bless the USA” Bibles were printed in China.

66. Credible evidence indicates that Egypt gave Trump’s campaign a $10M bribe.

67. Trump opened most of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging and other development, removing protections for a temperate rainforest. Biden reversed the move.

68. He claimed to have built hundreds of miles of new border wall, but most of it was just repairs to existing sections.

69. Trump falsely claimed that the U.S. would lose its energy independence under Biden, even though the U.S. was energy independent before and after his presidency.

70. Trump hosted super-spreader events during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to multiple outbreaks.

71. Trump tried to block the publication of a book by his niece, Mary Trump, which described his unfit mental state and corrupt behavior.

72. Trump repeatedly attacked the media, calling them the “enemy of the people” and undermining free speech.

73. Trump refused to condemn white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys, telling them instead to “stand back and stand by.”

74. Trump refused to release his tax returns, breaking decades of tradition and transparency.

75. Trump pressured foreign governments, including Ukraine, to investigate his political rivals, leading to his impeachment.

76. Trump mocked a reporter with a disability during a campaign rally, showing a lack of basic decency.

77. Trump refused to support measures to protect against Russian interference in U.S. elections.

78. Trump repeatedly violated the Hatch Act by using government resources for political purposes.

79. He ignored intelligence reports about Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

80. Trump’s administration rolled back environmental protections, contributing to climate change and pollution.

81. Trump lied that U.S. troops voted overwhelmingly for him, when military ballots showed otherwise.

82. Trump endorsed violence against protesters, saying “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

83. Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization during a global pandemic, weakening international cooperation.

84. Trump promoted unproven Covid-19 treatments like hydroxychloroquine, which endangered public health.

85. Trump repeatedly lied about his administration’s accomplishments, including jobs created and trade deals made.

86. Trump ordered the violent removal of peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so he could stage a photo-op with a Bible.

87. Trump insulted John McCain, a decorated war hero, saying he prefers “people who weren’t captured.”

88. Trump downplayed the severity of climate change, reversing policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

89. Trump called for imprisoning political rivals, a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.

90. Trump’s reckless foreign policy decisions alienated key allies and damaged the U.S.’s reputation globally.

Book Announcement

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I am delighted to announce the publication of Not to Yield, a two-volume compilation of essays adapted from my blog at http://shiningseausa.com and, to a lesser extent, my retired blog at AutumnInNewYork.net.

This is most important: I do not expect you to buy the book because you know me.

If you are interested, please do buy it, but I will never ask. You owe me no explanation of your decision. Similarly, if you are offended by the contents, I’m sorry for that but the book, in addition to being a political and legal history, is replete with my opinions about many subjects. They are my opinions, and that’s that. I have explained the basis for them in, I hope, every case. If you agree, wonderful. If not, you are entitled to. This is the United States, after all. At least for now. One thing seems certain: if Trump loses the election, he will not accept the loss and just retire quietly to Mar-a-Lago. Many of the essays in this book will remain instructive for some time to come.

How to buy Not to Yield”
 
The books are now available at Barnes & Noble:

For Volume One: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/not-to-yield-paul-m-ruden/1146438480?ean=9798823034661

For Volume Two: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/not-to-yield-paul-m-ruden/1146448160?ean=9798823034685

You may qualify for a Member Discount and Free Shipping.

If you prefer to buy from the publisher, here is the AuthorHouse website:

For Volume One: https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/863010-not-to-yield
For Volume Two: https://www.authorhouse.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/863011-not-to-yield

There may be shipping and handling charges.

In the relatively near future, they will be available through Amazon, among others. If you want to know when that occurs, state so in a comment  and I will advise at the appropriate time.

The e-book version of the volumes will also be available in the near future on the AuthorHouse website, as well as Amazon and Barnes & Noble, for a lower price and useable on any e-platform. If e-books are your thing, you may wish to wait. In all events, if you buy it/them, I hope the reading will be stimulating and thought-provoking. Remember that experience (history) keeps a dear school …. [Ben Franklin]

If you think you might want to read some of the essays but not all (each volume is long), you may want to consider buying the book, reading what you like, and donating the books to a local library, perhaps for a tax deduction.

To assist in deciding whether you want to buy one or both volumes, I have set out below a list of the main chapters, each of which usually has multiple essays within it.

From the Back Cover:

“This raw, provocative book of essays adapted from the blog ShiningSeaUSA pulls back the curtain on the Trump presidency, providing a panoramic view of his turbulent time in office, the legal implications of his actions, and the inactions of those surrounding him, enabling him, or standing by. The book includes memoir about life in New York City, legal analyses of major political developments since Donald Trump emerged, deep dives into what went wrong in the Mueller investigation, Trump’s mishandling of the COVID pandemic, and the threat to American democracy from Trump, the Republican Party he has captured, and the “conservative” Supreme Court. Not to Yield exposes the corruption and incompetence that dominated Trump’s presidency, his denial of his 2020 election loss, the January 6 attack on the Capitol and Trump’s attempt to return to power, all observed through a legal lens that spotlights blatant disregard for the law of the land and our democratic system.”

Chapters Volume One: Chapters Volume Two:

 
1 NEW YORK CITY MEMORIES 16 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2017

 
2 PEOPLE 17 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2018
3 CLIMATE, ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE, & SOCIETY 18 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2019

 
4 CONGRESS 19 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2020
5 DEMOCRACY 20 PANDEMIC 2020
6 LAW & COURTS 21 ELECTION 2020
7 TERRORISM 22 TRUMP IN 2021
8 MEDIA 23 TRUMP IN 2022
9 REPUBLICAN POLICY 24 TRUMP IN 2023

 
10 GUNS IN AMERICA 25 ELECTION 2024

 
11 POLICING IN AMERICA
12 RACISM & MYSOGNY
13 ELECTION 2016
14 MUELLER REPORT
15 TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY 2016

Project 2025 – The Republican Doomsday Scenario – Part 2

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The core premise of Project 2025 is that the federal government is the enemy of the American people:

The federal government is a behemoth, weaponized against American citizens and conservative values, with freedom and liberty under siege as never before. The task at hand to reverse this tide and restore our Republic to its original moorings is too great for any one conservative policy shop to spearhead.

The authors of these concepts are very bright people with impressive credentials, but they are wedded to the idea that since the Great Depression, the population has lost its moorings by electing federal political leaders who have betrayed the country’s original values, at least the values they fantasize were the founding principles.

Curiously, the manifesto declares that the situation is so fraught that:

Contemporary elites have even repurposed the worst ingredients of 1970s “radical chic” to build the totalitarian cult known today as “The Great Awokening.” And now, as then, the Republican Party seems to have little understanding about what to do. Most alarming of all, the very moral foundations of our society are in peril.

The first expressed goal of Project 2025 is thus to “Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children,” defined by the Project as “the true priority of politics.” Based on the conduct of the Republican Party, they consider Donald Trump and his family of entitled grifters the model for the American family. I am not making this up.

The Project’s hyperventilation over the “carnage” that Trump referenced in his 2016 inauguration speech continues with this pithy observation:

In many ways, the entire point of centralizing political power is to subvert the family. Its purpose is to replace people’s natural loves and loyalties with unnatu­ral ones.

I have observed in other writings the curious condition that permits Republicans to keep multiple inconsistent ideas actively working in their minds at the same time without experiencing devastating cognitive dissonance. Here is another example from Project 2025 wherein it observes that Republicans have had long-terms goals of “eliminating marriage penalties in federal welfare programs and the tax code and installing work requirements for food stamps.” Then,

 But we must go further. It’s time for policymakers to elevate family authority, formation, and cohesion as their top priority and even use government power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family. [emphasis added for … emphasis]

Sooo, it seems that big government is evil BUT we should use government power to reshape society by establishing government-enforced cultural rules that control the private behavior of adults.

The Republicans’ concern for the welfare of the American family is touching, until you recall this:

Shooting Deaths Shooting Injuries Elementary Schools Middle/Jr High High schools Other2
2000-01 1,676 515 1,305 320 162 777
thru 2021-22
2000-01 47 18 30 4 3 23
2001-02 18 5 17 2 1 14
2002-03 29 13 24 2 6 16
2003-04 45 16 34 5 3 26
2004-05 63 22 44 9 1 32
2005-06 55 13 50 5 6 39
2006-07 91 28 64 9 12 42
2007-08 23 10 16 2 2 11
2008-09 61 19 52 11 6 31
2009-10 15 5 15 1 2 12
2010-11 32 8 18 4 2 12
2011-12 21 9 16 3 3 9
2012-13 55 42 26 7 5 13
2013-14 55 19 46 7 3 32
2014-15 65 20 43 13 4 24
2015-16 45 9 38 7 4 25
2016-17 61 14 48 8 9 31
2017-18 185 52 89 14 8 64
2018-19 116 34 113 35 14 60
2019-20 126 32 116 33 11 70
2020-21 118 46 145 59 21 57
2021-22 350 81 319 82 37 189

And this:

It seems that Republicans are fine with the “acceptable losses” of children due to school shootings, since they resist virtually every attempt to limit access to guns. And we have just learned that the Supreme Court, ruled by a “conservative majority” of six (half appointed by Trump), thinks automatic weapons, or their functional equivalent, are just fine too. Garland v Cargill decided June 14, 2024.

Project 2025 provides many examples of what it would change by government edict. I will address many of them in subsequent posts.

Meanwhile, women of America and everyone who believes in science and the principles of individual liberty, separation of church and state, among others, try on for size these pieces of Project 2025 about the American “family”:

The next conservative President must make the institutions of American civil society hard targets for woke culture warriors. This starts with deleting the terms sexual orientation and gender identity (“SOGI”), diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”), gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender-sensi­tive, abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive Americans of their First Amendment rights out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

In our schools, the question of parental authority over their children’s education is a simple one: Schools serve parents, not the other way around. That is, of course, the best argument for universal school choice—a goal all conservatives and con­servative Presidents must pursue. But even before we achieve that long-term goal, parents’ rights as their children’s primary educators should be non-negotiable in American schools. States, cities and counties, school boards, union bosses, princi­pals, and teachers who disagree should be immediately cut off from federal funds.

Every threat to family stability must be confronted. This resolve should color each of our policies. Consider our approach to Big Tech. The worst of these companies prey on children, like drug dealers, to get them addicted to their mobile apps. Many Silicon Valley executives famously don’t let their own kids have smart phones.2 They nevertheless make billions of dollars addicting other people’s children to theirs. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are specifically designed to create the digital dependencies that fuel mental illness and anxiety, to fray children’s bonds with their parents and siblings. Federal policy cannot allow this industrial-scale child abuse to continue.

In particular, the next conservative President should work with Congress to enact the most robust protections for the unborn that Congress will support while deploying existing federal powers to protect innocent life and vigorously complying with statutory bans on the federal funding of abortion. Conservatives should ardently pursue these pro-life and pro-family policies while recognizing the many women who find themselves in immensely difficult and often tragic situations and the hero­ism of every choice to become a mother. Alternative options to abortion, especially adoption, should receive federal and state support.

Recall that this part is just about the first prong of Project 2025. These people are deadly serious about using the power of the federal government to reshape the United States into a Christian Nationalist version of Gilead.

If The Scots Can Do This, Why Can’t We?

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A November report in the BBC News indicates that a solar-powered boat has been developed and launched in the Philippines. http://tinyurl.com/52vyjys4

Aside: [I Googled this story and found no indication of coverage by any major U.S. news outlet online or otherwise.]

This is a solar-powered version of the “banca” boat, a traditional vessel typically made of wood and powered by a diesel engine, notorious polluters.

Stromness-based Aquatera, an Orkney company, said this was the first of its kind to be powered by renewables. The banca forms the backbone of coastal communities in the Philippines, providing lifeline sources of food, water, and livelihoods through tourism and fishing.

The new version can carry six passengers and two crew and travel up to five hours with a maximum speed of 11 knots. It has a cold-storage facility for the delivery of perishable goods and temperature-sensitive commodities, such as vaccines, to remote communities.

Ian Hutchison, director of Oceantera, said:

Through this initiative, we plan to work with local businesses, communities, and partners to help establish fossil-fuel-free transportation networks across the Philippines and wider South East [sic] Asia.

The project was included in the Renewable Energy-Powered Marine Transport for Island Communities project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development.

One small step for man ….

Can We Save Ourselves?

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It’s hard to figure out what’s worse: the collapse of the common understanding of how adherence to the U.S. Constitution defines our nation or the collapse of our common understanding of what it’s going take for mankind, as a species, to survive on our dying planet. It’s the classic Hobson’s Choice: both bad.

A recent article (November 2023) in the Washington Post discussed our use and abuse of plastics, the once-miracle material that now threatens to destroy everything. http://tinyurl.com/45cbc7xm  Here are a few mind-numbing facts assembled by Journalist Tatiana Schlossberg, author of “Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have” and the newsletter “News From a Changing Planet:”

Between 1950 and 2021, humanity produced about 11 billion metric tons of virgin plastic — that’s the weight of 110,000 U.S. aircraft carriers. Only about 2 billion tons of this is still in use. The rest — some 8.7 billion tons — is waste: 71 percent has ended up in landfills or somewhere else in the environment, including the ocean; 12 percent has been recycled; 17 percent has been incinerated. At the rate we’re going, global plastic waste will rise 60 percent by 2050.

As things stand, from 2010 to 2050 alone, the world could generate enough to cover all of Manhattan with a pile of plastic more than two miles high.

Microplastics have been found in breast milk and in our blood. Around the world, up to 60 percent of all recycled plastic is collected by waste pickers, often members of poor and marginalized communities, who suffer from inhaling caustic fumes from burning plastic and drinking water heavily contaminated with microplastics.

The author strikes a note of optimism by citing a 175-country agreement in 2022 to “develop a legally binding international treaty to end plastic pollution by 2040.” This is the classic “agreement to agree” scenario, if we can. The author maintains that a combination of a mere nine policies “could reduce annual plastic waste by more than 87 percent.”

I will spare you the agonizing details of what’s possible and let you read for yourself. Then you can decide whether you think any of this will happen. Just note this:

U.N. negotiators just finished meeting again in Nairobi to begin crafting the actual treaty, in hopes of completing it by the end of next year [2024], though progress seems to have stalled, a result of excessive influence from oil and gas industry lobbyists, according to nongovernmental organizations. [emphasis added]

Those folks will no doubt be joined by the likes of Amazon and, in the DC area, Giant Foods, whose packaging practices have zero apparent regard for the efficient use of cardboard and plastic packing materials. As the world’s number-one plastic polluter, we should be able to count on U.S. leadership in this effort to save the planet, but don’t count on it.

It will take, I suggest, a massive public uprising to compel industry to pay attention to this existential threat to the survival of our species. Given everything else going on in American politics right now, such an uprising seems a pure fantasy.

One thing seems certain, when the end comes, it won’t be pretty. The worst dystopian stories you’ve ever read will seem like child’s play. We almost at the irrevocable tipping point on climate change, so add the destruction of the oceans and all the rest and you can begin to imagine what will happen. This is not a movie, and there will be no miraculous “save” just before the end.

On the Precipice

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As we approach with bated breath the change of years on the calendar, the flow of events continues. The calendar is an artificial device invented by humans for counting time but time ticks forward regardless. So, here we are, about to celebrate another “year” lived and with hope, we hope, for a better future for everyone.

Given all that, it’s a good idea to review some things about the recent past that have a large bearing on the near future. For this, I turn to Heather Cox Richardson, brilliant Boston College historian to whose daily newsletter [Letters From an American] I have recently subscribed. I’m pretty sure she’s ok with my repeating her thoughts/information because each issue of the newsletter as a “Share” button at the end with options for email, Twitter, Facebook, and others. And we’re on the same team.

Here are some of HCR’s observations about the Biden administration’s performance:

  • The U.S. economy is stronger than that of any other country in the Group of Seven (G7)—a political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, along with the European Union—with higher growth and faster drops in inflation than any other G7 country over the past three years.
  • … growth accelerated to an astonishing 4.9% annualized rate in the third quarter of the year while inflation cooled from 6.4% to 3.1% and the economy added more than 2.5 million jobs.
  • The S&P 500, which is a stock market index of 500 of the largest companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges, ended this year up 24%. The Nasdaq composite index, which focuses on technology stocks, gained more than 40%.
  • … new businesses are starting up at a near-record pace.
  • … holiday sales this year were up 3.1%.
  • Unemployment has remained below 4% for 22 months in a row for the first time since the late 1960s.
  • … unionized workers in the automobile industry, UPS, Hollywood, railroads, and service industries [won] higher wages and other benefits.
  • Real wages have risen faster than inflation, especially for those at the bottom of the economy, whose wages have risen by 4.5% after inflation between 2020 and 2023.
  • the nation has had a record drop in homicides and other categories of violent crime. The only crime that has risen in 2023 is vehicle theft.

One must wonder why this kind of news does not get more attention from at least the so-called Mainstream Media. I get a vast array of news articles from a vast array of sources every day and you would think from the headlines/content of most of them, that the United States is on the brink of economic collapse. I have wondered in other posts why the Democratic Party’s message of progress/achievement/hope is not keeping up with the relentless drumbeat of lies/deceptions/deflections from Donald Trump and his acolytes. I will wonder.

The “new” science of Behavioral Economics [see Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow] teaches us about cognitive biases and the influence of salience on how we generalize our understandings of “reality.” To some significant degree, the repetition of the lies and distortions of Trump’s dark vision of America have led many people to believe we are on the precipice of collapse brought on by immigration, socialism, communism, abortion, and transgenderism, etc etc. The facts say otherwise.

That is not to say, obviously, that there are no problems. One of them, that gets too little attention, is our continued dependence on other countries, most notably but not solely China for many vital products, including critical microchips. See https://www.ted.com/talks/rob_toews_ai_s_single_point_of_failure/transcript?user_email_address=f286772a6726b8e7d0d1da2e91e7f0c9 There are many others but the scale of the United States, its history and its attachment to capitalism inevitably cause problems. For an honest explanation of some by a brilliant scholar who believes in capitalism, see Charles Lindblom’s The Market System (2001), as valid today as when written.

So, as we approach the “New Year,” there is much to celebrate and much about which to be concerned. Maybe this is nothing new, but it feels more ominous for reasons I have discussed in other recent posts. For now, just for today, I will desist from worrying and, with Heather Cox Richardson, accept that we have much to appreciate in our current political leadership, that we still have hope because the good guys outnumber the bad guys, and trust that the good guys will, as they have in past, do what must be done as Americans who still believe in our aspiration set out in the Preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!