Wise up about "grow up"

Some recent polls have indicated a difficulty for Joe Biden's reelection chances in that young people in particular, a major area of support in 2020, are unenthusiastic about voting for him this time because they are upset with recent decisions and policies, particularly around Gaza, the Palestinians, and Israel.

And we have seen the thoroughly predictable response from several quarters among the party stalwarts: "Grow up!"

Well, I have some advice based on the experience of over 50 years of being one of the unrecognized, uncelebrated millions who have labored in the trenches of political activism.

You want to encourage people to vote for Biden despite their misgivings? Okay. First of all, DO NOT tell them to "grow up," you blithering idiot. It is rude, insulting, and condescending. It may make you feel extra-virtuous ("Look at me - I'm voting for Biden despite all my disagreements! See how politically mature I am?") but it won't do a damn bit of good. Put more simply, "Shut up and do what your betters tell you!" is not an argument. This is a mistake the Dems have made repeatedly, perhaps most disastrously in 1980 when they treated Ralph Nader voters as disobedient children to be scolded rather than adults to be persuaded and we got George Bush, AKA "Shrub," and all that entailed as a consequence.

The most important thing to do (as opposed to not do) if you want to convince someone overcome their reluctance to turn out for Biden is tell them why they should, meaning why they should vote for him, not just against Tweetie-pie, AKA The Great Orange Messiah. There certainly are positive arguments in his favor you can raise; COVID recovery aid, Build Back Better with its infrastructure and climate funding, the Inflation Reduction Act with its taxing the rich and start of negotiating drug prices, and student debt relief spring immediately to mind. None of them unqualified successes, but all undeniably better than what existed before.

Next, yes, compare him to Tweetie-pie but don't make that the sum total or even the focus of the argument. That's exactly the mistake the Dems made in 2016, when most of the campaign seemed to be "We're not that scumball Trump!" and we know how that worked out. Argue the "yes," not (at least not primarily) the "no," because resorting to "lesser of two evils" arguments are not going to fly.

At the same time, there are areas where the "lesser evil" can be argued and I am thinking specifically of Israel and Palestinians. Biden has not only failed to call for an immediate ceasefire, he has sent additional military aid to Israel, all as part of his "bear hug" strategy of holding Netanyahu close in the hope of being able to constrain him - a policy that has been a demonstrable, horrific, failure.

But where Biden has failed to constrain, Tweetie-pie would actively encourage. It's properly said you should not make the perfect the enemy of the good, but it is quite true that you can make the worse the enemy of the bad, the actively evil the enemy of the cruel failure.

Note that none of this addresses what is the biggest threat of this election: Tweetie-pie's unique threat to our ability to continue as a functioning democracy. And absolutely, after arguing for the "yes" and getting to the point of "Yeah, I suppose," then dive in with everything in your arsenal, including his increasingly-bizarre rants, his repeated praise of dictators, January 6, and Project 2025 and if you don't know what that is, look it up! (A few sources are offered at the end here.)

Look, the last major party general election presidential candidate I felt I really could believe in was George McGovern. There is nothing anyone can tell me about strategic voting or tactical voting or lesser-of-two-evils voting or even hold-your-nose voting. I have done them all at local, state, and national levels. For most of my voting life I have lived in one safely-blue state or another, so I usually could opt to vote third party without impacting the presidential outcome. But in 2020 I did and in 2024 I will again vote for Biden despite my disappointments and despite being in a safely blue state because I not only want Tweetie-pie to lose the electoral vote; I want him crushed in the popular vote. I want Johnson-Goldwater levels. I won't get them, but that's my target.

And sneering at those reluctant to vote for Biden to "grow up" is not going to get us anything toward that goal.

Some sources for Project 2025
https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/project2025
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2024/01/07/analysis-of-the-project-2025-plan-for-the-next-conservative-president/72008293007/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/09/19/project-2025-trump-reagan-00115811
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/what-is-project-2025-the-political-plot-to-destroy-america-s-freedoms/ar-AA1gWxfK

058 The Erickson Report for July 26 to August 8

058 The Erickson Report for July 26 to August 8

Reproductive rights
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/24/progressives-rebuke-dem-leadership-clyburn-dismisses-death-roe-anticlimactic
https://www.businessinsider.com/becerra-pledges-health-agencies-will-increase-abortion-bill-access-2022-6
https://www.eastcountymagazine.org/biden-administration-takes-steps-protect-some-abortion-access-launches-website-help-women-find
https://www.aol.com/news/biden-unlikely-meet-bold-democrat-150011342-220048970.html

Judgeships
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/anti-abortion-kentucky-federal-judge-nomination-biden-mitch-mcconnell-chad-meredith-1376416/
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/7/2109018/-Biden-s-awful-embarrassing-deal-with-McConnell-just-keeps-getting-worse
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/29/lunacy-democrats-risk-running-out-time-confirm-federal-judges
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/midterms-pressure-senate-biden-on-circuit-court-appointments

Climate change
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/21/heatwave-heat-texas-us/
https://twitter.com/NWSWPC/status/1550125993200717824
https://press.un.org/en/2021/sgsm20847.doc.htm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0b3qn6y
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/15/nothing-short-death-sentence-fury-manchin-tanks-climate-spending
https://www.wbur.org/npr/1112485228/biden-climate-initiatives
https://newsletters.wbur.org/?view_newsletter=dac8d510232a3dec01d991a888cb0d04&id=6125&utm_source=WBUR+Editorial+Newsletters&utm_campaign=3656ca53bb-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2022_07_21_11_26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d0781a0a0c-3656ca53bb-136431413
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/20/2111534/-Biden-announces-climate-executive-orders-tackling-extreme-heat-and-support-for-offshore-wind
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/7/19/2111240/-Biden-said-to-pondering-a-climate-emergency-declaration-soon-along-with-executive-actions

048 The Erickson Report for February 17 to March 2, Page Two: Just Trust Us

048 The Erickson Report for February 17 to March 2, Page Two: Just Trust Us

Moving on to two related not directly but related points:

One is how as soon as the government mentions war or even just foreign policy, we are supposed to just shut up and believe.

On February 3 State Department PR agent Ned Price claimed the US had intelligence suggesting Russia was planning a “false flag operation” propaganda video to justify an invasion of Ukraine, complete with dead bodies and crisis actors posing as weeping mourners. When AP reporter Matt Lee asked for evidence, Price repeatedly said the evidence was what he just said before cutting it off by telling Lee
“If you doubt the credibility of the U.S. government, of the British government, of other governments and want to find solace in information that the Russians are putting out, that is for you to do.”

The same day, White Hoose PR ad rep Jen Psaki reacted with incredulity when NPR White House Correspondent Ayesha Rascoe asked if there would be any evidence offered of the claim that ISIS militant Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi detonated a suicide bomb that killed himself, his wife, and his children rather than being the victims of a US attack.

Psaki responded by saying "People are skeptical of the U.S. military’s assessment ... that they are not providing accurate information and ISIS is?"

In both cases, the immediate response to a question, to wanting evidence, is "either you shut up and believe us or you are saying you believe our enemies" with just a soupçon of "believe or you are un-American."

What's really disturbing is how much of the media willingly embraces that same idea. For an example, that Politico's National Security Daily I mentioned said that "Putin wants to reclaim the narrative after the US exposed many of Russia’s plots," making specific reference to the business about "his false flag video operation" - that is, unquestioningly absorbing and repeating the very claim for which Ned Price repeatedly failed to meet the challenge of providing any evidence.

And if you doubt that liberals are as ready to go along, just watch MSNBC pretty much every night.

036 The Erickson Report for April 22 to May 5, Page Two: Afghanistan

036 The Erickson Report for April 22 to May 5, Page Two: Afghanistan

I'm just going to take a minute or two for this because I am absolutely sure you have heard about it, but just as absolutely it has to be mentioned.

President Joe Blahden has directed that all remaining US forces be withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11, ending America’s longest war 20 years after it started, in a decision supported even by veterans groups across the political landscape and from both Democrats and GOPpers in Congress.

NATO troops will also depart.

Despite the bipartisan support, there are still those urging that 20 years of war and $2 trillion in spending is not enough, that leaving has to be "conditions based" - in other words, the killing should continue until we win. The threat, they say, is civil war, as if that's not what Afghanistan has been experiencing all along.

Besides that obvious point, there is the argument that pulling out actually increases pressure on both the Taliban and the Afghan government to reach an agreement because neither can continue to hold the US hostage to political developments in the country - the government because it can no longer sit back and rely on the US to maintain it; the Taliban because it can no longer use the presence of foreign troops to build and hold popular support.

There is some wiggle room in the announcement, as the administration plans to leave “sufficient” forces in the region to conduct counterterrorism missions and keep a check on the Taliban, but how extensive those forces will be or where they will be stationed is unclear.

What's really odd, though, is that some are referring to it as a "surprise" announcement, even though the deadline is more than four months after the May 1 deadline agreed to by the Tweetie-pie administration last year.

I guess, like some of us sometimes, they just couldn't imagine it really ending.

036 The Erickson Report for April 22 to May 5

036 The Erickson Report for April 22 to May 5

This episode:

- Some thoughts prompted by the Derek Chauvin conviction
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/20/watch-live-jury-delivers-verdict-in-derek-chauvin-murder-trial.html
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2021/4/15/22383392/adam-toledo-shooting-video-released-chicago-police-bodycam
https://theconversation.com/being-skeptical-of-sources-is-a-journalists-job-but-it-doesnt-always-happen-when-those-sources-are-the-police-159173
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/officer-who-fatally-shot-daunte-wright-police-chief-have-resigned-n1263949
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/minnesota-police-chief-says-he-believes-officer-meant-grab-taser-n1263817
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/how-veteran-officer-could-have-mistaken-glock-taser-fatal-shooting-n1263976
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-similar-to-duante-wright-shooting-other-cops-have-claimed-gun-taser-mixup-20210412-7b34zo47kzhtpj4n3rxjl37mze-story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/us/brooklyn-center-police-shooting-minnesota.html

- Afghanistan
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2021/04/us-nato-troops-withdraw-afghanistan-911-us-official-says/173326/
https://apnews.com/article/world-news-afghanistan-troop-withdrawals-islamabad-015703a459088547531a755819897040

- Noted in Passing
https://www.aol.com/news/ohio-republicans-aim-rename-state-174607622-163054145.html
-
https://www.aol.com/finance/romney-introduces-legislation-tackle-social-163327974.html
https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-calculator/
-
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/19/israel-aid-elizabeth-warren-j-street/
-
https://ncse.ngo/creationism-bill-advanced-arkansas
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-v-arkansas.html
-
https://www.aol.com/finance/poll-15-americans-worse-off-120630775-134039730.html - And Another Thing
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/may/12/100-years-on-eclipse-1919-picture-that-changed-universe-arthur-eddington-einstein-theory-gravity
https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/black-hole/

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 4: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 4: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Outrages]

Now for the Outrage, and we have two, or in a way one and a-half as they involve the same person and the same topic, but two different examples.

The person is President Joe Blahden; the issue is his foreign and military policies.

On February 25, on Blahden's order, the US dropped seven 500-pound bombs in eastern Syria on what is claimed to have been a site housing Iran-backed militias. The attack, which killed 22 people according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, was undertaken without Congressional authorization and was not in response to any imminent threat. In fact, it was avowedly labeled retaliation for a rocket attack a week earlier on a US base in northern Iraq, a base which the Iraqi parliament said a full year ago it wanted closed. To what should be no one's surprise, this "retaliation" did not stop and more likely provoked the rocket attack which followed the bombing.

It was so far removed from any useful military purpose that military experts quoted by USA Today said it was actually about "sending a message" that the US intended to remain "engaged" in the Middle East.

Perhaps the worst part of this was when White House press secretary Jen Psaki said of the bombing, "when threats are posed, he has the right to take an action at the time, and in the manner of his choosing" and insisted it was within his "Article II authority," adopting exactly the same sort of "presidents can do whatever they damn please with the military, we don't need no stinking Congress" attitude that has plagued our nation with war for decades without resolution or end.

Our second example shows that on the other hand, Joe Blahden doesn't always have to show he's tough enough to "take action." Consider the case of Saudi Arabia.

As a candidate, he promised to make Saudi Arabia "the pariah that they are" over the 2018 murder of dissident Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi.

But when it came time to actually do something, he refused to take any action against Saudi Crown Prince and dictator Mohammed bin Salman even in the face of a US intelligence report concluding bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi's murder.

State Department spokesman Ned Price blew off the moral collapse by calling Saudi Arabia "a hugely influential country in the Arab world.” In other words, "Hey what did you expect?"

Instead, Price said, the US is "recalibrating" its relationship with the kingdom, a “recalibration” that looks a lot like another case of Obama 2.0: tsk-tsking and tut-tutting about massive human rights abuses, oppression, imprisonment, torture, kidnapping, and now murder while doing absolutely nothing so long as a few lessers can be thrown under the bus for the sake of appearances.

So again it's about "sending a message." It's just that this time, the message is "if you're at the top, then no matter what, so long as you sell us your oil and buy our guns, it's business as usual."

That is, the usual Outrage.

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 1: Continuing Climate Change

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25, Page 1: Continuing Climate Change

I start by telling you about something you may never have heard of but affects you every day, particularly if you live in the eastern parts of the US, and could have a major impact on you with the next few decades and even more on your descendents before the end of the century - a date when, let's recall, that a US child born today has a good shot at seeing.

It's called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC. It's part of a worldwide system of ocean currents distributing heat around the planet

Because the equator receives a lot more solar energy than the polar regions, heat builds up in the tropics. There is a principle in physics called thermodynamic equilibrium, which essentially means everything wants to be the same temperature as everything else. It's why your hot coffee cools off, because the heat energy in it is distributed to the surrounding air so that eventually the coffee and the air are the same temperature, have the same level of heat energy. That is true of the world just as it is for your coffee.

So the differing levels of heat energy in different parts of the ocean create currents that constantly carry warmer and cooler water in a conveyor belt of currents across and around the oceans. The warmer currents are in red, the cooler ones in blue. Warm water is less dense than cold water, so the warm currents are shallow ones, hear the surface of the water, while the dense, cooler, currents are deep ones - which is why the current can cross paths without interacting.

The point is, this system of currents has a major influence on both the long-term of climate and the short-term weather. It affects the wind patterns and how storms form - why for example, hurricanes often form more towards Africa and move westward across the Atlantic.

That warm current also explains why south and southwest England have mild enough weather that winter snow is rare in London and you can find palm trees in Torquay even though London is at about the same latitude as the mouth of the St. Lawrence River between Newfoundland and Labrador.

Why do I bring all of this up? To see why, let's look more locally. Because this is a entire belt of currents, we could start at any point, but for what is relevant to us at the moment we'll start in the Caribbean, with warm water being brought along the southeast US coast before cutting across the Atlantic to Great Britain and then heading for Greenland.

As the water reaches the area around Greenland, it has cooled enough - become dense enough - to sink to deeper water, with that deep current propelled by the force of the water sinking behind it.

What keeps this system going is that the tropics continue to get more solar energy than the polar regions, so that differential in heat driving the system still exists. Also, water in polar regions is saltier than that in the tropics because ice is essentially fresh water, so the amount of it locked up in ice can't contain any of the salt. Saltier water is denser than fresher water, and that difference in density also helps propel the system. The relevance of all that will become obvious in a moment or two.

The news here is that a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Geoscience reports that this current is now moving more slowly than it has in at least 1,600 years and the belief is that this is directly related to climate change.

How? Because a warming climate will do two things: One, because polar regions are warming faster than the tropics the difference in heat energy between the two regions - one of the things driving the current - is being reduced. Second, melting polar ice puts fresh water into the oceans, reducing the salinity of polar oceans and therefore the difference in density between the warmer and cooler parts of the current, impacting another driver. A combined effect big enough and there isn't enough energy to drive the system - and the current breaks down, throwing global climate patterns into disarray, marked by storms and heat waves, along with effects such as faster sea level rise along parts of Europe, stronger hurricanes hitting the southeastern United States, and reduced rainfall across the Sahel.

Those effects can be so wide-ranging - North America to Europe to northern Africa - because, as years of research have made clear, the Atlantic portion of the world conveyor belt - the AMOC - is the engine that drives it, moving water at 100 times the flow of the Amazon river.

But that circulation has slowed down by at least 15% since 1950, something the new study calls "unprecedented in the past millennium." The specific suspected culprit is melting Arctic ice and the reduced salinity of polar oceans that results. The effects on weather patterns can already be detected.

The deeper concern is that if warming is not halted, the circulation may slow by 34% to 45% by the end of the century, by which time we may have already passed the tipping point, the point beyond which even if all warming was stopped entirely, it would be too late to prevent the circulation from slowing to a stop with catastrophic impacts.

Here it's necessary to note that, no, this is not the movie The Day After Tomorrow, the impacts would not be instantaneous, but over years and decades, yes, they would be devastating.

Realize that this is not a new concern. I wrote about this possibility, about this concern, 17 years ago. The difference is that then it was a longer-term concern about a serious but still hypothetical possibility. Now we have evidence that it is happening and that once again, we humans - especially we humans in advanced industrialized societies - are to blame.

This does not mean things are hopeless.

For one thing, a new report from Ember, a London-based environment think tank, found that in 2020, for the first time, the 27 countries of the European Union generated more electricity with renewables - wind, solar, and hydro - than with fossil fuels, continuing a shifting pattern developing over the past 10 years.

What's more, a study from late 2018 found that at that point, generating utility-level electricity through solar and wind was already cheaper than coal and new natural gas plants - without subsidies or a price on carbon.

The study from the financial firm Lazard Ltd. applied a Levelized Cost of Energy, or LCOE, analysis, which looks at the cost of power from a plant averaged over its entire lifetime. It found - over two years ago - that the cost of renewables had dropped so much that in many areas, building and running new renewables was already cheaper than just continuing to run existing coal and nuclear plants.

In other words, the economics are clearly in favor of a clean energy future.

Then there is the fact that according to the Peoples' Climate Vote, the largest survey of public opinion on climate change and policy solutions ever conducted, nearly 2/3 of people around the world, including 65% of those in the US, think it's a global emergency that warrants a serious response.

Survey data was gathered from 1.2 million respondents in 50 high-, middle-, and low-income countries covering 56% of the world's population. People between the ages of 14 and 18 expressed the greatest level of concern, with nearly 70% saying there is a climate emergency, but even 58% of those aged 60 and over agreed.

And then there is President Joe Blahden, who whatever his faults is more concerned about climate change than any previous president.

On his first day in office he canceled the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, the one intended to carry highly-polluting tar sands from Alberta to Texas. He has rejoined the Paris Accords, issued an executive order suspending new oil and gas leases on public lands, directed federal agencies to purchase electric cars by the thousands, and urged Congress to end some fossil-fuel subsidies.

And he has proposed to eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 2035 while proposing to invest $2 trillion over four years to transform to a clean energy economy. I'll note in passing that much of this would not have happened were it not for Bernie Sanders representatives on that unity task force, but the important thing here is that it happened.

And it's certainly doable, considering that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has released a draft version of a report which argues that $2 trillion over 10 years would be enough to build an economy that is not only net-zero but would "also build a more competitive economy, increase high-quality jobs, and help address social injustice in the energy system."

Meanwhile, earlier this month the latest version of the federal CLEAN Future Act was introduced in the House of Representatives, an event greeted with applause by environmental groups such as Earthjustice and the NRDC.

This latest version aims to achieve US carbon neutrality by 2050 with an interim goal of reducing pollution by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030.

It all sounds so good, even allowing for the inevitable political hurdles and opposition from fat cats, corporations, and corporate-funded interests. It still sounds so good and so hopeful.

And it is, it is - as far as it goes.

Which is the problem: It doesn't go far enough.

For one thing, Blahden's order to suspend new oil and gas leases didn't prevent 31 new leases from being issued during his in 1st month in office.

For another, praise for the CLEAN Future Act was hardly universal. Groups like Friends of the Earth and Food & Water Watch said the legislation is fundamentally and dangerously lacking.

My own objection is that the bill treats fracking as a clean energy. But fracking is designed to increase production of natural gas. The whole point of it is not to move away from fossil fuels but to enable us to continue to rely on them. A climate program that embraces fracking is not serious. As Lukas Ross, program manager at Friends of the Earth put it, "A clean energy standard that qualifies fracked gas is a joke."

Meanwhile, Mitch Jones, policy director at Food & Water Watch, called the bill "a Green New Dud" because "it fails to grasp the fundamental truth of fighting climate change: We must stop extracting and burning fossil fuels as soon as possible. We should not waste time creating credit schemes and offsets markets, or prop up fossil fuels with carbon capture fantasies."

And we shouldn't. When I was preparing this piece, I kept thinking "if this was a war." But that's silly, because this is a war. A war we are waging on ourselves, on the climate, a war we are waging on the life networks and patterns of this planet and our collective future.

On January 27, Nature published a report saying that an analysis of ocean surface temperatures shows that the planet is hotter now than at any time in the preceding 12,000 years, and that it may actually be warmer than at any point during the last 125,000 years.

Each of the past four decades has been hotter than the one before. 2020 tied for the hottest year on record and the past seven years have been the seven hottest.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, more than 32,000 species are now threatened with extinction from human impacts like deforestation, pollution, and climate change; 500 of them could disappear in two decades. One critically endangered species is the North Atlantic right whale, of which fewer than 250 survive - and the greatest dangers facing them are collisions with boats and drowning from getting entangled in fishing nets, deaths which are on the increase because climate change is driving their food source, krill, further north, drawing the whales out of their protected areas.

No "natural cycle" or other BS is going to explain any of that that away.

It's not enough. Even the grand-sounding promises and solemnly-intoned pledges at international conferences are not enough.

According to new findings published in December by the United Nations Environment Program, if nations are to meet a central goal of the Paris agreement of holding the Earth's warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, they will have to “roughly triple” their current emissions-cutting pledges. If they are to keep heating below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), they would need to increase their targets at least fivefold - to make five times the cuts they are pledging.

And despite all the pledges, global greenhouse gas emissions, on average, have risen about 1.4 percent annually over the past decade. The world remains on a trajectory to see the temperature increase about 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) this century - a level that climatologists say would be catastrophic.

What we're doing - collectively - is simply not enough. And I mean the world, particularly the industrialized world, at large, not just the US. But if I've seemed a times to concentrate on the US, that's because I have. First off because it's us, it's the one we have the most control over. And we are the world's second largest producer of greenhouse gases and we have one of the if not the most carbon-intensive lifestyle. The carbon footprint of the average American is about 17.6 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents a year, about double the footprint of a person living in the EU or the UK, and almost 10 times that of the average citizen of India.

So yes, the world needs to do more and particularly we here need to do more and dammit yes, it will affect your lifestyle, yes, you might have to do without a few hi-tech goodies, yes, you might have to live with a little less convenience, you might have to take the train instead of flying everywhere, you might have to ride the bus to work instead of driving, you might have to make a lot of changes, some of them more significant than others.

But I'm going to ask you to think back a few decades - if you're as old as me, think back to the '60s. I want you to think back and ask yourself, I've asked this before but I'm asking it again and I want you to think seriously about it. I'm not considering how issues of poverty or bigotry or physical limitations might have affected you personally for this, just consider how the average, the typical, American lived then, the level of technology, the level of convenience, available at that time. And ask yourself: Was that way of living so terrible that you would sacrifice a world for yourself and your children rather than live that way again.

Because right now, yes, we are engaged in a war. And the problem is, we're winning.

033 The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25

 

The Erickson Report for March 11 to 25

This episode:

Recent news on climate change
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-change-atlantic-ocean-gulf-stream-system-amoc-weakest-1600-years/
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2004/03/warm-up-to-main-event.html
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/01/26/president-biden-us-capable-too-europe-generates-more-electricity-renewables-fossil
https://thinkprogress.org/forget-coal-both-solar-and-wind-are-now-cheaper-than-new-natural-gas-plants-e281f5485e5f/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/27/largest-ever-climate-poll-shows-64-global-public-believes-warming-planet-emergency
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-28/biden-s-early-climate-blitz-goes-faster-further-than-expected?utm_source=digg&utm_medium=email
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/2/3/2013746/-Scientists-say-2-trillion-investment-can-decarbonize-energy-by-2050-paid-for-with-a-carbon-tax
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/03/02/green-new-dud-progressives-warn-house-climate-bill-fails-grasp-fundamental-truth
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/28/climate-campaigners-say-listen-science-new-study-shows-earth-now-warmer-any-time
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/3061/2020-tied-for-warmest-year-on-record-nasa-analysis-shows/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/12/09/carbon-footprints-climate-change-rich-one-percent/

Updates on attacks on LGBTQ+ rights
https://19thnews.org/2021/02/wave-of-anti-trans-bills-are-hitting-statehouses/
https://19thnews.org/2021/02/36-anti-lgbtq-religious-freedom-measures-are-in-covid-church-bills/
https://www.rawstory.com/republicans-anti-lgbtq-bills/
https://www.them.us/story/virginia-ban-anti-lgbtq-panic-defense-danica-roem
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/25/us-house-equality-act-lgbtq-americans-discrimination

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Clowns]
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-early-childhood-education-education-boise-bills-581517bc89b86666887396ae8ecce4ce
https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-house-passes-bill-allowing-legislature-to-declare-federal-laws-unconstitutional/35661454
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/texas-school-chivalry-assignment_n_6041bfc6c5b660a0f387697e

Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Outrages]
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2021/02/26/syria-bombing-biden-airstrikes-mark-test-us-role-worlds-police/6831034002/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/26/syria-bombings-biden-airstrikes-deliver-message-more-than-damage/6834550002/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-50998065
https://apnews.com/article/biden-retreats-saudi-arabia-sanctions-khashoggi-killing-d91d31edece5db07112d1c2d4dd3be33

032 The Erickson Report for February 25 to March 10, Page 1: Good News on the Death Penalty

032 The Erickson Report for February 25 to March 10, Page 1: Good News on the Death Penalty

Okay, let's start with some genuine Good News.

On February 22, the Virginia House and Senate agreed on a bill to abolish the death penalty in the state. The bill now goes to Gov. Ralph Northam, who has already said he will sign it into law. Virginia will thus become the 23rd state to abolish this remnant of barbarity.

It's perhaps particularly notable in the case of Virginia, which has had a death penalty on its books since its establishment as a crown colony over 400 years ago. In 1972 the Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional only to reverse itself just four years later, in 1976. In the years since that time, Virginia has murdered 113 inmates, second only to Texas. It's worth noting that some 46% of those killed were African-American in a state where they make up just 20% of the population.

Meanwhile, on a national level, a special report from the Death Penalty Information Center, released February 18, shows that the number of people who had been sentenced to death who were later exonerated has risen to 185.

The report revealed that 69% of those wrongful convictions involved "official misconduct by police, prosecutors, or other government officials" along with finding patterns of perjury and racial bias. As the organization Witness to Innocence points out, "These wrongful convictions were not mere accidents, but symptoms of a system wrought with abuse."

Happily, Virginia is moving to be on the right side of justice and history.

There is also cause for hope on the national level. Joe Blahden is the first  president to openly oppose the death penalty and promised to support legislation to that end.

Given the really slim majorities his party has in Congress, legislation to put an end to the federal level death penalty once and for all might be hard to achieve. However, as 37 members of the House recently reminded him in a letter, he does have the power to announce an immediate pause on federal executions and death sentences and to commute the sentences of those who are already on death row.

It remains to be seen how far he will go, if he will use what is clearly a president's authority or if he intends to limit himself to the symbolism of saying "I'd like to see a bill passed" with no follow-up or direct action on his part.

But at least this time it's possible.

031 The Erickson Report for February 4 to 17, Page Three: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Outrages]

031 The Erickson Report for February 4 to 17, Page Three: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [Outrages]

Now we turn to the Outrages, and this time we have just one. It's the Blahden administration.

Okay, it's more focused than that. A number of domestic moves have been encouraging, some even better than I expected. But on foreign and military policy, it's a disaster and an Outrage. Let me go through a few things in no particular order to illustrate.

For one thing, the Space Force, Tweetie-pie's vanity project, apparently is going to continue. Once established, it quickly developed institutional momentum, now preaching the Fear Merchants' classic line about "emerging threats," just now in space, and it seems he is of no mind to challenge that.

For another, take military spending in general. Despite the fact that during Tweetie-pie's regime, such spending rose 19%, Blahden is expected to resist calls from progressives to cut that budget in order to finance human needs, expected especially because even during the campaign, he said if elected he didn't foresee any significant reductions.

On Afghanistan, there are already indications that Blahden will keep US troops there past a May withdrawal deadline laid out in a deal with the Taliban. It appears the intention is to keep 2000-2500 troops there for "counterinsurgency" - apparently permanently, giving an interesting twist to the notion of "ending our forever wars."

Another forever war he is likely to continue is the drone wars. He's spoken very little on the topic, but as vice-president he advocated for what he called “counterterrorism plus,” in Afghanistan, a combination of special forces and aggressive drone bombing.

Now, I'm sure there are those who will praise his plans for Israel and the Palestinians, but they look good only by comparison to the horrendous Tweetie-pie years.

What he proposes is a return to the mushy, all-talk-no-action "support" for a two-state solution, a policy pursued by multiple previous administrations across parties, one marked primarily by tut-tutting and tsk-tsking about Israel's oppression of the Palestinians - including turning Gaza into what has been accurately described as the world's largest outdoor prison, building settlements, illegally seizing Palestinian land, and demolishing Palestinian homes - while at the same time providing Israel with billions in military support and deliberately refusing to use any of the leverage this gives the US to push for a political settlement.

One more case to mention is Venezuela, where the Blahden administration will continue to recognize Juan Guaido as president, part of a campaign to force out president Nicolas Maduro, a campaign marked by crushing economic sanctions that have cost the Venezuelan economy an estimated $194 billion, reduced import earnings by 99%, and killed tens of thousands from lack of medical supplies and medicines. And for those who would parrot the official line that the sanctions are because of Maduro's disputed 2018 re-election, I'd note that the first round of economic sanctions came in August 2017, nearly a year before that election took place.

There is a lot more to this; I had originally intended to do a whole segment about Venezuela but the time to explain it properly just kept expanding and expanding to more than I could properly present. But know this: There is a great deal to doubt and question about Nicolas Maduro but ultimately this is not and never was about him. The US has been trying to undermine or overthrow the government of Venezuela since 1998, when the people there committed the unforgivable sin of electing the socialist Hugo Chavez. Nicolas Maduro is not the cause, he is the current excuse.

Because ultimately, this is not about democracy or free elections. It is about dominance and the bipartisan foreign policy consensus which Joe Blahden embraces. Which is an Outrage.

031 The Erickson Report for February 4 to 17

031 The Erickson Report for February 4 to 17

Good News
private prisons
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/26/politics/executive-orders-equity-joe-biden/index.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-to-limit-private-prisons-military-equipment-police_n_601017aec5b634dc37385e66
=
the ERA
https://www.aol.com/news/2021-could-women-full-constitutional-104500716.html
=
LGBTQ+ rights
https://www.aol.com/news/alabamas-trans-id-law-requiring-093251908.html
=
Georgia COVID protocols
https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/georgia-republicans/

Clowns
SCOTUS
https://www.aol.com/news/supreme-court-ends-trump-emoluments-145628882-151217164.html
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/25/politics/emoluments-supreme-court-donald-trump-case/index.html
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-emoluments-cases-why-the-supreme-court-didnt-want-to-hear-them/ar-BB1d5mzk
=
Leon Cooperman
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/01/29/cry-me-river-sanders-hits-back-billionaire-investor-whines-about-potential-tax-hikes
https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/hedge-fund-billionaires/
=
Jaime Allard
https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/nazi/
=
Terry Jones
https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/01/19/a-north-dakota-gop-lawmaker-filed-an-absolutely-insane-anti-lgbtq-bill/

Outrage
Biden foreign/military policy
https://www.aol.com/news/biden-seen-likely-keep-space-052951856-144408237.html
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-struggle-cut-defense-spending-210710322.html
https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2020/09/11/biden-not-planning-defense-cuts-but-they-may-come-anyway/
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-admin-us-troops-afghanistan-amid-escalating-violence/story?id=75547504
https://theintercept.com/2020/11/22/biden-drones-endless-wars/
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/1/28/biden-to-israel-palestine-the-show-must-go-on
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-administration-lays-policies-israel-181759037.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-state-venezuela-idUSKBN29O2PE
https://www.codepink.org/pbsvenezuela

Rules for Rightwingers
personal observations over time

030 The Erickson Report for January 21 to February 3, Page 1: The best thing that happened at the Inauguration is that nothing happened

030 The Erickson Report for January 21 to February 3, Page 1: The best thing that happened at the Inauguration is that nothing happened

Okay, so - that happened.

The oddest thing about the inauguration is that, if you managed to ignore the 20,000-plus National Guard troops in the city and how the area around the Capitol was turned into a Green Zone nearly worthy of Baghdad - neither of which you could actually see while watching the event - and then just squinted a little, it looked, well, almost or at least kinda, normal. Which was probably the best thing about it, that what happened was that nothing happened.

I have to say that I was not surprised at the lack of attempted violence. I know others were; my best friend by her own account was really stressed out the entire preceding week and got little sleep the night before. Not from excitement, from worry.

But while I was of course concerned, I was not particularly worried, for much the same reason I was not at all surprised at the lack of violence the weekend before, despite some predictions of violent demonstrations in all 50 state capitols.

Here's why: The mob that stormed the Capitol building on January 6 was full of arrogance and bravado and no doubt would have been a much greater threat on Inauguration Day but for two factors not present during the riot, factors which are good ways of heading off that kind of behavior from that sort of yahoo.

One is to make it clear you're prepared for them. Which is what the security and the National Guard were about. It was likely - particularly in the number of troops - somewhat ever the top, but I expect it was intended to do more than just provide security, it was intended to be a warning for the future, to send a message of "look what we can gather against you on short notice."

Which relates to the other thing and why, I think, the weekend rallies were so few and so, at least by comparison to other similar events, quiet: the hundreds of arrests made in the week following the riot. Because it presented something that I believe that a good number of those people in the mob never considered at the time: the potential for consequences. And tough talk and bravado have been known to melt in the face of that potential, proving once again that despite their swagger and their attempts at mockery, it's the right wingers who are the snowflakes.

None of this means, I want to emphasize and as I've said several times now, that it's all over. None of this means that the danger of violence or even more of insurrection has passed. None of this means that our political structure, a democracy which is clearly flawed but functions, is secure from attempts at violent overthrow.

Even less does it mean that we are no longer subject to the efforts to undermine that democracy through assaults on voting rights, civil liberties, and privacy - but that is an ongoing topic for another time.

It does mean that for the moment - for the moment - that danger has been pushed into the shadows and is more likely to manifest itself in isolated terrorist attacks, isolated here meaning with no easily seen pattern of location or time or even type of target, looking for opportunities to create disruption and social havoc rather than any large-scale assault. In other words, it means we may be facing the situation in our day-to-day lives that millions of people in countries around the world face in their day-to-day lives and have been facing for years.

So it's not over and won't be over, which makes it even more important that we strive to be the best, the most just, nation we can.

One hopeful sign that came out of Inauguration Day was the number of executive orders that Blahden signed straightaway, orders reversing Tweetie-pie orders, along with announcements that there are a good deal more to come over the next week.

I'm sure you know that I call him Blahden because I could never get excited about his candidacy. I said he needed to come into office claiming a mandate for his policies but I was afraid he would come in saying "We've got to look forward, not backward" and "How can we placate the GOPpers?" On his first day, to my pleasant surprise, he acted like a man with a plan.

Maybe he can prove it to me, I still have real doubts, but he did get off to a good start on Day 1.

 

030 The Erickson Report for January 21 to February 3

 030 The Erickson Report for January 21 to February 3

This episode: 
- The best thing that happened at the Inauguration is that nothing happened 

- Good News
https://www.inquirer.com/news/pennsylvania-supreme-court-police-warrantless-vehicle-searches-commonwealth-alexander-gary-odor-marijuana-20201222.html
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/falsely-claiming-someone-gay-no-longer-defamation-se-n-y-n1254175
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/11/15/arc-of-universe/
https://www.aol.com/news/trump-appointees-pressure-census-report-144949540-022320987.html
https://www.aol.com/nra-seeks-bankruptcy-protection-plans-222201836.html
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/betty-white-99th-birthday_n_60037324c5b697df1a06250c
https://www.aol.com/news/u-court-deals-final-blow-161627823-164453168.html

- Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages
https://digg.com/2021/one-main-character-sarah-huckabee-sanders
https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/pastor-robert-henderson/
https://www.biblehub.com/matthew/19-24.htm
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-insurrection-2649882126/
https://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-2649963543/
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/534178-marjorie-taylor-greene-says-she-will-introduce-impeachment-articles-against
https://greene.house.gov/media/in-the-news/congresswoman-marjorie-greene-makes-statement-masks-house
https://www.inforum.com/news/government-and-politics/6840725-North-Dakota-rep-wants-American-as-race-option-on-forms-says-Black-Americans-glad-their-ancestors-were-brought-here
https://www.aol.com/trump-receives-moroccos-highest-award-190526011-021545219.html
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/12/24/western_sahara_a_rare_look_inside
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021
https://freedomhouse.org/country/western-sahara/freedom-world/2020
https://www.aol.com/trump-receives-moroccos-highest-award-190526011-021545219.html
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/us-consulate-turning-point-disputed-western-sahara-75160219
https://www.king5.com/article/news/nation-world/us-official-presence-in-western-sahara/507-d5a10e16-2c0f-4324-a66c-4ff38e45bd82
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/24/pompeo-us-consulate-western-sahara-450371
https://www.fastcompany.com/90594683/the-damning-mlk-fbi-doc-shows-how-poorly-martin-luther-king-jr-was-treated-in-his-time
https://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/11/12/7204453/martin-luther-king-fbi-letter
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/01/mlk-fbi-surveillance/617719/
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/01/18/ostracized-conservatives-not-allowed-to-honor-mlk-after-they-enabled-a-racist-president-1018116/
https://www.theblaze.com/news/don-lemon-attacks-republicans-quoting-mlk
https://www.michiganadvance.com/2021/01/18/column-republican-praise-of-martin-luther-king-sounds-even-more-hollow-and-hypocritical-now/
https://gsgriffin.com/2016/12/08/the-socialism-of-martin-luther-king-jr/

The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22, Page Eight: More unsatisfactory picks for Blahden administration

The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22, Page Eight: More unsatisfactory picks for Blahden administration

Last time I said the emerging trend of who Joe Blahden wants in his administration is not encouraging.

I haven't had much reason to change that view. For one thing, I said that perhaps the worst potential pick was deficit hawk Bruce Reed for director of the Office of Management and Budget, calling his appointing someone like that to direct OMB in the midst of an economy-wrecking pandemic is just insane.

Well, Biden didn't nominate him. He nominated Neera Tanden - who was an assistant to Reed in the Clinton administration. Described as a Clinton loyalist with a penchant for demonizing progressives, Tanden supports something called "Medicare for America," a corporate-friendly alternative to Medicare for All and she has a history of supporting cuts in Social Security and Medicare.

He has picked Brian Deese as the director of the National Economic Council, a position which doesn't require confirmation. Deese is managing director and global head of sustainable investing at BlackRock, the world’s largest financial backer for fossil fuel projects. Environmental activits have been trying to years to get Blackrock to divest from such projects. Desse's job has been to counteract them. Now he heads the National Economic Council.

I really have to wonder just how deep is Blahden's commitment to battling climate change. His climate plan is certainly a dramatic improvement on what we've seen from the federal government to date, improvement enough to get support from various environmental activists, but the real issue isn't if it's better but if it's good enough. I would say that anyone who pointedly refuses, as Blahden and Harris have both done, refuses to oppose fracking - the whole point of which is to continue reliance on fossil fuels - is not sufficiently serious. The pick of Deese only adds to those doubts.

As do reports that fossil fuel friendly Ernest Moniz, a supporter of nuclear power, is the leading contender for Secretary of Energy and Heidi Heitkamp, who has aligned herself with corporate agribusiness and fossil fuel interests, is top of the list for Secretary of Agriculture.

Meanwhile, Mike Morell is on the shortlist to head the CIA. Morell is an aggressive defender of the agency's use of torture and drone strikes and dismisses reports of civilian casualties from such strikes as propaganda.

It's bad enough the Sen. Ron Wyden calls such a nomination "a non-starter."

There is a bright spot: Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California, has been tapped to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. While not a health professional, he does have administrative experience and an overall progressive record - and he has expressed support for Medicare for All. Which makes him a rather surprising choice, since Blahden's health care plan only calls for creating a so-called public option limited to low-income people, which makes it more of a tweak to Medicaid than any real expansion of access to health care.

We'll see who moves: Blahden or Becerra.

027 The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22

 

027 The Erickson Report for December 9 to 22

This time:

A Longer Look at Yemen
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29319423
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/20/yemen-civil-war-the-conflict-explained
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/3/25/key-facts-about-the-war-in-yemen
https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-yemen
https://www.codepink.org/bidenyemen
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-integrated-food-security-phase-classification-snapshot-october-2020-june-2021
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/4/18293954/war-powers-resolution-passes-congress-yemen-bds
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/16/politics/trump-vetoes-yemen-war-powers-resolution/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/11/politics/uae-arms-sales-formal-notification/index.html
https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/12/us-officials-say-they-can-seal-f-35-sale-uae-trump-leaves/170516/
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-emirates-arms-ngos-int-idUSKBN28A29T
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-12-08/u-s-shouldn-t-designate-yemen-s-houthis-as-foreign-terrorist-organization
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-yemen-designation_n_5fca9306c5b6787f2a97c771

Police training document calls Antifa, BLM "terrorists" and civil right protesters "useful idiots"
https://www.kold.com/2020/12/04/police-guide-that-calls-blm-terrorist-group-draws-outrage/

Rhetoric of right wing becomes more violent as auto coup attempts fail
https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-election-2649108314/
https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/right-wing-hypocrisy/
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/12/trumps-allies-are-growing-increasingly-dangerous-and-calling-for-violence-as-his-coup-attempt-drags-on/
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/11/federalist-reporter-claims-stacy-abrams-is-dangerous-for-promoting-voting/
https://www.newsweek.com/pastor-urges-trump-admin-shoot-democrats-journalists-if-they-conspired-rig-election-1551246
http://whoviating.blogspot.com/2017/02/113-rules.html

SCOTUS says religious groups can spread COVID
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/26/politics/supreme-court-religious-restrictions-ruling-covid/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/27/opinions/scientifically-illiterate-scotus-covid-decision-sachs/

New US Citizenship Test slaps immigrants
https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship-resource-center/the-2020-version-of-the-civics-test/128-civics-questions-and-answers-2020-version

COVID relief still stalled
https://www.aol.com/finance/senator-says-trump-mcconnell-likely-052924035-110824213.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/coronavirus-stimulus-update-congress-tries-to-reach-relief-deal.html

Pennsylvania GOPpers fail (again!) to overturn election
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/08/politics/supreme-court-pennsylvania-trump-biden/index.html
https://www.aol.com/news/texas-asks-u-supreme-court-160839530-162356499.html

More unsatisfactory picks for Blahden administration
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/30/citing-past-calls-social-security-cuts-progressives-not-pleased-biden-pick-neera
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-neera-tanden_n_5fc599d0c5b63d1b770eeddf
https://prospect.org/cabinet-watch/blackrock-executive-brian-deese-could-get-major-white-house-position/
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/climate/biden-climate-change.html
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/11/17/citing-her-ties-agribusiness-and-fossil-fuels-160-groups-tell-biden-heitkamp-wrong
https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-weighs-mike-morell-as-his-cia-chief-a-key-dem-senator-says-dont-bother
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/former-cia-leader-defends-drone-strikes-torture
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/12/6/2000325/-Joe-Biden-to-nominate-Medicare-For-All-proponent-Xavier-Becerra-to-be-next-HHS-secretary

Some good election news for progressives, including in the "progressive prosecutor movement"
https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/did-democrats-really-underperform-down-ballot/
https://jimhightower.com/2020/11/my-post-election-message-what-progressives-won-this-year/
https://eji.org/criminal-justice-reform/
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article243730927.html
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938593052/election-results-show-voters-nationwide-ready-for-criminal-justice-reform
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/us/george-gascon-la-county-district-attorney.html
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/jacob_riis_107072

The Erickson Report for November 11 to 24, Page 4: Five things noted in passing

The Erickson Report for November 11 to 24, Page 4: Five things noted in passing

Next up, an occasional feature called Five Things Noted in Passing, five things on which I'm only going to spend a minute or two each but I wanted to make sure got mentioned.

First, I have a prediction for you.

There is some speculation circulating around that Tweetie-pie will either pardon himself before he's kicked out of office or that he will resign before the Inauguration and let then-President Mike NotWorthAFarthing do the job.

I don't know if either of those will happen but I do say that there is no need for him to do either. Because I predict that a Joe Blahden administration, a Blahden DOJ, will not prosecute Tweetie-pie for any of his crimes, for any of his corruption.

Instead, Blahden will grandly say, just as the Amazing Mr. O said, coming into office faced with clear evidence of Bush the Lesser's war crimes, some version of "We must look forward, not backward, we must unite as one nation moving into a better future." And Tweetie-pie will walk.

Either way, Tweetie-pie may still not be off the hook, because Presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes, so any state-level prosecution, such as New York's case about taxes, would be unaffected.

But prosecuted by the Blahden administration? Not a chance.

=

Next, filed under the heading "All Your Data is Belonging to US," Facebook is demanding that a team of New York University researchers stop their work analyzing the micro-targeting of political ads on the platform.

The researchers have a team of 6500 volunteers across the US using a browser plug-in allowing the researchers to see what political ads are being shown to what viewers, enabling them to study how Facebook has been used for disinformation and manipulation.

But on October 16, Facebook demanded that the team disable the  plug-in and destroy all data gathered, threatening "additional enforcement action" if this is not done by November 30. The claim is that the tool violates the site's rule against automated bulk collection of data - the very thing Facebook itself does all the time in order to have the very demographic data it can use to - for its own considerable profit - enable advertisers to micro-target users.

It should be noted that the threatening demand, first reported a week after it was sent, has gotten heavy pushback from journalists, academics, and First Amendment lawyers.

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Another fallout of the COVID pandemic is that the United Nations is facing a financial crisis. As of November 2, nearly one-third of the 193 member states have not paid up their yearly assessments, leading to a shortfall of $5.1 billion, which in the context of the UN budget is enough to threaten to undermine the world-wide operations of the organization.

The UN has never actually lived up to its promise but it's still a valuable organization, particularly in its international agencies such as UNESCO, UNICEF, the Relief and Works Agency, and the World Health Organization. (You did know that the WHO is part of the UN, yes?)

By the way, over half the shortfall is due to the failure of one nation to pay what it owes. Guess who.

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Speaking of the WHO brings me to some news I have been wanting to share since I heard it, so forgive me for referring to an announcement made back on August 25. That was the day that the WHO declared that polio has been eradicated from the entire continent of Africa.

Polio, for those of you too young to remember it, is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that attacks the central nervous system, leading to paralysis. As recently at the 1980s, polio - also known as infantile paralysis - was a dread disease, endemic in 125 nations and claiming 350,000 children a year.

Now, it is endemic in just two, Pakistan and Afghanistan, which have seen a combined total of 102 cases so far in 2020. That is a reduction of over 99.9% from the 1980s.

This the result of a campaign sparked in 1988 by Rotary International, which gained powerful partners in the form of UNICEF, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (the CDC), and the WHO, among others. The campaign was to bring polio vaccines, which had been available in the industrialized world for decades, to those still in need.

The goal of making polio join smallpox in the dustbin of history is obviously not achieved, but it is in sight.

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Finally, under the heading "this just in," it appears that the Affordable Care Act will for the third time survive a challenge at the Supreme Court.

At oral arguments on November 10 on the right wing's latest attempt to have the law struck down, two of the right-wing judges - John "The Smirk" Roberts and Brett "The Rapist" Kavanaugh - appeared ready to agree that the law's mandate to have insurance, the penalty for which was eliminated by Congress in 2017, should be thrown out but at the same time seemed prepared to have the rest of the law stand.

For his part, Roberts wondered aloud why, if Congress wanted the ACA to be dependent on the mandate, it didn't revoke the law when it eliminated the penalties while Kavahaugh said that precedent pointed in the direction of striking down the mandate but leaving the rest of the law intact.

Add the three judges considered liberal and you have a 5-4 majority.

Not a sure thing and clearly the whole issue of health care is something we'll be talking about a lot more, but for right now there is cause to be optimistic that we will at least not lose what has been gained.

A decision is expected by late spring.