News Worth Knowing (which you may have missed) #3

For something over a year, on every Tuesday we’ve had a one-hour lunchtime vigil downtown. Over that time we’ve developed some you could call them traditions, one of which has become me taking about 5-7 minutes on “News Worth Knowing (Which You May Have Missed),” reporting on three or four things outside the main headlines, which I’ve taken to posting here. So here is News Worth Knowing (Which You May Have Missed) #3. Comments are always welcome.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Meaningful actions

Just not meaningful in the way you might have thought, but full of meaning nonetheless.

Here’s an incident which seems to summarize a lot of what’s happening in and around Israel. It happened on April 28, but I learned of it on June 2, which is why it’s here.

Lebanon and Israel announced a ceasefire on April 16. Twelve days later, on April 28, Israel declared new yellow line, pushing its military control further north, further into Lebanon.

As a result, Ain Arab, a small farming village nestled in the plains near the southern border, was now inside that line and IDF soldiers went door to door giving the people of the village hours to leave, telling them, according to one villager, “You either leave right now or you die.”

Over 1.2 million people have been displaced in Lebanon since March 2, many of who have no idea if or when they will be able to return to their homes.

Israel is engaged in active ethnic cleansing of southern Lebanon, with significant indications it intends an on-going, indefinite, occupation of the area and oh my haven’t we been here before.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Multifront resistance

Israel could not conduct its repeated egregious actions Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, and - as we keep forgetting - even Syria without US arms and aid. That military aid should stop, and legislative attempts to that end have been made, but they haven’t gotten far, so far, but there is another front to this: direct nonviolent civil disobedience protests against weapons shipments.

There have been such protests at ports in France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, and last year in Oakland, California.

I raise this because the latest port action occurred on May 22, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, at the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal. The port is routinely used by the major shipper Maersk and the Israeli-owned company Zim to transport tons of weapons and spare parts to Israel.

The protesters called on the International Longshoreman’s Association to refuse to load Zim-owned ships destined for Israel. They succeeded in blocking the port for over three hours; ten people were arrested for the civil disobedience.

The action didn’t stop the shipments - which was not really a surprise - but hopefully it can serve as one more link in a growing chain of solidarity.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Another part of being an informed voter

Judd Legum and the folks at Popular Information have figured out that two supposedly progressive PACs are actually linked to House GOPpers.

One, California Blue, appears to have been active in a single California Congressional district.

The other, Real Change, which describes itself as “dedicated to electing grassroots candidates who are committed to progressive values,” was active in several Congressional district primaries. One was the 7th CD in New Jersey, where they attacked the Democratic frontrunner, Rebecca Bennett, while promoting her opponents.

They sent out mailers accusing Bennett of “STANDING WITH ICE” and “CASHING IN ON TRUMP’S TERROR,” employed AI images of her in a MAGA hat, and used footage that was previously used by the Congressional Leadership Fund - which is the super PAC of House Republicans.

(The effort failed; Bennett won the primary by a comfortable margin.)

This is an update of an old right-wing tactic dating back to at least 1972, where it was the root of Watergate. GOPpers thought George McGovern was the weakest Democrat among those striving for the party’s presidential nomination, so they set out to build him up while undermining the others.

So just remember if you see any ad claiming to be from “Real Change PAC,” it’s a false flag and don’t believe it.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

If they’d only do it the white - I mean right - way

For over 50 years, foreign nationals with legal status in the US - individuals married to US citizens, holders of work or student visas, refugees, political asylum seekers, and others - have been able to apply for and complete the process of obtaining permanent legal residence, that is, a green card, from within the US.

On May 22, Citizenship and Immigration Services said those who want to apply for green card have to return to their native country and apply from there.

The agency didn’t say when the change would come into effect or if individuals would be required to remain outside the US throughout the entire process or whether the policy impacts those whose green card applications are already underway.

But the central fact here is once those folks leave the US to apply, there’s no reason to think they would be let back in again.

The changes come on top of steps already taken (and challenged) to restrict and limit entry for people from a total of 39 African, Asian, Latin American, and Middle Eastern countries - note what they all have in common - who have either been outright denied entry or barred from final decisions on their asylum, work permit, green card, and citizenship applications.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

And speaking of that

Pete Hogsbreath has announced the number of religions to be recognized by the US military has been cut from over 200 to just 31, with such as desists, humanists, wiccans, Unitarians, and atheists vanishing into “Other” or “None.”

Of the 31 categories remaining, 21 - maybe 22 - are sects of Xianity.

And so we continue toward being a white Xian fundamentalist ethno-state.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

So what? Climate change is a hoax, anyway

The National Science Foundation is planning to remove hundreds of ocean monitoring instruments from four sites in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

These instruments are part of observational network, gathering data on a number of factors affecting the health of the oceans and marine life - but most particularly for studying climate change and monitoring effects on the oceans, including on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, an ocean system that some warn is at risk of collapse.

This follows firing of entire National Science Board, which is the advisory committee to the NSF.

The potential (partial) saving grace is here is that The Orange Overlord tried cut funding for program by 80% in both 2025 and 2026 and failed both times. Hopefully that losing string will continue.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

You have the best week you possibly can and we’ll see you then.

Remember, comments and reactions are always welcome.

So I said... #15 for March 22 to 30

The next issue of my occasional comments on various topics on various sites over the past week or so with, as always, enough additional context for folks to be able to tell what’s going on. A note on style: If within a comment something is in brackets - [ ] - it’s as the comment originally appeared and signified I was editing something inside a quote; if it’s in italics it’s something added here for added context.

Let’s go.

2026-03-21
[Chris Giedner (Law Dork) posted about a recent court action in a case involving employees of the US Agency for Global Media who had been placed on administrative leave during the DOGE days of defenestrations.]

Your last line - “it is likely that a number of employees have left the agency for other work” - raises something I think hasn’t been considered enough.

The minions and jesters of the court of The Orange Overlord don’t have to outright win to do significant damage to the ability of the federal government to do useful work, they just have to stall long enough for the employees booted out to be unable to wait for a resolution.

Suppose half of those employees have gone on to other jobs. The result would be a court-approved 30% cut in USAGM staff with no requirement (or reason to expect) that those open positions would be filled.

For a similar reason, I’m also concerned about another topic up for discussion which I will make bold to refer to here: The Orange Overlord’s half-brag, half-threat to issue an EO federalizing the midterms. I keep hearing it said that in that event he’d be sued and he’d lose because the law, the Constitution, and history are so clear on the matter.

But my worry is that, just like with DOGE (which I always pronounce “dodgy,” because it was/is), he doesn’t have to win - he just has to cause enough confusion and delay to screw things up, disrupt the whole voting process, in enough places to give him a reason (not a good one, just a “reason”) to declare a national emergency and start seizing ballot boxes and declaring the vote void.

This doesn’t mean he’d succeed or even that he’d try; maybe he’ll think the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) raised by his constant ranting about “voter fraud” will be sufficiently useful to convince the faithful the election was “stolen” and enough others that elections are “insecure” and voting must be restricted.

But either way, it is a potential for social chaos that we ignore at our peril.

==

2026-03-22
[YouTuber Farron Cousins posted about a report that the USPS is within a year of bankruptcy. Just to be clear, Cousins was speaking in support of the USPS.]

Thanks for the attention to this, but you left out the part about requiring the USPS to pre-finance retirement benefits out to 75 years - meaning the USPS is putting aside money to pay future benefits for future retirees who haven’t been born yet. Oh, and the rules limiting how much the prices for stamps and services can go up. And how Congress can make all these rules for how the USPS operates while - as you note - not putting a single damn dollar toward the cost.

That last is particular infuriating because the wingnuts are forever going on about how people too poor to pay federal income taxes should have to pay them in order to have “skin in the game.” Shouldn’t the same apply here?

==

2026-03-23
[A discussion about Flat Earth brought in a reference to Einstein and the Theory of Relativity.]

Just a correction about the history: Einstein did not think the universe was shrinking. He thought it was eternal, steady, neither shrinking nor expanding - because that was the accepted belief at the time. But someone (I’m embarrassed to admit I’m both unable to remember the name and too lazy to look it up) [Credit is usually given to Russian mathematician Alexander Friedman in 1922.] proved that Einstein’s universe was unstable, it had to be growing or shrinking. So he created the so-called “cosmological constant,” an arbitrary factor inserted to keep the universe stable. When it was proved the universe is expanding,, he took it out, calling his failure to trust his own work his “greatest blunder.”

==

mis2026-03-24
[A meme criticized using “they” as 3rd-person singular - and used it that way in the meme.]

Use of “they” as a third person singular has been in use since the 14th Century. At some point, apparently in the mid-1700s, some tight-ass grammarians decided it was wrong or low-class or some such crap.

The meme only serves to puts an exclamation point on how stupid the complaint is.

==

2026-03-24
[A video showed a dog aggressively defending a stray kitten during a rainstorm. A passing driver rescued both. People claimed it was AI because the dog appeared to have an extra paw.]

The argument is not entirely convincing because if the dog was leaning against the curb with its back legs sprawled out to the other side, that “extra foot” could easily be the foot of the left back leg folded under the dog’s body - particularly because the “extra” paw is turned in the way that such a paw would be in that case.

However - my problem is that I can’t see a way to trace that paw back to a leg. Maybe there is, but I’m not seeing it.

My conclusion: AI? Yeah, I suppose more likely than not - but not for the reasons people here have cited. And I’m not convinced it is.

What’s sad is not only that now we have to think “Is it real or is it AI” (Anyone else old enough to recall “Is it live or is it Memorex?”) but that it’s become an ego game to pore over details of cute but ultimately unimportant videos in order to be the first to shout “AI!” and thus demonstrate your supposed cleverness. Or cynicism, whatever.

==

2026-03-24
So now it’s “extermination” rather than “obliteration” in Iran? What, did The Orange Overlord turn the page on his “Word of the Week” desk calendar?

==

2026-03-25
A the risk of appearing in a future video about odd comments, I have to dispute one assertion you made about sex and gender. They are indeed different things, but gender is not a social construct. Gender expression, what behaviors, dress, and the like mark “masculine” and “feminine” in a given culture, is. But the concept of gender itself is not.

==

2026-03-28
[Kentucky is about to pass a bill declaring trans people to be mentally ill and barring them from being teachers. A response referred to a likely veto by Gov. Andy Beshear.]

GOPpers hold super-majorities in both Houses of the Kentucky legislature. Beshear’s likely veto is for them a mere momentary glitch.

There was a time - not even all that long ago - when it was possible to regard moves like this as cold-blooded political calculation driven by selfish interest and rooted in the the notion that it was good for votes.

But we have gone far past that. There is nothing cold-blooded about this; rather, it is the fiery blood of hatred fueled by fanaticism - and, I strongly suspect, the self-loathing over guilty fantasies turned outward.
-
2026-03-28
[By the time the red and blue states finish passing their “Soft Secession” laws, there will be no “United” in United States.]

Tgerue enough. You can get a reasonable sense of the geographic nature of that division by examining a map of the US Courts of Appeal and looking at the 5th, 8th, 10th, and 11th Circuits, removing Minnesota, Colorado, and New Mexico, and adding Montana and Idaho.
-
2026-03-28
[A different comment on the same post referred to the Kentucky bill as “stupid” because of the mixture of standards it uses.]

It’s not stupid. Offensive, hating, vicious, lots of other noxious qualities, but not stupid. They know exactly what they’re doing, picking and choosing what works and words serve their twisted impulses.

It’s much like Humpty Dumpty, who said “When I use a word” - or a citation - “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

I look to the time when these Humpty Dumptys have their great fall and can’t be put together again.

==

2026-03-29
[At a hearing on March 26, Minnesota State Rep. Mary Franson dismissed a panel discussing climate change because “my faith is not in climate change ... my faith is in Jesus” and the world doesn’t end that way. The post also referred to Sen. James Inhofe who once carried a snowball onto the Senate floor to deny climate change.]

To Rep. Mary QuiteContrary, who says “My faith is not in climate change.” That’s because recognizing climate change does not require faith. You have actual physical evidence and records; you have observations and measurements; you have predictions borne out by later observations and measurements. You don’t need the “evidence of things not seen” if the things are seen.

Oh, and climatologists are not predicting the end of the world, you dumb bozo. They are predicting mass damage to human civilization. You may in your delusion think they’re the same. I suspect both those who die from the coming changes and those who manage to survive them will think differently.

You might do well to contemplate Mark 8:18 - “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?”

(As a footnote, I clearly remember five-time winner of my “Clown Award” James “RocksInHisHead” Inhofe - my appropriate name for him because his middle name was no joke “Mountain” - and his being repeatedly mocked by Sheldon Whitehouse after his stunt by going through a list of proofs for climate change and punctuating each by saying the Senate could believe the science or “the senator with the snowball.”)

==

2026-03-30
A few brief thoughts on my New Kings day.

All the expected adjectives - exciting, invigorating, enthusiastic, simultaneously joyful and angry, and more - all apply. The crowd was larger than the last time (although the organizers did fall short of their hope to double it) but the growth in energy clearly outstripped the growth in numbers.

I have a decent degree of confidence in my own crowd size estimates but I do lean toward being conservative because I envision a protest crowd as a measure of potential energy and I like thinking that the energy present is more than I’m estimating rather than less. With that in mind, I estimated 4,000 were present.

Beyond that, I was surprised even maybe taken aback by the overwhelmingly favorable response by the cars coming by on this busy roadway to the point that I didn’t hear a single vulgar shout and my housemate only noticed two - and it wasn’t just a single beep going by, it was people riding the horn the length of the line.

But what really did my heart good is that when things broke up, I hopped in my car to catch the last quarter hour or so of another rally because it was in the town I grew up and the idea there was one there, well, I had to see that. As I approached, I saw a small group at one corner of an intersection, okay, maybe they turned out 200 or maybe more - only to then realize that the line actually stretched out in all four directions and there were by my guess pushing 1000 people there. And yes, that made me smile. To steal a phrase, bigly.

Next up big day: May 1.

Burning down the future

The Spray Tan Who Would Be King has declared open war on the future.

Not his future, what does he care, he will not live to see the effects of his self-glorifying ineptitude.

And not the future of his apostles and Wormtongue-whisperers, whose gaze does not extend beyond the limits of their personal greeds, hatreds, and schemes, who see the "king" as a means to their warped ends.

Nor that of the bootlickers, acolytes, and court jesters, all of who have long since abandoned any shred of independent thought or self-respect.

No, I mean The Future.

On June 11, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was changing its name to the Environmental Destruction Agency with the announcement that the agency

is proposing to repeal all “greenhouse gas” emissions standards for the power sector under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and to repeal amendments to the 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) that directly result in coal-fired power plants having to shut down.

That is, it proposes to allow power plants to emit as much climate-destroying greenhouse gases as they feel like, with the argument being (if you can believe it but I bet you can, considering) that because it can't be said with assurance of just how significant an impact on global climate change is driven by US-based fossil-fuel power plants, those emissions can't be regulated at all.¹

 To show the science-based, non-political nature of the change, the announcement quotes EDA Administrator Lee Zeldin as saying the "Biden-era regulations have imposed massive costs" on the poor, beleaguered, barely-getting-by fossil fuel industry and their "primary purpose" was "to destroy industries that didn't align with their narrow-minded climate change zealotry" and to "regulate coal, oil and gas out of existence.”

The reactions from actual environmentalists were not kind.

- The plan is a "reckless betrayal," "ugly and unpatriotic," "cynical," and "dangerous." - Moms Clean Air Force director Dominique Browning

- It's "destructive," "reckless," and "fan[s] the flames of extreme heat and wildfires." - Center for Biological Diversity environmental health attorney Ryan Maher
- It's "completely reprehensible," "trad[es] American lives for campaign dollars," and is "an assault on our health and future." - Sierra Club climate policy director Patrick Drupp
- It's "astoundingly shameful," "galling," "sacrifices the public good," and would leave "no meaningful path to meet global climate goals." - Julie McNamara of the Union of Concerned Scientists' Climate and Energy Program

This announcement came on the same day that The Guardian reported that climate.gov, the highly-respected source of information and education about climate change run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has been effectively shut down.

Every member of the content production staff was fired as of May 31, meaning that other than (maybe) some already-prepared material to go up later this month, there will be no new content, no new reports on studies, no new refutations of denialist bullshit.

Worse, two web developers were kept on, raising the specter that the site may be maintained, but turned into an outlet for fossil-fuel industry propaganda and conspiracist trash.

Oh, and speaking of NOAA, on June 5 the agency and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (at UCal, San Diego) stated, as reported by CommonDreams.org,

the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere peaked above 430 parts per million in 2025 - the highest it has been in millions of years.

In fact, in more than 30 million years, according to Ralph Keeling, director the Scripps CO2 Program, who responded to the study's findings with a typical scientist's understatement: “Another year, another record. It’s sad.”

Sad indeed, but it's more, though. A new study, published June 2 in the journal Communications Earth & Environment says that coastal communities in North Carolina are already experiencing a frequency of high-tide flooding "an order of magnitude greater" than the official numbers. Although the immediate cause was shortcomings in measuring rainfall runoff and the effects of local drainage infrastructure, still, as the Washington Post noted in its coverage, the study

offers insights into a reality that a growing number of coastal communities will face, or already are facing: that infrastructure built for another time and another climate is not equipped to handle the higher tides and persistent flooding fueled by rising seas.

Part of the issue with rising sea levels, of course, is that warming climate yields warming water yields expanding water yields sea level rise. Another and potentially much larger issue is melting ice caps, particularly in Greenland and Antarctica. And according to work also published in Communications Earth & Environment, this one on May 20, the current Paris Climate Agreement target of limiting warming to 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels is too damn high and

even current climate forcing (+1.2°C), if sustained, is likely to generate several meters of sea-level rise over the coming centuries, causing extensive loss and damage to coastal populations and challenging the implementation of adaptation measures

trying to deal with the result of melting of ice sheets. The study concluded that the "safe limit" of warming for ice sheets is not 1.5°C or even 1.2°C but more like 1°C "and maybe a little less," the "safe limit" being defined by study co-author Jonathan Bamber as "one which allows some level of adaptation, rather than catastrophic inland migration and forced migration." Exceed that limit and

it becomes extremely challenging for any kind of adaptation, and you're going to see massive land migration on scales that we've never witnessed in modern civilization,

he said.

And don't just think of the migration. Think of the hunger it will cause. Think of the pain, the suffering, the starvation, it will cause. Think of the wars it will cause from conflicts over land, over water, over resources, over territory, the ethnic wars over "foreign invaders."

That is the world that King Donald in his lust for vengeance and power, that corporate CEOs in their "warmed and well-lighted offices"² with their lust for more! more! more!, that the sniveling party sycophants who would rather see the world burn than have to find a different job, that the worshipful buffoons who think that wearing a red cap is a solution to their shrinking futures, that is the world they would leave to the generations to come, that is the world that we, we, that we will leave to our children, our grandchildren if we are not willing to face what is before us.

Lead author on this study Chris Stokes noted that "we only have to go back to the early 1990s to find a time when the ice sheets looked far healthier" and global warming was within that safe limit.

So let me ask you this: Think of (or do some looking into) the 1990s, the level of conveniences you had than, the standard of living, the available technology. Then ask yourself this: Was that way of life so terrible that you would sacrifice a world to avoid living that way again?

If your answer is yes, then you are a waste of air and I don't think I believe you. If your answer is no, then know that precisely because of the technological advances of those past 35 years we can leave a livable world behind us if - but only if - we are prepared to pay the price (and I mean invest the money, the tax money, because the corporations sure as hell aren't going to do it willingly) and probably do without some tech-y but unnecessary geegaws.

The choice is stark, but there is a clear right one and no it does not involve "starving in the dark" but it will likely involve some sacrifice. I can only hope we're up to it.

 

¹According to the EPA (to the extent it can still be trusted to not downplay the issue, 24% of US greenhouse gas emissions are from electricity production, of which 60% is from burning fossil fuels. That means that 15% of all US greenhouse gas emissions arise from fossil-fuel burning electric power plants. Not what I'd call "not significant."

²"The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices." - C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

069 The Erickson Report for January 26 to February 8, Page Four: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

 Next, it's the much-anticipated return of Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages.

We start, as we usually do, with the Clowns, of which we have three.

First up, we have GOPper Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, who has vowed to start an "anti-woke caucus" to fight what he calls a "woke agenda" in Congress.

He said that the move would help crush the "doctrine" of "wokeness," necessary because, he whined in the most unintentionally-revealing remark in quite some time, "we no longer live in normal America."

Jeez, and they call us snowflakes.

He should call it the "Send in the Clowns" caucus. You know, "Don't bother, they're here."

=

Next, we have a twofer. Two infamous anti-LGBTQ+ preachers, each of who has called for gay people to be executed, want their male followers to give up beer.

Steven Anderson, founder of the New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement and pastor at the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, and Jonathan Shelley of the Stedfast Baptist Church in Watauga, Texas, posted unhinged rants about how drinking beer is risky for men.

Why? Because beer has hops, of course. Uh, what? Y'see, hops contain a minute quantity of a phytoestrogen mimicker and so, according to our two Clowns, drinking beer will make you effeminate.

Friends, that is champion level Clown. And paranoia.

=

The third one requires some background. COP, or Conference of Parties, is an annual multinational confab to see who has the best PR campaign claiming to be really really we really mean it committed to staving off climate change. COP28 is to take place in Dubai in late November.

Our clown here is US climate envoy John Kerry, who expressed his approval of the selection of Sultan al-Jaber, the CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil company, to preside over the meeting. Kerry justified his approval of al-Jabar by citing a recent speech al-Jaber gave.

Not very convincing, because in that very speech al-Jaber talked about how COP should “get it done across mitigation, adaptation, finance, and loss and damage” - which is less about preventing climate change than about learning to live with it - and the company he heads plans to increase its output of crude oil.

Activists rightly equated al-Jaber's choice to asking “arms dealers to lead peace talks.”

With John Kerry's approval. The act of a Clown.

069 The Erickson Report for January 26 to February 8

 

Episode 69 of The Erickson Report notes the anniversary of Roe v.Wade with some recent news on abortion rights, goes over how Medicare Advantage programs are actually backdoor ways to privatize Medicare, and reintroduces Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages, with three Clowns and the Outrage that is Florida.

The Erickson Report is news and informed commentary from the radical nonviolent left. It is advocacy journalism, dealing in facts and logic but having a point of view. Sometimes serious, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes even flip but always with the intent to inform and inspire,The Erickson Report strives to be a tool for justice

Reactions and comments are welcome.

SOURCES:

Guns
https://www.wbur.org/npr/1150667373/monterey-park-shooting-what-we-know-californi
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org
=
Abortion rights
https://hymnary.org/text/onward_christian_soldiers_marching_as
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3809346-alabama-ag-says-women-could-be-prosecuted-for-taking-abortion-pills/
https://www.npr.org/2006/02/21/5168163/partial-birth-abortion-separating-fact-from-spin
https://www.alternet.org/minnesota-lawmakers-partial-birth-abortion/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/freedom-speech-mississippi-abortion-rights/671202/
https://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess124_2021-2022/bills/1373.htm
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and- analysis/blogs/stateline/2022/05/19/some-states-already-are-targeting-birth-control
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/13/23505459/supreme-court-birth-control-contraception-constitution-matthew-kacsmaryk-deanda-becerra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid's_Tale
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-comment-nationwide-ban-abortion-introduced-us-senate
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-01-19/religious-leaders-sue-to-block-missouris-abortion-ban
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2023%3A27-28&version=KJV
==
Medicare Advantage / ACO HEALTH
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/is-medicare-advantage-a-scam
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/09/08/medicare-advantage-profit-scam-time-end-it
https://www.cms.gov/files/document/fy-2022-medicare-part-c-error-rate-findings-and-results.pdf-0
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/11/30/congress-asleep-switch-biden-continues-trump-era-ploy-privatize-medicare
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G8B012QNk9rzEJvfYaLcPwr2HJdZe_hcrR7KU_mAibk/edit
https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-announces-increase-2023-organizations-and-beneficiaries-benefiting-coordinated-care-accountable
=
Clowns
https://www.newsweek.com/jim-banks-plans-anti-woke-caucus-bolster-gops-war-wokeness-1773778
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/01/hate-pastors-now-speaking-beer-say-makes-men-feminine/
https://sdg.iisd.org/events/2022-un-climate-change-conference-unfccc-cop-28/
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-politics-united-states-government-only-on-ap-john-kerry-b5d6482d465dcc8fa5063af9a0e44041
=
Outrage
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-blocks-high-school-african-american-studies-class/ar-AA16x9Ds
https://www.commondreams.org/news/ap-african-american
https://floridapolitics.com/archives/574045-in-andrew-warren-suspension-trial-gov-desantis-officials-answer-what-does-woke-mean/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Maddox
https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-releases-results-of-diversity-and-inclusion-report/c-336511848
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2018/11/09/racism-lingers-for-nhl-players-60-years-after-oree-landmark/38451681/
https://www.rawstory.com/desantis-hockey/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nhl/nhl-backtracks-after-florida-gov-ron-desantis-office-blasts-league-for-discriminatory-job-fair/ar-AA16kkpL
https://www.queerty.com/florida-flop-ron-desantis-manages-show-off-anti-blackness-queerphobia-one-sentence-20230124
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/11-black-lgbtq-history-makers-you-should-know-n848631https://www.americanprogress.org/article/black-lgbtq-individuals-experience-heightened-levels-discrimination/

062 The Erickson Report for September 22 to October 5

 

 

062 The Erickson Report for September 22 to October 5

School book bans
https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/banned-books-in-Texas-school-districts-database-17359043.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/education/article/Texas-book-bans-driven-by-GOP-pressure-not-parents-17362170.php
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/31/2119964/-Republicans-sue-to-force-school-district-private-bookseller-Barnes-Noble-to-remove-two-books

Clowns
https://www.aol.com/news/massachusetts-gop-voters-size-trump-041243830-093431758.html
=
https://www.qsaltlake.com/news/2018/07/26/star-parker/
https://www.rawstory.com/women-not-controlling-their-bodies/

Outrages
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/12/disgusting-starbucks-help-its-workers-student-debt-unless-theyre-union
https://www.forbes.com/profile/howard-schultz/?sh=41d3889052c6
https://perfectunion.us/exclusive-starbucks-hit-with-charges-over-sweeping-illegal-union-busting-scheme/
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/05/04/smells-illegal-starbucks-ceo-says-unionized-workers-will-be-excluded-wage-hikes
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/15/disgusting-starbucks-threatens-trans-health-benefits-union-celebrates-150-wins
=
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/09/08/abhorrent-and-anti-democratic-outrage-dnc-panel-blocks-vote-dark-money-ban
https://theintercept.com/2022/09/14/dnc-overrule-convention-bylaws/

Climate change
https://www.juancole.com/2022/08/pakistan-emergency-biblical.html
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3192559/typhoon-muifa-lashes-eastern-china-forcing-16-million-people
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/16/coastal-alaska-storm-surge-flooding-winds/

059 The Erickson Report for August 11 to 24

059 The Erickson Report for August 11 to 24

Episode 59 of The Erickson Report
- takes A Longer Look at the "Inflation Reduction Act," including some of what's in it, the real cause for Joe Manchin's about-face, and the disastrous "side-deal" that secured it;
- presents two Clown Awards;
- has RIPs for Bill Russell and Vin Scully; and
- reminds us something that must never be forgotten.

The Erickson Report is produced and presented by Larry Erickson, a long-time political activist and proud member of "the woke mob." It is what's known as "advocacy journalism," dealing in facts and logic while never denying it has a point of view.

Comments and reactions are welcome.

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

046 The Erickson Report for January 20 to February 2, Page 1: Good News

We are going to start with some bits of Good News from over the past couple of weeks.

First up, this is just feel-good news.

The Cyber Ninjas, the outfit which faced months of criticism over its shoddy practices and partisan roots in conducting that lie-driven "audit" of the 2020 presidential count in Arizona which despite it all still concluded that Biden won the state, is closing down.

This follows a rebuttal from officials in Maricopa County, the target of the fraudulent recount, who asserted that of the 77 claims the Cyber Ninjas made about the balloting, 76 were false or misleading along with a county judge holding the company in contempt and ordering it to pay $50,000 per day in sanctions for failing to provide records related to the so-called audit to the Arizona Republic newspaper.

Karma can be a bitch.

=

Next, a bit of Good News out of the UK.

On October 17, 2019, three members of Christian Climate Action, an arm of Extinction Rebellion, blocked a train in London for over an hour during morning rush hour. The train was headed into the city's financial district, and the group said the protest was to symbolize how business-as-usual must be stopped and was a proportionate response to the existential threat of climate change.

The three - Reverend Sue Parfitt, 79; Father Martin Newell, 54; and former university lecturer Phil Kingston, 85 - were charged with violating the Malicious Damages Act, carrying a potential sentence of, if I read the Act correctly, two years in prison.

On January 14, the were acquitted by a jury.

What's more, on the same day, Extinction Rebellion (or XR) protester James Brown had his sentence cut from 12 months to four after super-gluing himself to the roof of a plane at London City Airport and those events followed the December acquittal six of XR members who were charged with the blocking a train during a similar action at Canary Wharf station in April 2019; that jury took less than an hour.

It appears that the people, if not the government, of the UK are coming to see the climate crisis for what it is.

=

Next: Anti-hunger and anti-war activists in Florida have won their seven-year legal battle against the city of Fort Lauderdale, which has been trying to prevent the local chapter of Food Not Bombs from giving free food to people in need at a downtown park.

Last August, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 11th District ruled unanimously that the rule "unconstitutional as applied to Food Not Bombs" and the city's requirement for a permit - which could cost up to $6000 - can't qualify as a "valid regulation" of Food Not Bombs' First Amendment rights because it is "utterly standardless," that is, it could be denied for literally any reason or no reason at all.

On January 5, the group announced a settlement with the city, under which the city admits it was wrong, pays the group a small amount of damages, and covers at least some significant part, if not all, of the group's legal expenses.

The reason Fort Lauderdale and other cities have tried and are trying to impose bans like these comes down to one issue: wanting to hide the issue of homelessness because that seems easier and cheaper than doing anything about it.

=

Another: Last March, Texas Gov. Greg Abattoir launched Operation Lone Star, deploying thousands of National Guardsmen, Texas Department of Public Safety cops, and other state resources to the border with Mexico and giving them the authority to arrest suspected migrants under suspicion of criminal trespassing on private and state property.

One such person arrested is Jesús Alberto Guzmán Curipoma, an engineer from Ecuador who hoped to submit a request for asylum. He was arrested in September at a railroad switching yard on a charge of criminal trespass.

On January 13, Travis County Judge Jan Soifer declared his arrest unconstitutional, making some immigration advocates hopeful the ruling could create a pathway for other migrants arrested under the program.

Guzmán Curipoma's attorneys successfully argued that Operation Lone Star violates the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution and therefore prohibits state laws form interfering with immigration enforcement by the federal government.

What makes this remarkable is that the Travis County District Attorney's Office, which represented the state in the hearing, agreed. Travis County District Attorney José Garza said in a statement that the program is "an impermissible attempt to intrude on federal immigration policy" and "has failed to satisfy basic, fundamental, and procedural state and federal constitutional safeguards."

A spokesperson for Gov. Abattoir said they expect the ruling will be overturned because the judge couldn't issue that ruling without hearing from the Attorney General. Which seems doubly weird because I was not aware a judge had to check with Abattoir's administration before issuing a ruling and how are they going to appeal when there was someone representing the state of Texas at the hearing who agreed with the decision. But that kind of thing never stopped them before, so who knows.

It's still a win.

=

Next, something I don't know I can truly call Good News for reasons I will try to make clear, but the news here is that Greg and Travis McMichael, two of the men convicted in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, have been sentenced to life without parole and the third, William "Roddie" Bryan, to life with parole possible after 30 years.

I take satisfaction in the fact that this is an indication that maybe, at long last, we as a people are taking racist murder more seriously. Still, I can't be entirely happy about this because of my conviction that our so-called criminal justice system is deeply screwed up.

Which brings me to something that is definitely good News.

Early this month, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced sweeping changes to the borough’s criminal justice system. Among other changes, he said prosecutors should no longer seek prison sentences of more than 20 years except in exceptional circumstances and urged them to only pursue prison for the most serious offenses, looking instead to "diversion and alternatives to incarceration." The idea is to shift away from pursuing lesser crimes like marijuana misdemeanors, prostitution, and fare evasion to focus more on violent crime including guns and domestic violence.

The Sentencing Project applauded the changes, noting it has previously recommended a 20-year cap on prison sentences and noting that "Virtually no other nation in the world routinely pursues extreme sentences beyond 20 years. The United States is a clear and appalling outlier."

But of course Bragg faces extreme vituperation from the usual suspects, including right-wing grifters going on about "bloodbaths"and cops, including city Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who sent an email to every member of the NYPD saying "I am very concerned about the implications to your safety" - or, in other words, "Look out, he's gonna get you killed." Although I strongly suspect she's more fearful for the impact on her department's budget than any on the safety of cops.

It remains to be see how strong Bragg can be in the face if the vicious reactions, ones he surely should have seen coming, but at the very least a marker has been laid down: This can be a notion of what "defund the police" can look like in practice. And that is decidedly Good News.

046 The Erickson Report for January 20 to February 2

 

046 The Erickson Report for January 20 to February 2

Good News

- Cyber Ninjas closing

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/07/politics/cyber-ninjas-shutting-down-arizona/index.html

https://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/spokesman-cyber-ninjas-is-being-shut-down

=

- Climate protesters acquitted

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/14/juries-get-it-climate-activists-acquitted-after-train-protest

=

- Group wins fight to feed hungry

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/05/after-7-years-anti-war-group-fed-hungry-wins-fight-fort-lauderdale

=

- Migrant arrest unconstitutional

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/migrant-s-arrest-under-operation-lone-star-ruled-unconstitutional/ar-AASNlbK

=

- Police reform in NYC

https://apnews.com/article/ahmaud-arbery-georgia-race-and-ethnicity-sentencing-savannah-0d1a8ed25f1a075844160f253a9d0535

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2022/01/07/extensive-research-supports-manhattan-das-new-20-year-cap-prison-sentences-says

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2022/01/09/manhattan-district-attorney-alvin-bragg-criminal-justice-reform-marijuana-guns-crime/

https://www.sentencingproject.org/

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/no-end-in-sight-americas-enduring-reliance-on-life-imprisonment/

The Death Penalty and Criminal Justice
https://www.aol.com/news/oklahoma-prepares-execute-man-1985-050314469-184404277.html

https://theforgivenessfoundation.org/2021/11/09/bigler-stouffer-executed-on-december-9-2021-in-oklahoma/

https://deathpenalty.org/innocence-isnt-enough-here-arizona-tells-scotus/

The Threat to Voting Rights

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/21/gop-tidal-wave-voter-suppression-set-intensify-2022-analysis-warns

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-december-2021

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/14/half-mail-ballot-requests-rejected-key-texas-county

https://www.aol.com/news/texas-rejects-hundreds-mail-ballot-232705241-022957930.html

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/12/24/packing-and-cracking-new-lawsuit-challenges-south-carolinas-racial-redistricting

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2022/01/07/splc-georgia-voters-and-voting-rights-groups-challenge-georgias-racially

https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/georgia_redistricting_complaint_01072022.pdf

https://www.nccourts.gov/assets/inline-files/22.01.22%20-%20Final%20Judgment.pdf

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/12/victory-ohio-supreme-court-strikes-down-gop-partisan-gerrymandering

https://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/rod/docs/pdf/0/2022/2022-ohio-65.pdf

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/01/14/ohio-supreme-court-strikes-down-rigged-congressional-maps

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/01/08/whats-next-corporate-democrat-plotters-voting-rights

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/05/eca-jan-6/

Free Speech for Me

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/14/us/supreme-court-football-coach-prayer.html

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 3: A Year of Stupid: Clowns of the Year

045 The Erickson Report for December 29 to January 12, Page 3: A Year of Stupid: Clowns of the Year

We are going to skip the Two Weeks of Stupid this time - which in a way is too bad because we had a good one for Clown: Candace Owens, the right-wing talk show host who got owned by Tweetie-pie about vaccines on her own show and then tried to whine it away by tweeting that he's an old guy from before the time people could "do their own research."

Instead, as this is the last show of the year, it's a good time for one of those yearly wrap-ups. So I'm going to use the occasion to give out awards for Clown of the Year and Outrage of the Year. This was a shortened year for various personal reasons so we don't have as many nominees as we normally would, but we still have some worthy winners.

For Clown, there are two categories: Basic Stupid and Total Jackassery. And in the category of Basic Stupid, the Clown of the Year is the man who put the "gomer" in Gohmert - Representative Louis Gohmert of Texas.

At a June 8th hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee he put this question to Jennifer Eberlin, the assistant deputy chief of the National Forest System, quote:

"I was informed by the immediate past director of NASA that they found that the Moon's orbit is changing slightly and so is the Earth's orbit around the Sun. We know there's been significant solar flare activities and so is there anything the National Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management can do to change the course of the Moon's orbit or the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Obviously that would have a profound effect on our climate."

And apparently this is not sarcastic; he was serious about this. Louis Gomer was actually raising the idea of changing the orbit of the Earth in order to deal with climate change. He is hands down the Clown of the Year, Basic Stupid category.

A quick science aside here because this is just the thing to demonstrate the Dunning-Kruger effect, where in effect the less you know about something the more you think you know.

It is true the Moon's orbit is changing slightly. That has to do with interaction with the tides on Earth. It's also true that the Earth's orbit is subject to some for lack of a better term wobbling and those cyclical shifts in the Earth's motion and the resulting change in its position relative to the Sun can be a driver of long-term climate change, including things like triggering the beginning or the end of glaciation periods or ice ages.

The thing is, those cycles run on time frames ranging from 24,000 to over one hundred thousand years and the warming we are now seeing is from a time frame of maybe one hundred-fifty years. Those cycles and the warming we're seeing now have absolutely nothing to do with each other and Louis Gohmert really really really is a Clown

Okay, moving to the Total Jackassery category, we have another clear winner: smug transphobe Dave Chappelle.

Chappelle released a new special the beginning of October and got flak over the offensive transphobia it included, up to and including a walkout by some employees of Netflix, where it was streamed.

He responded by claiming he is the actual victim, saying "You said you want a safe working environment at Netflix. Well, it seems like I'm the only one that can't go to the office anymore."

Then, at the November 22 screening of his new documentary, Chappelle tossed around the "f-word," made jokes about people’s use of various pronouns, and pretended to identify as a woman to get a cushier prison cell, proving to one and all that he has learned nothing and doesn't intend to.

Which actually had been clear from the start. Back in October, he supposedly offered to meet with members of the transgender community, but, he said, "You will not summon me. I am not bending to anybody's demands." But he'd meet - under certain conditions. Quoting:

"You cannot come if you have not watched my special from beginning to end. You must come to a place of my choosing at a time of my choosing." (In other words, "You will not summon me; I will summon you.") "And thirdly, you must admit that Hannah Gadsby" - another comedian and a member of the LGBTQ+ community - "is not funny."

An "offer" which doesn't even attempt to hide the fact that is neither serious nor sincere.

You'd think that growing up as a black person in the US Chappelle had to deal with some issues of personal identity, so he'd be able to have some understanding of the feelings of others dealing with a similar sort of question. But he doesn't and he won't - because he finds it easier and more profitable to punch down with cheap shots. Dave Chappelle is a Total Jackass.

041 The Erickson Report, Page 5: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

041 The Erickson Report, Page 5: Two Weeks of Stupid: Clowns and Outrages [the Clowns]

Now for a regular feature, Two Weeks of Stupid, Clowns and Outrages. And we start, as usual, with the Clowns.

Our first Clown this time out is President Joe Coal Baron Manchin. After his event at the Economic Club of DC on October 26, three climate hunger strikers confronted him on his demand to cut climate provisions from the reconciliation package.

Manchin replied by asserting “the United States has done more than any other country. All the emissions are coming from Asia.”

So apparently all that West Virginia coal from which he gains a million a bucks a year from investments is being used for what, doing artists' sketches?

=

Next there is Texas Republican state Rep. Matt Krause, who has a 16-page list of roughly 850 books and he intends to "investigate" to see if Texas school libraries might be harboring any of them.

Krause has used his position as chair of the House Committee on General Investigating to dispatch a letter wanting school districts to report whether they have any copies of any of the named books and if so, to report how many of them and how much money the district spent to get them.

Beyond such titles as The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the list, not at all oddly, seems obsessed with LGBTQ+ titles and ones about reproduction.

A peek under Krause's mattress might be interesting.

=

Then there is the case of a reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch uncovering a flaw in the website of Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that left the Social Security numbers for 100,000 staff members vulnerable. The information was contained in the html source code for the site.

The paper notified the agency and held the story until the agency had a chance to correct the error.

But it seems true that no good deed goes unpunished, because Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, apparently jealous of all the other GOPpes who've been awarded The Order of Big Red Nose, is vowing to prosecute the staff of the paper, charging they are "hackers" who "decoded" the source code to uncover the data. He claimed such an investigation would cost taxpayers $50 million.

Now, not only is that figure manifestly absurd, the thing is, the source code for a website is easily available to anyone with at most a couple of clicks because your own computer must have access to that information in order to display the web page correctly. Try it. Look for the Tools menu in your web browser, where you should find something listed like "View source code." In fact, if your browser is Firefox, just do control-u.

In other words, all this proves is that Mike Parson has absolutely no idea what hacking is.

I love this one because it gets back to the true meaning of Clown.

=

But finally, sometimes it's hard to say if something is a Clown or an Outrage, it straddles the line between. Here's an example.

It's an unnamed teacher at Ridgefield Memorial High School in Ridgefield, New Jersey.

On October 18, Mohammed Zubi, A Muslim Arab-American senior at the school, asked for an extension on completing a math assignment. The teacher responded with 'We don't negotiate with terrorists."

Shortly after making the comment, the teacher supposedly told Zubi he did not “mean it like that.”

Excuse me, teacher person, but just how the hell did you mean it?

A supporting Clown award goes to the school administration which initially dismissed it as a “personal matter.” Only after the incident became known through social media did school board members take it seriously. In a statement a couple of days later, the district said it is conducting a full investigation and that the teacher in question has been suspended until further notice.

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