Post by mhbruin on Apr 21, 2022 9:22:01 GMT -8
US Vaccine Data - We Have Now Administered 570 Million Shots (Population 333 Million)
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California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 19)
We had some rain up north this week.
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To Some Marriage is a Word. To Others, It is a Sentence.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
No One Raised a Hand Yesterday, Wanting to Teach in Arizona. Wonder Why?
As if Arizona teachers’ low pay, long hours, and increased surveillance weren’t bad enough, along comes a bill that will allow parents to sue teachers, librarians, and other school staff for “usurping the fundamental right” of a parent. You might ask, “WTF does that even mean?” The language is left broad and ambiguous enough on purpose, so that any book or classroom discussion that “usurps” a parent’s beliefs, religion, or political persuasion could lead to a lawsuit. Arizona’s 2016 Teacher of the Year, Sen. Christine Marsh, pointed out that anything parents don’t like could be grist for a lawsuit:
“Anything could potentially qualify for it so we might have a whole bunch of teachers going to court for this,” she said.
As one Democratic lawmaker said, a librarian could be sued “for recommending readings that conflict with a parent’s worldview.” No gay Walt Whitman for my kid! No book with a four-letter word or even a hint of religious doubt! Don’t even mention Marx in economics class!
Arizona ranks near the bottom in teacher pay, and another new bill will require teachers to post their course materials and curricula on-line. And here I thought it was bad enough 40 years ago when I had to submit my lesson plans to the principal! It’s no wonder there are thousands of open positions that districts can’t fill, which leads them to hire people who lack the appropriate credentials, to the point nearly half of Arizona teachers are not credentialed (the legislature had to pass a bill to allow for that). This new law will only exacerbate the flight of good teachers from the classroom, and the real victims are the students.
Wars Go Better With Koch
Koch-funded analyst raises doubts about Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians.
A foreign policy analyst with extensive ties to the non-profit network operated by Charles Koch publicly cast doubt about whether Russian forces are attacking civilians in Ukraine. The analyst, Professor John Mearsheimer, also suggested that, if Russian forces have attacked civilians, such attacks would be justified. While offering excuses for Russia, Mearsheimer appeared to pin the blame for civilian deaths on the actions of the American government.
Mearsheimer's claims — which mirror those from the Russian Defense Ministry — are contradicted by photographic, videographic, and testimonial evidence of what has occurred in Bucha and other areas of Ukraine.
Have a Koch and Then Die
No One Even Said They Were Sari
Shahdullah Baig stands among the rubble of what was once his modest two-bedroom home, his belongings buried under debris and broken bricks.
"In the blink of an eye, my home was demolished," said the 45-year-old fruit seller, whose kitchen, fruit cart, and cattle shed have all been destroyed. "While I stood there watching... (the police) just walked away."
Scraps of wood, rusty metal and garbage line the sandy pavement outside his home, where his four young children play.
His home was one of several properties in Khargone city's Chhoti Mohan Talkies neighborhood, in India's central Madhya Pradesh state, that he says were demolished by authorities following violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims that broke out on April 10 -- the day of the Hindu festival Ram Navami.
Authorities have defended the demolitions by saying they had acted against both "rioters" and "encroachers," claiming the houses and shops were built illegally on public land. But Baig and others spoken to by CNN say only Muslim homes have been targeted.
Experts say the demolitions are the tip of a far deeper problem and that this is only the latest in a string of attacks on the country's Muslim population, fueled in part by the ascendance of India's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Could He Be a Death Sentence For American Democracy?
Certainly, what’s happening now in Florida looks a lot like the thought control that has happened in totalitarian societies. Whether in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or today’s China, the banning of books is a central strategy for strongmen. DeSantis has no qualms using that playbook if he thinks it will benefit him politically.
And it very well may be benefitting him politically.
More and more, DeSantis looks like Donald Trump’s chief rival for the 2024 presidential nomination. Trump has a far bigger Republican audience — for now. But according to Frank Luntz, a veteran GOP pollster, Trump’s popularity may have already peaked.
Meanwhile, DeSantis’ political star is on the rise. His favorables among independents are above 60 percent, according to a March 25 McLaughlin & Associates’ poll. The conservative National Review’s editor, Rich Lowry, has an explanation: DeSantis comes “without the distracting obsessions of the former president.”
Keep that in mind as you consider areas where DeSantis presents an even clearer present and future danger than Trump does.
DeathSentence Was Just Compared to Hitler and Stalin. Now Richard Nixon?
The Miami Herald warned Wednesday that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is taking a page from disgraced former President Richard Nixon’s playbook with his attack on Disney.
An editorial in the influential South Florida paper condemned DeSantis, a potential GOP 2024 presidential candidate, for his push “to strip Walt Disney World of the special taxing district that independently governs it” as “an act of pure vengeance” and “the stuff of Richard Nixon and his enemies list.”
“It’s clear that the governor has been nursing a towering grudge against Disney ever since the company had the nerve to listen to its employees and — belatedly, but rightly — speak out against the ‘Don’t say gay’ bill, withholding political campaign contributions in Florida,” the scathing editorial said.
DeSantis is “using the levers of government to crush his enemy,” the editorial argued, and his claim of simply trying to eliminate pre-1968 special taxing districts “doesn’t pass the smell test” because it’s a “precision missile strike” aimed at the entertainment company.
“Back in 1971, Nixon’s list had 20 names on it. Over the next few years, it grew to 576 names. We all know how that ended,” the newspaper concluded. “Now we have DeSantis’ frightening misuse of power. It must stop here, and that starts with lawmakers stiffening their backbones. Today, it’s Disney. Tomorrow, who knows?”
Wasn't There A Time When the QOP Believed in Free Enterprise?
A Billion Here. A Billion There. Pretty Soon You Are Talking About Real Money.
GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s disastrous stunt targeting local and international businesses cost Texas more than $4 billion in damages, an economic consulting firm in the state has estimated. The Perryman Group estimates that Abbott’s now-rescinded policy forcing commercial vehicles to undergo redundant checks that actually didn’t do much of any checking “will cost the equivalent of 77,000 job years for the country and 36,300 for Texas’ economy,” The Dallas Morning News reports.
The city of Pharr is singled out in the article as the site of one of the busiest land crossings in the country. Abbott’s stunt cost the area roughly $200 million every single day in losses. The Perryman Group estimates that Abbott caused the nation roughly $9 billion in lost gross domestic product, the report said.
Dr. King Dreamed of a Color-Blind Society
Newsmax on Wednesday included right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro, who is white, on an on-screen graphic of “Black conservatives.”
“Left considers Black conservatives to be traitors,” the caption said.
“They’re out there, but they’re shunned because, boy oh boy, what they have to say,” Newsmax host Greg Kelly said of Black conservatives before the graphic came on screen.
This Looks Like Targeting to Me
Crypto Mining and Russian? Double Whammy!
The US is adding a cryptocurrency-mining company to its list of sanctions against Russia in an attempt to block avenues of funding for its invasion of Ukraine.
The US Treasury said Wednesday it's lobbing a fresh round of sanctions at some 40 Russian entities and individuals, including bitcoin-mining firm Bitriver and 10 of its subsidiaries in Russia.
It's the first time the US is targeting a virtual currency mining company, the Treasury said.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Want to Sponsor a Ukrainian?
The Biden administration is launching a program that will allow U.S. citizens and groups to financially sponsor Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion of their country so that they can come to the U.S. sooner, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Thursday.
Ukrainians who are selected to travel to the U.S. under the initiative will be granted humanitarian parole, allowing them to bypass the visa and refugee programs, which typically take years to complete. While it does not offer permanent status, parole would allow Ukrainians to live and work in the U.S. for two years.
The sponsorship program, dubbed "Uniting for Ukraine" and set to launch on April 25, is the first concrete U.S. policy aimed at fulfilling President Biden's pledge of welcoming up to 100,000 of the 5 million Ukrainians who have fled their homeland as part of the largest refugee crisis since World War II.
The policy, administration officials said, is also designed to discourage Ukrainians from traveling to Mexico to seek entry along the U.S. southern border, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processed a record 3,274 Ukrainians in March alone, a jump of more than 1,100% from February.
Frisco Floats Fossil-Fuel-Free Ferry
The San Francisco Bay will soon have a new fossil fuel-free ferry floating in its waters, propelled completely by hydrogen fuel cells, and officials hope it heralds change on the high seas.
Aptly named Sea Change, the 70-foot (21-meter), 75-passenger ferry will service multiple stops along San Francisco's waterfront. It was built at All American Marine shipyard in Bellingham, Washington, and was undergoing tests with the U.S. Coast Guard in nearby Puget Sound.
"We're here in the water, under hydrogen fuel cell power and it's the first commercial vessel in the world that's got that propulsion system," said Pace Ralli, chief executive of Switch Maritime, standing on the bow of the ferry in Bellingham Bay.
Sea Change marks another industry exploring fuel cells as clean-energy cars, trucks, trains and pleasure boats are being developed.
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Invasions Have Consequences
The Rise Of Apathy.
On both sides of a polarised Russian society, the failures of the first stage of the war have raised the stakes of the conflict, turning what the Kremlin calls a “special operation” into an existential one.
“We are seeing that the fate of Putin, Russia and society as a whole is being merged into one,” said Greg Yudin, a sociologist. “I hear more often that while people think the war might have been a mistake, they say there is no way back; they say ‘we’ve got to finish the job.’”
Marina Litvinovich, an opposition activist and politician who has remained in Russia, said she saw the war as a stress test for the government that threatened to bring down the “colossus with clay feet” that Putin had built over 20 years in power.
But among ordinary Russians, she also sees clear signs of war fatigue brought on by a flood of information from the early days of the invasion. Apathy is on the rise.
He is Cautiously Optimistic
Nations are flooding gear into Ukraine, but few want to actually talk about it: Nztions are trying not to advertise to Moscow exactly what is being provided. France says it has supplied 100 million euros of military equipment to Ukraine, without specifying what it has sent. Some countries have no desire to goad the Russian bear.
Are We Buying Ammo From the Taliban?
According to the NYT: "The United States has also agreed to provide some 155-millimeter howitzers, along with 40,000 matching rounds, while trying to buy Soviet-standard ammunition from countries that use it, including nations outside of Europe, like Afghanistan and even India, a longstanding buyer of Russian arms."
Are Little Gains Enough?
Russia’s broad-based assault along the entire Donbas front has netted them some small gains.
Losing any ground sucks, of course. But the tactical withdrawal is a legitimate tool in any army’s toolbox, and Ukraine has several layers of defensive lines set up. None of these losses are particularly strategic, the way Izyum was. If the plan is to fall back behind the Siverskyi Donets river, you better believe dug in positions are already in place, but with a river assisting in the defense—just like the Irpin halted the Russian advance toward northwest Kyiv. Ukraine’s Severodonetsk salient is unfortunately becoming more and more exposed, with a city that has been absolutely pummeled sine the beginning of the war. There were celebrations in pro-Russian channels last night that Ukraine was falling back from Severodonetsk, but I’ve seen no real confirmation. Ukraine did announce that every single food storage site in the city had been destroyed by Russian shelling and the city was full cut off from supplies, which certainly seems ominous.
This is From a Russian
If the enemy [Ukraine] had few forces, the protection of communications [supply lines] could be partially ignored. But the Armed Forces of Ukraine (thanks to mobilizations) already have enough forces—comparable to the number of our troops in the theater. In addition, the enemy has the ability to shorten the front line and transfer the released forces to threatened areas—the Russian Federation does not have complete air supremacy simply because of the insufficient number of strike aircraft and the negligible number of strike drones. At the same time, the enemy can hold the front line near Donetsk with relatively small forces due to the excellent engineering equipment [trenches] that has been produced for many years
Thus, after some time in these areas, the situation will repeat itself, which already exists in the areas of Rubizhnoye-Severodonetsk, Popasnaya, Avdeevka and Marinka, where the Allied forces are moving forward very slowly and with very heavy losses (especially in the infantry). Or they don't advance at all (Avdeevka).
The enemy is "more than completely" satisfied with this method of warfare. Why? - Because the Armed Forces of Ukraine need another one and a half to two (maximum —three) months to prepare large reserves while Russian forces "bleed", storming the fortified cities of Donbass [...]
In this regard, I remind you that the so-called "Ukraine" is finishing the THIRD STAGE OF GENERAL MOBILIZATION. It has a human resource (200-300 thousand people) and a technical capability (a huge flow of various weapons from Europe and the USA) to not only maintain a sufficient number of its troops at the front, but also create new reserves. And to create them "in quantity" (even 100 thousand people - this is about 50 battalion tactical groups, including reinforcements and rear infrastructure - that is, about 10 full-blooded divisions).
Putin Cares!
"тик тик тик" The Clock is тик-ing
Russia has an approaching deadline that will add urgency to its campaign in Ukraine over the coming three weeks, the British defense ministry said.
In its daily intelligence update on the Russian invasion, U.K. defense officials said that Moscow wants big military gains before its annual commemoration of the end of World War II on May 9.
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What Do You Get A Queen Who Has Everything?
The Queen has been transformed into a Barbie doll for her Platinum Jubilee by toymaker Mattel.
The doll, designed to capture the Queen's likeness, is being released on the real-life monarch's 96th birthday on Thursday.
It is part of the Barbie tribute collection, which the company says pays tribute to "visionary individuals with an outstanding impact and legacy".
It was launched last year with a doll of American actress Lucille Ball.
Queen Elizabeth II's barbie doll is being released to commemorate her 70 years on the throne.
How About an "I Love Lizzy" TV Show?
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They May Bug You, But They Feed You, Too.
The insects that keep the world running by pollinating plants and supporting food chains face grave risks, a new study has found.
The combination of climate change and heavy agriculture is having a profound impact on the abundance and diversity of insects, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
In areas where substantial warming has been documented and where land has been converted for intensive agriculture — meaning it involves monoculture or the use of pesticides — insects were nearly 50 percent less abundant, and more than a quarter fewer species could be found, the study said.
David Wagner, a University of Connecticut entomologist who was not involved in the research, said the study thoroughly documents insect losses at a time when humans are “basically erasing large fractions of the tree of life in short periods of time.”
Wagner — whose previous research has suggested the world loses 1 percent to 2 percent of its insects every year — said the new study is unique for its broad scale and size.
Insects play critical and often understated roles in ecosystems. They are a source of food for other creatures, help decompose organic waste and pollinate plants.
“Insects tether everything together,” Wagner said. “If you remove the insects from the planet, basically life as we know it would grind to a halt. We would not have as much soil manufacture. There would be no bird life. There would be little food produced on land. We would lose many of our fruits and agriculture crops.”
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Le Macron is Mightier Than Le Pen
President Emmanuel Macron is widening his lead over his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen for the second round of the French presidential election.
With only four days until election day, he still has the upper hand over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen with 56% of the vote (versus her 44%). His margin has also slightly increased since the first round, meaning that his opponent is losing some steam. These results are all the more significant as they are based on a very large panel of more than 7,000 registered voters who are sure that they will go to vote, which considerably reduces the margin of error (most French polls use a sample size of just over 1,000 voters).
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We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us
As a nation, Americans never nailed the whole “we’re in this together” thing during this ongoing pandemic. The greatest public health crisis of our lifetime has often been met with indifference, and not just by Trump, who labeled himself “a wartime president” but was really COVID’s accomplice. While refrigerated trucks were parked outside of hospitals as mobile morgues to accommodate the overwhelming number of COVID deaths, some preferred to burn masks to protest pandemic restrictions.
Once headlines verified what many of us anticipated — that COVID, enabled by systemic and institutional racism, would have a disproportionate impact on Black and brown communities — scores of white people, some of them armed, took to the streets and state houses for raucous anti-lockdown tantrums.
People went from cheering health care workers to cheering the fact that they would no longer have to use one of the most effective mitigation devices during this pandemic. That puts the elderly, immunocompromised, and children too young to be vaccinated at risk. What’s being hailed as a victory for independence and personal choice feels like surrender.
A few weeks after the coronavirus emerged in the United States, a grim pattern was obvious. Black Americans were dying of covid-19 at disproportionately high rates. Articles in early April 2020 identified that pattern in Chicago and in Michigan. ProPublica tracked a similar effect in other places.
But soon after that, the country’s response to the pandemic changed. Thanks in part to President Donald Trump having argued that the virus posed little risk and was soon going to vanish from the United States, Republicans began to express far less concern about being infected. They reported being less likely to take preventive measures against contracting the disease, such as wearing a mask. And, over time, Republican parts of the country began seeing higher rates of mortality than places that voted for Joe Biden in November 2020.
And, inextricably, White Americans — a demographic the vast majority of Republicans are part of — began consistently dying at higher rates than non-Whites.
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It's Not Getting Tired
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Aren't War, Famine, Plague, and Murder the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Ukraine, Yemen, etc.
Starvation is everywhere
COVID
Gun Violence
What's Next?
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All American Citizens Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others.
In an 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by a resident of Puerto Rico who was seeking to receive the same Supplemental Security Income payments he received when living on the U.S. mainland.
Puerto Ricans and the residents of the four other overseas American territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands are American citizens (or American nationals in the case of American Samoa), but do not receive the same access to U.S. government benefits accorded to other citizens if they live in their home territory.
Jose Luis Vaello-Madero received SSI benefits when he lived on the U.S. mainland and then continued to receive them after moving back to his home island of Puerto Rico. He was not aware that he could not continue to receive those benefits upon moving to Puerto Rico, and the government sued him to recoup $25,000 he received from the program. He challenged the discrepancy in his ability to receive benefits based on where he lived within the U.S. as a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment.
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New Cases 7-Day Average | Deaths 7-Day Average | New Hospitalizations 7-Day Average | |
| Apr 21 | |||
| Apr 20 | 42,604 | 375 | |
| Apr 19 | 40,985 | 385 | 1,582 |
| Apr 18 | 37,132 | 380 | 1,564 |
| Apr 17 | 35,212 | 373 | 1,542 |
| Apr 16 | 34,972 | 379 | 1,532 |
| Apr 15 | 34,778 | 399 | 1,510 |
| Apr 14 | 35,475 | 446 | 1,490 |
| Apr 13 | 31,391 | 409 | 1,477 |
| Apr 12 | 29,401 | 452 | 1,463 |
| Apr 11 | 30,208 | 483 | 1.447 |
| Apr 10 | 28,927 | 500 | 1,443 |
| Apr 9 | 28,339 | 509 | |
| Apr 8 | 28,169 | 516 | |
| Apr 7 | 26,286 | 471 | |
| Apr 6 | 26,595 | 496 | |
| Apr 5 | 26,845 | 533 | |
| Apr 4 | 25,537 | 537 | |
| Apr 3 | 25,074 | 572 | |
| Apr 2 | 25,787 | 576 | |
| Apr 1 | 26,106 | 584 | |
| Mar 31 | 25,980 | 605 | |
| Mar 30 | 25,732 | 626 | |
| Mar 29 | 25,218 | 644 | |
| Mar 28 | 26,190 | 700 | |
| Mar 27 | 26,487 | 690 | |
| Mar 26 | 26,593 | 697 | |
| Mar 25 | 26,874 | 705 | |
| Mar 24 | 27,235 | 732 | |
| Mar 23 | 27,134 | 753 | |
| Mar 22 | 27,545 | 787 | |
| Mar 21 | 28,657 | 861 | |
| Mar 20 | 27,786 | 901 | |
| Mar 19 | 27,747 | 909 | |
| Mar 18 | 28,274 | 972 | |
| Mar 17 | 29,317 | 1,035 | |
| Mar 16 | 30,040 | 1,052 | |
| Mar 15 | 30,934 | 1,107 | |
| Mar 14 | 32,458 | 1,186 | |
| Mar 13 | 34,113 | 1,187 | |
| Feb 16, 2021 | 78,292 |
| At Least One Dose | Fully Vaccinated | % of Vaccinated W/ Boosters | |
| % of Total Population | 77.2% | 65.8% | 45.3% |
| % of Population 5+ | 82.1% | 70.0% | |
| % of Population 12+ | 86.9% | 74.2% | 47.0% |
| % of Population 18+ | 88.6% | 75.7% | 48.2% |
| % of Population 65+ | 95.0% | 89.5% | 67.2% |
California Precipitation (Updated Tuesday April 19)
We had some rain up north this week.
| Percent of Average for this Date | Last Week | |
| Northern Sierra Precipitation | 79% (70%) | 73% (63% of full season average) |
| San Joaquin Precipitation | 65% (58%) | 65% (57%) |
| Tulare Basin Precipitation | 60% (54%) | 61% (53%) |
| Snow Water Content - North | 29% | 15% |
| Snow Water Content - Central | 33% | 27% |
| Snow Water Content - South | 23% | 24% |
To Some Marriage is a Word. To Others, It is a Sentence.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees
No One Raised a Hand Yesterday, Wanting to Teach in Arizona. Wonder Why?
As if Arizona teachers’ low pay, long hours, and increased surveillance weren’t bad enough, along comes a bill that will allow parents to sue teachers, librarians, and other school staff for “usurping the fundamental right” of a parent. You might ask, “WTF does that even mean?” The language is left broad and ambiguous enough on purpose, so that any book or classroom discussion that “usurps” a parent’s beliefs, religion, or political persuasion could lead to a lawsuit. Arizona’s 2016 Teacher of the Year, Sen. Christine Marsh, pointed out that anything parents don’t like could be grist for a lawsuit:
“Anything could potentially qualify for it so we might have a whole bunch of teachers going to court for this,” she said.
As one Democratic lawmaker said, a librarian could be sued “for recommending readings that conflict with a parent’s worldview.” No gay Walt Whitman for my kid! No book with a four-letter word or even a hint of religious doubt! Don’t even mention Marx in economics class!
Arizona ranks near the bottom in teacher pay, and another new bill will require teachers to post their course materials and curricula on-line. And here I thought it was bad enough 40 years ago when I had to submit my lesson plans to the principal! It’s no wonder there are thousands of open positions that districts can’t fill, which leads them to hire people who lack the appropriate credentials, to the point nearly half of Arizona teachers are not credentialed (the legislature had to pass a bill to allow for that). This new law will only exacerbate the flight of good teachers from the classroom, and the real victims are the students.
Wars Go Better With Koch
Koch-funded analyst raises doubts about Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians.
A foreign policy analyst with extensive ties to the non-profit network operated by Charles Koch publicly cast doubt about whether Russian forces are attacking civilians in Ukraine. The analyst, Professor John Mearsheimer, also suggested that, if Russian forces have attacked civilians, such attacks would be justified. While offering excuses for Russia, Mearsheimer appeared to pin the blame for civilian deaths on the actions of the American government.
Mearsheimer's claims — which mirror those from the Russian Defense Ministry — are contradicted by photographic, videographic, and testimonial evidence of what has occurred in Bucha and other areas of Ukraine.
Have a Koch and Then Die
No One Even Said They Were Sari
Shahdullah Baig stands among the rubble of what was once his modest two-bedroom home, his belongings buried under debris and broken bricks.
"In the blink of an eye, my home was demolished," said the 45-year-old fruit seller, whose kitchen, fruit cart, and cattle shed have all been destroyed. "While I stood there watching... (the police) just walked away."
Scraps of wood, rusty metal and garbage line the sandy pavement outside his home, where his four young children play.
His home was one of several properties in Khargone city's Chhoti Mohan Talkies neighborhood, in India's central Madhya Pradesh state, that he says were demolished by authorities following violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims that broke out on April 10 -- the day of the Hindu festival Ram Navami.
Authorities have defended the demolitions by saying they had acted against both "rioters" and "encroachers," claiming the houses and shops were built illegally on public land. But Baig and others spoken to by CNN say only Muslim homes have been targeted.
Experts say the demolitions are the tip of a far deeper problem and that this is only the latest in a string of attacks on the country's Muslim population, fueled in part by the ascendance of India's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Could He Be a Death Sentence For American Democracy?
Certainly, what’s happening now in Florida looks a lot like the thought control that has happened in totalitarian societies. Whether in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or today’s China, the banning of books is a central strategy for strongmen. DeSantis has no qualms using that playbook if he thinks it will benefit him politically.
And it very well may be benefitting him politically.
More and more, DeSantis looks like Donald Trump’s chief rival for the 2024 presidential nomination. Trump has a far bigger Republican audience — for now. But according to Frank Luntz, a veteran GOP pollster, Trump’s popularity may have already peaked.
Meanwhile, DeSantis’ political star is on the rise. His favorables among independents are above 60 percent, according to a March 25 McLaughlin & Associates’ poll. The conservative National Review’s editor, Rich Lowry, has an explanation: DeSantis comes “without the distracting obsessions of the former president.”
Keep that in mind as you consider areas where DeSantis presents an even clearer present and future danger than Trump does.
DeathSentence Was Just Compared to Hitler and Stalin. Now Richard Nixon?
The Miami Herald warned Wednesday that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is taking a page from disgraced former President Richard Nixon’s playbook with his attack on Disney.
An editorial in the influential South Florida paper condemned DeSantis, a potential GOP 2024 presidential candidate, for his push “to strip Walt Disney World of the special taxing district that independently governs it” as “an act of pure vengeance” and “the stuff of Richard Nixon and his enemies list.”
“It’s clear that the governor has been nursing a towering grudge against Disney ever since the company had the nerve to listen to its employees and — belatedly, but rightly — speak out against the ‘Don’t say gay’ bill, withholding political campaign contributions in Florida,” the scathing editorial said.
DeSantis is “using the levers of government to crush his enemy,” the editorial argued, and his claim of simply trying to eliminate pre-1968 special taxing districts “doesn’t pass the smell test” because it’s a “precision missile strike” aimed at the entertainment company.
“Back in 1971, Nixon’s list had 20 names on it. Over the next few years, it grew to 576 names. We all know how that ended,” the newspaper concluded. “Now we have DeSantis’ frightening misuse of power. It must stop here, and that starts with lawmakers stiffening their backbones. Today, it’s Disney. Tomorrow, who knows?”
Wasn't There A Time When the QOP Believed in Free Enterprise?
A Billion Here. A Billion There. Pretty Soon You Are Talking About Real Money.
GOP Gov. Greg Abbott’s disastrous stunt targeting local and international businesses cost Texas more than $4 billion in damages, an economic consulting firm in the state has estimated. The Perryman Group estimates that Abbott’s now-rescinded policy forcing commercial vehicles to undergo redundant checks that actually didn’t do much of any checking “will cost the equivalent of 77,000 job years for the country and 36,300 for Texas’ economy,” The Dallas Morning News reports.
The city of Pharr is singled out in the article as the site of one of the busiest land crossings in the country. Abbott’s stunt cost the area roughly $200 million every single day in losses. The Perryman Group estimates that Abbott caused the nation roughly $9 billion in lost gross domestic product, the report said.
Dr. King Dreamed of a Color-Blind Society
Newsmax on Wednesday included right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro, who is white, on an on-screen graphic of “Black conservatives.”
“Left considers Black conservatives to be traitors,” the caption said.
“They’re out there, but they’re shunned because, boy oh boy, what they have to say,” Newsmax host Greg Kelly said of Black conservatives before the graphic came on screen.
This Looks Like Targeting to Me
Crypto Mining and Russian? Double Whammy!
The US is adding a cryptocurrency-mining company to its list of sanctions against Russia in an attempt to block avenues of funding for its invasion of Ukraine.
The US Treasury said Wednesday it's lobbing a fresh round of sanctions at some 40 Russian entities and individuals, including bitcoin-mining firm Bitriver and 10 of its subsidiaries in Russia.
It's the first time the US is targeting a virtual currency mining company, the Treasury said.
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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees
Want to Sponsor a Ukrainian?
The Biden administration is launching a program that will allow U.S. citizens and groups to financially sponsor Ukrainians displaced by the Russian invasion of their country so that they can come to the U.S. sooner, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Thursday.
Ukrainians who are selected to travel to the U.S. under the initiative will be granted humanitarian parole, allowing them to bypass the visa and refugee programs, which typically take years to complete. While it does not offer permanent status, parole would allow Ukrainians to live and work in the U.S. for two years.
The sponsorship program, dubbed "Uniting for Ukraine" and set to launch on April 25, is the first concrete U.S. policy aimed at fulfilling President Biden's pledge of welcoming up to 100,000 of the 5 million Ukrainians who have fled their homeland as part of the largest refugee crisis since World War II.
The policy, administration officials said, is also designed to discourage Ukrainians from traveling to Mexico to seek entry along the U.S. southern border, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processed a record 3,274 Ukrainians in March alone, a jump of more than 1,100% from February.
Frisco Floats Fossil-Fuel-Free Ferry
The San Francisco Bay will soon have a new fossil fuel-free ferry floating in its waters, propelled completely by hydrogen fuel cells, and officials hope it heralds change on the high seas.
Aptly named Sea Change, the 70-foot (21-meter), 75-passenger ferry will service multiple stops along San Francisco's waterfront. It was built at All American Marine shipyard in Bellingham, Washington, and was undergoing tests with the U.S. Coast Guard in nearby Puget Sound.
"We're here in the water, under hydrogen fuel cell power and it's the first commercial vessel in the world that's got that propulsion system," said Pace Ralli, chief executive of Switch Maritime, standing on the bow of the ferry in Bellingham Bay.
Sea Change marks another industry exploring fuel cells as clean-energy cars, trucks, trains and pleasure boats are being developed.
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Invasions Have Consequences
The Rise Of Apathy.
On both sides of a polarised Russian society, the failures of the first stage of the war have raised the stakes of the conflict, turning what the Kremlin calls a “special operation” into an existential one.
“We are seeing that the fate of Putin, Russia and society as a whole is being merged into one,” said Greg Yudin, a sociologist. “I hear more often that while people think the war might have been a mistake, they say there is no way back; they say ‘we’ve got to finish the job.’”
Marina Litvinovich, an opposition activist and politician who has remained in Russia, said she saw the war as a stress test for the government that threatened to bring down the “colossus with clay feet” that Putin had built over 20 years in power.
But among ordinary Russians, she also sees clear signs of war fatigue brought on by a flood of information from the early days of the invasion. Apathy is on the rise.
He is Cautiously Optimistic
Nations are flooding gear into Ukraine, but few want to actually talk about it: Nztions are trying not to advertise to Moscow exactly what is being provided. France says it has supplied 100 million euros of military equipment to Ukraine, without specifying what it has sent. Some countries have no desire to goad the Russian bear.
Are We Buying Ammo From the Taliban?
According to the NYT: "The United States has also agreed to provide some 155-millimeter howitzers, along with 40,000 matching rounds, while trying to buy Soviet-standard ammunition from countries that use it, including nations outside of Europe, like Afghanistan and even India, a longstanding buyer of Russian arms."
Are Little Gains Enough?
Russia’s broad-based assault along the entire Donbas front has netted them some small gains.
Losing any ground sucks, of course. But the tactical withdrawal is a legitimate tool in any army’s toolbox, and Ukraine has several layers of defensive lines set up. None of these losses are particularly strategic, the way Izyum was. If the plan is to fall back behind the Siverskyi Donets river, you better believe dug in positions are already in place, but with a river assisting in the defense—just like the Irpin halted the Russian advance toward northwest Kyiv. Ukraine’s Severodonetsk salient is unfortunately becoming more and more exposed, with a city that has been absolutely pummeled sine the beginning of the war. There were celebrations in pro-Russian channels last night that Ukraine was falling back from Severodonetsk, but I’ve seen no real confirmation. Ukraine did announce that every single food storage site in the city had been destroyed by Russian shelling and the city was full cut off from supplies, which certainly seems ominous.
This is From a Russian
If the enemy [Ukraine] had few forces, the protection of communications [supply lines] could be partially ignored. But the Armed Forces of Ukraine (thanks to mobilizations) already have enough forces—comparable to the number of our troops in the theater. In addition, the enemy has the ability to shorten the front line and transfer the released forces to threatened areas—the Russian Federation does not have complete air supremacy simply because of the insufficient number of strike aircraft and the negligible number of strike drones. At the same time, the enemy can hold the front line near Donetsk with relatively small forces due to the excellent engineering equipment [trenches] that has been produced for many years
Thus, after some time in these areas, the situation will repeat itself, which already exists in the areas of Rubizhnoye-Severodonetsk, Popasnaya, Avdeevka and Marinka, where the Allied forces are moving forward very slowly and with very heavy losses (especially in the infantry). Or they don't advance at all (Avdeevka).
The enemy is "more than completely" satisfied with this method of warfare. Why? - Because the Armed Forces of Ukraine need another one and a half to two (maximum —three) months to prepare large reserves while Russian forces "bleed", storming the fortified cities of Donbass [...]
In this regard, I remind you that the so-called "Ukraine" is finishing the THIRD STAGE OF GENERAL MOBILIZATION. It has a human resource (200-300 thousand people) and a technical capability (a huge flow of various weapons from Europe and the USA) to not only maintain a sufficient number of its troops at the front, but also create new reserves. And to create them "in quantity" (even 100 thousand people - this is about 50 battalion tactical groups, including reinforcements and rear infrastructure - that is, about 10 full-blooded divisions).
Putin Cares!
"тик тик тик" The Clock is тик-ing
Russia has an approaching deadline that will add urgency to its campaign in Ukraine over the coming three weeks, the British defense ministry said.
In its daily intelligence update on the Russian invasion, U.K. defense officials said that Moscow wants big military gains before its annual commemoration of the end of World War II on May 9.
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What Do You Get A Queen Who Has Everything?
The Queen has been transformed into a Barbie doll for her Platinum Jubilee by toymaker Mattel.
The doll, designed to capture the Queen's likeness, is being released on the real-life monarch's 96th birthday on Thursday.
It is part of the Barbie tribute collection, which the company says pays tribute to "visionary individuals with an outstanding impact and legacy".
It was launched last year with a doll of American actress Lucille Ball.
Queen Elizabeth II's barbie doll is being released to commemorate her 70 years on the throne.
How About an "I Love Lizzy" TV Show?
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They May Bug You, But They Feed You, Too.
The insects that keep the world running by pollinating plants and supporting food chains face grave risks, a new study has found.
The combination of climate change and heavy agriculture is having a profound impact on the abundance and diversity of insects, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
In areas where substantial warming has been documented and where land has been converted for intensive agriculture — meaning it involves monoculture or the use of pesticides — insects were nearly 50 percent less abundant, and more than a quarter fewer species could be found, the study said.
David Wagner, a University of Connecticut entomologist who was not involved in the research, said the study thoroughly documents insect losses at a time when humans are “basically erasing large fractions of the tree of life in short periods of time.”
Wagner — whose previous research has suggested the world loses 1 percent to 2 percent of its insects every year — said the new study is unique for its broad scale and size.
Insects play critical and often understated roles in ecosystems. They are a source of food for other creatures, help decompose organic waste and pollinate plants.
“Insects tether everything together,” Wagner said. “If you remove the insects from the planet, basically life as we know it would grind to a halt. We would not have as much soil manufacture. There would be no bird life. There would be little food produced on land. We would lose many of our fruits and agriculture crops.”
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Le Macron is Mightier Than Le Pen
President Emmanuel Macron is widening his lead over his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen for the second round of the French presidential election.
With only four days until election day, he still has the upper hand over far-right candidate Marine Le Pen with 56% of the vote (versus her 44%). His margin has also slightly increased since the first round, meaning that his opponent is losing some steam. These results are all the more significant as they are based on a very large panel of more than 7,000 registered voters who are sure that they will go to vote, which considerably reduces the margin of error (most French polls use a sample size of just over 1,000 voters).
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We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us
As a nation, Americans never nailed the whole “we’re in this together” thing during this ongoing pandemic. The greatest public health crisis of our lifetime has often been met with indifference, and not just by Trump, who labeled himself “a wartime president” but was really COVID’s accomplice. While refrigerated trucks were parked outside of hospitals as mobile morgues to accommodate the overwhelming number of COVID deaths, some preferred to burn masks to protest pandemic restrictions.
Once headlines verified what many of us anticipated — that COVID, enabled by systemic and institutional racism, would have a disproportionate impact on Black and brown communities — scores of white people, some of them armed, took to the streets and state houses for raucous anti-lockdown tantrums.
People went from cheering health care workers to cheering the fact that they would no longer have to use one of the most effective mitigation devices during this pandemic. That puts the elderly, immunocompromised, and children too young to be vaccinated at risk. What’s being hailed as a victory for independence and personal choice feels like surrender.
A few weeks after the coronavirus emerged in the United States, a grim pattern was obvious. Black Americans were dying of covid-19 at disproportionately high rates. Articles in early April 2020 identified that pattern in Chicago and in Michigan. ProPublica tracked a similar effect in other places.
But soon after that, the country’s response to the pandemic changed. Thanks in part to President Donald Trump having argued that the virus posed little risk and was soon going to vanish from the United States, Republicans began to express far less concern about being infected. They reported being less likely to take preventive measures against contracting the disease, such as wearing a mask. And, over time, Republican parts of the country began seeing higher rates of mortality than places that voted for Joe Biden in November 2020.
And, inextricably, White Americans — a demographic the vast majority of Republicans are part of — began consistently dying at higher rates than non-Whites.
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It's Not Getting Tired
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Aren't War, Famine, Plague, and Murder the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Ukraine, Yemen, etc.
Starvation is everywhere
COVID
Gun Violence
What's Next?
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All American Citizens Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others.
In an 8-1 vote, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by a resident of Puerto Rico who was seeking to receive the same Supplemental Security Income payments he received when living on the U.S. mainland.
Puerto Ricans and the residents of the four other overseas American territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands are American citizens (or American nationals in the case of American Samoa), but do not receive the same access to U.S. government benefits accorded to other citizens if they live in their home territory.
Jose Luis Vaello-Madero received SSI benefits when he lived on the U.S. mainland and then continued to receive them after moving back to his home island of Puerto Rico. He was not aware that he could not continue to receive those benefits upon moving to Puerto Rico, and the government sued him to recoup $25,000 he received from the program. He challenged the discrepancy in his ability to receive benefits based on where he lived within the U.S. as a violation of the equal protection clause of the Fifth Amendment.
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