The devil’s greatest trick

Chitown Kev, in his pundit roundup for Daily Kos, quoted Ricky Jones of the Pan-African Studies of the University of Louisville who wrote about those trying to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory:

What these types REALLY oppose are any efforts arguing for racial equality because they mandate the acknowledgment and dismantling of American white supremacy. It is said the devil’s greatest trick was convincing people he did not exist. Anti-CRT people are taking a page out of Beelzebub’s playbook. They are trying to convince you white supremacy and institutional racism have never and do not exist either. But alas, they do and they will never be defeated by ignoring them.

SemDem of the Kos community wrote that some men in charge of women’s sports can’t seem to make up their misogynistic minds. Paralympian Olivian Breen was told the shorts she wore while competing in the English Championships were “too short and inappropriate.” Never mind that these shorts are the official wear for her sport, that she’s been wearing them while competing for nine years without complaint, and she’s won two world titles while wearing them. The European Handball Federation just fined the Norwegian female team because their shorts were not short enough. They must wear bikini bottoms and there are specific guidelines on how much they must reveal. Of course, the men’s shorts aren’t nearly so short. In a separate pundit roundup, Greg Dworkin of Kos, quoted Kate Cohen of Washington Post:

Even Republicans in Congress are beginning to think we should try to combat this lethal and stupid propaganda. The question is how. ... I propose a running tally in bold type: covid deaths among unvaccinated vs. vaccinated citizens. Two numbers, side by side. Every newspaper’s front page, every state and federal website, the crawl at the bottom of every cable television news broadcast. Google can design something cute for its search bar. Facebook owes it to us. Every day, all day. Two numbers.

I’d add two more numbers, the covid cases among the unvaccinated and vaccinated. Olivia Messer linked to an article in Stat News and added a quote from it:

“At the beginning of the pandemic, the CDC said that a close contact was somebody that you’re indoors with unmasked for 15 minutes or more. The equivalent of that with the Delta variant is not 15 minutes, it’s one second.”

Just a few days ago I wrote about Sen. Joe Manchin telling voter rights activists “I’m your man” then the next day telling Texas oil tycoons the same thing. Joan McCarter of Kos reported at least the second group got what they were paying for (though I doubt the voter rights activists donated to Manchin’s campaign). Manchin, in a meeting with Biden and other Democrats, said:

I know they have the climate portion in here, and I'm concerned about that. Because if they're eliminating fossils ...

There is more, but the sentence structure meanders a lot, so I’ll leave it there. Manchin’s task here is to throw some doubt and confusion. He accomplished that. Mark Sumner of Kos did a roundup of energy news. He worked for the coal industry years ago and had to be part of a test group for industry propaganda pitches. One of them was that only coal was cheap enough to bring African countries up to the level (and energy needs) of modern society. So being against coal was the same as leaving Africa out of the modern age. What wasn’t said was nobody was about to invest the huge piles of money to build the expensive power plants (that ran on inexpensive coal) or the rest of the expensive electrical infrastructure African countries would need. The electrical grid in general needs batteries. Yeah, cars need lightweight batteries. But batteries for the grid, needed at night when solar panels don’t do anything, can be heavy. As in made from iron. Form Energy is developing such batteries that would be significantly cheaper than batteries from other materials. Nuclear power is getting another look because it doesn’t emit climate destroying gases. However, another problem for nuclear is developing. Around some reactors there is no longer enough water to keep them cooled. And the heated water, when dumped back in the environment, has its own problems. One might think power in the Middle East wouldn’t be a problem since it has so much oil. But it has been cheaper to sell the oil and generate power through coal or nuclear. However, the region’s power infrastructure is shoddy (like in Texas) and can’t handle the heat. People have died when hospital ventilators lose power. So citizens and business are powering their places with generators – which use oil. Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior, is touring the drought stricken West. She said there will be no more approvals of oil and gas leases on public lands. Not even approvals for exploration. Drilling for oil and gas takes water. Fracking takes a lot of water. There just isn’t enough to support life and oil production too. A post from a few weeks ago, reported by Lauren Floyd of Kos:

The day before former President Donald Trump was scheduled to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, CNN host Jim Acosta delivered the kind of spot-on analysis of Trump that will likely hold true for years to come. “Now there’s something I’d like to address. A couple of weeks ago, I compared Trump’s comeback tour to the circus, full of sideshow acts and clowns,” Acosta said Saturday on CNN Newsroom. “I later got an email from an expert on the circus industry. This person pointed out that comparison actually was not fair because unlike the chaos of Trump world, the circus is carefully composed and organized. “It’s a great point. Comparing Trump to a clown is most definitely an insult to clowns.”