Is this school better? You're not allowed to know.

I visited the Detroit Auto Show this afternoon. My purpose was to talk to representatives of the various car companies to ask if they have an electric car that meets my needs. My needs are straightforward. I want a car. Not an SUV or a truck. A car. And it doesn’t need to be very big. I want one car. I don’t have space for two. I want an electric car with a sufficient range to visit by brother on one charge. He lives about 275 miles away. The trip is short enough that I don’t want a lengthy recharging stop halfway through. Any farther than that and I’ll likely stop for a meal and could include a charge. The bad news is car companies are not there yet. The good news is they’re getting close. Several said they have vehicles with a 300 mile range or close to it. Alas, most of these vehicles are SUVs and bigger than I want and costing much more than I want to pay. Stellantis has a nice little electric car, but it gets only 150 miles on a charge. Jon Paul Sydnor is a writer for Street Prophets, a progressive Christian community on Daily Kos. He recently wrote that concepts of God matter and he proposed a progressive concept of God. The post discusses a lot of theology, most of which is of no interest to me (and likely to you). However, this is one idea that is interesting and is related to conservative Christianity.

Christian theologians, following Plato, have insisted that since only imperfect things can develop or increase, and God is perfect, God cannot develop or increase. Divine development would imply divine imperfection. ... Intentionally or accidentally, this concept of God condemns change. If God is immutable—static and unchanging—then to be static and unchanging becomes our highest ideal. If God is immutable, then by implication that which is must take priority over that which could be. All change becomes decline. Divinized immutability reinforces social rigidity, preserving entitlement and preventing reform. Such stasis was never the intention of the Hebrew prophets or Christ Jesus.

Eli Hager, in an article for ProPublica posted on Kos, discussed the school voucher program in Arizona. The example in the story was Title of Liberty, a private Mormon school in Mesa that went out of business. It’s source of income was voucher payments through the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. There were some reasons why this particular school failed. But there were other reasons related to the way Arizona set up their voucher program. Some of them: The law that created the ESA provided zero transparency into a school’s finances, or academic quality. Parents has no information on whether this school was better than that school (or any good at all), had a solid or shady past, and was financially healthy enough to stick around for the entirety of their child’s education. Public schools in Arizona are tightly regulated and their performance is known. That’s not true of charters. Schools that take public money yet have no public accountability is baffling to many educators and parents. The vouchers benefit the rich, who could afford the tuition anyway. They don’t benefit the poor mainly because high-quality private schools don’t exist in their neighborhoods. Parents who send their kids to private schools can speak at public school board meetings and vote in school board elections. Public school parents cannot attend the board meetings of a private school. Defenders of vouchers say the American education should be a free market of options. But if the quality of a school is a secret a parent can’t make good purchasing decisions. A parent needs quality assurance. The No Child Left Behind law, a big legislative achievement of Bush II, was big on transparency and accountability. Schools had to prove they were educating kids up to state standards. The same standards applied to schools accepting vouchers. About 2017-2020 studies “found that larger voucher programs had produced severe declines in student performance, especially in math.” The declines were blamed in part on overregulation, which prompted no regulation and secrecy. Is the school you’re considering for your child better? You’re not allowed to know. Oliver Willis of Kos discussed why Republicans are so eager to blame various people for the Los Angeles fires and their severity. Willis includes several examples of their accusations. Their tirades aren’t just about the fire and they’re not new. California is frequently targeted because it is highly Democratic.

Over the decades, conservative politicians and right-wing media have frequently used California as subject of scorn and derision because of the state’s liberal politics. California has embraced many progressive policies on the environment, gender equality, LGBTQ+ equality, and racial equality, while also being the home to the entertainment industry and much of the tech industry. When something bad happens in California, conservatives flock to the issue to use it as “proof” that liberalism and the Democratic Party are also bad.

In the case of the fires the severity can partly be blamed on conservatism and their climate change denial. Willis also reported that this time Republicans aren’t content to lay blame. They’re now talking about politicizing the fires. There is talk to link relief funds to a plan to raise the federal debt limit. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. With the way the government is spending money (to soon be made worse by renewing tax cuts) the debt limit has to be raised. Not doing so means a government shutdown. Also, because of the House Freedom Caucus Republicans on their own don’t have enough votes to raise the limit. So enticing Democrats to vote for the increase by throwing in wildfire aid might be good. But it is also bad because it sets a precedent. If done once there will be a next time. And next time the pairing may not be with raising the debt limit, but with such things as tax cuts for the rich, or efforts to remove LGBTQ books from school libraries, or authorization to invade Greenland. I also remember that a big reason why the nasty guy wants the debt ceiling raised is so he can extend tax cuts to billionaires. That’s bad. But he is going to do that anyway. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Edward Helmore of The Guardian:

The politicization of the Los Angeles fires could be showing signs of intensifying. To opposing political factions, the ruin of parts of Los Angeles offers an inviting but deadly tableau on which to lay out their contrary agendas. To Democrats, the intensity with which the fires took hold, propelled by the late-season Santa Ana winds, is evidence of climate change that some Republicans deny as a political hoax. To some Republicans, including Trump, the fires are evidence of mismanagement under Democrats’ racial- and gender-equity drives. ... Warren Davidson, an Ohio representative, called on Friday for federal disaster relief to be withheld from California unless the state reforms its forestry management practices.

And from Parker Malloy of The New Republic:

The same people who spent years telling us climate change isn’t real are now trying to blame the fires on the fact that the L.A. Fire Department’s chief is a woman. Never mind that Kristin Crowley worked her way up through the ranks for 22 years. Never mind that the department’s leadership is still predominantly male. The right has found a way to combine their favorite bogeymen: diversity initiatives, California governance, and climate science. ... This is the playbook we’re going to see for every climate disaster going forward. Rather than acknowledge the role of climate change, rather than have honest discussions about infrastructure and emergency preparedness, the right will search for ways to blame their cultural grievances. Everything becomes evidence of their preferred narrative: Hydrant failures become proof of Democratic mismanagement, female leadership becomes proof of “woke” politics gone wrong, and the actual causes get buried under an avalanche of manufactured outrage.

In the comments of a second pundit roundup is a cartoon by Mike Luckovich. It shows a person at the base of a devastated hillside crawling for help. A person labeled “GOP” says, “You want aid? Put on this MAGA cap.” And exlrrp posted a meme:

Over a MILLION acres of wildfires in Texas last year. Funny that it wasn’t blamed on poor water resource management, black or female firefighters or [Gov.] Greg f---ing Abbott.

Poison pills for every bill

I finished the book The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer. It is both gay and science fiction, a great combination! The story starts about 400 years from now. The narrator is Ambrose Cusk of the rich Cusk family and the Fédération, one of the last two countries on earth. He even graduated from Cusk Academy with top honors. He wakes up to see he’s on a spaceship. The problem isn’t that he’s on the spaceship, it’s that he doesn’t remember the launch. The mission is to rescue his sister Minerva who went to Saturn’s moon Titan to establish a colony and she set off a distress beacon. Already, I’m thinking what’s with these missions of just one person? That doesn’t sound wise. There are other weird things about the mission. What Ambrose thought was his entire spaceship he discovers is only half and in the other half is for Kodiak Celius of Dimokratía, the other remaining country. The culture of Fédération feels very American and Dimokratía feels very Russian, so yeah, they’re supposed to be enemies. More weird things: They have lost contact with Mission Control on earth and it can’t be restored. There are rooms the AI (which uses Ambrose’ Mother’s voice) running the ship won’t let them into. They find a damaged panel with dried blood that matches Ambrose but is a couple thousand years old. When Ambrose does meet the aloof Kodiak he feels the attraction immediately. Since Ambrose is narrating we don’t know for quite a while if Kodiak has reciprocal feelings. They are lovers, but they’re more partners, partly because there is no one else. The weirdness increases, then turns to violence and cruelty. I’m wondering: What is going on? I won’t explain because the mystery is a good part of the book’s experience. The reader needs to feel the confusion as Ambrose and Kodiak do. The cruelty and weirdness are soon partially explained. Only much later is the true mission of the journey explained. That mission is one used in a large number of science fiction stories. And that leaves the big question: Why did the author choose a mission profile that is based on so much cruelty? Is this the only scenario he could come up with in which two enemies could fall into love? Overall, I did enjoy the book. Ambrose and Kodiak are pretty sweet characters and handle their predicament well. Last week Joan McCarter of Daily Kos reported on the nasty guy’s campaign’s plan for mayhem after the election. Senior campaign advisor Chris LaCivita told Politico’s Jonathon Martin: “It’s not over until he puts his hand on the Bible and takes the oath.” Add to that a statement by Mike Howell, executive director of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, according to The Washington Post: “As things stand right now, there’s a zero percent chance of a free and fair election.” Also, LaCivita wonders why we’re obsessed over the “stolen” election even as the nasty guy keeps talking about it and saying we soon won’t have to bother with elections anymore. Back in June, before my travels, Mark Sumner of Kos discussed that Republicans know how to win even without the votes. Over the past four years Republicans have worked to consolidate their control over low-level election officers – the people who oversee and certify elections.

As The Washington Post reports, Trump-aligned county officials have refused to certify results following elections in five swing states since 2020: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania—exactly the states Trump disputed in the last election. So far, none of these attempts has successfully blocked certification. Most efforts have run into state rules governing the counting of results, or succeeded only in delaying results until another authority could enforce certification. But don’t think of these attempts as failures. Think of them as experiments. Think of them as a tiger prowling its cage, testing each bar, and looking for a weakness. Republicans are investigating how these roles can be used to interfere with the quick and accurate generation of election results. They are looking for ways that, by refusing to certify the vote at the district or county level, they can prevent the vote from being certified at the state level. And they’re not even trying to keep these actions secret.

Even if these actions are overturned, they will take time. They increase the doubt that the election was fair and accurate, and they might prevent a state from certifying its results by the deadline to select electors.

If Project 2025 is the autocratic agenda for what happens if Trump wins, this is the flip side—what happens if he loses. And the biggest goal is simply to make it impossible for Trump to lose.

The team trying to overturn the 2020 election didn’t know what they were doing. They’ve had four years to prepare for 2024. On Monday Walter Einenkel of Kos wrote:

On Monday, Ohio state Sen. George Lang introduced Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, at a rally by saying, “I believe wholeheartedly Donald Trump and Butler County's J.D. Vance are the last chance to save our country politically.” Fair enough. “I'm afraid if we lose this one,” Lang continued, “it's going to take a civil war to save the country.” ... This isn’t the first time a Trump ally has threatened violence if the majority of Americans don’t comply with the MAGA agenda. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts recently said, “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”

The old trick of saying: The problem isn’t me taking over the country and oppressing you, the problem is you trying to stop me. I’m keeping in mind the America they want to “save” is the one where the straight white Christian males claiming to be at the top of the social hierarchy have permission to oppress anyone lower in the hierarchy that they want to. McCarter reported now that Biden has dropped out of the race for President the House Republican investigations into Biden, in hopes of uncovering an impeachable offense, have been abandoned. Which is proof that the effort has always been political. In the meantime the House efforts to pass spending bills has been so caught up in Republican v. Freedom Caucus battles the House might take their August break two weeks early – and still remain out until Labor Day. The Freedom Caucus wants poison pills for every bill. Sumner wrote:

Trump and Republicans are trying to put forward a mock unity that mostly consists of mouthing platitudes while reducing calls for retribution. But as the hall of yawning Republican delegates showed at the Republican National Convention this week, without their calls for violence, they have nothing else. They were forced to put on a circus act, just to kill time and try to stir the listless crowd.

Also, the nasty guy can’t keep his mouth shut and his vocabulary is limited to whining and making threats. The nasty guy has fed his white male base through that whining and making threats. So how to keep them happy without keeping up the calls for vengeance? Don’t worry. Now that the convention is over the calls for violence will return. Kos of Kos reminds us there is now only one guy in the presidential race who is old.

Don’t worry, Republicans will soon levy their sexist, racist attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris. That is absolutely ahead of us. But for years now, they have built a narrative that being old is a bad thing. Heck, they just wasted a whole week at their convention railing against Biden’s age. Now, for the last three or so months of this campaign, they’ll get to wear that albatross around their neck.

Nick Anderson posted a cartoon on Kos it shows a big sign on the side of the RNC headquarters that says “Don’t vote for the Old Guy.” A worker is starting to paint over it as a guy at the door yells, “Hurry up.” Now is probably a good time to pull out some stuff that has been languishing in my browser tabs. The old family farm, built around 1900, has a way to get from the basement (I think Grandma called it the “cellar”) directly to the yard. The doors were not vertical but diagonal over the stairway. Grandma used the doors to take the laundry from the washing machine to the clothesline for drying. I mention all that because most younger people probably are not familiar with such doors. And if you are unfamiliar, just look at this cartoon. It is from February and is by David Horsley and is captioned “The rats in America’s cellar.” It shows emerging from that cellar a guy with a white power shirt, another with a Klan hat, a bit of a Confederate flag in the back, and all with guns. Willie Ross Jr tweeted:

We know that Trump didn't create racism. But, do you think he gave his followers permission to be and practice racism?

Pastor David Hayward posted a cartoon of the nasty guy dressed as a shepherd. One sheep tells the others, “He says the art of the deal is we pray for him and he preys on us.” Jen Sorensen of Kos posted a cartoon with the title “Many white Americans fail to assimilate.” It shows them in self-segregated neighborhoods, such as “Caucasion Pointe.” They fly the flag of a foreign country, such as the Confederacy. And they refuse to speak contemporary English, clinging to old offensive terms. McCarter reported that yesterday marks the 15th anniversary of the last time the minimum wage was raised. It has been at $7.25 all this time. Yes, many states have created higher minimum wages, but many states, mostly Republican led, have not. And Republicans are good at using cultural war issues to distract from not raising it. In that time the cost of many items, such as rent and groceries, have gone up about 50%. Those earning minimum wage take home only $14,500 a year, far below the federal poverty level. Yet, CEO pay went up 13% just last year. When the last attempt to raise the minimum wage happened Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, Democrats, made sure it failed. They’ll be gone next year. But will the government be in Democratic hands? Sumner wrote that Elon Musk bragged about how much he was donating to PACs to help the nasty guy’s campaign. And it was quite a bit. But now he is pretending he isn’t giving that support. What changed? Tesla’s profits. They dropped 45%. Republicans don’t buy electric cars because the nasty guy told them not to, because the nasty guy gets big donations from Big Oil. Democrats do buy electric cars, but when Must became so loud in his support of the nasty guy Democrats stopped buying Teslas. They can bypass that brand with so many other electric vehicles now available.

What could slow down the GOP march toward authoritarianism?

An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reports that Biden has pardoned perhaps thousands of US service members who were convicted of consensual gay sex. These convictions came from the military’s criminalization of sodomy in 1951. In 2013 that law was rewritten to prohibit only forcible acts. The pardon allows former service members to recover lost pay and benefits (such as access to VA hospitals). Those now pardoned are able to apply to get proof their conviction has been erased. This is all good news! As great as the news is, those convicted of the same crime but under a different name, such as “indecency,” are not automatically included in the pardon. People with those convictions will need to request clemency which will be handled individually. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the nasty guy’s criticism on electric vehicles. Yeah, we get that these complaints are a way to signal allegiance for the oil industry. But some of his complaints are quite strange. He has talked about EVs being able to go only 15 minutes between charging while diesel trucks can drive coast to coast without refueling (neither is true). That all EVs are made in China (news to Elon, perhaps he should say something?). That Army tanks need batteries so so big the tank needs to tow a wagon like a child (battery run tanks don’t exist, yet). Since all of these claims are obviously wrong and easily disproven one wonders why no one calls him on them. I’ve mentioned Project 2025 several times now. It’s a document close to a thousand pages long describing how the next Republican president can turn America into an authoritarian state. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote the authors are starting to enact it. The actions so far are to go through the backgrounds, social media accounts, and anything else they can look at of high-ranking civil servants of the Department of Homeland Security. Of course, the purpose of all this inspection is to determine which employees are loyal to the nasty guy. Government employees who are civil servants are not appointed by the president and are protected from politically motivated firings. That’s something the nasty guy wants to elimiate and tried to do during his first term. Once all the info is gathered the group intends to post 100 names to a website. And nothing good came come of that, even if the nasty guy never sets foot in the Oval Office again. The damage will come from the mistrust the list will create among the employees. For those who are loyal to the job and the country they will get threats from the MAGA hordes. And it will come when the list is posted, months ahead of the election. The nasty guy’s first attempt would have affected about 50,000 federal employees. A second attempt will affect far more. And will mean the federal government will stop functioning. Way back in 2021 I saved a tweet by Brian Klass. Yeah, almost three years later I’m looking at that tab. In the meantime Elon Musk bought Twitter and blocked my access to all but the first tweet of a thread. So I found it on Threadreader – with a whole bunch he’s written since. I would have simply closed the tab for something that old. But this one still resonates. Klass is an associate professor in Global Politics at UCL. He’s written a book and contributes articles to The Atlantic. In this thread from Sept. 21, 2021 he is pessimistic about American democracy because of one question: “What could slow down the GOP march toward authoritarianism?” Republicans who don’t bow down to the nasty guy are primaried with someone who will. Gerrymandering means in many places a Democrat has no chance. Because of social media nasty people like Marjorie Taylor Greene aren’t expelled, they’re treated as social media stars. Republicans who defend democracy are treated as pariahs. The Capitol attack didn’t break a the party, instead it became a loyalty litmus test.

The point is this: there are huge pressures pushing Republicans toward embracing authoritarian extremism. And here's the problem: there are no countervailing forces. There's nothing that rewards being a sober moderate who believes in democracy and tries to govern by consensus. ... Here's the bottom line: nobody has come up with a convincing explanation for how this authoritarian trend reverses itself. That's why, as someone who studies these dynamics for a living, I'm worried that the GOP is becoming irreversibly authoritarian. (Sorry to be depressing)

On November 22, 2021 Klass had a bit more to say on that subject.

When a despotic leader emerges in a democracy and captures a party, the party has two choices: push back hard and prioritize democracy, or re-make the party in the image of the would-be authoritarian. The GOP clearly chose the latter.

So how might we as a society get rid of the Republican authoritarianism? Alas, possible methods are implausible. There could be a massive voter rebuke. But so many states are so highly gerrymandered (and made more so before the 2022 election) many Republicans will win anyway. Media could call them out. But media polarization means Republicans don’t watch any source that might. A national crisis could be a jolt. And we had them – the Capitol attack and a pandemic. And they made no difference. All the incentives for zealots, like MTG, are for them to get worse. Incentives for moderates are to move further right or be primaried.

Democrats need to protect democracy, reform institutions to make them more robust, and understand that for the foreseeable future, their political rivals are authoritarian. They must therefore act accordingly.

They’ve done a bit of strengthening institutions, but not nearly enough.

How can Republicans oppress people if their citizens thwart plans?

I finished the book Magic Season, a Son’s Story, by Wade Rouse. This is a memoir about Rouse trying to understand his father as he is dying. I had read a previous memoir by Rouse, At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life. This was about Rouse and his husband moving from the city to a rural area of southwest Michigan. It was funny and I found it quite entertaining. Rouse was born in the Ozarks of southwest Missouri. As a gay boy he did not fit in. His father tried to teach him to play baseball, which was a disaster. All the other things country boys are expected to do – hunt and fish (and handle what they kill), do farm chores – were also a disaster. His father didn’t know what to do with him. Even though Rouse was terrible at baseball and any other sport he fell in love with listening to the St. Louis Cardinals games on the radio with his father, then the two of them soon made the trip to St. Louis to attend games. The book is structured around the innings of a playoff game between the Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs in October of 2015. Rouse was with his father as caregiver. Not being able to play sports was just one way Rouse disappointed his father. Rouse went off to college to major in journalism, which Dad didn’t consider a real job. Rouse applied to Northwestern for his Master’s. When the acceptance call came Dad said he had decided to go elsewhere, without telling his son. I thought that was the worst of the meddling. When Rouse told his dad he is gay Dad didn’t speak to him for two years (Mom was fine with a gay son). When Dad called at the end of those two years all he did was talk about the Cardinals. Rouse’s boyfriend (later husband) Gary was annoyed that no apology was given. Rouse said the call itself, Dad being the one to break the silence, was the apology. Rouse said he didn’t want to blame his father (though there was plenty of reason to do so). He wanted to understand and honor his father. And by the end I think he managed that. He saw his father as the product of his time and place. Men were not taught how to handle their emotions or to deal with change, such as producing a gay son. All the old man knew how to do was rage at the world and drink another beer. By the end of the book I think Rouse did understand his father and through recognizing the good traits he had learned he figured out how to honor his nemesis. I highly recommend this one. Dartagnan of Daily Kos reported on the hostage taking by Republicans and Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio. Republicans say that since the Democratic Convention is after the deadline to put candidates on the state ballot they won’t let Biden be on the ballot unless they get abortion restrictions. There are a couple more things as part of the hostage ransom. This attempt at abortion restrictions comes after Ohio voters approved an amendment to the state constitution to protect abortion rights. There is a bill approving Biden for the ballot – this type of bill passed the Ohio legislature in 2012 and 2020 – but Republicans refuse to advance it. One of those other things is a measure to keep money from “foreign nationals” out of citizen sponsored initiatives. Sounds good, no? The problem is that the new rules for verifying and enforcing whether there is foreign money would so difficult and expensive to navigate that it would end citizen initiatives – which is the point. How can Republicans oppress their people if their citizens keep coming up with ways to thwart them? The other thing is a measure that would immediately funnel challenges to new abortion laws directly to the highly anti-abortion Ohio Supreme Court. One of the justices on that court is Pat DeWine – the governor’s son. Neither of these poison pills, are things the average voter is going to understand. One of them has convoluted reasoning and neither spell out the intended consequences.

What’s transpiring now in Ohio is a textbook example of how Republicans simply do not care about what the majority of their citizens want, and the lengths they’ll go to force their agenda down their voters’ throats.

Silence of the Kos community wrote that the Democratic Party is going to thwart the hostage-taking by doing virtual roll call (like they did in 2020 in the pandemic era) of the delegates well before the Ohio deadline. So Biden’s actual nomination as the Democratic candidate will come well before the convention. Robert Downen and Renzo Downey, in an article for the Texas Tribune posted on Kos, discussed the Texas Republican Party platform recently voted on by delegates. It has such things as: The Bible must be taught in public schools. Statewide leaders (such as secretary of state) must get a majority of votes in a majority of counties, not just overall – with 254 counties, most of them sparsely populated and rural, that would mean a Democrat could never again win statewide office (That would violate the Voting Rights Act? Well, call for repealing the VRA). Abortion is homicide. Gender transition treatment is child abuse. Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice. Biden was not legitimately elected. Immigration is the “greatest threat to American security and sovereignty.” And many more. Yeah, many of those were in the 2022 platform. And, yeah, the party is moving further right each time it writes a platform.

During a speech on the convention stage on Saturday, former gubernatorial candidate and state Sen. Don Huffines carried a printed version of the platform with him. He noted that Republicans have controlled the Legislature and the governor’s mansion for two decades, but the party still struggles to secure its priorities. “We could get any piece of legislation done anytime we want, but, every session, we struggle to get our platform into law,” Huffines said.

Many of us are glad that turning the platform into law is so hard. In another post from last Friday Downen wrote about the chaos in the Texas Republican Party (though not so much chaos as to stop voting on the platform). It’s a long article that I think is summarized as this: There was a lot of effort to purge Republican members who weren’t conservative enough. That prompted a shrinking of the donor base to there are two major donors left. They are...

Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, who have for years funded attacks by the far right on fellow Republicans, pushed for hardline restrictions on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights, and faced recent scandals over avowed white supremacists and antisemites working for their political network. In the decade before Rinaldi became chair, the party received $310,000 in donations from Dunn, Wilks or their political action committees. Since then, they have given more than $1.2 million to the party — and last year, as Rinaldi increasingly used his position to attack their political enemies, the billionaires made up a quarter of the party’s total donations.

The Texas Republican Party is beholden to only two super wealthy far right dudes. No wonder their platform reads as it does. In an Earth Matters report for Kos Meteor Blades had a few interesting segments. Blades looked at the nasty guy’s request for a bribe from the oil industry, saying he’ll undo all the Biden oil regulations. Thankfully, Rep. Jamie Raskin is asking the Department of Justice to investigate. But since there are so many legal ways to make big donations, being able to document the cash that is part of the bribe will be mighty difficult. To get to net zero carbon by mid century we must triple our investment in renewable energy by the end of this decade. And the chance to get to net zero is “rapidly closing.” The researchers who determined that predict that we’ll hit “peak oil” next year with sharp declines after that. Some industries are fairly easy to decarbonize. Others, such as avation and steelmaking, will be much harder. Millennials and Gen Z are anxious about the planet. As an action they can take they are quitting jobs that aren’t eco-friendly. The State of the World’s Human Rights report now includes the status of the right to a healthy environment. It shows climate impacts people in every country and causes more harm to marginalized groups. Cities are buying EVs in bulk for their government needs. That will speed up acceptance of EVs for personal use. It also gives cities a good way to reduce pollution. They’re also cheaper to run and maintain. Half the pasture lands on earth has been degraded by climate change. That threatens food supply. Two weeks ago Mitch Perry, in an article for the Florida Phoenix posted on Kos, reported that DeathSantis has signed a bill that will erase the phrase “climate change” from state laws. The bill was to be signed in Clearwater Beach, but 15 minutes before the ceremony the Gov’s appearance was canceled because the area was under a severe thunderstorm watch. The next day a poll showed that 68% of respondents say the state government should do more to address climate change.

Arizona Republicans boxed themselves in over abortion

On Monday the nasty guy posted a video of himself discussing his position on abortion. Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported the nasty guy seemed to think he took the issue out of play in the campaign. His position satisfied nobody. Conservatives say it didn’t go far enough. Those not conservative say it went too far. And Biden issued ads blaming the national abortion mess squarely on the nasty guy. Biden has a campaign issue to take him all the way to victory in November. Part of what the nasty guy said is that abortion should be a state issue. And on Tuesday the Arizona Supreme Court issued a decision that put a restrictive 1864 abortion ban in play. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that Rachel Maddow of MSNBC discussed the headlines in various media outlets which gave the impression the nasty guy had moderated his position on abortion, which he has not. Those headlines likely delighted him. He got what he wanted. A more accurate headline might be:

Trump abandons previous criticism of strictest state abortion bans. Trump avoids mention of Republican proposals for national restrictions.

Mark Sumner of Kos discussed the Republican response to the Arizona abortion ban. It’s like what happens when a dog succeeds in catching the car. Yup, Republicans have been pushing a ban, campaigning on a ban, and even working to get a case before the state Supremes. Sumner lists many of their efforts. But now the ban is about to be put in place and because of how unpopular it is they are frantically backpedaling. In a pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Laurie Roberts of the Arizona Republic. There is already an effort to get a proposal on the November ballot to put abortion rights in the state constitution. That will be a big gain for Biden, who narrowly won the state in 2020. That puts Republicans in a box.

But here is what is clear: If the GOP-run Legislature does nothing and allows this 19th century law to stand, Republicans soon could be looking at a state where abortion is a constitutional right and Democrats take total control of the state. ... But how does a MAGA Legislature extract itself from the box it built? If Republicans repeal the 1864 law now about to take effect, they make a mockery of their own belief that life begins at conception and all abortion is murder. If they put a competing measure on the ballot, proposing that abortion be legal for up to 15 weeks, they risk alienating their voter base and send a message that the “ultimate sin” is negotiable. And if they do nothing, disaster.

Please, take that last option! Down in the comments is a cartoon posted by Mike Luckovich. Two elephants are talking as behind them are a crowd of angry women with “Keep Abortion Legal” signs. One elephant says, “Perhaps we erred in ending women’s reproductive rights...” And the other replies, “...Without ending women’s voting rights...” Kos of Kos discussed the stock price of the nasty guy’s Truth Social company. At its height the company was worth $8.8 billion and the nasty guy’s share was about $5 billion. The share price is down to $36 and the company is down to a value of under $5 billion (as of Monday) with his share down to $2.8 billion. How low can it go? What is a company like that really worth? A generous valuation would be ten times its annual revenue (not profit), or $32 million, a lot less than $5 billion. The average tech stock is worth about five times its revenue, or $16 million. That would put the stock price at 12 cents a share with his portion worth about $9 million. This could fall a lot further. In the situation of a highly overvalued company investors like to short a stock, to profit from a falling price. But so many people want to short this stock the cost of doing so has jumped sky high. Last week Republicans promoted the idea of renaming Washington’s Dulles airport in honor of the nasty guy. Why not? The other big airport in the area is named for Ronald Reagan. Einenkel reported Democrats have a different idea:

Introduced by Gerry Connolly of Virginia, Jared Moskowitz of Florida, and John Garamendi of California, the legislation would “designate the Miami Federal Correctional Institution in Florida as the Donald J. Trump Federal Correctional Institution.”

Connolly wrote in a statement:

I see no reason to wait. Donald Trump faces nearly 100 felony charges. He has been found liable of sexual abuse and, subsequently, for defaming the victim of that abuse. He has been fined hundreds of millions of dollars in a civil fraud case. It is only right that the closest federal prison to Mar-a-Lago should bear his name. I hope our Republican friends will join us in bestowing upon Donald J. Trump the only honor he truly deserves.

And Moskowitz said:

Everyone knows President Trump loves to write his name in gold letters on all his buildings. But he’s never had his name on a federal building before and as a public servant I just want to help the former president. Help us make that dream a reality.

If convicted perhaps he can ask to be sent to the prison with his name on it. They could even put his name in gold. A while ago I wrote that the Senate would have to deal with the articles of impeachment against Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas even as their schedule was full preventing a government shutdown. Well, the budget was approved and they left town for Easter and there is no impeachment trial yet. The reason is because though the House approved the articles of impeachment back in February they haven’t been delivered to the Senate yet. Joan McCarter of Kos reported the Senate is getting ready. They’re doing that by trying to figure out how they can get the whole thing over with as quickly as possible. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the whole thing is “absurd” and a waste of time. Sen. Joe Manchin trashed it. Even at least three Republicans, including Mitt Romney, think there is no crime to warrant impeachment or trial. So the first item in dealing with it is to vote whether to hold a trial, with the expectation the answer would be no. Kalli Joy Gray of Kos wrote on Tuesday that Mike Johnson might delay delivering those articles of impeachment until next week. A Johnson spokesperson wrote: “To ensure the Senate has adequate time to perform its constitutional duty, the House will transmit the articles of impeachment to the Senate next week.” What difference would that make? None. See above for what the Senate thinks of the mess. Wrote Gray:

Okay, sure. Just wait a little bit longer and the Senate will come around. But perhaps, just to be safe, Johnson should give it another week after that. And another week after that. And another week ...

In an Earth Matters column for Kos Meteor Blades discussed a report by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, and others at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. It is titled “Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles.” I downloaded it and read through the list of false claims and a couple of the rebuttals. Some of the false claims are: Solar panels generate too much waste and will overwhelm our landfills. Solar energy is more expensive than fossil fuels and completely dependent on subsidies. Wind turbines frequently fall over, and blades or other components easily break off, threatening human health and safety. Wind turbines are bad for farmers and rural communities. Electric vehicles are impractical due to range restrictions. Again, all those claims are false. Each of those false claims is met with facts and a large number of references to research. Blades quoted the rebuttal to the first false claim I mentioned. Yes, manufacturing panels produces waste, as does any manufacturing. But it is significantly less waste than the fossil fuel industry produces. Making solar panels has 300-800 times less waste than coal ash. Blades also quoted science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, who has written several novels on environmental themes. He and the books have won honors. One of those books is “The Ministry for the Future.” Robinson said,

If we could have gotten a 9% rate of return for destroying the world and 6% for saving the world, we’re going to go for the 9% because we don’t care about the world. We like capital, so we go to the highest rate of return. And so do governments. If you want us to invest in good things like saving the Earth, you need to indemnify us, we need to be insured by the government. ... The pandemic slapped us in the face with the realization that the biosphere could kill us and change your life drastically on a turning of a dime. I think that gave “The Ministry for the Future” more force in people’s minds when they read it. It comes down to this: we really are paying attention and trying to do things and I’ve seen huge commitments by people all across the board, governments, diplomats, business people, academics, all of them focused on can we deal with this problem, and that is a powerful combination of social forces. I didn’t think that was true when I wrote the book, but now I think it is true.

Mark Parisi posted an eclipse cartoon. Just after the event the sun says, “Can’t believe I just got mooned.”

Raking in huge profits and pretending needing to be rescued

Mark Sumner of Daily Kos, in this week’s edition of stories to know series included:

On March 8, the NOAA announced that this has been the warmest winter in U.S. history, with overall temperatures 5.4 degrees above average. The winter was also wetter than usual. That may generate temporary relief in some drought areas, but it's unclear if this will continue into summer, when more record heat is expected.

Sumner also included a video created by Steve Shives who discusses how comics are important to life. In this 23 minute video Shives talks about an edition of DC Comics Superman from 20 years ago and why this particular story is relevant to today. I’ve watched an occasional movie based on DC and Marvel comics. It’s been many years since I have, mostly because there is too much violence. In this story Superman faces some bad guys that act like good guys in that they get rid of other bad guys. The reason why Superman considers them bad is they are unconcerned with collateral damage and they think killing the actual bad guys is a good thing. Superman responds with why disabling the bad guys, yet keeping them alive, is better. The story also include Superman listening to why people are drawn to his new enemies (as people are always drawn to strongmen). Yes, there are a lot of intentional parallels to authoritarians, even though this was published before the current batch. Superman’s way allows the author to explain to the characters and to us why Superman’s way is preferable. Back to the climate. In an Earth Matters column for Kos, Meteor Blades, had a few interesting stories. Rebecca Burns of Sierra magazine wrote about the latest tricks the climate deniers are using. Blades wrote about a couple of them. One is going into rural communities and get the residents riled up against wind turbines. Of course, the reasoning they use is mostly lies (I’m not familiar with how loud a wind turbine actually is and whether the claimed noise is a lie). They also go to state legislatures to restrict spending on climate action. When visiting my aunt and uncle in Ohio several months (or maybe a couple years) ago I saw small signs by the road at some farms saying the owner was against a wind project. My aunt lamented the appearance of these signs and said they were because of what the Sierra magazine discussed. Blades also wrote about a study from the Environmental Protection Agency about the life cycle emissions of electric vehicles. There are claims that EVs are as bad or are worse that ICE (internal combustion engine) cars. The claim says one must add in the emissions during manufacturing, especially of batteries, and the emissions of generating the electricity. The EPA looked at EVs in five countries. In France EVs are cleaner (even considering all sources of emissions) after 25K kilometers (15K miles), while in China the breakeven point is 153K km (92K miles). But as manufacturing of batteries becomes more efficient and power plants switch to cleaner sources the breakeven point will drop. FishOutofWater of the Kos community posted the Atlantic heat anomaly map for March 12. Yeah, the water is warm and has set a new record. Last year the sea surface temperature started heading higher than previous readings at the end of April. It set a record in mid August. This year the readings are way above previous readings for this time of year and earlier this month topped August’s reading. The rest of the post gets rather technical, but it leaves with this thought: The 2024 hurricane season could be nasty. Sumner looked at the nasty guy’s claim (threat?) to “Drill, baby, drill” if he gets back to the Oval Office. But...

The idea that President Joe Biden is holding back American energy production and has “destroyed U.S. energy independence” is being spread not just by Trump but also by Republicans in the House and Senate. Claims of a Biden “war on energy” are front and center in Republican campaigns, in claims by the conservative Heritage Foundation, and in Trump’s dictatorial ambitions. But all of this is just lies, baby, lies.

The US is in the middle of a record oil boom. It hasn’t needed to import oil since about 2020 and now produces enough to export. That’s while the US had a record year for renewable energy and installing renewable capacity. While the nasty guy’s – and Republican’s – claims are easily disproved, energy is supposed to be one of the issues Republicans are good at. That “drill, baby, drill” line has been used by Republicans since at least 2008. Republicans are making energy an issue because the oil and gas industry is a significant donor – and because Biden keeps calling for immensely profitable companies, like oil and gas companies, pay their fair share in taxes.

It also helps that Republicans are still calling both renewable energy and the climate crisis is a hoax. Fossil fuel companies really like that. Give them lower taxes, lower regulations, cheap public land, and cripple their competition? They’ll take that any day. So they’re both raking in huge amounts of money and pretending that they need to be rescued from mean old Biden.

A week ago I thought I’d soon be writing about my forsythia blooming. A few years ago I posted that it bloomed at the end of March, which was rare. And now I’m looking at it blooming in mid March. Except we are having a cold snap and maybe snow tomorrow. So instead of blooming it looks like most of the buds on a few of the shrubs were killed by the cold. This is the second time my forsythia didn’t bloom because early warm days were followed by cold ones. Dartagnan of the Kos community wrote about the practice of judge shopping. Conservative ideologues would file their case in the court of a judge they knew would be friendly to whatever cause they wanted to enforce across the country that they knew would never be approved through the ballot box. Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Amarillo has gained fame for being the judge of choice for the forced-birth movement. He’ll give them what they want, no matter hour convoluted his ruling. Since Kacsmaryk is the only federal judge in Amarillo he handles all cases. If they’re appealed (and they are) they go to the conservative 5th Circuit Court. So last week the Judicial Conference of the United States, which creates policy for the federal courts, unveiled a plan to end judge shopping. The plan was that cases would be randomly assigned to one of the federal courts in a state (or region) so plaintiffs couldn’t pick their judge. There was joy that such anti-democracy practices would be ended. That joy lasted about three days. Then far right judges, as well as members of Congress who installed them (like Moscow Mitch), started complaining. And quite quickly the Judicial Conference said the plan is only “guidance” (which can and will be ignored).

It’s telling that nearly all of the objections cited by The Washington Post come from Republican-appointed judges and their backers. But as corrosive to the legal system as the practice of judge shopping is, thanks to the seeding of the federal judiciary with these transparent ideologues, the entire institution is now appearing more and more tainted. ... Due to this rampant ideological corruption—from the top on down—conservatives are gradually transforming the federal judiciary into an institution that many Americans sensibly fear, especially since it can take away established rights without being held accountable. It is a judiciary that does not foster the notions of fairness that Americans have every right to expect from it. It is a judiciary that is becoming increasingly illegitimate in the eyes of the public, because its application of the law is increasingly seen as selective, arbitrary, and politically infused. No ham-handed public relations campaign from the Supreme Court is going to change that, particularly in a system where constitutional law professors can no longer even look their students in the eye and assure them that the nation’s founding principles are being fairly interpreted and applied. Americans should not have to live in dread of how some unelected judge in Amarillo or Fort Worth may decide to rule on an issue that could seriously alter their lives. They shouldn’t have to put up with the arrogance of an unaccountable judiciary that has been deliberately manipulated to fast-track the rabid dreams of domination by a tiny minority.

Mark Ira Kaufman of the Kos community looked at the Jewish Bible (the Christian Old Testament) and showed – contrary to the strong emphasis of Christian evangelicals – the Bible does not command belief in God. Instead, what is commanded is to do what God wants us to do. And what he wants is for us to help and love each other.

The flawed human heart is especially problematic for those whose reliance is on faith to be right by God. Why? Faith, unfettered by reason, is a product of that messed up heart. But if faith doesn't impress God, what is there that can? The answer is offered in the very next verse, calling for righteous conduct. So for those of you pious reprobates who think you're hot stuff in God's eye because of your faith, think again. And don't blame me that your faith might not mean anything to God. I didn't write the Bible.

That “very next verse” is at the top of the Ten Commandments (which Jews call the Ten Utterances), in which God says don’t worship anything else. But why do we need to “impress” God? Doesn’t He love us anyway?

It is more Alito’s court than Roberts’

A couple days ago I wrote about Speaker Mike Johnson claiming to be a modern Moses ready for a Red Sea moment in which his adversaries are swallowed up by the sea – a lot of non-believers suffer before the believers get to the Promised Land. My friend and debate partner replied privately, describing what happened to Moses after the Red Sea incident. Before Moses and the Israelites reached the Promised Land Moses did something to displease God and he died before entering. Does that imply that if Johnson is claiming to be a modern Moses he won’t live to see the Republican Promised Land? Or maybe he’ll just lose the Speakership? I’ve long known that conservatives can be very selective in what parts of the Bible they read. My friend and debate partner gave me a copy of the latest Consumers Report with its latest car ratings. He said I might be interested because of the number of electric vehicles CR has declared as unreliable. Many auto companies don’t yet know how to reliably make EVs. Two days later – this morning – NPR aired a story of reporter Camila Domonoske visiting the Consumers Report garage for testing cars. Part of the report was how CR has had to change how they evaluate EVs, now different from how they evaluate gasoline cars. For example the testers test the range of an EV by driving it until it dies and needs to be towed back to the shop. The segment ends with Domonoske talking to Jake Fisher, who runs the CR auto testing program, about the reliability problems. Fisher says they’re growing pains. All the technology is new. It will get worked out. And once EVs more reliable people will love them for their speed, low effort in driving, and how quiet they are. And this evening NPR’s Scott Detrow talked to Consumers Reports autos reporter Keith Barry and to White House infrastructure advisor Mitch Landrieu. The other big concern about EVs is will the driver find a charging station in time? This is a big question now because building out charging stations is part of the infrastructure bill passed a couple years ago and only now are the first chargers being installed. Landrieu said don’t worry. Starting up takes time. The build out should progress quickly now. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos discussed a report by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak of the New York Times on how much the overturning of abortion rights was orchestrated by Justice Samuel Alito, and by extension Leonard Leo and his dark money empire that got several conservative justices on the Supreme Court. First, Alito kept rescheduling the case, an unusual nine times, until after Ruth Bader Ginsberg died and her replacement Amy Coney Barrett was nominated, confirmed, and had time to settle into the job. When Alito wrote the decision he lifted whole passages from the amicus briefs from people in Leo’s dark money network. Then Alito (well, someone) released the draft of the ruling which froze the text. Justice Gorsuch signed on without requesting changes. Within days so had Thomas, Barrett, and Kavanaugh, again without requesting changes. That prevented Roberts from attempting a less sweeping decision. That means this is more Alito’s court than Roberts’. And the public sees it as such. Or maybe it’s Leo’s court. In a post from ten days ago Charles Jay of the Kos community reported that Sen. Angus King of Maine has changed his stance on gun control. That was prompted by the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine back on October 25. He is joined by Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico to introduce a new bill to prevent rifles from being automatically reloaded. Instead of restricting guns the new bill is about making guns less deadly. In this case it limits “large-capacity ammunition feeding devices” to ten rounds or fewer. Rep. Jared Golden of Maine has also changed his position. He no longer opposes an assault weapons ban. Alas, the King-Heinrich bill doesn’t go as far as banning assault weapons. Even so, it is a good step in that it will reduce gun violence. Any bill that does that is good. Getting it passed is doubtful. EJ Dionne of the Washington Post wrote a column about the King-Heinrich bill. It is not behind a paywall. A few things he wrote: Yes, Republicans routinely oppose gun-safety measures.

But it’s also true that a fair share of Democrats representing rural areas are reluctant to join their big-city colleagues in support of laws too often cast as expressions of disrespect for traditions of gun ownership. The price of culture war politics is steep when it comes to gun regulation.

A provision in the bill says that if an existing gun violates the new magazine limits the owner can give it to a family member or sell it to the government. They can’t sell or give it to anyone else.

King and Heinrich have yet to find Republican co-sponsors, and — no surprise — the National Rifle Association wasted no time in coming out against the proposal. But the gun lobby’s power is slipping, and pollsters have found that parents’ worries about the safety of their children in school are increasingly driving the gun debate. One sign of change was passage last year of modest reforms in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first gun-safety measure enacted in nearly 30 years. Yes, it’s astonishing that so many politicians who tout how tough they are on crime are eager to declare their loyalty to guns and those who manufacture them rather than to the people whose lives they threaten. But winning this fight requires pragmatism and persistence. Here’s hoping that some practical senators from gun-friendly states can turn the tide.

Drew Sherman tweeted a cartoon showing an elephant saying:

We don’t have a gun crisis, we have a mental health crisis! I’m not gonna do anything about either of them, I just wanted to clarify.

This is fun! The White House posted a video of members of Dorrance Dance tap dancing through various rooms of the White House to the sounds of Duke Ellington’s jazz interpretation of a movement from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. It’s quite good and enjoyable. Better yet conservatives are pissed over it, though their reasoning doesn’t make any more sense than it usually does. The dance and decorations certainly look a whole lot better and more festive than when the nasty guy’s wife was in charge. Maybe they yearn for her strange décor?

If your love makes somebody not want to be alive, it's not love

I saw my weekend movie on Friday, a trip to the Detroit Film Theater to see Orlando, My Political Biography. It’s a French language film (with subtitles) directed by Paul B. Preciado. Orlando: A Biography is a novel by Virginia Woolf. It is the story of a young nobleman in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. She commands him to stay forever young, and he does. He has a variety of adventures over the centuries and at once in the 20th century even shifts from male to female – and does so effortlessly by waking up one morning as female. I first encountered the story through the 1992 movie starring Tilda Swinton as Orlando. It was nominated for two Oscars and won several other awards. I remember that I enjoyed it. Preciado, who is transgender, says it doesn’t work that way. So he wrote a letter to Woolf, which is this movie, to tell her what the lives of trans people are really like. If Woolf can essentially tell Preciado’s story long before he was born then he can write a letter to her long after she has died. Along with his comments to Woolf, he directs twenty trans people in acting out scenes from the book. Each introduces themselves as, “I am ____, and I play Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.” Each wears the frilly collar that sticks out, common of the Elizabethan era, in addition to their modern street clothes. Many of these scenes are very much artificial – for one we see the backdrop wheeled in, the artificial trees set about, and the snow blower put into action. In addition the trans people tell us about how they understood themselves to be trans and to act out scenes where they believe Woolf got it wrong – trying to explain their feelings to a clueless psychiatrist, arguing with a hotel clerk because her ID no longer matches. And mostly to tell Woolf that the transition definitely does not happen overnight while one is sleeping. I recommend this one. It is an important story and told in a refreshingly original way. A nice partner to the movie is an article in Parents in which an anonymous parent (wanting to avoid public hassle) of a transgender daughter talked to editor De Elizabeth about myths of the transgender experience. Myth 1 is that the process is quick and easy. The initial therapy lasts at least a year. The daughter complains the process is so slow. Myth 2 is that gender-affirming care for minors usually involves surgery. Actually it rarely involves surgery. Myth 3 is that gender-affirming medical care is harmful to kid’s health. Most of the early care is not medical in nature. Kids who don’t produce enough hormones also get hormone treatment. And harm is caused by not allowing them to transition. Myth 4 is being trans is a trend. There have always been trans kids. What is different now is lowered stigma to allow them to be who they are. I’m pleased to see Parents has several related articles on how to raise healthy trans kids. Assigned male tweeted a cartoon (a month ago) of a girl saying, “If you think that the existence of trans kids is sexualizing children...the problem is that you’re sexualizing transness.” An AP article reports the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court order to stop enforcement of a Florida law that bans drag shows. So while the case is working its way through the courts drag shows can continue. Sigh – justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas said they would have granted the state’s request to allow some shows to be banned. This may not be a sign on how the justices will rule when the case gets to them. But I like what they’re doing for now. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported that Matthew Connor spoke to the Virginia Beach School Board as a parent and against Moms for Liberty. Einenkel included a video and transcription of what Connor said. Here is part of it.

And I'll be real simple in case you aren’t paying attention—they're not the good guys. How can you tell? I can help. The good guys don't get declared extremist groups by human rights organizations. Never in history have the good guys been the ones trying to ban books. Never in history have the good guys been a segregationist group pushing to legislate identity. Never in history have the good guys been closely connected with and supported by hate groups like The Proud Boys. ... Now you've heard some speakers come up here and say how they love these kids but won't accept them. I'm here telling you that if your love makes somebody not want to be alive, it's not love. That's not love. Some speakers are going to get up here and talk about parental rights. The only right the parent has is the right to responsibility. And if you need somebody else to tell you who your kid is, you're probably not that good a parent.

An AP article reports that in 2021 Moms for Liberty had total revenue of $370K. In 2022 it was $2.1M. The group claims that its message is gaining traction with parents left out of their child’s education. But one single donation was $1M and another was $0.5M. Since it is a 501(c)4 nonprofit, it doesn’t have to disclose where those donations came from.

Maurice Cunningham, a former political science professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston who has tracked Moms for Liberty’s growth and relationships, told the AP he views that as further evidence that the group is part of a “top-down” attack on public education.

MFL leadership counters there are 130K unpaid members across the country and another 7.3K small donation members. They can quote what numbers they want, but the money – and the ability to poke their noses into a lot of places – comes from those two donors. I had written about the nasty guy and his latest pronouncements that sound like they were lifted from Mein Kampf. Hunter of Kos commented on an article on Semafor that Biden has been publicly pushing the media to more thoroughly cover the nasty guy’s fascist plans. A Biden campaign official said:

What we see is a failure to properly cover Donald Trump’s dangerous agenda. I think we are filling that void.

Hunter added:

Why, then, is it the Biden campaign's duty to point this out to the majority of the political press? Why are so few national outlets reporting that Trump is promising to implement an explicitly fascist agenda? We are less than three years removed from Trump attempting a coup that left people dead. Why won’t editors believe that Trump and his allies mean what they say? ... Protecting democracy is what the press is supposed to be doing. It's not a "both sides" issue, and it shouldn't be on the not-seditionist party to goad reporters into covering it.

Denise Oliver Velez, at the start of the comments in a pundit roundup, had a few appropriate cartoons. One by Darrin Bell shows two guys in a bar. One says:

It’s not enough to say Biden won’t call me “vermin,” build massive concentration camps, imprison his opponents, seize control of all Federal agencies, purge anyone disloyal to him from government, and deploy the military to silence protests. I need a reason to vote FOR Biden.

A cartoon by Taylor Jones and tweeted by Matt Wueker shows the nasty guy orating with a sign saying “Mein Trumpf.” A cartoon by Bill Bramhall of the New York Daily News shows the nasty guy on TV saying, “I’ll root out all the vermin and build huge concentration camps.” The wife watching says, “But Biden’s age.” Dave Whamond tweeted a cartoon of a giant rat with blond hair in a hazmat suit pointing to a mouse hole drawn with a sharpie and saying to the homeowner, “You have a huuuge vermin problem! And I alone can fix it!” An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that a judge in the Michigan Court of Claims ruled on a case trying to remove the nasty guy from the ballot, saying he’s ineligible due to the Constitution’s “insurrection” clause. The judge ruled that he can remain on the ballot and that it is up to Congress, not one single judicial officer, to decide whether he is disqualified. The plaintiffs said they will immediately appeal to the Michigan Court of Appeals and also asked the state Supreme Court to take the case on an expedited basis. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the nasty guy could stay on the primary ballot “because the election is a party-run contest during which constitutional eligibility isn’t an issue.” Another lawsuit would need to be filed to keep him off the general election ballot. But that is strange logic that leads to a party difficulty of winning the primary then being banned from the general. An AP article on Thursday laid out the claims of both sides in the similar Colorado case. And an AP article posted this morning reported the judge ruled in the Colorado case. The judge ruled that the nasty guy did indeed “engage in insurrection.” This is not a free speech issue. But... the judge then carefully parsed the language in the Constitution and declared that ban doesn’t explicitly apply to the president. The ban does refer to members of Congress and electors for president and vice president, but not the actual office. The evidence presented at the trial had enough for both sides to claim yes, it did, no, it didn’t, apply to the presidency. George Santos is now well known for the guy who lied about his accomplishments and ancestry to get elected to Congress. There are also 23 criminal charges for playing fast and loose with campaign money, though that case hasn’t yet been heard in court. And now the House Ethics Committee released its report. Laura Clawson of Kos reported that the contents are so damning Santos quickly announced he would not run for a second term. But he refused to resign. Ethics reports tend to tiptoe around allegations. Not this time. They are thorough and blunt with their evidence. Wrote Clawso:

The House Ethics Committee didn’t make a recommendation to expel Santos from Congress, and he has already survived one expulsion vote, in part thanks to Democrats who opposed expelling him before the ethics report was released. But another expulsion attempt is likely coming.

And that expulsion vote has a much higher likelihood of passing. Yeah, I’m cleaning out browser tabs. Here are a couple cartoons from a few days after the election. Paul Fell tweeted one of an elephant beside a freshly dug grave with a “2023 Election” headstone talking to a donkey, “Hey! Just wait a minute...! You’re not supposed to be here! You should have lost! The polls said so! The pundits predicted it! I already dug your grave!” From John Deering of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The family is looking at a TV that shows a person looking like the painting titled “The Scream” saying, “Biden should step aside and let someone else run.” The father says, “Now I remember! He was one of the pollsters who predicted the red tsunami last year!” And a cartoon tweeted by DonkeyHotey showing Joe Manchin saying “In my 40 year career, I fixed West Virginia. Now I want to fix America!” Beside him is a “Welcome to West Virginia” sign also showing:

50th in Healthcare 50th in Infrastructure 47th in the Economy 47th in Education 41st in Environment

Hunter of Kos reported that Elon Musk endorsed a post that was clearly anti-Semitic. All of this was so bad it prompted the White House to condemn it. It also prompted IBM to suspend about $1M in advertising on X. They didn’t want their ads to appear next to such racist rants. Apple and Disney have done the same. Jessica Sutherland of Kos added that it was Media Matters that posted the exposé that prompted IBM and others to leave X. Because of their departure Musk threatened a “thermonuclear” lawsuit against Media Matters. And that prompted Angelo Carusone of Media Matters to reply.

Far from the free speech advocate he claims to be, Musk is a bully who threatens meritless lawsuits in an attempt to silence reporting that he even confirmed is accurate. Musk admitted the ads at issue ran alongside the pro-Nazi content we identified. If he does sue us, we will win.

Sutherland then reported this isn’t the first time Musk tried such a lawsuit. SemDem of the Kos community took a look back at the ‘90s, in particular the Food Pyramid put out by the USDA to guide people into the proper way to eat. Once the USDA created the first draft lobbyists from agribusiness had their say. There were significant revisions (which SemDem discussed) before it was published. And “obesity rates skyrocketed.” SemDem also noted the US food pyramid was quite different from those produced by other countries where healthy eating was not sold out to the highest bidder. Sweden, which came out with a food pyramid in 1974, about 20 years before the US did, which is much healthier. A revised pyramid came out in 2005. It was better and also included exercise. But its presentation was “chaotic.” Michelle Obama, a fierce advocate fighting childhood obesity, pushed for a new model, now called MyPlate – half of the plate should be fruits and vegetables, the other half grains and protein. It’s better, but should add a few things, like a distinction between refined and whole grains. Another issue with Big Food is because of major meat corporations (which are a monopoly) they work to undercut climate and environmental legislation. An example is the agricultural and fertilizer runoff that has polluted Chesapeake Bay, and their lobbying has prevented a cleanup. Remember what has happened to smoking? Global usage of cigarettes has fallen. But obesity is a bigger killer and Big Food doesn’t want to go the way of Big Tobacco. An article on Live Science from the end of June (though I just learned about it a week ago) reported that the highest peak of Fluchthorn, a mountain in the Silvretta Alps, collapsed, losing about 330 feet. Another peak on the mountain is now higher so the mountain lost only 60 feet. The cause of the collapse is alarming. Usually the tops of tall mountains are held together through permafrost. But climate change is melting some of that, which makes the land unstable, causing landslides and rockfalls. And that is a problem for the communities in the valleys below. Tony Dutzik, a senior analyst at Frontier Group, doing transport, energy, and climate policy, tweeted:

My tinfoil hat take is that all the doomsaying about the EV market - at a time when sales are up ~50% year over year - is a coordinated effort to undercut support for strong vehicle GHG standards at the federal level and in the states.

Dutzik then linked to an article on Axios. Rohan Patel, a senior advisor for climate policy and a special assistant to Obama, responded:

This is not a tinfoil hat take as it has plenty of truth. #1 priority for the legacy automotive industry (truck and car) is to water down climate standards in almost every jurisdiction and though the announcements may not be coordinated, you can bet that the industry associations are using this line of argument.

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post, in an article not behind the paywall, reported Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan is about to sign a package of bills that will transition the state’s electricity to 80% carbon free sources by 2035 and 100% by 2040. Sources can include wind, solar, and nuclear. Natural gas is also permitted when linked to carbon capture. This pace will rival California. Just as important the bills require clean energy jobs match local prevailing wages and working conditions. There will be a new state office to help displaced workers transition to clean energy jobs. A thank you to Whitmer and the Democratic majorities in the Michigan legislature.

We can't afford not to mitigate climate change

This afternoon I went to the Detroit Auto Show (well, more properly the North America International Auto Show), one of the big and important ones. It didn’t seem so big this year. My main reason for going is to ask the various companies while they’re gathered in one place when they will have an electric car for sale – not an SUV or a truck, but a car. I’m a single guy and don’t need or want a big vehicle. I also want a range of at least 300 miles to be able to drive to visit my brother without stopping for a charge (and I’m well aware I’ll need to allow charging time for more distant family). There’s the Chevy Bolt that gets about 250 miles per charge. But in general the response was no release dates yet, though many should have something by 2025. The back of this convention hall had an EV test track set up. A person or three could go for a ride in one of nine EV models (all SUV or larger). I didn’t try this myself. I’m sure each company had designated drivers and didn’t let the public behind the wheel. There was a straight section to show acceleration, then various curves and weaving to show what it could do. To stress the speed there was a lot of squealing tires. After a while I realized something else – no engine noise. But of course, there would be no test driving of internal combustion engines on an indoor track. I saw all I needed to see and got the current answers to my question in about 90 minutes. Juana Summers of NPR talked to Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity. They discussed California’s suit against Big Oil. The suit says oil companies knew they were causing climate changed and lied to cover it up. California wants them to pay for damages. Here is some of what they talked about. Cali is the first oil producing state to sue Big Oil. One reason for the suit is to inspire more states to do the same. The damages in just Cali could easily go into the hundreds of billions of dollars and topping a trillion is imaginable. Cali has dealt with floods, wildfires, and something as basic as needing more electricity for air conditioning. This is also about justice. Big Oil lied and went on to cause a great deal of damage. Getting accountability is the first step in solving the problem. This suit (and the ones that hopefully follow) is about a crime against humanity perpetrated by the oil companies. The companies claim such lawsuits are politicized and without merit. Wiles responds that the companies have not yet has a single substantive critique of the core of the case. They try to deflect the message that these suits are a waste of time and money. But the evidence is overwhelming and deflection is all they have. After the discussion Summers read part of a statement from the American Petroleum Institute:

This ongoing coordinated campaign to wage meritless, politicized lawsuits against a foundational American industry and its workers is nothing more than a distraction from important national conversations and an enormous waste of California taxpayer resources. Climate policy is for Congress to debate and decide, not the court system.

Yup, the API responded with exactly the same deflection Wiles said they would. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that demand for EVs is accelerating, showing exponential growth in sales. The European Union has approved a plan to ban the sale of gas-powered cars by 2035. But that’s only a third of the oil that’s being saved by EVs. The rest is types of EVs rarely seen in America – electric motorcycles, scooters, and tuk-tuks. They replaced just under one million barrels of oil a day in 2023. Sumner wrote:

Why are these smaller EVs becoming so popular? Because they are easier to maintain, cheaper to operate, and in many cases cheaper to buy than gas versions. In crowded cities where most trips are only a few miles and on streets where traffic rules can seem … creative, electric scooters can be the perfect means of getting from A to B.

Sumner included a photo of a scooter traffic jam in Indonesia. Some things don’t change. Meteor Blades, in an Earth Matters column for Kos, wrote about a new report by Oil Change International discussing the Planet Wreckers – the 20 countries (not companies) that are still expanding oil extraction. At the top of the list are the US, Canada, and Russia. The report also reported there are just five oil companies responsible for 51% of the oil expansion. This expansion would make holding global average temperature increases to just 1.5C impossible. Even extracting oil from existing sites would cause the world to exceed the 1.5C limit. Exceeding the 1.5C limit would make large swaths of the planet unlivable by humans or anything else. Romain Ioualalen, co-author of the report, said (in part) in a press release:

It’s simple: when you are in a hole, the first step is to stop digging. The climate crisis is global in nature—but is atrociously unjust. A handful of the world’s richest nations are risking our future by willingly ignoring the calls to rapidly phase out fossil fuels. Despite very clear science telling us what is in store beyond 1.5°C, these so-called climate leaders are planning for climate chaos. Continuing to increase fossil fuel production anywhere is not compatible with a liveable future and has been rightly called “moral and economic madness” by U.N. Secretary General Guterres.

Blades then discussed Carbon Market Watch which looks into the green pledges of the 24 world’s biggest companies, all of which advertise as climate leaders. The big problem is the climate strategies and goals set by these companies are too ambiguous to be of any use or their numbers rely on offsets that aren’t as good as actually cutting emissions. Climate conference COP28 will be in Dubai this year and starts on November 30. Last year in Egypt there were 600 fossil fuel lobbyists declaring how green their companies are. This year there will be more – at least they’ll have to identify themselves. Also of concern, the host is Sultan Ahmed Al Jabar who is the head of the Abu Dhabi state oil company and the Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology. With him at the top who needs lobbyists? Ella Nilsen of CNN reported:

With four months still left in the year, the US has been hit with 23 disasters that each cost at least $1 billion, according to new data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, surpassing the previous annual record of 22 events in 2020. This year’s billion-dollar disasters have caused 253 direct and indirect fatalities and have resulted in $57.6 billion in damage, NOAA data shows. That price tag does not yet include Hurricane Idalia. NOAA is still analyzing whether other events, including drought in the South and Midwest and Tropical Storm Hilary, which hit southern California this summer, may have surpassed the billion-dollar mark.

Sumner put together images and videos of such disasters in the US and around the world. He grouped them into categories. The heat in Phoenix had record deaths and saguaro cactus dying from heat stress. Smoke across the US from Canadian fires. Also fires in Lahaina, Sicily, and other places. Flooding in Southern California, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Greece, Brazil, Turkey, and India. Blades started a report with:

A new report from the First Street Foundation released Wednesday has found that 39 million U.S. properties are overvalued because damage risks from climate change as a result of flooding, hurricanes, and wildfires “have yet to be reflected in the insurance premiums.” The largest percentage of those properties—60%—are coastal properties at risk from hurricanes, 30% are vulnerable to flooding, and 10% are in wildfire zones.

Previous reports had analyzed overvaluation due to one hazard, such as flooding. This is the first one to combine the effects of flooding, wildfires, and hurricane winds.

But, while Republicans in power can force government agencies not to account for climate-related risks to health, life, and finances while pushing policies designed to keep the fossil fuel industry alive until every last drop of oil, molecule of natural gas, and lump of coal are extracted, they cannot force insurance companies to ignore climate risk in pricing policies. As those risks grow, more and more insurers will walk away from high-risk areas to salvage their bottom lines. Allstate, American Family, Nationwide, Erie Insurance Group, and Berkshire Hathaway have stopped issuing policies and are raising premiums and deductibles in some regions because of climate change risks. “We’re in the business of pricing to risk,” Matt Mayrl, vice president of strategy, performance and partnerships at American Family Insurance, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Sometimes your price can’t match your risk.”

One thing that would help is eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. The other is to block new construction in vulnerable areas. So what’s this nonsense about we can’t afford to mitigate climate change? With so many storms causing more than $1 billion in damage we can’t afford not to.

A mild, temporary, and mostly performative scolding

Yesterday I titled my post, “Why do we need to know the gender of another person?” I used that title because I discussed the web comic Assigned Male and a scene where an adult asks the gender of a small child and an older child says it’s none of their business. My friend and debate partner said, “But, among adults... Really, can you think of NO reason that an adult might need to know the gender of another adult?” A doctor would need to know. Even a medical researcher, since males and females show disease symptoms and respond to medication differently. My debate partner then discussed gender expression as being vital to personal development. There I agree that people frequently use clothing and other gendered social signals to proclaim who they are. A great number of people will make their gender obvious. That’s good, but not what I was thinking of. Yes, a person should be allowed to express their gender any way they want. My question was more about do other people need to know a person’s gender. An employer? We’re in an age where women are trying to get equal pay for equal work. Maybe not knowing an employee’s gender will equalize pay. Are there any jobs that one gender can do and another can’t? Acting? Maybe. But the emphasis should be on who can play the role (which indeed may be gendered) and has the appropriate look, rather than the gender of the actor. A woman probably isn’t appropriate for a male role but a transgender man might. I’ve seen quite a bit of discussion about whether straight men can or should play gay roles. In a society soaked in patriarchy this is an important point. In a world where we don’t worry about gender, maybe not. Sports? We clearly have men’s sports and women’s sports. But I’ve heard biologists have a hard time precisely defining “woman.” There’s also a big issue with a lot of Republicans trying to ban transgender athletes. I’m not advocating for women to play on men’s teams. I am advocating for transgender athletes – actually all athletes – to play on the team that matches their identity. Dating? There are many stories where one person falls in love with another and finds they’re not quite how they originally portray themselves. The movie The Crying Game is one where this works out reasonably well. The play Consider the Oyster ends well too. The movie Boys Don’t Cry is one where it doesn’t. Gender should matter only to the people in the relationship. So I think my question still stands. There are a few situations where other people do need to know a person’s gender. But in most situations the gender of a person shouldn’t matter and it is up to the person to define their own gender as they wish, using a culture’s social cues as they wish. I didn’t listen to Biden’s State of the Union speech Tuesday evening. I did hear about parts of it the next morning and today I read various Daily Kos posts about it. Of course, Kos – definitely progressive – delighted in the way Biden controlled the room. And the big part of that was the part of the speech where he got the Republicans to agree by consent that trying to hold Medicare and Social Security hostage during the debt limit debate is off the table. Laura Clawson has a description and the video. Another important moment, according to Rebekah Sager of Kos, was Biden acknowledging that black and brown parents must have The Talk with their children, especially sons, saying the cops may not protect them and may attack them and this is how they have a better chance of keeping themselves alive. Biden then admitted it is a talk he did not need to have with his own children. This was part of his call for police reform. This moment is important because this is the first time a president has acknowledged and devoted time to The Talk in a State of the Union speech. Kerry Eleveld of Kos described the overall speech as masterful and a thing of beauty. It stopped any questions about Biden’s vigor. He bested Republicans in front of a national audience. He grew in stature as some Republicans were reduced to hurling insults. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted Rex Huppke of USA Today:

I’ve never seen anything like it in a State of the Union speech—they ran at him like a pack of lemmings and, with a wink and a grin, he politely directed them to the cliff.

There was a lot of reporting about the Chinese spy balloon that drifted over the US and which Biden ordered shot down once it was over the ocean and falling debris was not a threat to people. I’ll only mention a couple memes. First, Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tweeted a cartoon of “America’s greatest balloon threat” – a clown balloon twisted into the shape of an elephant. Michael Harriot, who writes about black history, used the balloon to talk about race. He included a tweet by Roy Wood Jr., the guy who shot down the balloon. Then Harriot added:

Why is Roy Woods so anti-balloon? Most balloons are good balloons. Why not praise weather instruments, breast enhancements & birthday decorations? The “deflate the balloon” movement makes balloons feel uncomfortable & teaches kids to hate their own balloons All balloons matter

Liz Truss is remembered for having the shortest tenure of any British Prime Minister, a mere 49 days, after implementing policies that cratered her nation’s economy. She did some soul searching and concluded it was the liberal’s fault (she learned nothing). And, as Hunter of Kos reported, she came to visit Republicans. Will they learn anything from her quick exit? Hunter answered that question with a hard no. Truss was part of a system that has, on occasion, political consequences. American Republicans aren’t.

Say what you want about American democracy, but there's probably no other country where you can send an armed mob after your political opponents and confidently believe you won't get punched for it. We Are Unique. So then, the question again: Will Republicans be cowed into second-guessing their plan (again) to shutter government (again) and at least temporarily (again) default on the national debt? No, of course not. What a ridiculous question. If you can assist a coup, get citizens killed, and still be on handshake terms with fellow politicians who don't necessarily like the idea of rebellion but aren't invested enough in that belief to cause a scene or anything, there is little chance you're going to be worried that causing an international economic crisis will get you more than a mild, temporary, and mostly performative scolding. This isn’t Europe. There aren’t consequences for doing the transparently worst, most predictably catastrophic thing.

Dartagnan of Kos quoted Sahil Kapur of NBC News reporting about what the nasty guy said about the 2024 campaign season:

Two days after the poll results were released, Trump was asked in an interview whether, if he lost the nomination, he would support the GOP nominee. Trump answered, “It would have to depend on who the nominee was.” Translation: no.

My expanded translation: “It would have to depend on whether the nominee was me.” Dartagnan then discussed the growing realization within the Republican Party that they may be screwed in this election cycle. Many want to move on. But, run the nasty guy and he will lose in the general. Don’t run the nasty guy and he fractures the party, which loses in the general. Clawson reported on a hearing by the House Oversight and Reform Committee into why Twitter limited propaganda about Hunter Biden, including nude photos of him. Republicans were using their time to get a 30 second clip to be used on conservative media on how Twitter and other social platforms are being mean to conservatives. Democrats took the opportunity to look at other things Twitter was doing. Clawson wrote:

Let’s talk about the incitements to violence on Jan. 6. Let’s talk about Russian disinformation. And, since Republicans are insisting that Twitter was stacking the deck for Democrats, let’s talk about the relationship between Republicans and Twitter, especially since we’re talking about a time period before Donald Trump was banned, when he was using the platform to abuse his political opponents and encourage his supporters to reject the results of the 2020 elections.

An example: One of the witnesses was Anika Collier Navaroli, formerly the most senior member of Twitter’s content moderation team. The nasty guy had made nasty comments about the progressive squad, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. AOC asked Navaroli about it, who said yes, this was a clear violation of Twitter policy. But Navaroli was overruled my her supervisor – and then the rules were changed to permit that kind of attack. That’s Democrats making a fact-based case. Sure, go ahead and claim that Twitter is biased against conservatives. Which they’ll do because all they want out of this hearing is the soundbites. Luckovich with another cartoon of a speaker at a podium in the House chamber, saying:

... and to our Democrat colleagues calling us “clowns,” we are Jesters!

Clawson reported on a legal case that may have significant implications for medication abortions. The suit before a US District Court isn’t whether mifepristone, one of two drugs used to trigger an abortion, should be banned. It is about the FDA approval of the drug, which happened back in 2000. The claim is that the drug has too many side effects and should not have been approved. No doubt the “side effect” is that it assists in causing an abortion. However, using mifepristone before misoprostol has a 99.6% success rate, while using misoprostol alone is only 80% successful, requiring other interventions that are much riskier and much more of a burden on pregnant people. This medication abortion is far less dangerous than pregnancy and birth. The case is going before a very conservative judge – Republicans are very good a judge-shopping. He will likely overturn the FDA approval. If so, the consequences are much more severe than banning the drug. It doesn’t affect just that district. It doesn’t affect just the Circuit Court region. It bans the drug for the entire country. Any appeal – and the Justice Department says it will vigorously defend the FDA, though it will take a while – goes to the highly conservative 5th Circuit and any appeal from there goes to the highly conservative Supremes. Yes, this is scary, no matter where you live. Sager reported the story of the Urban Christian Academy, a K-8 school in a low-income neighborhood of Kansas City. For over a decade it has been quietly supporting its LGBTQ students. Its founder and director Kalie Callaway-George said, “As a Christian school, we believe that each of these beloved humans was made in the image of God.” A year ago Callaway-Geoge said it was time to go public about their support – to tell the community all people were welcome and celebrated. They didn’t want to contribute to the hurt and pain the queer members of the community were feeling. In response, all eight churches that funded the school pulled their support. Other sources of funding dried up. Each time the school gets some attention the hate flows again, distracting the faculty and staff from actual teaching. The school will have to close soon. Mark Sumner of Kos and who used to work in the coal industry discussed reports that say if the whole country switches to electric vehicles the electric grid won’t be able to handle it and we’ll always need electricity generated from gas. For example, an articles says a truck stop for electric trucks will need “as much power as a small town.” Sumner’s response is they’re thinking about it all wrong. One reply to these stories: Instead of building a smaller number of huge recharging centers, build a lot more small charging centers. Another: Think of that EV as “traveling energy storage.” When solar and wind can generate a lot of power it can be stored in vehicles. When the renewable generators aren’t producing enough or when the power goes out, pull the power out of the vehicles. This smooths out the demand and is a lot less susceptible to damage from terrorists.