Suddenly things began to change as the federal government stopped trying to save lives and started promoting policies that would eventually kill – unnecessarily – a half-million Americans...
Right, this is a massive disaster, very much of our society's own choices.
Now rfk Jr says - what would be worse would be to lose our constitutional freedoms. And in response Michael Cohen (in an interview) said to him - those freedoms aren't worth that much to dead people.
The narcissistic hypocritical positions that Trump had to weave together, made it so that there is no rational person that could support this man after this. He really thought he would get some political benefit from taking credit for operation warp speed, and he continued to say that he was instrumental in getting the vaccines ready, while at the same time then starting to side with the "it's a hoax" crowd.
It's just amazing that Trump could maintain support when he stood completely on both sides of this issue.
The ruthless, film producer in the Monty Python sketch said he needed his team to each give their own comment on his idea for a new film, and one by one he fired them and removed them from the room for not being lackeys. In the end, the only position on his idea that he tolerated from his cohorts was the position of "it's good, but it could be bad, but I am not being indecisive."
This chronicle of the tRump administration’s malfeasance is so chilling but sadly 30-40% of the American people are in denial of the extreme destruction that tRump was willing to inflict on the rest of us. When so many Americans are wholly hooked into the myth of Republican ideology it’s difficult to get a clear eyed electorate. Comer’s circus in the House “ investigation” hearings is a case in point. Barely based on facts, using someone’s false suggestions to base an investigation on, that there must be “something something” to prosecute as long as it’s a democrat (as Marcy Wheeler in Emptywheel calls “frothers”) is the Republican example of governance. The Republicans only have destruction as their platform. Destruction of the health and welfare of regular Americans, destruction of women’s autonomy over their reproductive health, destruction over senior’s financial welfare and the right not to live in poverty as we age, destruction of voting rights, destruction of LGBTQ advances in American life, and of course destruction of our planet. All for the sake of a handful of fascist wealthy donors and the corruption of power. And please, enough of the “both sides, what aboutismism” BS. Not even close. tRump’s administration is racking up so many indictments with many more to come that it would take decades of examples of Democrat corruption to even come close. So if we even have an accurate historical account of the previous maladministration I’ll be surprised because rewriting history and events is the Republican wet dream. So I appreciate Thom’s calling out the reality of what Americans need to face to truly have a healthy democracy.
These appalling circumstances are absolutely true, and absolutely damning. As a physician, I watched to US response first with disbelief, then outrage. Remember that many non-white citizens worked in slaughterhouses and other food production and were legally forced to continue working in unsafe sites with no protective masks or distancing, because they were judged to be “essential workers”. They also got no paid sick time and often worked when ill, so they spread COVID even faster in these crowded pest houses. Putting Jared in charge of procurement of masks, gowns and other PPEs is the equivalent of putting an arsonist in charge of firefighting.
Frump is guilty of sexual assault, fraud, insurrection and treason, but worse than all of it is the fact that in the “greatest dereliction of duty in history”, he is guilty of mass murder.
And the harm perpetuates. The weaponisation of the anti-vax/anti-mask ideology; the harassment of truth-telling public health officials; the suppression of data collection on infection rates—all this still operates to the detriment of people everywhere.
And now we are documenting a “Long Covid” rate of 10% following even mild/moderate infections. So people who have a week of non-critical illness may not shrug it off as easily as they think. As years go by, we are accumulating a significant number of people who are unable to return to work, carry out their roles as parents or participate in active living. This will aggregate to a genuinely damaging effect on the social fabric.
And much of this, thanks to a criminal FPOTUS who is a psychopath willing to sacrifice half a million lives to his own ends. Tuck Frump!
I await Jack Smith’s indictments of the whole rotten gang.
Trump and right wing media are also responsible for the deaths of alot of older white mostly rural men. As a prior interviewer for a healthcare study, I was told by many women that all of their male relatives and friends died of covid because "no one was going to tell them what to do". If anyone ever comes out with the numbers of victims in race/income/geographic area I'd like to see it! Thanks.
It's really disappointing to see Jamie Raskin referring to the lab leak stupidity as something to be taken seriously and it's also really disappointing that the American media hasn't come back and reminded people about basic facts that make this stupid lab leak theory so appalling.
Here is what our ignorant public seems to have forgotten or avoided knowing about:
1. Wuhan lab was established because of sars in Asia and need to track and get ahead of similar viruses. Representatives from us health agencies were there and were not restricted there, but our lovely Govt-bashing politicians decided - just before covid - to recall our representative there. This was OUR choice.
2. Almost ALL of what we know scientifically about coronaviruses came from the Wuhan lab and work of shi zhengli (tge "bat woman") - a hero who did critically important work on coronaviruses.
3. Without zhengli's work we would have known little about zoological transmission and incubation of viruses.
4. When SARS Covid-19 was detected in Wuhan, all appropriate steps were taken by the lab to map the dna, and send the information on to other health agencies (when China delayed certain info, it had nothing to do with the lab)
5. The ORIGINAL report by zhengli disclosed the following, none of it ever disapproved:
A. Viruses with close similarity to Covid-19 (97 percent dna similarity) were collected from bats thousands of miles from Wuhan;
B. Wuhan is a central transportation hub connecting travelers from many far reaches of China;
C. The very first case in Wuhan had no connection at all to the Wuhan seafood market.
The Wuhan seafood market was inappropriately characterized as a wildlife market, and immediately in the US there were stories about how covid was coming from the sale of wild animals in markets. Yet at the time China had already banned most of these practices.
No other countries - particularly those that had major battle with previous SARS viruses, raised lab leak issues, because they dealt with the science and public health measures instead.
Reputable scientists explained how climate change, destruction of habitat and human migration, made theses types of viruses more prevalent.
So it's so disappointing to see Raskin give any air to Tom cottons nonsense.
Remember that in March and April 2020 people like TL Friedman wrote pieces in the New York Times, extolling the virtues of disregarding public health measures in favor of simply allowing natural immunity to deal with the virus. The fact that immunities with this novel virus weren't studied yet, and we weren't collecting the right data to study them, went over the heads of these morons.
TL referenced - and ny times separately published pieces by - certain "public health experts" like a dr David Katz who, unknown to the public, was widely viewed as a nut within the medical industry, whose public health expertise was in obesity and not at all in virology, and who in fact is a high-priced Beverly Hills diet doctor pushing high cost obesity programs.
It was a significant disappointment seeing the intercept to pick up on this nonsense last year and really, you have to understand that it's only a country that can't face realistic scientific understanding the things that results in this kind of nonsense.
Thank you for this reminder. So many things that assaulted our nation under Trump and Kushner during those four terrible years, so many crimes against humanity and our country, and the stress coming back again as I watch what the Republican party so cavalierly does today. The Judicial Committee meeting yesterday was appalling. They appear to have no respect or understanding at all for the humanity and principled ethics (especially for the truth) that is the bedrock of democracy.
I remember thinking when the NY Times report came out about minorities and the poor being the most vulnerable to covid, that Trump would likely be happy about the assessment. That he actually immediately moved to politicize it in such concrete ways truly shocked me with the kind of disbelief that paralyzes. I couldn't believe it. Trump quickly showed up in AZ and apparently talked Ducey into vacating the excellent covid research think tank that was immediately responding at the Univ of Arizona. It was such a feather in Arizona's cap, to show the UA's scientific depth and problem solving , humanitarian response, and Ducey sacrificed it for political gain. Ducey was influenced ahead of the visit as well, rolling back the surprising common sense caution that he had displayed initially. It was heartbreaking. Trump is a monster. The university continued innovative studies on identifying the virus in sewage to pinpoint outbreaks on campus etc. But the entire tenor in Arizona and the country changed. Trump definitely politicized the issue and so many many people died, so many families blown apart, orphaned children, the decimated ranks of health care workers. All so so unnecessary. I thought for sure the GOP base would finally see Trump for what he is. But the division and propaganda just gained momentum. And no one in power seemed able to do anything.
The young Max Kennedy you mention is Robert and Ethel Kennedy's grandson. Forced to delay school, Kennedy decided to volunteer for the White House Coronavirus Task Force's Supply-Chain Task Force., led by Jared Kushner,. Kennedy arrived at FEMA hq, and joined a dozen volunteers that he thought would be support staff to help the official task force distribute protective equipment to the nation. The reality was the volunteers, all in their 20's, WERE the official Coronavirus Supply-Chain Task Force, and responsible for obtaining the needed medical supplies using their own personal computers and private email accounts. Kennedy was pressured to create a model with false information on the projected number of coronavirus fatalities, and declined. He has also said they were instructed to prioritize the President's supporters and friends, including Jeanine Pirro; and made to direct the millions $$$ worth of medical supplies to five pre-selected distributors. In April 2020, despite having signed an NDA, he sent an anonymous complaint to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, detailing failures and "dangerous incompetence" in the Trump admin response. Kennedy referred to the coronavirus response as "family office meets organized crime, melded with Lord of the Flies" and called it "a government of chaos." He quit the task force later that month. I just thought the details were so telling of Trump and Kushner's immediate heartless, elitist and profiteering mindsets. No public servant hearts there at all. In any way shape or form, ever ever. Heartbreaking for this country and the world, what they did.
Is anyone surprised by any of these revelations? Should we be shocked? It has been clear that Trump is a sociopath for years. We have seen sociopathic attitudes and conduct on the part of about half the Republicans in Congress for decades. That is what we are dealing with. Our response needs to be proportionate and swift. Unfortunately, that is not how it has been or will be.
Trump did not want just the blacks and the Hispanics to die, he wanted all the Democrats to die. In my opinion, the reason poor people were hit so hard by the virus was and is because they live in cramped quarters. Many sharing housing costs. Like three or four or more families to a dwelling. The right wing autocrats version of a Utopia appears to be, only healthy people who will work for peanuts. The old and disabled, gays and criminals can all die. About 100 million Americans in my opinion. Resembling the Asian autocratic Nations that regulate how many calories of food their citizens consume.
But, the news media and the GOP are trying to cover up genocide. You are doing a great job Thom. Let's hope some mainstream news media gets on board? You can count on none of the mega anti-mask wearing group to not read or listen to you. They just blame everybody else for their problems!
Turning the pandemic into a political game was shameful. It is good to hear TH's detailed account of the about-face of the former President, going full-force against the public health community, and the racism behind it. How the US with its superb medical research and wealth led the world with COVID deaths was puzzling. The political and racial wounds have not healed.
Thank you again Thom for keeping the misbehavior of your former president front and center, especially considering he has pulled out all the stops as far as disinformation goes, and is working so hard to change the messages (truths) coming out daily about him with his brand of "alternate facts". He's a devious politician, but fortunately we have people like yourself keeping us aware of the true facts.
And yet more indictments are coming for that misbehavior, perhaps in a few days.
Supposedly there's a website that compares the number of indictment counts of all former presidents (zero) to this of trump (71 and counting, plus impeached twice, plus being found to be a sexual abuser under civil law).... it's quite a resume and about to get longer.
Once Trump made it clear that he was trying to kill Non-Whites, I think it made a lot more Black people balk at what they were being asked to do. I also think that more Blacks got vaccinated than would have otherwise, just because they could see the deck was stacked against them. I personally talked a lot of vaccine averse Black, White and Latinx people into not only getting vaccinated themselves, but also getting their children vaccinated. No one that I know that is Asian was against getting vaccinated. Everyone knew that I was writing my governor daily, and the Dems on the Senate education committee to prioritize giving 16-24 year olds the vaccine, so that their parents could get them back in school, and stop them from doing the self destructive stuff that they were doing while not being in school, spreading the disease to others who were more vulnerable. My daughter wanted the vaccine for her 16th birthday and was able to get it about a month later. So, after killing off a lot of poor Black and Latinx people, Trump ended up basically setting up a lot of his Evangelical White crowd to die. He not only did not discourage the anti-vax position, he is the one who started it, so, his biggest claim to infamy is hard to determine. Overthrow the government and request that his non-compliant Vice-President be lynched by an angry mob, or kill off his constituency by modeling and promoting self destructive behavior. I think all of this will be in the history books if we can keep our backsliding democracy from sliding any further, or we can let the Trumps and Trump-likes like DeSatan take over the nation and remove any text that might teach any sort of history. When I have said that I see parallels to the Nazis when they were coming to power in what the Republican party is doing, I have not been using the word lightly. I have been using it as a historian. Analyzing the elements that were in place, and comparing them. The Republican Party, by another name would be more clearly what they are.
This is not so much a comment as it is a wish, or a hope.
From my point of view, any system that's designed to place one individual in a position of power, whereby they suffer the risk of being corrupted by that power, is a system that is doomed to face what we do now. I wish that someday our system of Government, and Commerce for that matter, will have 3 "Parties" (or Bodies, Groups, Leagues, Sets, Coteries, Alliances, Teams, Coalitions) which place 3 individuals at the top, and at each level of the hierarchy. For example, 3 Presidents, 3 smaller "Supreme Courts" made up of three individuals each, 3 Houses of Congress etc.
Shared power in sets of 3 would require, even demand concurrence. Concurrence should instill trust, and trust could heal the nation.
I think you will really appreciate Elie mystal's proposal on the Supreme Court. He makes an excellent point that the federal courts long have had mechanisms in place similar to your idea here.
Which gets to the issue of the "other side" and not as a bothsidesism. The point is that an opposition party is supposed to DO something, and they pretend they can't. Yes they can.
The point is in regulating both businesses and government, it's long been an objective to prevent a "gaming" of the system - and what we have at Supreme Court is a gaming of the system, a captured court -- when no such thing could happen to the lower federal courts because they already have several mechanisms to prevent people from judge- and opinion-shopping.
They had Vice President Harris there at every BFD the President presented to us. That was strategic. She very much has been the silent partner, and I think that's been necessary. Her book was well done and her story is just as good as Joe's. They are a kick-ass match. The only wrinkle in this partnership is well wrinkles, so to speak. Joe's age indicates statistically he will live into his 90's---he sure looks and acts like he will. Unfortunately, the same goes for Trump.
When your step-children LOVE you, what does that say? The Second Gentleman has been great too. They are the mixed-up jumbled-up family she had over every week--Kamala COOKED for them for years. Great story. Read her book. Warm and fuzzy at home and a change-maker at work.
Back to strategy. It's tricky, and I hope they are listening to you Thom!
An interesting development in this strategy is their failure to appreciate that undermining the science, then casting doubts on vaccination and preventative measures, would blow back on the Republican base. They very well may have intended to focus their bio-weaponization of COVID-19 on POC. However, TFG's denial of masking, distancing, virulence of the disease, vaccine efficacy, promotion of horse de-wormer, press conference hypotheses of bleach and bright light use instead, all contributed to deaths of many of his own voting base, even if in lower proportional numbers than POC populations. POC, as Thom noted, were vulnerable due to the systemic inequalities pervasive in our healthcare system. Many of the Republican base that were sickened or died, not only had access to healthcare but to earlier delivery and more fully stocked inventories of vaccines that they refused to take, to their detriment. Dolt 45 is a cancer, a pox on the house of the United States.
“Like being on the edge of death if you go for a walk.”
That’s how my colleague Jack Healy described living in Phoenix, where it has reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) or higher for 13 consecutive days, with no end in sight.
Jack moved to Phoenix in 2021, chasing stories about the fast-growing American West. And this week, he filed a remarkable article about the withering heat wave currently scorching the Southwest.
He wrote: “Summers in Phoenix are now a brutal endurance match. As the climate warms, forecasters say that dangerous levels of heat crank up earlier in the year, last longer — often well past Halloween — and lock America’s hottest big city in a sweltering straitjacket.
“In triple-digit heat, monkey bars singe children’s hands, water bottles warp and seatbelts feel like hot irons. Devoted runners strap on headlamps to go jogging at 4 a.m., when it is still only 90 degrees, come home drenched in sweat and promptly roll down the sun shutters. Neighborhoods feel like ghost towns at midday, with rumbling rooftop air-conditioners offering the only sign of life.”
Jack talked to a mail carrier named Rachelle Williams, who moved to Phoenix to escape Midwestern winters. No matter how much water she drinks or sun protection she wears, her legs tingle and head spins as she covers her route.
“I don’t even know how I do it,” she said. A community volunteer, who distributes water and ice to people in need, said the heat feels like “walking around in a blow-dryer.”
Jack knows he’s lucky. He has a job that allows him to spend time in air-conditioning. Nevertheless, he’s had to develop his own coping strategies for living in an open-air furnace.
He starts drinking water the moment he wakes up, “to saturate your system.” He wears long sleeves and pants “to guard against the sun and the reflected heat from the pavement.” He freezes water bottles and takes them everywhere, “drinking them down as they slowly melt.” And he always has electrolytes on hand to replace the salts that he sweats out.
One key part of living in Phoenix, Jack told me, is “learning to accept and live with being extraordinarily sweaty all the time.”
An over-baked world
The experience of Jack and his fellow Phoenicians is increasingly common. California is bracing for a heat wave with triple-digit temperatures. Heat advisories are in effect from the Central Plains to South Florida this week. In Texas, 10 residents of Laredo died from heat-related illnesses between June 15 and July 3.
“People are used to being without air conditioning, surviving without air conditioning,” the city’s medical examiner told my colleague David Goodman. “But it was just too hot, and we lost a lot of people because of it.”
Around the globe, temperatures are soaring as the world enters a multiyear period of intense warming, fueled by man-made climate change and a naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern, which is releasing a gusher of heat into the atmosphere.
This week, temperatures are approaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Seville, Spain; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Marrakesh, Morocco. In places like Kuwait City and Basra, Iraq, it’s not uncommon for the heat index (a combination of air temperature and humidity) to reach 125 degrees in the morning, The Times reported last year.
And just last week, my colleagues in Mexico had a story about what it’s like to live in one of that country’s hottest cities, Hermosillo, where a 120-degree day is not uncommon.
But the risks of heat extend well beyond those cities that regularly rank as the hottest in the world. As Somini Sengupta wrote in this newsletter in April, “extreme heat can be deceptively dangerous, even in places accustomed to extreme heat.”
“It’s not just Texas and Southern California and Florida. That’s not the full picture,” said Dr. Kai Chen, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health who studies the health risks from climate change. “People are vulnerable everywhere.”
Dr. Chen and his colleagues recently unveiled an interactive map of the U.S. that shows how vulnerable different parts of the country are to extreme heat.
Their research revealed that people in Costilla County, Colo.; Marion County, Ind.; and Essex County, Mass., are also at high risk from boiling temperatures as heat waves affect more and more of the country.
Dr. Chen and his team considered factors such as income and education level, as well as how much green space neighborhoods have and whether people live alone.
Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, their research showed that in wealthier neighborhoods — where people are more likely to have air-conditioning and do less work outdoors — the risks from extreme heat were less severe. In neighborhoods with lower incomes and fewer trees, the risks skyrocketed.
“What we found is that for people who have low socioeconomic status, especially minorities, the health risks of heat are much higher,” Dr. Chen said.
Whether you’re in Phoenix, Baghdad or New York, it’s important to know how to stay cool, stay hydrated and watch for signs of heat stress and heat stroke. All of that and more is explained in this helpful guide to dealing with a heat wave.
All true but, so what, at this point? Climate CRISIS is on what we should be focusing. Poor Congress Member Raskin has cancer; why? Chemical exposures, genetic variants that developed or genetics that broke down because of repeated pollutant exposures. Maybe just sun UV exposure. We have got to quit whining over all the crap that Trump did and focus on supporting those in government who will save the Planet. We are out of time. Start talking to people who are solution driven and quit hashing over all the stuff that happened two, three years ago.
When a half million people die unnecessarily, the appropriate response of a decently compassionate person with some degree of empathy is not "so what?"
As a general rule, American Descendants of Slaves (ADOS) live in closed communities, A lot of it by choice, because humans are social animals, and we are most comfortable among our fellow creatures, just like any other pack or herd animal. This includes whites, racist whites tend to live amongst other racist whites.
And the white controlled society has created road blocks to assimilation for black and brown people. Like redlining
Thus forcing people into ghetto’s. There was a time when, in Boston, you would see lawn signs saying Dogs and Irish keep off my lawn, and Irish, Italians were not considered white, but they lost their accent and language and Anglo’s could no longer identify them and thus consider them non white.
A ghetto is an area occupied primarily by a minority group or groups. Not necessarily poor and urban, and there are still ghetto’s in large cities, but they are mostly voluntary. Like Cubanos in Florida, Irish in Boston, Italians and Chasidic Jews in New York, Somali in Minneapolis. And of course white Christian nationalists in the south and Midwest.Latino’s in California, especially L.A.
Birds of a feather flock together.
The problem with these ghettos or havens, is that they are quite social, meaning communicative, partying, conversing, reinforcing and as a rule they know each other in the “hood”
This makes them adverse to anything that interferes with their social life, and that includes masks.
This is also true for rural whites, where households are more spread out, unlike big eastern cities with row houses. There only social life is the grange or the church, which is where the catch and pass on disease.
As a genealogy hobbyist, I’ve traced the spread of diseases like typhoid, along the immigration corridors.
Most contact was at trading posts and churches, important way stations for the spread of disease.
But it is just not minority groups that are such social animals much of it driven by sex hormones, but also our need to see the facial expressions, that we use to more accurately interpret or convey our intentions, emotions and meaning.
The point I am making is that people who live in a cloistered or closed society, and a “hood” even a street is a society, are reluctant to wear masks because it interferes with social and sexual intercourse. .
Actually, I don't think the 'walk and chew gum' analogy is fitting. We are wasting energy and action on old issues like Covid corruption and Trump's ...whatever. That is valuable energy and action that should be focused on the Climate CRISIS. I want Thom to use his platform to inform us about innovative (probably young) politicians and community leaders who are making a difference and tackling the Climate CRISIS. All this whining about the current Republican state of affairs and other topics like Covid corruption and 'rising Fascism' are a waste of time at this point. We may not be around for a 2024 election if the Planet continues to deteriorate at the accelerated rate that it is. Greenland's ice sheet? It could implode. Heat waves? We old-fart white humans can't tolerate them. Floods? Ask someone in Montpelier, VT if they give 2... about Trump today.
I constantly think of your scenario. But I think that 2024 for the end of the anthropecene is too early. Some experts predict 2040 others 22nd century. I don't really care, despite the fact that I have 11 grandchildren and 9 great grand children.. I can't cheat the grave by orgasm. I didn't start the fire, and had to deal with the world I was born into,as do my descendants.
What I do care about is the immediate future, that fascists don't take over the country, they are taking over the rest of the world. They need to be stopped, before they turn this country into an even more climate polluting, and theocratic fascist country.
How do you expect Thom to inform us of politicians and community leaders that are making a difference, for one thing they are few and far between, secondly most that start out with good intentions (at least publicly) are soon bought or intimidated by the politicians.. And he isn't a god. Sounds like you are begging for a savior. There isn't any. The best we can do, the best he can do, is point out and remind people of the cowardliness, corruption and complicit of the politicians and millionaires that have wrought this condition. You call that whining, shame, it is education about the anti humans that have brought us to this point, and motivate the public to stop them in their tracks.
I subscribe to newsletters like Reuters Sustainable, and Heated whose sole agenda is telling us who the hero's and martyrs are, and who the villians are, and there is world wide organizations and even U.N. and E.U. and even Indian organizations who address this issue, global warming, as their sole agenda.. and yet nothing is really happen, because the villains, the polluters are sovereign funds and multi national corporations, like the petroleum Chemical cabal.
Your demand that Thom, and me and those like us, should stop whining and that amounts to just laying down and letting the eco destroyers run over us.
What it is going to take, is for the people to feel the heat (literally) or the subzero temperatures, blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes to turn on the politicians and polluter.
Wait , the effects of global warming are being felt in real time, yet the twits still believe that global warming is a liberal conspiracy, even as they died from the heat and cold, as their homes are swept into a river or the ocean.
And one thing they are not about to do is give up the luxury of gas fueled vehicles, airplanes,
production of electricity, as long as their is no personal pain, they are in denial.
One of the popular fads is electric fueled vehicles, but that is only a small part of the problem, there is a massive amount of pollution in building these vehicles and especially the expensive batteries (which last at most 5 years and cost thousands to replace.
How many battery powered things do you own? How long do they last. I had one that was never used (a battery jumper) the battery died and couldn't be reused and I never used it. I have a battery operated garden tool, that was unused for a year. I kept it plugged in for recharge and it died and had to be replaced, Leave it in the charger too long, and it kills the battery, and if you have lithium battery powered tool, which can't be recharged, you might as well buy a new tool, because the batteries are so expensive that the tools are almost free.
So I disagree, characterizing Thoms educational reports as whining, sounds just like something one would hear from the fascists (plutocrats and their freely bought minions.
I don't demand anything. I am asking, pleading that Thom use his platform for something meaningful. Re-tread posts about Trump, Covid... it's all pointless. We are out of time and diatribes and insults don't move the ball forward.
Thom does use his platform for things meaningful, just not what and the way you want it to be.
So you want him to be one of the hundreds who write on a single subject, the environment.
Ignoring all of the other shit, and history that is destroying us. It is all interrelated. The people who are defecating in the water that you and I live in and drink from are the very same people that are making the world unlivable, even for themselves, but they don't give a rats ass, becaue they believe that their money and power will save them from the consequences of their thirst for luxury and power.
It is the history of mankind, (the American, French and Russian revolution, for example, or the British Occupation of India and Africa, the British, Dutch and French and German occupations of Africa and south east Asia.
What turns the tide is when Joe and Jane six pack, finally get a clue and have enough, but by the time that happens it will be too late, we passed the tipping point and there is no turning pack. there is no way to capture and sequester, methane and carbon dioxide that has pushed the tipping point pass 350 ppm. We can kevetch, whine, petition, protest, elect politicians who know what they are doing and will try, but it is too late.
There is no savior on the horizon, no magic wand, no extraordinary personality, best hope is that some genius comes up with something that will effectively reduce global warming glasses to below 350 ppm.
Odds are against it, time is running out. Look what the warming of the arctic has done to the jet stream (responsible for the heat dome and freezing weather that is plaguing he east coast, mid country and south. Not to mention the desalinization of the Atlantic current and gulf stream, which is responsible for keeping Americas east coast and Europe livable in the winter.
When the dry bulb temp reaches 95 degrees Fahrenheit, humans die, animals too, and it did so last year in some places, like the Arabian coast of the Red Sea. I will check to see how Gaia is doing this year, bound to be worse than last.
But don't ever accuse Thom of whining. He isn't perfect, no one is, but doing so makes you an enemy of many, including me. However the Trump humpers most certainly applaud you.
‘So what ? Really? ‘Its like ‘so what ‘ to the Holocaust or genocide of any other group of individuals.
I suspected that this was contrived( the turnaround on policies to reverse the effects of Covids worst damages w masks , stay at home programs etc) .
The turn around on “Dr Faucis’ now the enemy “
The refusal to be vaccinated . The hate with which these people approached anyone following the directions of the WHO and Fauci, sudden hate for CDC.
The Trump/ Kushner annihilation program .
Against African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans ( who are always on the list of people to have their human rights ignored completely)
This atmosphere of disregard and hostility toward anyone who is not wealthy white and male continues.
Of all of Trumps transgressions this is the worst.
This is murder, hands free murder that allowed Trump the power and control he craves.
The whole sickness of the GOP endorsed and demonstrated by Trump is with us in every capacity.
The Supreme Courts ( far Right Six)need to have ultimate control and power .
So much so they are willing to rewrite and bastardize the Constitution , and they know it .
If not , why so vehement about no ethical supervision.
Right, this is a massive disaster, very much of our society's own choices.
Now rfk Jr says - what would be worse would be to lose our constitutional freedoms. And in response Michael Cohen (in an interview) said to him - those freedoms aren't worth that much to dead people.
The narcissistic hypocritical positions that Trump had to weave together, made it so that there is no rational person that could support this man after this. He really thought he would get some political benefit from taking credit for operation warp speed, and he continued to say that he was instrumental in getting the vaccines ready, while at the same time then starting to side with the "it's a hoax" crowd.
It's just amazing that Trump could maintain support when he stood completely on both sides of this issue.
The ruthless, film producer in the Monty Python sketch said he needed his team to each give their own comment on his idea for a new film, and one by one he fired them and removed them from the room for not being lackeys. In the end, the only position on his idea that he tolerated from his cohorts was the position of "it's good, but it could be bad, but I am not being indecisive."
This chronicle of the tRump administration’s malfeasance is so chilling but sadly 30-40% of the American people are in denial of the extreme destruction that tRump was willing to inflict on the rest of us. When so many Americans are wholly hooked into the myth of Republican ideology it’s difficult to get a clear eyed electorate. Comer’s circus in the House “ investigation” hearings is a case in point. Barely based on facts, using someone’s false suggestions to base an investigation on, that there must be “something something” to prosecute as long as it’s a democrat (as Marcy Wheeler in Emptywheel calls “frothers”) is the Republican example of governance. The Republicans only have destruction as their platform. Destruction of the health and welfare of regular Americans, destruction of women’s autonomy over their reproductive health, destruction over senior’s financial welfare and the right not to live in poverty as we age, destruction of voting rights, destruction of LGBTQ advances in American life, and of course destruction of our planet. All for the sake of a handful of fascist wealthy donors and the corruption of power. And please, enough of the “both sides, what aboutismism” BS. Not even close. tRump’s administration is racking up so many indictments with many more to come that it would take decades of examples of Democrat corruption to even come close. So if we even have an accurate historical account of the previous maladministration I’ll be surprised because rewriting history and events is the Republican wet dream. So I appreciate Thom’s calling out the reality of what Americans need to face to truly have a healthy democracy.
These appalling circumstances are absolutely true, and absolutely damning. As a physician, I watched to US response first with disbelief, then outrage. Remember that many non-white citizens worked in slaughterhouses and other food production and were legally forced to continue working in unsafe sites with no protective masks or distancing, because they were judged to be “essential workers”. They also got no paid sick time and often worked when ill, so they spread COVID even faster in these crowded pest houses. Putting Jared in charge of procurement of masks, gowns and other PPEs is the equivalent of putting an arsonist in charge of firefighting.
Frump is guilty of sexual assault, fraud, insurrection and treason, but worse than all of it is the fact that in the “greatest dereliction of duty in history”, he is guilty of mass murder.
And the harm perpetuates. The weaponisation of the anti-vax/anti-mask ideology; the harassment of truth-telling public health officials; the suppression of data collection on infection rates—all this still operates to the detriment of people everywhere.
And now we are documenting a “Long Covid” rate of 10% following even mild/moderate infections. So people who have a week of non-critical illness may not shrug it off as easily as they think. As years go by, we are accumulating a significant number of people who are unable to return to work, carry out their roles as parents or participate in active living. This will aggregate to a genuinely damaging effect on the social fabric.
And much of this, thanks to a criminal FPOTUS who is a psychopath willing to sacrifice half a million lives to his own ends. Tuck Frump!
I await Jack Smith’s indictments of the whole rotten gang.
Trump and right wing media are also responsible for the deaths of alot of older white mostly rural men. As a prior interviewer for a healthcare study, I was told by many women that all of their male relatives and friends died of covid because "no one was going to tell them what to do". If anyone ever comes out with the numbers of victims in race/income/geographic area I'd like to see it! Thanks.
It's really disappointing to see Jamie Raskin referring to the lab leak stupidity as something to be taken seriously and it's also really disappointing that the American media hasn't come back and reminded people about basic facts that make this stupid lab leak theory so appalling.
Here is what our ignorant public seems to have forgotten or avoided knowing about:
1. Wuhan lab was established because of sars in Asia and need to track and get ahead of similar viruses. Representatives from us health agencies were there and were not restricted there, but our lovely Govt-bashing politicians decided - just before covid - to recall our representative there. This was OUR choice.
2. Almost ALL of what we know scientifically about coronaviruses came from the Wuhan lab and work of shi zhengli (tge "bat woman") - a hero who did critically important work on coronaviruses.
3. Without zhengli's work we would have known little about zoological transmission and incubation of viruses.
4. When SARS Covid-19 was detected in Wuhan, all appropriate steps were taken by the lab to map the dna, and send the information on to other health agencies (when China delayed certain info, it had nothing to do with the lab)
5. The ORIGINAL report by zhengli disclosed the following, none of it ever disapproved:
A. Viruses with close similarity to Covid-19 (97 percent dna similarity) were collected from bats thousands of miles from Wuhan;
B. Wuhan is a central transportation hub connecting travelers from many far reaches of China;
C. The very first case in Wuhan had no connection at all to the Wuhan seafood market.
The Wuhan seafood market was inappropriately characterized as a wildlife market, and immediately in the US there were stories about how covid was coming from the sale of wild animals in markets. Yet at the time China had already banned most of these practices.
No other countries - particularly those that had major battle with previous SARS viruses, raised lab leak issues, because they dealt with the science and public health measures instead.
Reputable scientists explained how climate change, destruction of habitat and human migration, made theses types of viruses more prevalent.
So it's so disappointing to see Raskin give any air to Tom cottons nonsense.
Remember that in March and April 2020 people like TL Friedman wrote pieces in the New York Times, extolling the virtues of disregarding public health measures in favor of simply allowing natural immunity to deal with the virus. The fact that immunities with this novel virus weren't studied yet, and we weren't collecting the right data to study them, went over the heads of these morons.
TL referenced - and ny times separately published pieces by - certain "public health experts" like a dr David Katz who, unknown to the public, was widely viewed as a nut within the medical industry, whose public health expertise was in obesity and not at all in virology, and who in fact is a high-priced Beverly Hills diet doctor pushing high cost obesity programs.
It was a significant disappointment seeing the intercept to pick up on this nonsense last year and really, you have to understand that it's only a country that can't face realistic scientific understanding the things that results in this kind of nonsense.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-chinas-bat-woman-hunted-down-viruses-from-sars-to-the-new-coronavirus1/
Thank you for this reminder. So many things that assaulted our nation under Trump and Kushner during those four terrible years, so many crimes against humanity and our country, and the stress coming back again as I watch what the Republican party so cavalierly does today. The Judicial Committee meeting yesterday was appalling. They appear to have no respect or understanding at all for the humanity and principled ethics (especially for the truth) that is the bedrock of democracy.
I remember thinking when the NY Times report came out about minorities and the poor being the most vulnerable to covid, that Trump would likely be happy about the assessment. That he actually immediately moved to politicize it in such concrete ways truly shocked me with the kind of disbelief that paralyzes. I couldn't believe it. Trump quickly showed up in AZ and apparently talked Ducey into vacating the excellent covid research think tank that was immediately responding at the Univ of Arizona. It was such a feather in Arizona's cap, to show the UA's scientific depth and problem solving , humanitarian response, and Ducey sacrificed it for political gain. Ducey was influenced ahead of the visit as well, rolling back the surprising common sense caution that he had displayed initially. It was heartbreaking. Trump is a monster. The university continued innovative studies on identifying the virus in sewage to pinpoint outbreaks on campus etc. But the entire tenor in Arizona and the country changed. Trump definitely politicized the issue and so many many people died, so many families blown apart, orphaned children, the decimated ranks of health care workers. All so so unnecessary. I thought for sure the GOP base would finally see Trump for what he is. But the division and propaganda just gained momentum. And no one in power seemed able to do anything.
The young Max Kennedy you mention is Robert and Ethel Kennedy's grandson. Forced to delay school, Kennedy decided to volunteer for the White House Coronavirus Task Force's Supply-Chain Task Force., led by Jared Kushner,. Kennedy arrived at FEMA hq, and joined a dozen volunteers that he thought would be support staff to help the official task force distribute protective equipment to the nation. The reality was the volunteers, all in their 20's, WERE the official Coronavirus Supply-Chain Task Force, and responsible for obtaining the needed medical supplies using their own personal computers and private email accounts. Kennedy was pressured to create a model with false information on the projected number of coronavirus fatalities, and declined. He has also said they were instructed to prioritize the President's supporters and friends, including Jeanine Pirro; and made to direct the millions $$$ worth of medical supplies to five pre-selected distributors. In April 2020, despite having signed an NDA, he sent an anonymous complaint to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, detailing failures and "dangerous incompetence" in the Trump admin response. Kennedy referred to the coronavirus response as "family office meets organized crime, melded with Lord of the Flies" and called it "a government of chaos." He quit the task force later that month. I just thought the details were so telling of Trump and Kushner's immediate heartless, elitist and profiteering mindsets. No public servant hearts there at all. In any way shape or form, ever ever. Heartbreaking for this country and the world, what they did.
Is anyone surprised by any of these revelations? Should we be shocked? It has been clear that Trump is a sociopath for years. We have seen sociopathic attitudes and conduct on the part of about half the Republicans in Congress for decades. That is what we are dealing with. Our response needs to be proportionate and swift. Unfortunately, that is not how it has been or will be.
Trump did not want just the blacks and the Hispanics to die, he wanted all the Democrats to die. In my opinion, the reason poor people were hit so hard by the virus was and is because they live in cramped quarters. Many sharing housing costs. Like three or four or more families to a dwelling. The right wing autocrats version of a Utopia appears to be, only healthy people who will work for peanuts. The old and disabled, gays and criminals can all die. About 100 million Americans in my opinion. Resembling the Asian autocratic Nations that regulate how many calories of food their citizens consume.
But, the news media and the GOP are trying to cover up genocide. You are doing a great job Thom. Let's hope some mainstream news media gets on board? You can count on none of the mega anti-mask wearing group to not read or listen to you. They just blame everybody else for their problems!
Turning the pandemic into a political game was shameful. It is good to hear TH's detailed account of the about-face of the former President, going full-force against the public health community, and the racism behind it. How the US with its superb medical research and wealth led the world with COVID deaths was puzzling. The political and racial wounds have not healed.
Thank you again Thom for keeping the misbehavior of your former president front and center, especially considering he has pulled out all the stops as far as disinformation goes, and is working so hard to change the messages (truths) coming out daily about him with his brand of "alternate facts". He's a devious politician, but fortunately we have people like yourself keeping us aware of the true facts.
And yet more indictments are coming for that misbehavior, perhaps in a few days.
Supposedly there's a website that compares the number of indictment counts of all former presidents (zero) to this of trump (71 and counting, plus impeached twice, plus being found to be a sexual abuser under civil law).... it's quite a resume and about to get longer.
Once Trump made it clear that he was trying to kill Non-Whites, I think it made a lot more Black people balk at what they were being asked to do. I also think that more Blacks got vaccinated than would have otherwise, just because they could see the deck was stacked against them. I personally talked a lot of vaccine averse Black, White and Latinx people into not only getting vaccinated themselves, but also getting their children vaccinated. No one that I know that is Asian was against getting vaccinated. Everyone knew that I was writing my governor daily, and the Dems on the Senate education committee to prioritize giving 16-24 year olds the vaccine, so that their parents could get them back in school, and stop them from doing the self destructive stuff that they were doing while not being in school, spreading the disease to others who were more vulnerable. My daughter wanted the vaccine for her 16th birthday and was able to get it about a month later. So, after killing off a lot of poor Black and Latinx people, Trump ended up basically setting up a lot of his Evangelical White crowd to die. He not only did not discourage the anti-vax position, he is the one who started it, so, his biggest claim to infamy is hard to determine. Overthrow the government and request that his non-compliant Vice-President be lynched by an angry mob, or kill off his constituency by modeling and promoting self destructive behavior. I think all of this will be in the history books if we can keep our backsliding democracy from sliding any further, or we can let the Trumps and Trump-likes like DeSatan take over the nation and remove any text that might teach any sort of history. When I have said that I see parallels to the Nazis when they were coming to power in what the Republican party is doing, I have not been using the word lightly. I have been using it as a historian. Analyzing the elements that were in place, and comparing them. The Republican Party, by another name would be more clearly what they are.
This is not so much a comment as it is a wish, or a hope.
From my point of view, any system that's designed to place one individual in a position of power, whereby they suffer the risk of being corrupted by that power, is a system that is doomed to face what we do now. I wish that someday our system of Government, and Commerce for that matter, will have 3 "Parties" (or Bodies, Groups, Leagues, Sets, Coteries, Alliances, Teams, Coalitions) which place 3 individuals at the top, and at each level of the hierarchy. For example, 3 Presidents, 3 smaller "Supreme Courts" made up of three individuals each, 3 Houses of Congress etc.
Shared power in sets of 3 would require, even demand concurrence. Concurrence should instill trust, and trust could heal the nation.
I think you will really appreciate Elie mystal's proposal on the Supreme Court. He makes an excellent point that the federal courts long have had mechanisms in place similar to your idea here.
Which gets to the issue of the "other side" and not as a bothsidesism. The point is that an opposition party is supposed to DO something, and they pretend they can't. Yes they can.
The point is in regulating both businesses and government, it's long been an objective to prevent a "gaming" of the system - and what we have at Supreme Court is a gaming of the system, a captured court -- when no such thing could happen to the lower federal courts because they already have several mechanisms to prevent people from judge- and opinion-shopping.
Thanks Marc. That sounds very interesting. I'll check it out.
Just. Watch. Her.
They had Vice President Harris there at every BFD the President presented to us. That was strategic. She very much has been the silent partner, and I think that's been necessary. Her book was well done and her story is just as good as Joe's. They are a kick-ass match. The only wrinkle in this partnership is well wrinkles, so to speak. Joe's age indicates statistically he will live into his 90's---he sure looks and acts like he will. Unfortunately, the same goes for Trump.
When your step-children LOVE you, what does that say? The Second Gentleman has been great too. They are the mixed-up jumbled-up family she had over every week--Kamala COOKED for them for years. Great story. Read her book. Warm and fuzzy at home and a change-maker at work.
Back to strategy. It's tricky, and I hope they are listening to you Thom!
An interesting development in this strategy is their failure to appreciate that undermining the science, then casting doubts on vaccination and preventative measures, would blow back on the Republican base. They very well may have intended to focus their bio-weaponization of COVID-19 on POC. However, TFG's denial of masking, distancing, virulence of the disease, vaccine efficacy, promotion of horse de-wormer, press conference hypotheses of bleach and bright light use instead, all contributed to deaths of many of his own voting base, even if in lower proportional numbers than POC populations. POC, as Thom noted, were vulnerable due to the systemic inequalities pervasive in our healthcare system. Many of the Republican base that were sickened or died, not only had access to healthcare but to earlier delivery and more fully stocked inventories of vaccines that they refused to take, to their detriment. Dolt 45 is a cancer, a pox on the house of the United States.
Yes, but that was 3 years ago and Biden did not do much.
Not much Biden can do without Money, and the Purse strings are controlled by a racist Republican congress
Surviving extreme heat
Author Headshot
By David Gelles
“Like being on the edge of death if you go for a walk.”
That’s how my colleague Jack Healy described living in Phoenix, where it has reached 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) or higher for 13 consecutive days, with no end in sight.
Jack moved to Phoenix in 2021, chasing stories about the fast-growing American West. And this week, he filed a remarkable article about the withering heat wave currently scorching the Southwest.
He wrote: “Summers in Phoenix are now a brutal endurance match. As the climate warms, forecasters say that dangerous levels of heat crank up earlier in the year, last longer — often well past Halloween — and lock America’s hottest big city in a sweltering straitjacket.
“In triple-digit heat, monkey bars singe children’s hands, water bottles warp and seatbelts feel like hot irons. Devoted runners strap on headlamps to go jogging at 4 a.m., when it is still only 90 degrees, come home drenched in sweat and promptly roll down the sun shutters. Neighborhoods feel like ghost towns at midday, with rumbling rooftop air-conditioners offering the only sign of life.”
Jack talked to a mail carrier named Rachelle Williams, who moved to Phoenix to escape Midwestern winters. No matter how much water she drinks or sun protection she wears, her legs tingle and head spins as she covers her route.
“I don’t even know how I do it,” she said. A community volunteer, who distributes water and ice to people in need, said the heat feels like “walking around in a blow-dryer.”
Jack knows he’s lucky. He has a job that allows him to spend time in air-conditioning. Nevertheless, he’s had to develop his own coping strategies for living in an open-air furnace.
He starts drinking water the moment he wakes up, “to saturate your system.” He wears long sleeves and pants “to guard against the sun and the reflected heat from the pavement.” He freezes water bottles and takes them everywhere, “drinking them down as they slowly melt.” And he always has electrolytes on hand to replace the salts that he sweats out.
One key part of living in Phoenix, Jack told me, is “learning to accept and live with being extraordinarily sweaty all the time.”
An over-baked world
The experience of Jack and his fellow Phoenicians is increasingly common. California is bracing for a heat wave with triple-digit temperatures. Heat advisories are in effect from the Central Plains to South Florida this week. In Texas, 10 residents of Laredo died from heat-related illnesses between June 15 and July 3.
“People are used to being without air conditioning, surviving without air conditioning,” the city’s medical examiner told my colleague David Goodman. “But it was just too hot, and we lost a lot of people because of it.”
Around the globe, temperatures are soaring as the world enters a multiyear period of intense warming, fueled by man-made climate change and a naturally occurring El Niño weather pattern, which is releasing a gusher of heat into the atmosphere.
This week, temperatures are approaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit in Seville, Spain; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Marrakesh, Morocco. In places like Kuwait City and Basra, Iraq, it’s not uncommon for the heat index (a combination of air temperature and humidity) to reach 125 degrees in the morning, The Times reported last year.
And just last week, my colleagues in Mexico had a story about what it’s like to live in one of that country’s hottest cities, Hermosillo, where a 120-degree day is not uncommon.
But the risks of heat extend well beyond those cities that regularly rank as the hottest in the world. As Somini Sengupta wrote in this newsletter in April, “extreme heat can be deceptively dangerous, even in places accustomed to extreme heat.”
“It’s not just Texas and Southern California and Florida. That’s not the full picture,” said Dr. Kai Chen, a professor at the Yale School of Public Health who studies the health risks from climate change. “People are vulnerable everywhere.”
Dr. Chen and his colleagues recently unveiled an interactive map of the U.S. that shows how vulnerable different parts of the country are to extreme heat.
Their research revealed that people in Costilla County, Colo.; Marion County, Ind.; and Essex County, Mass., are also at high risk from boiling temperatures as heat waves affect more and more of the country.
Dr. Chen and his team considered factors such as income and education level, as well as how much green space neighborhoods have and whether people live alone.
Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, their research showed that in wealthier neighborhoods — where people are more likely to have air-conditioning and do less work outdoors — the risks from extreme heat were less severe. In neighborhoods with lower incomes and fewer trees, the risks skyrocketed.
“What we found is that for people who have low socioeconomic status, especially minorities, the health risks of heat are much higher,” Dr. Chen said.
Whether you’re in Phoenix, Baghdad or New York, it’s important to know how to stay cool, stay hydrated and watch for signs of heat stress and heat stroke. All of that and more is explained in this helpful guide to dealing with a heat wave.
All true but, so what, at this point? Climate CRISIS is on what we should be focusing. Poor Congress Member Raskin has cancer; why? Chemical exposures, genetic variants that developed or genetics that broke down because of repeated pollutant exposures. Maybe just sun UV exposure. We have got to quit whining over all the crap that Trump did and focus on supporting those in government who will save the Planet. We are out of time. Start talking to people who are solution driven and quit hashing over all the stuff that happened two, three years ago.
When a half million people die unnecessarily, the appropriate response of a decently compassionate person with some degree of empathy is not "so what?"
I totally agree, but lets face it.
As a general rule, American Descendants of Slaves (ADOS) live in closed communities, A lot of it by choice, because humans are social animals, and we are most comfortable among our fellow creatures, just like any other pack or herd animal. This includes whites, racist whites tend to live amongst other racist whites.
And the white controlled society has created road blocks to assimilation for black and brown people. Like redlining
Thus forcing people into ghetto’s. There was a time when, in Boston, you would see lawn signs saying Dogs and Irish keep off my lawn, and Irish, Italians were not considered white, but they lost their accent and language and Anglo’s could no longer identify them and thus consider them non white.
A ghetto is an area occupied primarily by a minority group or groups. Not necessarily poor and urban, and there are still ghetto’s in large cities, but they are mostly voluntary. Like Cubanos in Florida, Irish in Boston, Italians and Chasidic Jews in New York, Somali in Minneapolis. And of course white Christian nationalists in the south and Midwest.Latino’s in California, especially L.A.
Birds of a feather flock together.
The problem with these ghettos or havens, is that they are quite social, meaning communicative, partying, conversing, reinforcing and as a rule they know each other in the “hood”
This makes them adverse to anything that interferes with their social life, and that includes masks.
This is also true for rural whites, where households are more spread out, unlike big eastern cities with row houses. There only social life is the grange or the church, which is where the catch and pass on disease.
As a genealogy hobbyist, I’ve traced the spread of diseases like typhoid, along the immigration corridors.
Most contact was at trading posts and churches, important way stations for the spread of disease.
But it is just not minority groups that are such social animals much of it driven by sex hormones, but also our need to see the facial expressions, that we use to more accurately interpret or convey our intentions, emotions and meaning.
The point I am making is that people who live in a cloistered or closed society, and a “hood” even a street is a society, are reluctant to wear masks because it interferes with social and sexual intercourse. .
We can walk and chew gum. That is we can whine about Trump AND focus on supporting those in government wo will save the planet.
Problem is that both parties are owned by malcreants, large corporations that feed the plutocrats.
Actually, I don't think the 'walk and chew gum' analogy is fitting. We are wasting energy and action on old issues like Covid corruption and Trump's ...whatever. That is valuable energy and action that should be focused on the Climate CRISIS. I want Thom to use his platform to inform us about innovative (probably young) politicians and community leaders who are making a difference and tackling the Climate CRISIS. All this whining about the current Republican state of affairs and other topics like Covid corruption and 'rising Fascism' are a waste of time at this point. We may not be around for a 2024 election if the Planet continues to deteriorate at the accelerated rate that it is. Greenland's ice sheet? It could implode. Heat waves? We old-fart white humans can't tolerate them. Floods? Ask someone in Montpelier, VT if they give 2... about Trump today.
I constantly think of your scenario. But I think that 2024 for the end of the anthropecene is too early. Some experts predict 2040 others 22nd century. I don't really care, despite the fact that I have 11 grandchildren and 9 great grand children.. I can't cheat the grave by orgasm. I didn't start the fire, and had to deal with the world I was born into,as do my descendants.
What I do care about is the immediate future, that fascists don't take over the country, they are taking over the rest of the world. They need to be stopped, before they turn this country into an even more climate polluting, and theocratic fascist country.
How do you expect Thom to inform us of politicians and community leaders that are making a difference, for one thing they are few and far between, secondly most that start out with good intentions (at least publicly) are soon bought or intimidated by the politicians.. And he isn't a god. Sounds like you are begging for a savior. There isn't any. The best we can do, the best he can do, is point out and remind people of the cowardliness, corruption and complicit of the politicians and millionaires that have wrought this condition. You call that whining, shame, it is education about the anti humans that have brought us to this point, and motivate the public to stop them in their tracks.
I subscribe to newsletters like Reuters Sustainable, and Heated whose sole agenda is telling us who the hero's and martyrs are, and who the villians are, and there is world wide organizations and even U.N. and E.U. and even Indian organizations who address this issue, global warming, as their sole agenda.. and yet nothing is really happen, because the villains, the polluters are sovereign funds and multi national corporations, like the petroleum Chemical cabal.
Your demand that Thom, and me and those like us, should stop whining and that amounts to just laying down and letting the eco destroyers run over us.
What it is going to take, is for the people to feel the heat (literally) or the subzero temperatures, blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes to turn on the politicians and polluter.
Wait , the effects of global warming are being felt in real time, yet the twits still believe that global warming is a liberal conspiracy, even as they died from the heat and cold, as their homes are swept into a river or the ocean.
And one thing they are not about to do is give up the luxury of gas fueled vehicles, airplanes,
production of electricity, as long as their is no personal pain, they are in denial.
One of the popular fads is electric fueled vehicles, but that is only a small part of the problem, there is a massive amount of pollution in building these vehicles and especially the expensive batteries (which last at most 5 years and cost thousands to replace.
How many battery powered things do you own? How long do they last. I had one that was never used (a battery jumper) the battery died and couldn't be reused and I never used it. I have a battery operated garden tool, that was unused for a year. I kept it plugged in for recharge and it died and had to be replaced, Leave it in the charger too long, and it kills the battery, and if you have lithium battery powered tool, which can't be recharged, you might as well buy a new tool, because the batteries are so expensive that the tools are almost free.
So I disagree, characterizing Thoms educational reports as whining, sounds just like something one would hear from the fascists (plutocrats and their freely bought minions.
I don't demand anything. I am asking, pleading that Thom use his platform for something meaningful. Re-tread posts about Trump, Covid... it's all pointless. We are out of time and diatribes and insults don't move the ball forward.
Thom does use his platform for things meaningful, just not what and the way you want it to be.
So you want him to be one of the hundreds who write on a single subject, the environment.
Ignoring all of the other shit, and history that is destroying us. It is all interrelated. The people who are defecating in the water that you and I live in and drink from are the very same people that are making the world unlivable, even for themselves, but they don't give a rats ass, becaue they believe that their money and power will save them from the consequences of their thirst for luxury and power.
It is the history of mankind, (the American, French and Russian revolution, for example, or the British Occupation of India and Africa, the British, Dutch and French and German occupations of Africa and south east Asia.
What turns the tide is when Joe and Jane six pack, finally get a clue and have enough, but by the time that happens it will be too late, we passed the tipping point and there is no turning pack. there is no way to capture and sequester, methane and carbon dioxide that has pushed the tipping point pass 350 ppm. We can kevetch, whine, petition, protest, elect politicians who know what they are doing and will try, but it is too late.
There is no savior on the horizon, no magic wand, no extraordinary personality, best hope is that some genius comes up with something that will effectively reduce global warming glasses to below 350 ppm.
Odds are against it, time is running out. Look what the warming of the arctic has done to the jet stream (responsible for the heat dome and freezing weather that is plaguing he east coast, mid country and south. Not to mention the desalinization of the Atlantic current and gulf stream, which is responsible for keeping Americas east coast and Europe livable in the winter.
When the dry bulb temp reaches 95 degrees Fahrenheit, humans die, animals too, and it did so last year in some places, like the Arabian coast of the Red Sea. I will check to see how Gaia is doing this year, bound to be worse than last.
But don't ever accuse Thom of whining. He isn't perfect, no one is, but doing so makes you an enemy of many, including me. However the Trump humpers most certainly applaud you.