There’s a photo on Huff Post of several dead Sulfur Crested Cockatoos. On the ground but nowhere near the fires. Temperatures that day were near 120 degrees. That killed them. That’s a warning. Like a dead canary in a mine shaft a dead cockatoo on the forest floor is a warning. We’re next and I doubt Morrison gives a shit.
4 Likes
Fire them all and replace them with Jared, Ivanka, Jr., and Eric. Another job for the “true-believers” and the cultists.
Who knew the whole country could be run by a mere handful of people…all of whom loyal only to the “chosen one” and whatever grift they happen to be running?
And it ALL goes out the window when the amygdala rules those decisions. Trump’s supporters all live in their fears and respond from there. We have the ability to think on a higher level but for some reason, a large segment of our society still carries the constant fear gene.
The hunter/gatherer lived with it perpetually for good reason but the early farmers evolved away from the constant condition of fear. I have always thought that was one of our most important advancements in evolution, that we reached a p[oint of safety and security that represented a cultural advancement. The word “Civilization” in many ways means rising above those fears.
Yet it remains in our blood and bones somehow, and some of us never rise out of it. Primal fear is the foundation of the conservative thought.
Trump has tapped that primal fear and uses it as a management and recruiting tool. Everything we do these days is an emergency somehow, in response to contrived stimuli, and the real emergencies are being ignored because of it.
I guess what I am saying is that, we should expect Trump’s remaining people to get worse, not better, because the thing they are most afraid of is being proven wrong and that is coming more every day.
3 Likes
In response to jep’s comment regarding the Deep State, in 1973 the Supreme Court considered a challenge by Postal employees to the Hatch Act (which precludes partisan political activities by federal employees). (The case is Letter Carriers.) The Court denied the challenge, and here is what it said about the need for the Act:
It seems fundamental in the first place that employees in the Executive
Branch of the Government, or those working for any of its agencies,
should administer the law in accordance with the will of Congress,
rather than in accordance with their own or the will of a political party.
They are expected to enforce the law and execute the programs of the
Government without bias or favoritism for or against any political party
or group or the members thereof. A major thesis of the Hatch Act is that
to serve this great end of Government—the impartial execution of the
laws—it is essential that federal employees, for example, not take
formal positions in political parties, not undertake to play substantial
roles in partisan political campaigns, and not run for office on partisan
political tickets. Forbidding activities like these will reduce the hazards
to fair and effective government.
There is another consideration in this judgment: it is not only important
that the Government and its employees in fact avoid practicing political
justice, but it is also critical that they appear to the public to be avoiding
it, if confidence in the system of representative Government is not to be
eroded to a disastrous extent.
413 U.S. at 564-65 (for you lawyers out there). This is such an obvious justification for the “deep state” that has been violated virtually daily by this Administration.
4 Likes
Problem is, Trump has pushed this all way past simple politics, he turned his term into an existential battle between a desperate, disappearing right and their own imaginary left. There’s no 'WE" in their lexicon anymore that includes anyone left of Limbaugh.
We ARE their enemy. So they don’t owe us loyalty as fellow citizens.
I blame FOX.
Don’t we all. There’s serious discussion by historians that Nixon would not have been forced to resign had Fox been around.
1 Like
Another scientist here…Republicans in general, and the Trump administration in particular, have been hostile towards science, as it gets in the way of many of their political and economic desires. It’s telling how much the Trump administration has violated governmental rules in its changes to how government engages with science that their own handpicked committee pointed out their violations, and how they are going against science and how it is used to make things better for the American people in general.
Trump and the Republicans have declared war on scientists, so look for that to ramp up after this…and, if they will in 2020, we’ll see science pushed out of government, both for funding (outside of defense research) and as a basis for policy.
The irony is that, except for the goal of bringing the US’s income distribution closer to that of Duvalier-era Haiti, almost everything they do is working against their claimed goals. Dickensian conditions are hell on productivity and GDP in all but the shortest runs, and strong domestic regulatory environments ahve been known since the 80s to be a keystone of international competitiveness. Especially when major industrial shifts are necessary to keep the world economy in existence.
The biggest scientific conclusion they’re against is the evidence that being anti-science is also anti-profit.
2 Likes
several new rules meant to rollback environmental regulations are at odds with established science, the [Washington Post reported.”
Here’s betting that the new rules were completely consistent with the preferences of some of Trump’s corporate donors and ideological facilitators.
1 Like
Panel of scientists find that regulations designed to weaken environmental protections are likely to increase pollution and environmental degredation.
Next up: water is wet and the sky is blue.
Yes but it must also mean the old rules were not at odds with science.
OT, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/28/us/politics/trump-2020-trumpstock.html, I live about five miles away from this joint. These folks have nothing left in their heads but amygdala.
All six cents’ worth?
They were appointed by Drumpf. They might be working on reweaving some of the shreds now.
1 Like
Because they’ve built their mansions on a hill, so the hell with the rest of us?
It’s kinda a bummer when the grandkids can’t swim at the beach house, though…
1 Like
It has been violated shockingly. I was in fact shocked when it became clear that not just the administration but the rest of the GOP no longer cared about this at all:
I still cannot figure out what Moscow Mitch thinks would be a viable ultimate result favoring him to all of this if Trump and the GOP actually got everything they wanted. I can’t understand why anyone outside of Trump and his cronies wants to destroy that neutrality. How does that further the lives and careers and fortunes of Moscow Mitch or Miss Lindsey or Devin Nunes? I don’t get it. Destroy the system you work for and that pays you.
Not for long if the Trump admin gets its way…
2 Likes
It’s been ages since the last time we had a good river fire. We’ve been missing out!
2 Likes
Once Trump becomes Supreme Leader beyond Life, the phrase will be “water is sludgy and the sky is brown.”
1 Like
Well, the old rules were consistent with science, who knows what values the new rules conform to – my guess would be that they conform to whatever the donors are paying for.
1 Like