Nuclear Experts Head to China to Test Experimental Reactors - Bloomberg:
“China by a very large margin is the largest market in the world for new power plants of any type,” said Charles W. Forsberg, a professor at MIT. “If we do not get our act together, the low-carbon energy business will be owned by the Chinese.”Yup.
There is a lot to consider in this, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Lest I create the false impression of a disjointed argument, please note that these are just a few bones taken from a beautifully articulated skeleton. The First White President:
After his cabal of conspiracy theorists forced Barack Obama to present his birth certificate, Trump demanded the president’s college grades (offering $5 million in exchange for them), insisting that Obama was not intelligent enough to have gone to an Ivy League school, and that his acclaimed memoir, Dreams From My Father, had been ghostwritten by a white man, Bill Ayers.
Asserting that Trump’s rise was primarily powered by cultural resentment and economic reversal has become de rigeur among white pundits and thought leaders. But evidence for this is, at best, mixed.
Trump’s white support was not determined by income... Trump’s dominance among whites across class lines is of a piece with his larger dominance across nearly [emph. added] every white demographic. Trump won white women (+9) and white men (+31).
And so an opioid epidemic among mostly white people is greeted with calls for compassion and treatment, as all epidemics should be, while a crack epidemic among mostly black people is greeted with scorn and mandatory minimums.
Firsthand reports by white Union soldiers who witnessed actual slavery during the Civil War rendered the “white slavery” argument ridiculous. But its operating premises—white labor as noble archetype, and black labor as something else—lived on.
“A new voice” was beginning to make itself felt in the country. “It is a voice that has been silent too long,” Nixon claimed, alluding to working-class whites. “It is a voice of people who have not taken to the streets before, who have not indulged in violence, who have not broken the law.”
It had been only 18 years since the Cicero riots; eight years since Daisy and Bill Myers had been run out of Levittown, Pennsylvania; three years since Martin Luther King Jr. had been stoned while walking through Chicago’s Marquette Park. But as the myth of the virtuous white working class was made central to American identity, its sins needed to be rendered invisible.I suspect all of the above is just background, to enable the reader to see in a new light the material to come: I've just reached the point where Mr. Coates begins recounting statements of the (all-white) Democratic candidates in the 2016 Presidential election. Recommended reading.
'We Are Living Through a Battle for the Soul of This Nation'
Today we have an American president who has publicly proclaimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and Klansmen and those who would oppose their venom and hate.
You, [I], and the citizens of this country carry a special burden in 2017. We have to do what our president has not. We have to uphold America’s values. We have to do what he will not. We have to defend our Constitution. We have to remember our kids are watching. We have to show the world America is still a beacon of light.+1
T just sent lots of messages: to F & M, to Mueller, to all POC & LGBTQ, to GOP, to Pentagon all Americans: I AM THE LAW. Get used to it.Retweeting Beau Willimon:
It was a message - on the same day that Mueller's grand jury issued subpoenas for Flynn & Manafort - that they should hold the line...
Beware: Trump may use the alt-right to turn himself into the center - The Washington Post:
Remember, along with group violence, individual acts are very useful to Trump: He can “crack down” on the violence, he can call for more police, he can present himself as the candidate of law and order. The more chaos, the stronger he will seem.
Now that Jobbik is Hungary’s second-largest political party, Fidesz positions itself as the center. Here’s the paradox: “Vote for us or else you get the far-right” is an argument that the farthest-right ruling party in Europe uses to win elections.
We will protect your civil liberties by curtailing them. Building America’s Trust Act would amp up privacy concerns at the border | Ars Technica:
"This is a surveillance bill in pretty weak disguise. And it won't be limited to immigrants," Alvaro Bedoya, a law professor at Georgetown University, told Ars. "It would pave the way for more face scans of American citizens at airports. It would aggressively deploy drones at the 'border,' but [it] doesn't mention that DHS interprets its authority to operate at the 'border' to extend to any area within 100 miles of the actual legal border."
This is just one arresting statement from a worrying essay. Harry Leslie Smith | Opinion | The Guardian:
It is as foolish for Americans to believe that their generals will save them from Trump as it was for liberal Germans to believe the military would protect the nation from Hitler’s excesses.
When the White House Lies About You - The New York Times:
[Using a general to demonize the press] raises the question of whether normally apolitical figures aren’t being conscripted into Trump’s war on the press. That’s a worrying thought for institutions, like the C.I.A., that are supposed to remain above the fray to preserve public trust.This does raise the question of whether the WH is planting disinformation with outsiders in hopes they will find it outrageous enough to propagate it. You know, dezinformatsiya.
ProPublica interviews a retired state senator who speaks with candor, and who describes collecting evidence and then using it to guide his decisions. That was refreshing.
Internal memo reveals ICE officers have free rein to detain any undocumented immigrant:
Under Obama, who earned the title of “deporter-in-chief” from immigration activists for the record number of deportations that took place under his administration, the majority of the detained undocumented population either had criminal histories or fell into a category where they could be considered a threat to public safety or national security.
“When you use the word ‘will’ instead of ‘may’ you are taking it a step further,” Saldaña told Propublica. “This is an important directive and people at ERO are bound by this directive unless someone above Matt Albence comes back and says, ‘You went too far.’ I don’t think you are going to find that person in this administration,” Saldaña added.
Republicans are risking becoming the party of Putin - The Washington Post:
Increasingly sophisticated Russian influence and cyberoperations threaten Americans’ ability to choose their own leaders. This isn’t hyperbole; in fact, it’s hard to overstate just how serious this issue is. Yet President Trump continues to sow doubt about whether Moscow even interfered in the 2016 presidential elections and to suggest the question’s insignificance by ignoring it all together.
Worse, Trump appears to have some support in this from Republican leaders in the House. Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have delayed the bill, citing the constitutional requirement that such bills originate in the House.
This is little more than a red herring. Nothing prevents them from inserting the text of the Senate bill into a House measure, passing it and sending it back to the Senate for final approval, which it would likely grant under expedited procedures. Instead, Ryan and McCarthy appear to be more interested in delaying and weakening the bill.I've voted for Republicans in the past. This bunch cares too much about power, and too little about anything else. They're selling out the country.
I knew it! 😁 The Effects of White vs. Whole-wheat Bread May Vary Greatly Between Individuals | Big Think:
...the glycemic response to each type of bread and the way it was metabolized was person-specific and could be predicted solely based on the microbiome makeup of that person, collected prior to the study. The microbiome itself was resilient to the intervention and did not change in individuals as a result of the study. The findings suggest that making blanket statements about a particular type of diet may not be appropriate and understanding dietary effects requires taking into account person-specific factors.
Since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 I've been wondering why the U.S. has ignored opportunities to develop technologies - for improved energy efficiency and alternative energy – that would have such an obviously large market around the world. Talk about lost opportunities: Three Reasons to Believe in China's Renewable Energy Boom:
"It’s not just pollution that’s driving the determined focus on renewable power. Leaders have made clear that they view clean energy as a powerful engine for job creation."
"“It’s about setting up for manufacturing dominance,” Liu says. “China sees green energy as an opportunity where it can become a manufacturing monster the way it has in clothes and toys.”"Edit: forgot to add the counterpoint. Rick Perry is a bright spot in a very dismal, autocratic administration. (The following are mostly quotes of quotes.)
"Although EPA Chief Scott Pruitt seems more than happy to blow up his own agency, Perry has gone in the opposite direction. The Energy Department has been cheerleading non-stop for renewables and clean tech with a flood of press releases, and Perry has backed that up with missives from his own @SecretaryPerry Twitter account."
"More than 133,000 energy efficiency jobs were added in 2016, bringing the total number of Americans working in the sector to 2.2 million people. More than half of those jobs (1.4 million) are in the construction industry alone."
"More than a quarter of the energy efficiency workforce (552,000 workers) is related to efficient appliances, including high efficiency heating and cooling equipment. That’s a 58% increase from 2015."
"DOE-backed research in solid-state lighting has yielded more than 260 patents and a significant industry footprint, with literally millions of products currently on the market based, at least in part, on these technical advancements. These products are estimated to have contributed to more than $2.8 billion in savings for consumers and businesses – an impressive return on an investment of about $350 million."
Why is Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro still in power?
"NICOLÁS MADURO, Venezuela’s president, is deeply unpopular. Four out of five Venezuelans think his government is doing a bad job."
"Mr Maduro has his predecessor to thank for his survival. During his 14-year presidency, Hugo Chávez systematically weakened all the main institutions in the country, stacking everything in the ruling party’s favour, and ensuring opposition-led change would be challenging or impossible."This is relevant to the U.S. situation, given the time remaining to the midterm elections:
"Only one institution remains independent, and that is the national assembly. It became opposition-controlled after a massive swing vote in December 2015. But that has not really mattered to Mr Maduro. He can instruct his compliant supreme court to overrule the assembly as required."Also relevant:
"The opposition has come to the conclusion that its only viable option is to take to the streets. It hopes mass protests will demonstrate who really holds majority power in Venezuela, and prompt serious concessions from the government, or even some sort of uprising. But Mr Maduro holds a trump card: the army. The supposedly neutral but heavily politicised institution is semi-embedded in Venezuela’s political structure. Officers or former officers run 11 of the government’s 32 ministries."
Trump Is Trying to Control the FBI. It's Time to Freak Out.:
"If the FBI is operating out of loyalty to the president, then one of the most important barriers between a democratic government and an authoritarian one has fallen."
Don't forget those smiling images of Trump and the Russians - The Washington Post:
"Nor are any of them much interested in the fate of Dan Heyman, the West Virginia reporter arrested recently for persistent questioning of Tom Price, the health and human services secretary. Due process, rule of law, all of the dull rules and procedures that deliver justice are uninteresting to men who believe in personalized power unconstrained by traditions, institutions or constitutions. Look at how pleased they were to see one another – and compare those pictures with Trump's stiff and awkward news conferences with democratic leaders such as Germany's Angela Merkel or Britain's Theresa May."
Garry Kasparov on Trump's authoritarian instinct - NY Daily News: Summary paragraph:
"If the rule of law and the separation of powers are to mean anything in the U.S., an independent investigation into Trump’s Russia ties and his finances is more critical now than ever. It won’t be easy, but it’s only going to get harder. Trump will keep finding new ways to accrue power — and he won’t care at all how bad it looks."The whole article is worth reading. I'll refrain from quoting it in its entirety.
"It's a simple formula: Always take whatever power is available. And don't worry about how it looks, because if you accumulate enough power quickly enough, appearances can't hurt you."
"“We’re in uncharted territory.” But this territory has been very well charted — in Russia, Turkey, Venezuela and in many other democracies that turned toward despotism. We watched Vladimir Putin navigate from the same map in Russia as he systematically destroyed every check on his power."
"Trump is surrounding himself with loyalists and family members, and dismissing anyone he thinks might be a threat to him."
"As if to emphasize how little he cares about optics, Trump followed up the Comey firing by meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador at the White House the very next day."
"Trump would love to turn the FBI into a personal security and intelligence force to use against his enemies, the way Putin uses the FSB in Russia and abroad."
It may not be obvious why anyone would worry about how much power Trump can hold in his hands. Vox again: Experts on authoritarianism are absolutely terrified by the Comey firing - Vox:
"It's not that the elected leaders in these countries set out to become an authoritarian, per se. It's that they care about their own power and security above all else, and do things to protect their own position that have the effect of removing democratic constraints on their power."
This Vox explainer implies an imbalance of power, given the current distribution of parties in executive and legislative branches. Special prosecutor: can bring charges. Can be fired by (deputy) A.G., therefore subject to executive pressure. Independent commission: can publish findings. Cannot bring charges. Must be created by legislation, therefore can be vetoed by President. Special committee: can focus on assigned subject of investigation. Can publish findings. Cannot bring charges. Recent instances have produced unsatisfactory results.
