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This is why every American should be against our Two Party System. Power, Money and Control. Thank you Mr.Cockburn, no that is not my Urologist.
https://harpers.org/archive/2022/11/party-walls/
Party Walls
by Andrew Cockburn
Walter Karp’s enduring view of the establishment
November 2022 issue
[Letter from Washington]
Conventional wisdom holds that our political moment is, in Joe Biden’s words, “not normal.” Thus, the usual political lessons to be drawn from such historical events as the New Deal or the United States’ entry into the world wars are supposedly irrelevant now. This is surely a dangerous misconception, especially when promoted by those who remember the past incorrectly. That is why the work of Walter Karp, a passionate scholar of American political history who offered a bracing antidote to the popular beliefs of his own era, is so useful today.
A generation ago, Karp served as a contributing editor of this magazine. In the words of his friend and longtime editor Lewis Lapham, he was “a stormy petrel of a man, small and excitable, delighting in the rush of his words and the energy of his ideas” who “believed that in America it is the people who have rights, not the state, and that the working of a democratic republic requires a raucous assembly of citizens unafraid to speak their minds.” For more than a decade, beginning in 1978, he focused on abuses of power in Washington for Harper’s Magazine, deriding Democrats who collaborated with Ronald Reagan, the elected officials behind failing school systems, and Capitol Hill controls on the press. While he lived before the limitless political spending and the egregiously partisan Supreme Court that mark our political landscape, Karp’s pungent analyses are entirely relevant at a time when true representation seems far removed from the minds of politicians.
Karp firmly believed that the actions of party leaders can be explained only if one understands that they are primarily motivated by the pursuit and retention of power; any suggestion that national interest, or even ideology, drives their decisions he considered delusional. Karp once wrote that “we can judge the character of public men only by what they actually do,” which all too often involved betraying the platform that got them elected, almost always to further their own political fortunes. In his estimation, Democrats and Republicans therefore had much in common; by prioritizing their own rule, the two parties operated on a principle of collusion—“for without it neither party organization could long survive.”
Karp’s analysis of the actions and motives of the Democratic presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson provide illuminating examples of his approach. Though each had been enthusiastically elected on the promise of far-reaching reform, they all took steps that effectively frustrated their professed reformist intent. Having kept afloat the system threatened by a Depression-ravaged populace, Roosevelt largely abandoned further reforms in his second term on the grounds that gathering war clouds in Europe mandated concentration on “national security.” A generation later, Kennedy, possessed of a congressional majority inclined to reform, announced that he would introduce no major legislation without the cooperation of the Senate Republican leader Everett McKinley Dirksen, who duly blocked measures seemingly dear to the president’s heart, such as a civil-rights bill, thus saving Kennedy from alienating the Southern racist wing of the Democratic Party. When it came to Johnson, Karp wrote, one could presume that he sent more troops to Vietnam in hopes that it would “kill reform,” “distract the citizenry from domestic concerns,” and “provide the means to suppress dissenters and insurgents in the name of wartime unity.”
Overall, Karp argued, the enduring goal of our dominant political institutions is to maintain control of the parties, a goal that can supersede even their supposed objective of winning elections. “The whole purpose of party organizations at every political level,” he wrote in his 1973 book Indispensable Enemies, “is to sift out, sidetrack and eliminate men of independent political ambition, men whom the party bosses cannot trust.” Karp predicted that his analysis would be deemed “grossly ‘conspiratorial’?” or “paranoid.” He rebutted any critics thus:
When it can be established that a number of political acts work in concert to produce a certain result, the presumption is strong that the actors were aiming at the result in question. When it can be shown, in addition, that the actors have an interest in producing those results, the presumption becomes a fair certainty. No conspiracy theory is required.
Those who argued the contrary were suggesting that, regardless of their actions, those in high office are essentially “men of goodwill,” which he deemed a “farfetched theory indeed.”
Events this year confirm that Karp’s theories remain roundly applicable. The Democratic response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade serves as a prime example. When the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion, it rapidly became clear that party leadership had readied no campaign to capitalize on the outrage triggered by the court’s Catholic fanatics, despite the opinion’s leak seven weeks prior. Reacting to complaints from the abortion rights movement—a key component of the Democratic base—the White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told the Washington Post that “Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party.” Her remark, undoubtedly representing Oval Office sentiment, would have come as no surprise to Karp. Nor would the reports that, following Kansas voters’ rejection of a proposed abortion ban by an eighteen-point landslide, White House advisers reportedly urged a position of “modesty and nuance.”
Ever since Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign, Democratic Party leadership has made it abundantly clear that eliminating the leftist insurgency is perhaps its highest priority. Examples abound, ranging from the brutal tactics deployed to prevent the popular progressive congressman Keith Ellison’s election as party chairman in 2017, to the full-court press assembled against Sanders in favor of nominating Biden in 2020. Earlier this year, the Democrats, reaping the consequences of their lackluster choice, resigned themselves to a crushing defeat in the midterms. But then the West Virginia senator Joe Manchin voted to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, replete with climate funding; gas prices fell, thanks in part to Vladimir Putin selling large quantities of oil despite sanctions; and Biden, appealing to younger, progressive voters,canceled a portion of the $1.6 trillion federal student-loan debt burdening millions of graduates. These developments enabled Biden and his team to gain favor with progressives, but they in no way indicate a leftward shift that will last beyond November. Karp, for his part, would likely predict the opposite.
In keeping with his gloomy assessment of our political leaders, Karp described them in trenchant terms: “oligarchs” and “bosses” servicing “machines.” Such language is generally absent in the more decorous prose of punditry today, as is any echo of Karp’s thesis that all political decisions, even when labeled as acts of statesmanship, are adopted to serve the interests of the relevant players. Oligarchs, bosses, and machines are rampant in today’s political system. On the “left,” one need look no further than the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the body that oversees election efforts for the House of Representatives.
Its chair, always a Democratic House member chosen by party leadership, selects the DCCC’s executive director and other senior staff. This little-known group exercises immense power in deciding which campaigns receive the party’s blessing and, no less importantly, who gets campaign consultancy work—ever more lucrative regardless of who wins. The list of recent executive directors and their subsequent employment support Karp’s depiction of such machines as self-perpetuating: In 2005, Rahm Emanuel, then a congressman and chairman of the DCCC, hired the political consultant John Lapp as executive director ahead of the 2006 midterms. At a time of rising discontent with the Bush Administration, the team sought out centrist candidates supportive of the disastrous Iraq War. The Democrats won the House, by thirty-one seats, for which Emanuel took full credit. But many of the winning candidates were those—such as Steve Cohen in Memphis and John Yarmuth in Louisville—to whom the Emanuel–Lapp team had refused support.
While Emanuel went on to serve as chief of staff to Barack Obama—whose progressive campaign platform was soon neutered with the help of “moderates” ushered into Congress by Emanuel—Lapp co-founded the political consultancy Ralston Lapp Media. In 2010, as detailed by Ryan Grim and Rachel Cohen in a 2021 investigation for The Intercept, the firm reaped $3 million in contracts from the DCCC and House Democrats, where the executive director was now Lapp’s former deputy Jon Vogel. Following the party’s losses in the 2010 midterms amid the Tea Party surge, Vogel set up MVAR Media, which continues to gain lucrative DCCC contracts. Vogel was succeeded by Robby Mook, who later ran Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Despite frustration over his inept performance, Mook retained party favor. By 2019, he was running House Majority PAC, the independent expenditure arm of the Democratic House leadership, founded by Ali Lapp, wife of John.
Chuck Rocha, a Democratic consultant, summarized the issue bluntly. “Many of the firms that are servicing the DCCC are made up of the former executive directors who used to run the DCCC,” he said. “Once you run it as an executive director, then you become a media consultant, and the DCCC will hire you then to work on all of these races across the country.” For much of the period discussed above, the DCCC leadership has been determinedly white and overwhelmingly male—this for a party utterly reliant on black, Hispanic, and women voters. Complaints grew from minority lawmakers, as well as from consultants like Rocha, after which Lucinda Guinn, who identifies as Latina, was appointed as executive director in 2019. Following the party’s poor showing in the 2020 congressional races, Guinn left the job to become a partner at Ralston Lapp, which had billed the DCCC more than $760,000 over the course of the campaign. Rocha concedes that the leadership situation has improved somewhat, especially on the Senate side, but maintains that problems persist. When he met with four different Latino or black congressional candidates this summer, he told me, they claimed that the list of approved consultants given them by the DCCC did not include any black- or brown-majority-owned consulting firms.
There is a financial imperative to these arrangements. Consultants are rewarded for failure partly thanks to the importance of media buying to their business model. Media buyers charge a hefty commission in the form of kickbacks from TV networks and other media companies. The consultant wings of party machines are therefore naturally disposed to favor paid media, as opposed to grassroots efforts propelled by enthusiastic volunteers. Much of the time, Democratic grassroots campaigns are led by progressives—those mobilizing the exact voters Karp once described as unwanted “active citizens.”
While the Democrats regularly provide textbook confirmation of Karp’s relevance, the Republicans’ record appears more complicated, given that their insurgency has seemingly triumphed. Mitch McConnell and the establishment he represents have long struggled to quell the mutiny that flowered in the 2010 election and continued through Donald Trump’s presidency. The effort continues to falter, partly thanks to the Democratic establishment’s failure to convict Trump, no matter the production value of the January 6 hearings. (However, criminal charges related to the alleged theft of documents could yield different results.) Part of the insurgents’ success may be attributed to a factor that Karp did not anticipate: the enabling of dark-money mega-donors, such as the Koch brothers and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, thereby loosening party control over finances, a vital tool for enforcing discipline. Nevertheless, the beleaguered leadership has done its best to combat what former house speaker John Boehner derides in his memoir On the House as a “freak show” of “lunatics” overly endowed with independent political ambition and difficult to control. Boehner and his colleagues attempted to corral the upstarts into the Republican Study Committee under leadership they selected. Among other efforts to stem the tide, they recruited a primary opponent to run against the Michigan congressman Justin Amash, an irksomely principled member of the conservative faction—the exact kind of meddling Karp would expect from party leadership. Nevertheless, Amash won, and in 2015 Boehner was overthrown as house speaker by the Freedom Caucus.
The year before, disaffected Republican voters in central Virginia defeated the House majority leader Eric Cantor, an oligarch if ever there was one, in a primary upset. The victor, the conservative college professor David Brat, outspent forty times over by his well-heeled opponent according to some calculations, ran a populist grassroots campaign focused on the federal deficit, opposition to “crony capitalists” in politics, and immigration. Few outside the district had paid much attention. One who did was Donald Trump, who arrived via helicopter at a Brat fundraiser around six weeks before he himself unveiled his presidential run. “Dave Brat is onto something,” he told organizers.
The Republican establishment reacted with fury to the defeat of one of its favorite sons. “They really hated Brat,” recalls a former Republican staffer who requested anonymity, “especially after he was a ringleader in overthrowing Boehner.” In 2016, Brat’s constituency was redistricted, losing Hanover, a Republican county. The machinations that led to this rearrangement were complicated, involving a legal battle over statewide Republican gerrymandering, but Brat supporters had little doubt about who was behind it. “It was all part of [the leadership’s] effort to take Dave Brat out,” Dale Swanson, co-founder of the district’s Conservative Women’s Coalition, told me.
Yet, for all the furor, the Republican insurgency never quite achieved its stated goals. Obamacare was never repealed, even when Republicans held power in Congress and in the White House under Trump. The Kochs, who had funded Freedom Caucus campaigns with the expectation that the recipients would honor pledges to shrink government spending, watched unfaithful beneficiaries vote to raise the debt ceiling and swell the deficit. Even with Trump’s arrival at the White House, apparently the culminating insurgent triumph, followers’ hopes remained unfulfilled. Wall Street and corporations still ruled the roost. “It’s still a government of the people, not for the people,” Swanson complained to me, “a government repping lobbyists, not us.” Trump’s diatribes against McConnell, the ultimate Republican establishment leader—“a broken-down hack” with “a crazy wife”—denote his failure to subdue the establishment. A striking number of GOP candidates, however, owe their primary victories to Trump’s endorsement. A Republican civil war may be the Democrats’ best hope for victory in the midterms and beyond—especially if establishment leaders continue to oppose candidates who could actually win.
In their shared determination to exclude dissidents, both parties inevitably drive many such to secede and operate independently. This does not shield them, however, from the meddling of major party leaders. This year, for example, Texas Republicans brought suit, albeit unsuccessfully, to exclude a raft of Libertarian candidates from the ballot. Democrats have been equally ruthless in their efforts to banish at least one Green Party candidate seeking election: Matthew Hoh, a Marine combat veteran who quit a foreign service career in 2009 to protest America’s war in Afghanistan, who is campaigning for a Senate seat in North Carolina. His platform is unreservedly progressive; among other leftist positions, he promotes universal health care, workers’ rights, and an end to America’s aggressive militarism. In North Carolina, as in many other states, minor parties are often enjoined to gather a set number of signatures from registered voters spread across a specified number of congressional districts, which are then validated by county election boards before routine certification by the state board of elections. The state board, made up of five members, is appointed by the governor, currently Roy Cooper, a Democrat, and consists of three Democrats and two Republicans.
Although the North Carolina Greens fulfilled the deliberately cumbersome requirements for signatures supporting a minor party petition—the bulk of which were certified by election board officials—the state board refused to validate them. They claimed, on the day before the statutory deadline to file as a candidate, that some of the signatures could be fraudulent and required further investigation. At the virtual board meeting, the Greens’ attorney asked whether any of the potentially tainted signatures were among those already verified by the county election boards, at which point the chairman, a Democrat, curtly declined to answer, then muted the attorney’s microphone. It took a federal appeals court decision to finally allow Hoh’s name on the ballot. Meanwhile, both state and federal Democratic groups participated in several lawsuits against the North Carolina Greens that were overseen by the Elias Law Group, a go-to law firm for the Democrats, generally acclaimed for its efforts to counter Republican voter-suppression initiatives and Trump’s election-fraud charges. The Greens have alleged that Elias operatives targeted voters on the Greens’ ballot petition, often falsely identifying themselves as Green Party officials, in order to persuade them to withdraw their names. Such insidious subterfuge would fit well with Karp’s proposition that “the grassroots political activity of the citizenry and its inseparable adjunct, the entry into political life of non-organization politicians, is a constant threat to party organizations.”
Karp’s political prognoses tend to be most vividly demonstrated in races within a given party. Take Philadelphia. The city has been a showcase for urban renewal in recent decades, complete with gentrification, an attrited public school system, and austerity in public services—attributes that leftists deride as free-market neoliberalism. These developments also run alongside gross inequality and outright poverty, notably among the majority-black population which suffers a poverty rate double that of white residents. The city has long been a Democratic fiefdom, and despite changing demographics—the current mayor is white, for the first time since 2000—the city council is majority black. “The political machine is still Democrat,” the Philadelphia activist Robert Saleem Holbrook told me. “Old-school Democrats: pro-development, pro-gentrification, pro-charter school, paying lip service to unions only at election time.”
Lately, however, a threat to the machine has emerged. In recent elections, Philadelphians have been voting for progressives in both city and state races. Anthony H. Williams, a state senator for the past twenty-four years, had, until this year, never faced a serious opponent. Responding to a union activist endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Paul Prescod, running against him, Williams called the news “insulting.” To fight the challenge, he garnered hefty financial support not only from his Democratic colleagues, but also from Republican mega-donor Jeffrey Yass, a former professional gambler who made his billions as a Wall Street trader and is currently the richest man in Pennsylvania; Yass pours his money into his favorite free-market causes in the United States—especially when it comes to so-called school choice. Williams’s response perfectly confirms Karp’s point about the dedicated self-interest of party machines: “Don’t criticize me because of where I get money to run a campaign,” he told a reporter. “You want me to tie both hands behind my back and hamper myself to run an effective election? I’m not going to do that.” Williams won the Democratic primary in May, ensuring his reelection this fall, though Prescod received almost 40 percent of the vote. “Think about that,” Holbrook said. “The Democratic machine was willing to go to Republican PACs to hold off a progressive challenger.”
The machine also put considerable energy into an effort to derail another unwelcome progressive candidate. Summer Lee, a Democratic Socialist and a longtime supporter of Sanders, challenged and defeated an incumbent Democratic state representative in Pittsburgh in 2018 with 68 percent of the vote, becoming the first black woman from western Pennsylvania to sit in the statehouse. Two years later, she won reelection. A vocal proponent of universal health care, the Green New Deal, Palestinian rights, and criminal justice reform, Lee announced her intent to run for Congress in a district that historically favors Democrats. To oppose her, the party recruited Steve Irwin, a rich white attorney who attracted a torrent of money, not least from pro-Israel PACs such as AIPAC’s United Democracy Project and Democratic Majority for Israel—a lobby that has been an especially useful ally in beating back progressive challengers this cycle.
Some in Lee’s circle discerned a more underhanded effort to derail her election. During her primary race, Pennsylvania’s state and congressional districts were being redrawn, and political parties and citizen groups had submitted redistricting proposals. The mapping issue was ultimately decided by the State Supreme Court, where liberals hold the majority, and where justices had previously thrown out a former map, put in place by the Republican legislature and an example of egregious gerrymandering. The court-blessed map has been generally commended as bipartisan, but it did exhibit one curious feature: Lee’s home address was cut out of the district in which she intended to run, along with other portions of her voter base. This rearrangement was mostly a detriment to Lee, having far less of an effect on her primary opponents, and thereby generating suspicion among her campaign staff that she had been deliberately targeted. At the very least, Karp would likely have seen the redistricting as a thumb on the scale.
Lee won her primary race, and is expected to win the general. Meanwhile, in this year’s Senate Democratic primary, the city machine endorsed Conor Lamb, a corporate-friendly congressman beloved by the national party. Lamb ran unsuccessfully against John Fetterman, the state’s lieutenant governor. Fetterman, a Sanders supporter, ran on a progressive social platform, supporting government-funded health care, legalized cannabis, and a reformed immigration system. (Fetterman has dodged attacks from pro-Israel PACs, having promised to “lean in” and strengthen relations with Israel.) His success, as well as Lee’s, surely gives the lie to the mantra that “progressives can’t win.” If successful, they pose a potential threat to establishment control. They can, however, be warded off by invoking existential menace. This “indispensable enemy” was one of Karp’s central concepts: a potent opponent that justifies shameful compromises and betrayals of the sort seen in the FDR, Kennedy, and Johnson presidencies.
Trump has been the most indispensable of enemies for the Democrats, so corrupt and clownish that Clinton hoped he would be her opponent in 2016. That hope has endured, as Biden’s September speech in Philadelphia once again confirmed, with its dark invocations of “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans” who “embrace anger,” “thrive on chaos,” and live “not in the light of truth but in the shadow of lies.” Meanwhile, his own Democratic allies had been pouring millions of dollars into Trump-backed primary campaigns around the country, from Colorado to New Hampshire, in a cynical effort to further split Republican factions. This strategy may yield success, especially since it has dawned on Democrats that support of abortion rights is a winning ticket. But an indispensable enemy can turn into something much more dangerous. It may evolve into a figure less fallible than Trump: a sharper, more presentable candidate such as the Florida governor Ron DeSantis, capable of summoning the MAGA army while maintaining support from supposedly moderate Republicans. Democrats still strive to suppress their own insurgents, but the day may come when they regret following their instincts. Of course, by then it may be too late. Just ask Hillary Clinton.
Walter Karp’s enduring view of the establishment
by Andrew Cockburn
Andrew Cockburn
is the Washington editor of Harper’s Magazine.
Rooster remember they are fighting for Democracy, their meaning being that we are the only truthful party that tell no lies the others are a useless waste of space. He does it more kindly than I do here but again I am against any Country today with only a two party system. But hey they own the media and now Biden says now that Twitter is owned by another rich white guy only lies from the other parties will be accepted not our real truths we promote. So funny. Put a fork in it Dem.’s you are toast this time around and your lies will not save you snd the truth will set you all free. Good Day sir.
Yes by all means always carry an umbrella with oneself you could get weather a phenomenon known for decades. Thanks for the activist update on her wayward thinking appreciate you reminding us who gives the worldly orders around the planet. Good day sir.
If you say so zab it must be true. You will get this entire board to believe you as you quote only facts here.
ZAB no I love our Country here, Putin has his own cross to bear here, not me. But hey he dug his own grave here on this one. Ukraine is his starting point in my mind and Europe should step up to the plate and stop him. They allowed him to provide them fuel at 2 billion dollars per day. Trump at least was informing Europe it would end up being trouble for them but they did not listen because like you folks here no one liked the guy even when he was right on the money, but I digress.
Maybe you should open up a webster's dictionary and learn some new real words. They are available still I think, may help you get over these swear curse words you tend to use a lot here. But hey it is your life. Go for it. Tells me all I need to know about you.
The other side is known by osmosis, I guess. Good deal I did not know that. I must have slept through that part of the hearing, but then again I have watched none of the clown show, see enough of that here.
I guess if you believe all their stories this must be true if you have a link to prove it all make fuagf proud of you for doing so.
10-4, they love fairy tales as long as they can spin them around and around they go, they have a bigger fetish on Trump than his own followers. Maybe these guys on here are the Oath Keepers???
Oh Ok so they do not want all the information, I see then, thanks for clarifying for us slow old folks here, appreciate it. I though Liz Chaney was the judge and jury, from what I have seen, or maybe that was Gerry Nadler? Trial I used the incorrect term so you best crucify me over that one. Good catch. Such language to attempt to get some sense of a point over to me. Good luck in your training to be an adult.
Sorry but I am on America's side and protecting our own borders not someone else's 10,000 miles away from our families. Get real, do you honestly think this is a war intended to be Russia against Ukraine? What a dope. We need to get the heck out of this fray here as our arms are being depleted but perhaps we could go and beg Afghanistan rebels for the weapons we left behind there in that dumb azz pull out, like we are now begging Saudi for oil that we can produce on our own without anyone's help. I am for America here at home, not for some far away crime ridden country. Sorry that my allegiance is here, not there.
https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=31f27770293d0173JmltdHM9MTY2NTYxOTIwMCZpZ3VpZD0wNzUzM2I4My01YWE5LTYzM2MtMTQ2Ny0yYTgyNWJmZjYyNTcmaW5zaWQ9NTQ1Mw&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=07533b83-5aa9-633c-1467-2a825bff6257&psq=Wall+Street+Journal%2c+Dossier+news%3f&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cud3NqLmNvbS9hcnRpY2xlcy90aGUtZmJpcy1taWxsaW9uLWRvbGxhci1kb3NzaWVyLWNocmlzdG9waGVyLXN0ZWVsZS1kb25hbGQtdHJ1bXAtaWdvci1kYW5jaGVua28tYnJpYW4tYXV0ZW4tam9obi1kdXJoYW0tMTE2NjU2MTEzNzc&ntb=1
FBI pays to get fake dossier that they already knew was phony. Oh well your tax dollars hard at work. October 2016 hmmmm.... before the election yet Hunters shenanigans occurred and was reported but no one knew about it. hmmmm.......
Seems fair to me in our great American system right folks, oh but you all agree with it. and Pulitzer prizes were given out on stories about this fake dossier, did those folks give back their fake stories and report that they were wrong the dossier was totally phony?
No they did not.
And more waste of money good old liberal union leader travels to Ukraine while the kids here in America are at their lowest level of learning and GPA's in years. Good job going to Ukraine, now DO YOUR JOB HERE LADY. Shows how much these dolts really care about America. Leave Ukraine to its own crime ridden economy. We are simply propping up a corrupt nation, I guess nothing new for our Government and its dumb azz leadership. Hey here's any idea how about leading in AMERICA first not Ukraine, how about protecting the American border not Ukraine's? Leaders today are mush.
US teachers union honcho ripped for visiting Ukraine to 'assess the situation'
by Jeremiah Poff, Education Reporter
October 11, 2022 12:35 PM
The president of the nation's second-largest teachers union received a wave of social media criticism when she announced she was visiting the border of Ukraine after Russian missiles peppered several Ukrainian cities.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, announced Monday on Twitter that she woke up that morning to "reports of disgusting Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Lviv and other cities" and that she was headed to the Ukrainian border to "assess the situation."
Woke up this am to reports of disgusting Russian missile strikes in Kyiv, Lviv & other cities.Heading to the border now to assess the situation. This Russian attempt to frighten civilians & the effect on children (who are learning online today) is why this ???? trip is so important https://t.co/dUVOxsdwRQ
"This Russian attempt to frighten civilians and the effect on children (who are learning online today) is why this [Ukraine] trip is so important," Weingarten wrote in the tweet.
In a video shared by AFT's Twitter account, Weingarten revealed that she was visiting the war-torn nation at the invitation of the Ukrainian teachers union.
AFT President @rweingarten is in Ukraine today at the invitation of the Ukrainian teachers union. This is part of the continued work our union has done to support Ukrainian teachers and students during this war.
The tweet prompted a flurry of criticism of Weingarten, with many wondering why the president of a U.S. teachers union was focusing her public advocacy efforts on the Russia-Ukraine war.
"Why in the world is the teacher’s union head who kept American schools remote for two years in Ukraine Tweeting about Ukrainian school kids being forced to attend remote schools? This is next level tone deaf insanity," radio host and OutKick founder Clay Travis wrote.
Why in the world is the teacher’s union head who kept American schools remote for two years in Ukraine Tweeting about Ukrainian school kids being forced to attend remote schools? This is next level tone deaf insanity. https://t.co/WvPJGriBYP
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) October 10, 2022
"Can you just assess the situation of failing to properly educate millions of children here?" wrote Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the American Federation for Children.
can you just assess the situation of failing to properly educate millions of children here https://t.co/nOE3GVmzFQ
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) October 10, 2022
Other users noted that Weingarten had pushed for extended school closures in the United States during the pandemic, forcing students into extended remote learning.
In Ukraine, kids got stuck with extended remote learning because of an actual war.
In America kids got stuck with extended remote learning because of Randi Weingarten. https://t.co/w3bcMHwvOv
— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) October 10, 2022
Another total waste of time and money.
NATO countries are sending a trove of weapons to Ukraine after Zelensky’s requested air cover. Here’s what each country is sending over
Sophie Mellor - 55m ago
Nato-led allies are preparing to send advanced air defense weapons to Kyiv after Volodymyr Zelensky called on wealthy western nations to help Ukraine create an “air shield” against incoming Russian aerial attacks.
At the meeting of NATO Ministers of Defense taking place in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday, the U.K., Canada, France, and the Netherlands all promised to send new weaponry to Ukraine, on top of the air military systems already promised by the U.S. and Germany.
The move to send more artillery comes a day after three-quarters of the 193-member U.N. General Assembly called Moscow's annexation of Ukrainian territory "illegal" with only four countries (Syria, Nicaragua, North Korea, and Belarus) joining Russia to vote against the resolution.
Kyiv celebrated the summit calling it “historic” and welcomed the new weaponry, which will be used to fight back Russian missiles raining down on more than 40 Ukrainian cities and towns.
Zelensky previously said at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Washington: "The more assistance Ukraine gets now, the sooner we'll come to an end to the Russian war."
Russia has always held a staunch position against the West providing weaponry to Ukraine, accusing them of being “a direct party to the conflict." They also warn that if Ukraine is admitted to NATO, which it has already submitted a fast-track membership bid to join, this could trigger World War Three.
Here's what countries are sending to Ukraine:
Germany
Since Russia first began its airstrike against Ukraine on Monday, Germany has sent the first of four IRIS-T SLM air defense systems to Kyiv.
People view a displayed IRIS-T SLM air defense system at the ILA Berlin Air Show in Schoenefeld, Germany, on June 22, 2022. With the participation of about 550 exhibitors from about 30 countries and regions, the ILA Berlin Air Show kicked off here on Wednesday. (Photo by Shan Yuqi/Xinhua via Getty Images)
People view a displayed IRIS-T SLM air defense system at the ILA Berlin Air Show in Schoenefeld, Germany, on June 22, 2022. With the participation of about 550 exhibitors from about 30 countries and regions, the ILA Berlin Air Show kicked off here on Wednesday. (Photo by Shan Yuqi/Xinhua via Getty Images)
© Provided by Fortune
The IRIS-T system is manufactured by Diehl Defense, based in Überlingen, and cost about €140 million ($136 million) each. They are designed to provide medium-range, high-altitude cover for small cities and armies.
The missiles are deployable 360 degrees around the launcher and use infrared imaging to identify targets. The weapons have so far never been used on the battlefield and the final tests on the device were only conducted in late 2021.
The U.S.
Washington, meanwhile, has promised to speed up its delivery of the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS), White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday, with two units expected to be delivered soon and six more sent over a longer time frame.
NASAMS, developed by Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace of Norway and Raytheon, is one of NATO’s most widely used air-defense systems and is currently deployed to protect the Washington area.
But despite Washington's promise to send the launchers as soon as possible, there has been difficulty sourcing the weapons on such short notice. Raytheon Technologies Corp said on Tuesday it would be accelerating the assembly of the NASAMS units by using existing parts rather than building new ones from scratch to get them to Ukraine quicker.
Kangaroo Court with all Democrap's on board begins today once again showing only one side of the arguments. Just the way they wanted this to play out, they had their decision made now they have all the correct testimony to make it so. Good American justice you have to love it where one side shows what happened. Good deal. Fairness in action. I am sure this board appreciates the fine job their Dem.'s did here for them. Hope they never have to go to Court in the U.S. and have no arguments in their favor and see how they may like it. Oh well not too many American's I guess on this board that like our form of fair justice here. Guess they like it one sided kind of like Hitler's Courts must have been. Oh well cannot grow more brains in life you are stuck with what you all have. Tooth fairy is coming tonight too.
Jan. 6 Panel Reschedules Final Hearing as Key Questions Remain Unresolved
The committee, whose work has mostly faded from view since it wrapped up a summertime series of hearings in July, is toiling to conclude its investigation and recapture public attention.
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has rescheduled its next and potentially final hearing for Thursday, Oct. 13 at 1 p.m., when it will attempt to refocus the country’s attention on former President Donald J. Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the continuing threat that election deniers pose to American democracy.
Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and chairman of the committee, said last week he expected the hearing to be the panel’s first without live testimony from witnesses. But he promised the committee would present new revelations about the Capitol riot and the events that led to it.
“We still have significant information that we’ve not shown to the public,” Mr. Thompson told reporters on Capitol Hill.
The hearing, which Mr. Thompson had previously said would be the panel’s last barring unforeseen revelations, was postponed abruptly last week as Hurricane Ian bore down on Florida.
_______________________________________________________
By the way good old FBI and everyone wonders why the former administration had their doubts about these folks, at least the ones involved in this scandal before the person even took their office too. Sad American history here.
The FBI offered British spy Christopher Steele $1 million in cash to prove the salacious allegations in his infamous 'Dirty Dossier' on Donald Trump, a senior bureau analyst told a federal court on Tuesday.
FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified that the bureau made the offer in 2016 during a meeting in the United Kingdom - but didn't hand over the money because Steele couldn't back up the evidence.
At the time, agents were looking to verify claims the Kremlin had compromising videos showing Trump engaged in sexual activity in a Moscow hotel and allegations he was in contact with Russian officials before the general election.
There were also salacious claims Steele was commissioned by Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign and the claims in the dossier have since been debunked.
Steele penned the 35-page document, which alleged that the Kremlin colluded with Trump's presidential campaign, in 2016 after his private intelligence company Orbis Business Intelligence was hired by a law firm representing the Democrats.
Among other things, the 'golden shower' dossier claimed that the Russian security services could blackmail the President-Elect with allegations that he paid prostitutes to urinate on a bed once slept in by Barack and Michelle Obama.
The revelation about the substantial financial incentive being offered came in the trial of Russian analyst Igor Danchenko, one of Steele's primary sources, who is accused of lying to the FBI when questioned about his information.
He was indicted on five counts of making false statements to the FBI about the dossier. Prosecutors told the court Danchenko fabricated one of his own sources and hid the identity of another when he was interviewed by the bureau.
Special Counsel John Durham, who was appointed by Trump, is prosecuting the case in am Alexandria, Virginia courtroom.
Auten testified that information from the Steele dossier was used to support a surveillance warrant against a Trump campaign official, Carter Page.
Under questioning from Durham, Auten said the dossier was used to bolster the surveillance application even though the FBI couldn't corroborate its allegations.
Auten said the FBI checked with other government agencies to see if they had corroboration but nothing came back.
Auten and other FBI agents even met with Steele in the United Kingdom in 2016 and offered him as much as $1 million if he could supply corroboration for the allegations in the dossier, but none was provided.
Durham's years-long probe has resulted in a single conviction – of FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for doctoring an email used to justify surveillance. The trial of Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann resulted in an acquittal.
Steele, an ex-MI6 intelligence officer, compiled the dossier as a series of dispatches. He had been a paid FBI informant.
Prosecutors said Danchenko, a Russia analyst and researcher based in Virginia, fabricated once source and hid another source of information as the FBI rushed in the weeks before the 2016 election to confirm information in the dossier. They accuse him of lying to the FBI when he was questioned about information he provided.
They also pointed to an area of harm – the FBI relied in part of information in the dossier to obtain warrants for phone and email surveillance of former Trump foreign policy advisor Carter Page, a U.S. citizen.
Your hero, need to worry about this man not fairy tales about a guy that has zero power, this is YOUR NUT JOB IN CHARGE TODAY GOD HELP US ALL even you.
https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=280b675bd68e2f07JmltdHM9MTY2NTM2MDAwMCZpZ3VpZD0wNzUzM2I4My01YWE5LTYzM2MtMTQ2Ny0yYTgyNWJmZjYyNTcmaW5zaWQ9NTE5Mg&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=07533b83-5aa9-633c-1467-2a825bff6257&psq=Biden+in+February+Nordstream+2+demolish+it&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubmV3c3dlZWsuY29tL3ZpZGVvLWJpZGVuLXNheWluZy1lbmQtbm9yZC1zdHJlYW0tcmVzdXJmYWNlcy1hZnRlci1waXBlbGluZS1sZWFrLTE3NDcwMDU&ntb=1
https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=298263d444507254JmltdHM9MTY2NTM2MDAwMCZpZ3VpZD0wNzUzM2I4My01YWE5LTYzM2MtMTQ2Ny0yYTgyNWJmZjYyNTcmaW5zaWQ9NTE2OA&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=07533b83-5aa9-633c-1467-2a825bff6257&psq=Biden+on+Armeggeddon+Russia&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY25uLmNvbS8yMDIyLzEwLzA2L3BvbGl0aWNzL2FybWFnZWRkb24tYmlkZW4tcHV0aW4tcnVzc2lhLW51Y2xlYXItdGhyZWF0cy9pbmRleC5odG1s&ntb=1
Zab so I guess Biden in the video did not say those words for the world to see is that what your lost mind is saying here. Even for all to see his exact words you dispute it occurred. Now I realize you have lost your mind because some site to you is somehow unworthy. Crazy still. Good luck with that.
https://www.newsweek.com/video-biden-saying-end-nord-stream-resurfaces-after-pipeline-leak-1747005
https://www.smobserved.com/story/2022/09/28/news/in-february-pres-biden-threatened-to-destroy-the-nordstream2-pipeline-if-russia-invaded-ukraine-now-some-wonder-if-us-blew-it-up/7115.html
https://www.westernjournal.com/biden-blow-nord-stream-pipeline-tucker-carlson-lays-possibility/
No you are saying that, we are not Russia.
A real leader of our Country would go out to the Rose Garden and hold a press conference letting the Saudi's know that the United States will begin full production of our oil reserves and refineries and we will also start undercutting your customers pricing and selling to them as well. But we have no such leader who is still counting his ill gotten gains from the Communist Red Chinese regime. Asleep at the wheel as usual and has no balls. Kamala has none either I have been told, and Joey is begging the Saudi's with hat in hand to give us more oil pleazzzzz..... what a dope and a sad President with zero backbone. Let them know Joey where we stand or you lose.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwi_k7_q0cn6AhUXlmoFHTgwBoAQFnoECCMQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fbusiness%2F2022%2F10%2F05%2Fopec-plus-oil-cut-russia-saudi-arabia%2F&usg=AOvVaw1-b_Hi0HeEHRxiZhpBSgcT
blackhawks, like I stated to each their own. I agree with Mr. Shellenberger and disagree with those that refute him. He also names folks in his article involved in the climate dilemma of today. There are truths and falsehoods on every link posted by whomever and from wherever its source is. I agree to disagree with your comments below and those who dispute Mr. Shellenberger. he has been at this for years. So much for all his hard work to have those who know little dispute his writings. He was as I would say here WOKE UP and smelled the coffee. Reality for some here is simply hard to swallow for some reason. But hey again you have you're links and I have mine. Thanks though. Appreciate it.
I work in all phases of energy savings across the U.S. not just solar that just happened to be the discussion on this board at that time, so I chimed in on it. Sorry I do not meet your expectations here, but you have your axe to grind so go do it. I am out here. Thanks for the input and no I am not a liar fool.
A few other tidbits you may not have seen prior, but again its links that you guiys do not like from me, because I take the other side of the argument. And another poster seems to think that because I work in the energy field for over 30 years that I should believe in climate change activism and all their BS, well I don't prescribe to it I just save energy and do the WORK others talk about but do nothing to save Kw/Kwh.
We have been doing this long before Al Gore invented it. And that is but only one company in the U.S. and overseas, but there are thousands of companies that have been doing the WORK in America for four decades now and saving energy on a min. of 40% from grid power loads for each client. But hey I am no expert here you guys seem to be the experts while others again do the actual WORK in reality, why do you think they do not build nuclear plants much anymore?
All that load that we take off of the grid allows for further expansion and growth in America without needing to add these plants. Now with EV Charging Station loads that will once again be on the table as those are continuous loads at more than 3 hours of charging time so loading is at 100% like having a toaster on for three hours or more in your home.
You can thank me and others in this field for years now for our devotion to saving the planet without all the hype you all like to believe in like the climate nonsense noisemakers. We were green before it was popular. But hey I am done tooting my own horn here now. I am out. Go do something real to save the planet. Do not listen to apocalyptic voices among us as they are wrong, not 100% but doom and gloom destruction of our planet is really wayward thinking and scares the hell out children of today to commit suicide in some cases thank you AOC and Greta you have made life more difficult for a lot of kids hope you sleep well at night.
https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/07/28/prominent-environmentalist-censored-forbes-called-white-supremacist-writing-sense-about-climate-14938
https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/there-is-no-climate-emergency-say-500-experts-in-letter-to-the-united-nations/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2015/01/06/97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong/
blackhawks I know you and others here will disagree with the below but I had posted prior and you all seemingly yelled at me calling this person just an author, but if you read it like you always indicate to me I should read you will find out otherwise about this person and their work on the environment over his years of doing the work, not just bs'ng it like the other outspoken liberal idiots among the masses. Highlighted just for you to.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/11/25/why-everything-they-say-about-climate-change-is-wrong/
Climate scientists are speaking out against grossly exaggerated claims about global warming.
Environmental journalists and advocates have in recent weeks made a number of apocalyptic predictions about the impact of climate change. Bill McKibben suggested climate-driven fires in Australia had made koalas “functionally extinct.” Extinction Rebellion said “Billions will die” and “Life on Earth is dying.” Vice claimed the “collapse of civilization may have already begun.”
Few have underscored the threat more than student climate activist Greta Thunberg and Green New Deal sponsor Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The latter said, “The world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change.” Says Thunberg in her new book, “Around 2030 we will be in a position to set off an irreversible chain reaction beyond human control that will lead to the end of our civilization as we know it.”
Sometimes, scientists themselves make apocalyptic claims. “It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that,” if Earth warms four degrees, said one earlier this year. “The potential for multi-breadbasket failure is increasing,” said another. If sea levels rise as much as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts, another scientist said, “It will be an unmanageable problem.”
I also care about getting the facts and science right and have in recent months corrected inaccurate and apocalyptic news media coverage of fires in the Amazon and fires in California, both of which have been improperly presented as resulting primarily from climate change.
Journalists and activists alike have an obligation to describe environmental problems honestly and accurately, even if they fear doing so will reduce their news value or salience with the public. There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people. And exaggerating climate change risks distracting us from other important issues including ones we might have more near-term control over.
I feel the need to say this up-front because I want the issues I’m about to raise to be taken seriously and not dismissed by those who label as “climate deniers” or “climate delayers” anyone who pushes back against exaggeration.
With that out of the way, let’s look whether the science supports what’s being said.
First, no credible scientific body has ever said climate change threatens the collapse of civilization much less the extinction of the human species. “‘Our children are going to die in the next 10 to 20 years.’ What’s the scientific basis for these claims?” BBC’s Andrew Neil asked a visibly uncomfortable XR spokesperson last month.
“These claims have been disputed, admittedly,” she said. “There are some scientists who are agreeing and some who are saying it’s not true. But the overall issue is that these deaths are going to happen.”
“But most scientists don’t agree with this,” said Neil. “I looked through IPCC reports and see no reference to billions of people going to die, or children in 20 years. How would they die?”
“Mass migration around the world already taking place due to prolonged drought in countries, particularly in South Asia. There are wildfires in Indonesia, the Amazon rainforest, Siberia, the Arctic,” she said.
But in saying so, the XR spokesperson had grossly misrepresented the science. “There is robust evidence of disasters displacing people worldwide,” notes IPCC, “but limited evidence that climate change or sea-level rise is the direct cause”
What about “mass migration”? “The majority of resultant population movements tend to occur within the borders of affected countries," says IPCC.
It’s not like climate doesn’t matter. It’s that climate change is outweighed by other factors. Earlier this year, researchers found that climate “has affected organized armed conflict within countries. However, other drivers, such as low socioeconomic development and low capabilities of the state, are judged to be substantially more influential.”
Last January, after climate scientists criticized Rep. Ocasio-Cortez for saying the world would end in 12 years, her spokesperson said "We can quibble about the phraseology, whether it's existential or cataclysmic.” He added, “We're seeing lots of [climate change-related] problems that are already impacting lives."
That last part may be true, but it’s also true that economic development has made us less vulnerable, which is why there was a 99.7% decline in the death toll from natural disasters since its peak in 1931.
In 1931, 3.7 million people died from natural disasters. In 2018, just 11,000 did. And that decline occurred over a period when the global population quadrupled.
What about sea level rise? IPCC estimates sea level could rise two feet (0.6 meters) by 2100. Does that sound apocalyptic or even “unmanageable”?
Consider that one-third of the Netherlands is below sea level, and some areas are seven meters below sea level. You might object that Netherlands is rich while Bangladesh is poor. But the Netherlands adapted to living below sea level 400 years ago. Technology has improved a bit since then.
What about claims of crop failure, famine, and mass death? That’s science fiction, not science. Humans today produce enough food for 10 billion people, or 25% more than we need, and scientific bodies predict increases in that share, not declines.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) forecasts crop yields increasing 30% by 2050. And the poorest parts of the world, like sub-Saharan Africa, are expected to see increases of 80 to 90%.
Nobody is suggesting climate change won’t negatively impact crop yields. It could. But such declines should be put in perspective. Wheat yields increased 100 to 300% around the world since the 1960s, while a study of 30 models found that yields would decline by 6% for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature.
Rates of future yield growth depend far more on whether poor nations get access to tractors, irrigation, and fertilizer than on climate change, says FAO.
All of this helps explain why IPCC anticipates climate change will have a modest impact on economic growth. By 2100, IPCC projects the global economy will be 300 to 500% larger than it is today. Both IPCC and the Nobel-winning Yale economist, William Nordhaus, predict that warming of 2.5°C and 4°C would reduce gross domestic product (GDP) by 2% and 5% over that same period.
Does this mean we shouldn’t worry about climate change? Not at all.
One of the reasons I work on climate change is because I worry about the impact it could have on endangered species. Climate change may threaten one million species globally and half of all mammals, reptiles, and amphibians in diverse places like the Albertine Rift in central Africa, home to the endangered mountain gorilla.
But it’s not the case that “we’re putting our own survival in danger” through extinctions, as Elizabeth Kolbert claimed in her book, Sixth Extinction. As tragic as animal extinctions are, they do not threaten human civilization. If we want to save endangered species, we need to do so because we care about wildlife for spiritual, ethical, or aesthetic reasons, not survival ones.
And exaggerating the risk, and suggesting climate change is more important than things like habitat destruction, are counterproductive.
For example, Australia’s fires are not driving koalas extinct, as Bill McKibben suggested. The main scientific body that tracks the species, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, labels the koala “vulnerable,” which is one level less threatened than “endangered,” two levels less than “critically endangered,” and three less than “extinct” in the wild.
Should we worry about koalas? Absolutely! They are amazing animals and their numbers have declined to around 300,000. But they face far bigger threats such as the destruction of habitat, disease, bushfires, and invasive species.
Think of it this way. The climate could change dramatically — and we could still save koalas. Conversely, the climate could change only modestly — and koalas could still go extinct.
The monomaniacal focus on climate distracts our attention from other threats to koalas and opportunities for protecting them, like protecting and expanding their habitat.
As for fire, one of Australia’s leading scientists on the issue says, “Bushfire losses can be explained by the increasing exposure of dwellings to fire-prone bushlands. No other influences need be invoked. So even if climate change had played some small role in modulating recent bushfires, and we cannot rule this out, any such effects on risk to property are clearly swamped by the changes in exposure.”
Nor are the fires solely due to drought, which is common in Australia, and exceptional this year. “Climate change is playing its role here,” said Richard Thornton of the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre in Australia, “but it's not the cause of these fires."
The same is true for fires in the United States. In 2017, scientists modeled 37 different regions and found “humans may not only influence fire regimes but their presence can actually override, or swamp out, the effects of climate.” Of the 10 variables that influence fire, “none were as significant… as the anthropogenic variables,” such as building homes near, and managing fires and wood fuel growth within, forests.
Climate scientists are starting to push back against exaggerations by activists, journalists, and other scientists.
“While many species are threatened with extinction,” said Stanford’s Ken Caldeira, “climate change does not threaten human extinction... I would not like to see us motivating people to do the right thing by making them believe something that is false.”
I asked the Australian climate scientist Tom Wigley what he thought of the claim that climate change threatens civilization. “It really does bother me because it’s wrong,” he said. “All these young people have been misinformed. And partly it’s Greta Thunberg’s fault. Not deliberately. But she’s wrong.”
But don’t scientists and activists need to exaggerate in order to get the public’s attention?
“I’m reminded of what [late Stanford University climate scientist] Steve Schneider used to say,” Wigley replied. “He used to say that as a scientist, we shouldn’t really be concerned about the way we slant things in communicating with people out on the street who might need a little push in a certain direction to realize that this is a serious problem. Steve didn’t have any qualms about speaking in that biased way. I don’t quite agree with that.”
Wigley started working on climate science full-time in 1975 and created one of the first climate models (MAGICC) in 1987. It remains one of the main climate models in use today.
“When I talk to the general public,” he said, “I point out some of the things that might make projections of warming less and the things that might make them more. I always try to present both sides.”
Part of what bothers me about the apocalyptic rhetoric by climate activists is that it is often accompanied by demands that poor nations be denied the cheap sources of energy they need to develop. I have found that many scientists share my concerns.
“If you want to minimize carbon dioxide in the atmosphere in 2070 you might want to accelerate the burning of coal in India today,” MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel said.
“It doesn’t sound like it makes sense. Coal is terrible for carbon. But it’s by burning a lot of coal that they make themselves wealthier, and by making themselves wealthier they have fewer children, and you don’t have as many people burning carbon, you might be better off in 2070.”
Emanuel and Wigley say the extreme rhetoric is making political agreement on climate change harder.
“You’ve got to come up with some kind of middle ground where you do reasonable things to mitigate the risk and try at the same time to lift people out of poverty and make them more resilient,” said Emanuel. “We shouldn’t be forced to choose between lifting people out of poverty and doing something for the climate.”
Happily, there is a plenty of middle ground between climate apocalypse and climate denial.
https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=50c87816fb8ddf5aJmltdHM9MTY2NDc1NTIwMCZpZ3VpZD0wNzUzM2I4My01YWE5LTYzM2MtMTQ2Ny0yYTgyNWJmZjYyNTcmaW5zaWQ9NTUwMQ&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=07533b83-5aa9-633c-1467-2a825bff6257&psq=Michael+Shellenberger%2c+Wikipedia&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly9lbi53aWtpcGVkaWEub3JnL3dpa2kvQnJlYWt0aHJvdWdoX0luc3RpdHV0ZQ&ntb=1
Michael Shellenberger is the best-selling author of San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities (HarperCollins 2021) and Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (HarperCollins 2020). Apocalypse Never has been translated into over 15 languages including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Korean, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Czech, Slovak, and Polish.
He is founder and president of Environmental Progress, an independent nonprofit research organization that incubates ideas, leaders, and movements. Michael is a Time Magazine "Hero of the Environment," and Green Book Award winner. And he is cofounder of the California Peace Coalition, an alliance of parents of children killed by fentanyl, parents of homeless addicts, and recovering addicts.
Shellenberger is a leading investigative journalist who has broken major stories on crime and drug policy; homelessness; Amazon deforestation; rising climate resilience; growing eco-anxiety; the U.S. government’s role in the fracking revolution; and climate change and California’s fires. And he testifies and advises governments around the world including in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany.
Michael has been called a “environmental guru,” “climate guru,” “North America’s leading public intellectual on clean energy,” and “high priest” of the environmental humanist movement for his writings and TED talks, which have been viewed over five million times.
Shellenberger has been a climate and environmental activist for over 30 years. He has helped save nuclear reactors around the world, from Illinois and New York to South Korea and Taiwan, thereby preventing an increase in air pollution equivalent to adding over 24 million cars to the road.
In the 1990s, Shellenberger helped save California’s last unprotected ancient redwood forest, inspire Nike to improve factory conditions, and advocate for decriminalization and harm reduction policies. In the 2000s, Michael advocated for a “new Apollo project” in clean energy, which resulted in a $150 billion public investment in clean tech between 2009 and 2015.
Michael lives in Berkeley, California and travels widely. You can follow him on Twitter or email him by clicking here. You can download a high resolution photo of him by clicking here and you can download photos by clicking here.
Agreed.
The systems have gotten better over time but initially folks did not know the correct pitch angle for the best sun exposure and to maintain them from blowing off of their brackets and ballast (hold downs) system. But when an entire roof gets blown off its hard to maintain one under those conditions. Improvements are made all the time with such systems. I have installed multiple large fields of these solar panels over my years. So not new to me at all. thanks for your insight here. Sorry but I have to pick on the Climate Change crowd as that one climatologist who came out and let everyone know what they had was BS and that the world will not end in 10 years which scared some children to death literally to suicide. As adults we must control this type of information as it goes to the weakest among us all.
That was my life and I am privy to its content of it being correct the way of the world going from job to job to layoff to layoff. Settled out about 1978 for me and still working today. So early days was difficult, but lucky for you all I made it OK bot be here for all of you, aren't you happy for me?
Good enough for you, so let's be clear you no nothing about me or where I grew up, nor do you care. Feelings are mutual here pal or gal. But hey look on you're brigth side here you still have Orange Man to bash around more as you have nothing else better to do, He is in all of your brains and has corrupted them terribly so that you mull over him day and night. But hey good luck with that process. Psychiatrists are standing by for you all to help you out of your plight and obsession with one man.
fuagf, once again you push us all links and because you are loved on this board no one disputes them at all, CNN really do they even report and news any more? I know you are trying to educate my old butt but those days are gone for me pal. Try as you may whomever posts some link written by others, and those others hold bias's then it is worthless drivel to be posted anywhere, not just here. But you are allowed to indulge this board with these link tripe pieces by others as truthful. Thanks again for the links made by others posted by you as facts. So do you think other insurance companies buy up those that file for said bankruptcies or not? It used to be that way years ago, if one faltered the others would buy them up, why, so they can make the money off of their slave policy owners.
You own mind your own will to do so. No issue there. Hey here are some links you may like. Perhaps Hillary should visit Russia again for Joey Biden and give Putin another Reset Button now that is diplomacy in action or perhaps inaction? Depending on which dumb party you all support. You all do know that Russia has the largest arsenal of Nukes in the world right. Joey we love your foreign diplomacy since you have been in charge. Afghanistan pull out fiasco, now allowing Russia to invade Ukraine but hey you already knew that was going to happen you were informed by the CIA that has been in that country for years training soldiers on Russia's border.
I know you will punish me further with your commentary on the links I post as none so far have any of you agreed with, which is why I make the entire point of you are posting many links here as well written by others that neither witnessed the event nor was personally involved in it. But rather got the news off of Instacrap, some Tic Tac video, Fakebook crap, or some other useless social media outlet none of which do anyone any good in the world other than to create strife in all's lives. Again,any story has its own biased opinions and holds some facts and some mistruths, that is where we are today folks. Fact Checkers as you call yourselves is really a funny notion.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/washington-putins-nuclear-threats-stir-142315979.html
And here is another that I am sure you all agree with here the Liberal D.C. cops are confiscating guns from those who should not have them but arresting no one, can you say let me take your guns or you will go to jail. I assume you all are in favor of such liberal tactics for criminals.
https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrFCVAVEjpjp6Q1_RZXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZANMT0NVSTA1M18xBHNlYwNzYw--/RV=2/RE=1664778902/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.msn.com%2fen-us%2fnews%2fus%2fdc-police-investigating-officers-who-confiscated-guns-without-making-arrests%2far-AA12tOa0/RK=2/RS=v_b0zxhgk7og0L7pRMbNXsE4_b0-
So now you are going to tell me how I grew up in a Democrat household!!!! Yeah you have let power go to your brain snd as others on this board Trump has gotten under all your skin as that is all you talk about, he has total power over all of you and you all whether you realize it or not keep him alive and well each and every day. Real funny in my humble opinion. I voted Democratic up until such time I realized when Dem.’s we’re in power I always lost my job but when Republicans were in power I stayed working. As a young person it was fairly easy to figure that out.. nowadays I have grown past all these worthless money grabbing parties as both are evil money hungry slobs who will do anything to stay in power. They are both doing a total disservice to Our Country and deserve to be shown the door. Again in my humble opinion I will support neither of these evil parties. But you have yourselves to answer to supporting such trashy folks here you do that at your own peril snd it makes you all complicit to the way things are. Sleep well here my wayward board.
Free money hand outs have gotten to your brains, but the worst thing you all have allowed to happen is having jabbing Trump own your being. Now that is really funny. All you do is speak about some guy who has zero power in the whole scheme of things yet my post are out of sorts look in the proverbial mirror folks.
Truth hurts sometimes. Insurance companies going bankrupt is not a Desantis decision unless he is on their boards and voted to file bankruptcy. Sometimes businesses have to stand on their own two feet as well here. As far as Biden goes he’s still looking for that dead representative and Kamala is making deals with North Korea, as our leaders and I DO expect more from these dolts even if they act as if they have brains once in awhile could be tolerable, but showing zero signs of brainpower does not fit in American leadership in my opinion. You all may prefer these dummies but I prefer people with brains like JFK, MLJ and RFK and even Jimmy Carter to these fools. Kennedy’s in todays world would be Libertarians just saying. By the way the prior named folks were some of the best in my lifetime but really too short lived. Yes I grew up in a Democratic household but then I grew up.
Some reason this board loves to place blame on individual person’s as opposed to the system itself and the Very Rich insurance companies.
Don’t need to know my eyes do not deceive me, you speak of laws when laws are being broken everyday in a free for all, who cares about laws anymore illegals do not follow them so why should any legal American care?
So now Desantis is in charge of paying insurance premiums for his citizens?? I guess I missed that story. Oh that’s right in Liberal land everything is free I forget to quickly here. Sooner or later one runs out of money allah $40 trillion plus in debt. So I guess there is no debt and it’s totally phony as they keep spending it so let’s declare our debt finished tomorrow via executive order then. Get rid of it in a second via King Joey.
I have empathy for LEGAL Immigrants end of story do the work or do not come here.
So I see it is our fault that people were born where they were now, how stupid is that thinking. Way off base. Let them change the conditions there then. No it’s just easier to come here illegally and steal America’s wealth no matter the fallout for Americans in need too. Hey here’s an idea quit supporting foreign nations snd getting zippo back in return and use that money to fix our immigration system so folks can come here legally instead of the shadows. Hey how’s that fentynal working out for you Democrats and Republican types now hey have you all killed enough American children yet? 300 per day dead due to open borders. An airplane crash per day and nothing gets done, children dying and nothing is fine both parties are fully complicit in all these deaths. And nothing gets done.Yeah you guys are in the right sides all right. Kamala visits the DMZ and makes a total ass of herself although she does not need any help to get there but she’s cannot hold committee hearings on these killer drugs snd get a game plan to stop them coming across our borders??? No why it begs the question right? Because they make money at this drug trade no big surprise there if it was not profitable it would cease. They are all complicit snd those that support these dolts are as well. They are all sick with money.
Another one list in La La land here. Use your money then to pay for illegals, snd the criminals among them killing Americans. Oh but those stories are not covered by the biased media types you follow they too are clueless and brainless as you. You need to move to CA where they accept fools.
Don’t boats work? Don’t planes work? Or maybe send them packing with all your buddies in those electrical vehicles. They can stop and charge them in Mehico. Either way they all need to return to their Motherland snd try to fix the conditions there instead of easy way out with free money and services here. Oh that’s right free is not free, as someone like you snd me pay for it.
Such kind words, I sm blushing. Idiot.