Monthly Archives: June 2017

Republican Leadership Tries To End Probe Into Trump

Were you thinking that the Republicans in Congress want to get to the bottom of the Russians stealing our election? That was never true, you were always wrong, it is time to stop pretending.

The document below can be found in PDF form here.

Here is Rachel Maddow’s take on it:


This is what dictators have their minions do.

Please, MSNBC, can we stop now?

MSNBC has added Bret Stephens, climate denier formerly of the WSJ, lately of the NYT, to their list of commenters. Shame on them.

Also, shame on Wikipedia and others for referring to Stephens as a journalist. He is no more a journalist than Anne Coulter. He is a commenter. (He’s way better than Coulter, of course.)

Prior related posts:

Out of the gate, Bret Stephens punches the hippies, says dumb things

Honestly, New York Times? You are entitled to publish all the opinions, but not to endorse your own facts!

My letter to the New York Times

Dear New York Times: Climate Change Is Real

The New York Times Bites It With New Climate Denier Columnist

Apparently the widespread opposition to Stephens, which included a lot of tweeting, has driven him off Twitter.

And, MSNBC has added climate denier Hugh Hewitt as a host of a Saturday morning program. Read this expose from MMFA for the documentation on Hewitt’s climate denial.

Trump Dictates To The Press: Mika, Obamacare, Bullying the Press Corp

Trump is reportedly pressuring public news media and other outlets to not distribute information about Obamacare, as they normally would, in an effort to sabotage the n-Law. This is what dictators do.

Trump’s people in the “press” room have bullied the press to the point that they are finally starting to lash out. This is what dictators do.

Trump has attacked another female journalist, this time Mika Brzezinski, with another enigmatic blood coming out of her body parts comment.

This is what dictators do.

Reminder: Back during the campaign, Trump called Ms. Brzesinski “crazy and very dumb”

“Just heard that crazy and very dumb @morningmika had a mental breakdown while talking about me on the low ratings@Morning_Joe. Joe a mess!”

Is anybody going to do something about this?

Pregnancy, C-Sections, and Postpartum Depression Are Preexisting Conditions in New American Healthcare Act

This is from Parents magazine:

When you talk about “preexisting conditions,” you probably think of things like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. But the reality is that healthcare companies consider a whole slew of common health concerns preexisting conditions. Odds are, if you’re a mom, you probably already have one of them. And now that the American Healthcare Act passed the House of Representatives today—if it becomes law, your health insurer could charge you thousands more for your coverage or reduce your insurance coverage because of these “preexisting conditions.”

“Things that are incredibly common for women, including C-sections, pregnancy and postpartum care, will all be considered preexisting conditions,” says Kristyn Brandi, OB/GYN at Boston Medical Center, and current fellow at Physicians for Reproductive Health. “A lot of women would end up paying out of pocket for healthcare, which would definitely be a big problem for most women across the country. Women are particularly at risk because they use more healthcare than other people do. They don’t think of pregnancy as a preexisting condition, so people don’t realize how much they will be impacted.”

Read the rest here.

The repeal of the ACA, and the implementation of a huge tax break for the very wealth (same bill) will happen. All the yelling and screaming at Republicans in the world, which of course we should consider doing and which of course is meaningful in a number of ways, will not stop Donald Trump and his minions in the Republican Party from passing this bill, eventually. Probably by the end of July.

Fortunately, every two years, our Constitution lets us overthrow the government. I live in a district where we, the voters, have every intention of removing the Republican house member and replacing him with a Democrat. Do you live in a Republican district? Is it one of the two dozen or so that we will be changing? There may actually be as many as 70 seats in play.

And, of course, the Senate has to change too, but that may be a bit more difficult. This is why Trump is going to be in the White House for four years. Even if we change over the House, the Senate still acts as the jury for Impeachment, and a Republican Senate will never impeach Trump. Trump could wold down to the National Mall and shoot a tourist and the Republicans in the Senate would pass a bill giving him a medal for that.

Trump, Perry, Energy, Climate, #Sad

Two items I know you’ll want to check out.

The ‘intellectual’ debate Rick Perry says he wants is already over

Last week, Energy Secretary Rick Perry told CNBC he considers his skepticism towards climate data to be a sign of a “wise, intellectually engaged person.” Yesterday, at a press briefing at the White House – it’s apparently supposed to be “Energy Week” – Perry used similar phrasing, calling for “an intellectual conversation” on global warming.

Four myths journalists should watch out for during Trump’s “Energy Week”

The White House has declared this to be “Energy Week” and is pushing a theme of “energy dominance,” with a particular emphasis on exports of natural gas. Three of President Trump’s cabinet members are out in force this week trying to spread misleading or false messages about energy and exports through the media.

“An energy-dominant America will export to markets around the world, increasing our global leadership and influence,” Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt wrote in a joint op-ed published Monday in The Washington Times.

Watch out for these myths:

Myth #1: Natural gas exports are good for ordinary Americans and the overall U.S. economy

Myth #2: Natural gas exports are good for the climate

Myth #3: Natural gas exports have been blocked until now

Myth #4: The U.S. can achieve “energy dominance”

The item at MMFA has the details.

This is how a dictatorship works.

The press has had enough of being called liars by the liars. I’m not a big fan of MJ, but the very fact that MJ has quotable conversation about this is a change in how the world works.

Here’s another thing dictators do: Make up accolades. Trump created a fake TIME magazine cover and hung it in several of his golf clubs. It has him on the cover. That issue of TIME never happened. It is not just fake news, it is an entire fake news magazine. Details here.

Here it is. Interesting set of headlines:

NGS Coal Industry Documentary Free For A While

There is no free lunch, but you can watch a normally unfree documentary for free on the usual streaming networks for a little while.

Click here to get to the NGS site

From Hollywood Reporter:

Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies, says, “Coal affects our lives and planet in important ways, but people often take positions on it without seeing the full picture. So this week, National Geographic is making From the Ashes available for free on a number of platforms. We encourage family and friends to watch the film and join the CrowdRise campaign to support organizations that are helping create new jobs in coal country.”

The film premiered earlier this year at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival and then had a limited theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles before its global broadcast debut on National Geographic beginning Sunday. National Geographic will continue to roll out the film globally across 171 countries and 45 languages.

Bloomberg Philanthropies also organized a worldwide screening tour of From the Ashes, hosting viewings in several cities including Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, San Francisco, Vancouver and Washington, as well as stops in Brussels, London, Mexico City and Paris. The film has also been screened at more than 200 colleges and universities nationwide.

Happy Anniversary Harry Potter!

Today is the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Harry Potter phenomenon.Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was published on this day in 1997, and Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire, Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Book 6), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) were produced with regularity afterwards, eventually in some degree of step with the movies.

Author J. K. Rowling was to produce a number of Harry Potter related things later, but she also started a series that we hope continues about something unrelated to the world of wizardry and witchcraft, with the production of a series of books starting with The Casual Vacancy about a British detective and his very interesting assistant.

If you have not read these, read them now. If you have read the Harry Potter series, red it again now.

Some inexpensive science related books

I know some of you cheapskates will want to pick up these books … well, not really pick them up, but rather, instantiate them on your eReader. These are all 2 bucks or less for the Kindle version, at the moment, price presumably subject to change at any moment.

How the mind might or might not work

This is a collection of writings by various experts on how the mind works. They are not all right, but they are all intertesting. Includes Pinker, Lakoff, etc. Personally, I think there is a bit of a bias in the listing of authors towards a certain school of thought that I don’t personally think nails the mind down very well, but most of these essays are worth reading even if it is just to yell at them: The Mind: Leading Scientists Explore the Brain, Memory, Personality, and Happiness

A book by Sean B. Carrroll

The never-before-told account of the intersection of some of the most insightful minds of the 20th century, and a fascinating look at how war, resistance, and friendship can catalyze genius.

In the spring of 1940, the aspiring but unknown writer Albert Camus and budding scientist Jacques Monod were quietly pursuing ordinary, separate lives in Paris. After the German invasion and occupation of France, each joined the Resistance to help liberate the country from the Nazis and ascended to prominent, dangerous roles. After the war and through twists of circumstance, they became friends, and through their passionate determination and rare talent they emerged as leading voices of modern literature and biology, each receiving the Nobel Prize in their respective fields.

Drawing upon a wealth of previously unpublished and unknown material gathered over several years of research, Brave Genius tells the story of how each man endured the most terrible episode of the twentieth century and then blossomed into extraordinarily creative and engaged individuals. It is a story of the transformation of ordinary lives into exceptional lives by extraordinary events–of courage in the face of overwhelming adversity, the flowering of creative genius, deep friendship, and of profound concern for and insight into the human condition.


Brave Genius: A Scientist, a Philosopher, and Their Daring Adventures from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize

It might too late for this one

I don’t know anything about this book, so I’m not really recommending it, but it is only 2 bucks.

We live in complicated, dangerous times. Present and future presidents need to know if North Korea’s nascent nuclear capability is a genuine threat to the West, if biochemical weapons are likely to be developed by terrorists, if there are viable alternatives to fossil fuels that should be nurtured and supported by the government, if private companies should be allowed to lead the way on space exploration, and what the actual facts are about the worsening threats from climate change. This is “must-have” information for all presidents—and citizens—of the twenty-first century.

Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines

How to talk to Rick Perry about climate change

No, really.

How to Change Minds About Our Changing Climate dismantles all the most pernicious misunderstandings using the strongest explanations science has to offer. Armed with airtight arguments, you’ll never be at a loss for words again—no matter how convincing or unexpected the misconception you’re faced with. And with our planet’s future in our hands, the time to change minds is now: The sooner we can agree, once and for all, that climate change is a significant threat to our well-being, the sooner we can start to do something about it.

How to Change Minds About Our Changing Climate: Let Science Do the Talking the Next Time Someone Tries to Tell You…The Climate Isn’t Changing; Global Warming … Other Arguments It’s Time to End for Good

Now for something entirely different

I’ve not read these, though I’ve got them on my eShelf, but I know most of you have either read them or plan on doing so. These are the “golden compass” books. I don’t know much about them but I know they are popular among non-believers/atheists/scientists/nerds/geeks, and they happen to have gotten suddenly cheap.

The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials

The Amber Spyglass: His Dark Materials

The Subtle Knife: His Dark Materials

Atlantic Hurricane Season 2017 (frequently updated)

UPDATE (Aug 30th)

Irma is a new named storm in the Eastern Atlantic. See this post for details, eventually.

UPDATE (Aug 29th)

There is a system currently raining on Cabo Verde, off the West Coast of Africa (nee Cape Verde) that is expected to develop. It is on the verge of becoming a tropical depression. The National Hurricane Center has estimated that there is a high probability of this stormy feature becoming a tropical storm in a couple of days or so. If it gets a name, it will be Irma, unless some other large rotating wet object takes that name first.

UPDATE (Aug 29th)

How is the Atlantic Season doing so far, in relation to most hurricane seasons?

Using data from NOAA, we can say that on average (using the 1966-2009 baseline) we reach the eight named storm in the Atlantic (Harvey is the eighth) on September 24th. So, we’re having more named storms than average.

This year so far we’ve had 3 hurricanes. Normally one reaches that number of hurricanes on September 9th. That’s a week and a half from now, so we can declare this year a bit above average in this measure, but not spectacularly so.

So far this year we’ve had one major hurricane (Category 3 or above). There are some years with zero major hurricanes, but on average one major hurricane occurs by September 4th. So, we’re close to average now.

UPDATE (Aug 29th)

The following posts discuss various aspects of Harvey

Harvey The Hurricane: Truly Climate Change Enhanced

Is Harvey a failure of the assumption that we’ll adapt to climate change?

Harvey’s effects on petroleum pricing and related things

UPDATE:

I’m writing up Harvey here on its own post. This is going to prove to be an important hurricane. If you are in Texas get caught up right now.

UPDATE:

Well, finally, something interesting happened in the Atlantic! Tropical Depression Harvey is heading for Texas and in a very short amount of time is going to whip up into a hurricane and hit the Lone Star State right on the coastline.

From the NWS HPC:

1. Harvey is likely to bring multiple hazards, including heavy
rainfall, storm surge, and possible hurricane conditions to portions
of the Texas coast beginning on Friday.

2. Heavy rainfall is likely to spread across portions of eastern
Texas, Louisiana, and the lower Mississippi Valley from Friday
through early next week and could cause life-threatening flooding.
Please refer to products from your local National Weather Service
office and the NOAA Weather Prediction Center for more information
on the flooding hazard.

3. A Storm Surge Watch is in effect from Port Mansfield to High
Island, Texas, indicating the possibility of life-threatening
inundation from rising water moving inland from the coast during the
next 48 hours. For a depiction of areas at risk, see the Storm
Surge Watch/Warning Graphic at hurricanes.gov.

4. The Potential Storm Surge Flooding Map is available on the NHC
website. This product depicts a reasonable worst-case scenario –
the amount of inundation that has a 10 percent chance of being
exceeded at each individual location. Because the Flooding Map is
based on inputs that extend out only to about 72 hours, it best
represents the flooding potential in those locations within the
watch area.


We still hear the yammering that climate change has not affected storms. “They said there would be more storms. There’s no more storms,” they say.

They are wrong in so many ways. For example, the total energy observed in tropical storms around the globe is up. There have been several big huge scary storms in the tropics in recent years, some of which are unprecedented in their size, strength, rapidity of forming, when they formed, where they went, and what they messed up. Other types of storms show either likely increases or, if not clearly increased yet, still show strong liklihood of increasing in the future based on models. Models that are good.

This is from Emannuel 2005, showing his “Power Dissipation Index” over time and sea surface temperatures.

Smoothed Power Dissipation Index (dotted line, a measure of hurricane intensity) versus Tropical Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature (solid black line)

This shows the long term up and down swings in total tropical storm activity, and an overall upward trend exactly as expected with effects from global warming.

This is from “Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years” by Kerry Emanuel, Nature 436:686-688.

See also this post for more details.

Roger Pielke Jr. is one of those yammering fools (I used to try to be nice to him until he accused me of horrible things a few months back and almost none of them were true!) who will tell you this. Roger says, there have bee no more landfalling Atlantic Hurricanes in the US recently than ever before. But trying to figure out what is occurring on the Earth by only considering what the smallest of the Hurricane basins produces, and only counting the small subset of those hurricanes that hit the US (and, by thew way, ignoring some of them such as Hurricane Sandy in order to fudge the numbers) is like trying to get a handle on the frequency of major train derailments by watching the 100 mile length of track you drive along five times a year on the way up north fishing. Nobody would do that. Except Roger.

The normal number of named Atlantic storms is 12.1 of which 6.4 are hurricanes, and 2.7 major hurricanes, in a given year. The record high is 28 named storms, and the record low, is 4.

There have been various predictions for how much storm activity we expect this year. The predictions that are most recent and most reliable call for 11, 12, 11-15, 14, 11-17, and 15.3 storms. So, generally, close to average plus.

The prediction I watch most closely is from PSU’s Earth System Science Center. PSU has been making very accurate predictions for a number of years. For this year, they predict 15.3 +/- 3.9 named storms this year (i.e., about 11 to 20 with the best guess being 15). Their prediction will drop a little if there is a mild El Niño this year, but that seems increasingly unlikely. Also, PSU has a second alternative model that produces a lower estimate, of around 12.4.

So, in short, barring an El Niño, we can expect a near average but slightly above average year for Atlantic hurricanes. And no, that does not mean that global warming is not happening. It means that no derailments are expected along a particular section of recently maintained rail track.

Anyway, for the second year in a row, IIRC, we got cheated on our A storm. Below, I’ve put the official list of storm names for the Atlantic 2017 season (as headings, we’ll fill in info as the year progresses), but the first tropical storm to talk about today, 19 days into the season, is Bret (one ‘t’). Arlene happened last April.

Tropical storms don’t happen in the Atlantic in April. ‘Cept for Arlene. Generally, it seems like the boundaries are becoming enfuzzied. Expect more “extraseasonal” storms over the next few years, and expect eventually, perhaps a decade from now, for the National Hurricane Center crew to be asked to start watching year round, because a tropical storm that hits your fleet in April is still a tropical storm. Even if Roger says it doesn’t exit.

Bret

Bret formed near the very southern edge of the Atlantic Hurricane basin.

This is the earliest far south forming hurricane in the Atlantic Basin. So, our first storm of the season happened months early, the second storm hundreds of miles south, compared to normal. Roger that.

Bret will menace the northern edge of South America, then in a few days from now it will be gone. Bret is not expected to strengthen and will not be a hurricane. Nor will it hit the United States of America. Therefore, according to Roger, Bret, as novel as it is, does not exist.

Cindy

The next storm, to be named Cindy, is very likely to form from a disturbance now seen in the south-central Gulf of Mexico. This is fairly typical place to see a tropical storm or hurricane form this time of year. Cindy will likely become a north-moving tropical storm, and will likely stay just at tropical storm strength, coming ashore somewhere between Houston, Texas and Morgan City, Louisiana. The chances of Cindy wetting down NOLA is very good, but again, this will not be a hurricane. This will happen some time late Wednesday, most likely.

While possible-Cindy would transform from a tropical storm to a depression with landfall, the storm will track up the Mississippi and cause lots of rain.

Don


Emily


Franklin


Gert


Harvey


Irma


Jose


Katia


Lee


Maria


Nate


Ophelia


Philippe


Rina


Sean


Tammy


Vince


Whitney

Michael Mann Receives A Schneidy!

Michael Mann, author of some of the best books on climate science (including The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines, and Dire Predictions, 2nd Edition: Understanding Climate Change) and discoverer of the Hockey Stick (the graph, not the actual stick) has been very appropriately awarded the coveted Stephen H. Schneider Award.

Michael Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center, Penn State, will receive the seventh annual Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communications from Climate One at the Commonwealth Club.

The $15,000 award is given to a natural or social scientist who has made extraordinary scientific contributions and communicated that knowledge to a broad public in a clear and compelling fashion. The award was established in honor of Stephen Henry Schneider, one of the founding fathers of climatology, who died suddenly in 2010.

The jurors for the award state that Mann exemplifies the rare ability to be both a superb scientist and powerful communicator in the mold of Schneider.

“Professor Mike Mann has been a world leader in scientific efforts to understand the natural variability of the climate system and to reconstruct global temperature variations over the past two millennia,” said Ben Santer, climate researcher, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “This critically important work led to the famous ‘hockey stick’ temperature reconstruction. The hockey stick provides compelling evidence for the emergence of a human-caused warming signal from the background noise of natural fluctuations in climate.”

Mann will receive the award — presented by Climate One, a project of the Commonwealth Club of California and underwritten by Tom R. Burns, Nora Machado and Michael Haas — in December during the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans.

Mann is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and has written “Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change” and “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars.” He is also co-author with Tom Toles, Washington Post editorial cartoonist, of “The Madhouse Effect.” He is co-founder of the science website RealClimate.org.

“Stephen Schneider was a role model and mentor to me, and I am truly humbled to receive the Stephen Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communications,” said Mann. “While none of us can fill the very large shoes Steve left behind, we can honor his legacy by doing our best to inform the public discourse over human-caused climate change in an objective, clear and effective manner.”

The first recipient of the Schneider Award was Richard Alley, Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences, Penn State.

Congressmen: Do we shoot them or do we not shoot them? (Updated at the request of Senator Paul)

Short answer: No, we do not shoot them. But the argument that we don’t shoot them is not as simple as it seems.

Rand Paul: Shoot the CongressmanRight Wing: The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow us to be armed, so we can shoot at the government when we need to. (This section has been heavily modified at the request of Senator Paul)

The purpose of the second amendment, and the reason to stay heavily armed and to be prepared to use the firearms the Constitution guarantees we can keep, is to lift tyranny should it befall the land. An increasing number of people now realize that a president that does not have any interest in following the law or just tradition, and who has absurd and harmful wants he insists be realized by fiat, is a tyrant. Donald Trump is a tyrant. Perhaps you would like to wait to call him a tyrant until he does a certain number of tyrannical things, but that is kind of silly because it takes time for a tyrant to build up a strong resume. Trump applied for the job of tyrant, promising tyranny, was hired to do that, has shown that he is capable of it, and has failed to put many notches in his tyrant’s belt only because he has been successfully fought on several fronts, not because he is not really a tyrant.

Rand Paul has an excellent understanding, aside from one detail, of the use of armed force in resisting tyranny, and according to him, given that Trump is a Tyrant, people should start shooting. The following tweet has been passed around as an example of right wing thinking (or, in this case, Libertarian thinking, which is not exactly the same thing) on the 2nd Amendment:

In reality, this was a tweet by a staffer of Senator Paul’s, who was tweeting the things being said by a speaker previously introduced by Paul, at some sort of an event. I was asked by Senator Paul’s office to clarify that. So, to be extra clear, this is a Paul staffer quoting a speaker who is not Senator Paul.

But it does leave open the question of Senator Paul’s thinking about the Second Amendment. The explanation point, the context, all that, made me assume Senator Paul agreed with this statement made a year ago. I’ve asked the Senator’s office for clarification on the Senator’s position on the 2nd Amendment, and I’ll insert that here if and when that happens.

this space intentionally left blank

Here’s the thing: The 2nd Amendment is a sacred thing to the right, and to Libertarians. It is part of the Constitution. It was put in the constitution because the British suppressed the Colonials by taking away their guns. Not their hunting guns, no one ever did that. Not their sports weapons. Sports shooting was not really a thing in Colonial America. Rather, they took away the Colonial arms that were cached for the purpose of fighting the British. I’ve seen it. I’ve been to the spot where they did it. The point of the 2nd Amendment is to protect the people’s ability to be able to fight back as groups, states, whatever, against the government, should the government become a tyranny. That is the reason the Second Amendment is so important, and that is the reason people fight for it. It is not important because it protects our rights to have certain toys, certain hunting gear, or even, to protect our homes form invasion by criminals. There is no Constitutional protection for those uses of guns, nor is there Constitutional restriction. Same for cars, toasters, and fidgets. Not Constitutionally protected, yet we seem to have them. There is, in fact, another Amendment, I’ll let you research that on your own, that does protect unspecified rights that were already considered normal, and that is where hunting would likely come in.

The essential flaw in Rand Paul’s everybody on the right’s argument has to do with the fact that this is not the 18th century. Most people who want to see sensible gun control accept the idea that the 2nd is out of date and no longer applies, and should be ignored or repealed.

I’m thinking that this recent shooting may be a high water mark for the idea that the 2nd Amendment is sacred, for the simple reason that Senator Paul’s staff is asking me to remove an indication that Senator Paul accepts the 2nd Amendment as a protection of weapon ownership by the people to fight a tyrannical government. That would be very interesting if he thought that, because it would mean that Senator Paul is open to putting aside the 2nd and talking about sensible gun reform. Good for him. Or, it might mean that Senator Paul is living between a rock and a hard place, as are many other.
That could cause change.

The point is this: We do not really live in a nation where regular people arm themselves for the purpose of fighting a tyrannical government. Some guy went to fight a tyrannical government the other day, and everyone — EVERY ONE — said no, don’t do that. Everyone said that is a criminal act, or the act of a mentally disturbed person or a terrorist, or whatever. Everyone agrees, even Rand Paul, apparently, that this whole keep the populous armed so we can fight the government thing no longer applies to this society. I hope to see conservatives and Libertarians finally join the rest of us at the table to talk about gun reform .

Bernie Sanders: Don’t shoot the Congressmen but …

Sanders whipped up a lot of hate in this country, during the last campaign. So did Hillary. It wasn’t their intention but it happened.

Today there are still grump muffins wandering around the planet complaining about Hillary this and Bernie that. Bernie has been a supporter of the Second Amendment, so one might expect his position to be similar to Rand Paul’s, but it isn’t. Representative and Senator Sanders supported the Second Amendment for a different reason.

It is hard to be a Senator, but not if you are from Vermont.

Vermont is an easy state to govern or represent because everybody in Vermont is the same. Also, they all live in Yurts. Many of them also have guns; These are not weapons of interpersonal violence, but rather, for shooting woodland beasts. So, if you are pro-Yurt, and don’t oppose hunting, then you can get on to the business of supporting the Maple Sugar industry and helping out with the tourism, which doesn’t need much help because Vermont is surrounded by metropolitan areas that supply countless leaf-peekers every fall for several weeks. It has got to be the easiest state in the country to lead or represent.

And as such, Senator Sanders never faced any real serious problems with policy vs. reality issues within his state. This allowed him, along with a few other Representatives and Senators from a few other states, to do crazy and unexpected things like vote against wars, or come up with policies that ignore special interests and meet the needs of the people. This is why Sanders could have radically pro-people policies while Clinton had to stay all the time in compromise mode throughout the last election. This is why Sanders could say outlandish things like education should be free, but Clinton got dinged for admitting out loud the strategy that allowed Lincoln to win the Civil War and free the Slaves in a world where no one else could have done either: Have a strategy in your head, and another one that people will go along with in your mouth, and work tirelessly to make the two eventually the same.

So Sanders and Clinton were dramatically different, but in ways that a thoughtful analysis would allow either to be complemented on their tactics and abilities. They came from different places, were reaching for almost identical goals, but the differences ended up enraging a lot of people more than the similarities united them. Apparently, that level of hate and anger was sufficient in the case of one Sanders supporter to allow him to take Rand Paul seriously, heavily arm himself, intent on fighting tyranny. (We are only guessing as to motive here, but I’m going to stick with this story until proven otherwise.)

James T. Hodgkinson: Look for New Gingrich’s Book among his effects

The first thing I notice about James. T. Hodgkinson is that his name most resembles a hypothetical made up character in an Aaron Sorkin script. I assume citizen Hodgkinson is a distant cousin of Joseph Bethersenton of Fargo, North Dakota.

The second thing I notice, based on the pictures and reporting, is how closely he resembles people I meet every week and see all the time. Frustrated, often a former Sanders supporter but not always, a person who truly believes that Donald Trump is a Tyrant, and who has also realized the other really important thing: As long as the Republicans are in the majority in Congress, Donald Trump gets to do whatever he wants, even if the courts slow him down now and then. We have separation of powers in this country, but we also have amalgamation of powers.

Years ago, when he was Speaker of the House, Republican Newt Gingrich said that Republicans should do whatever is required to take power, and only after taking power, govern. At that time the Republican agenda was already pretty right wing, but it has gotten even more right wing since then. And, now, they have taken power. And in the many years between implementing this strategy and realizing success, the Republicans totally forgot how to govern. So this is what we get.

Part of that “do whatever is required” bit is changing the way voting and electing and campaigning in this country happen, so even where Democrats have a 60% majority, they will lose. Now that the Republicans are fully in power, expect that number to change to 65% or even 70%.

Indeed, expect Republicans to never leave power now that they have it. Believe me, for every minute of time, dollar of money, and erg of energy being spent now to attempt to switch one or both houses of Congress to the Democrats in 2018, there are ten being spent to make sure that won’t happen.

This is it, this is the end, of the Republic, of America, of freedom and democracy.

Unless…

The Lorax: Things can get pretty bad and people can get pretty mad before Grammy Norma kicks somebody’s ass

… unless that doesn’t happen.

I’m pretty sure James T. Hodgkinson (mis)estimated, if he was semi-lucid, that there was no turning back, that the only way Trump could get thrown out of office is if Democrats took over in Congress, and he further calculated that this was not going to happen in his lifetime. (Which, by the way, turned out to be the case but for different reasons.)

But that’s not how Grammy Norma sees it.

I was at an event the other day at which there were about 20 Grammy Normas, a roughly equal number of Pappy Normas, and about the same number of people who were not 70 or older, who came together to hear some speeches and sing some songs and vow their energy to the removal of the really awful Republican that represented them in Congress. My friend John Wexler, who is a Marine vet and a long time Democratic Party activist, was there, and he said to me, “This is like an election year, look at all this activity.” And I thought about it for a second and I says, “Yeah, this is like ‘08: Obama and Franken. And it an off-off year!”

This happened to be an Indivisible Minnesota CD03 picnic, but it could have been any of a number of gatherings by Indivisible groups, Stand Up groups, or other groups, of people who are not going to shoot anyone at this time, and are going to do everything they need to do to take back our Democracy from Tyrant Trump and his Republican henchmen. Again: Without shooting them.

The reason why Rand Paul’s technique won’t work is simple: It won’t work. There is no 21st century version of an armed citizenry able to throw off the yoke of tyranny. We have to do this differently these days, and we will.

Well, to be honest, we don’t know if we will. We don’t know if this odd event, of an incompetent clown being accidentally elected (with the help of the Russians) president at the very same moment in history when the Republican party rules and is also made up of mean spirited bought and paid for jerks, is something we can recover from. And that is what makes it all so scary. James T. Hodgkinson calculated that all is lost, and it is time to start shooting. But he’s a rare bird. He’s one in 10,000.

Which, if you do the math, means that there are lot of him out there.

And this is where I disagree with Nancy Pelosi

Today, Nancy Pelosi, on the House Floor, stated that we should turn down the rhetoric, implying that the intense rhetoric in today’s American politics is too heavy, and that is what lead James T. Hodgkinson to try to kill a softball team’s worth of Republicans.

But that is not what happened. James T. Hodgkinson did not react to the rhetoric. At most, he miscalculated the chance of us handling this with some hard work over a couple of years. At least, he should have kept his powder dry, because maybe in six or seven year’s we’ll be looking at the Constitution disolved and a full on police state. He made the mistake of failing to understand the process, which puts him in a lot of company given the way things went last election. It was not the rhetoric.

Here’s the thing. The rhetoric is as I stated above. Trump is a tyrant, and if he is not stopped he will formalize what he has already done in his own head: thrown away our democracy. The Republicans are his lap dogs and will help him in any way they can to do this, as long as they get to keep power. This is really really bad. That sounds like over the top rhetoric, the kind of rhetoric that would drive an unstable person who happens to be heavily armed to go to the ballpark, as it were. But it is simply the sorry truth and we should not walk away from it, for if we do, it will be to our peril.

At this time it is a bad idea to miscalculate what Grammy Norma and the others can do. That just sets us back. It makes strong Democrats in the house quiet down. That is not a good thing.

Don’t shoot the Republicans. But do everything else you can do to toss their sorry asses in the trash bin of history.