How culture wars work: The example of the gas stove battle

Demagoguery: political activity or practices that seek support by appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument; the term is formally applied to just democracies, but I apply it to all kinds of political regimes including autocracies, theocracies, plutocracies, kleptocracies and the like 

Virtue signaling demagoguery

Summery: How culture war works

This, or fairly close variants, is how America’s radical right political, religious, commercial and social culture war works.

• Find an issue that can be weaponized, preferably on moral grounds, e.g., climate change, gun safety laws, abortion or gas stoves
• Demagogue it to appeal to emotion like bigotry and irrational fear to maximize public disinformation, confusion, distrust, polarization, irrational fear, anger and other emotion-driven irrationality
• Find and quietly fund experts to publicly lend credibility to the demagogues (or liars-deceivers-dividers)
• Unleash the conspiracy theory crackpots and fund their divisive free speech to pollute as many minds as possible with their cynical dark free speech
• Use free speech (campaign  contributions) to buy sympathetic politicians and powerful bureaucrats by pandering to their ideologies and their self-interest
• Let already sympathetic anti-democratic politicians demagogue[1] the issue on their own, with or without special interest input 
• Maintain a well-funded torrent of demagoguery, lies, slanders and the like for as many years or decades as needed to kill the threat, or to delay it as long as possible

That is how it works every time. That’s probably how it has worked for decades or centuries. The NYT describes the current gas stove culture war:

When Multnomah County in Oregon convened a recent public hearing on the health hazards posed by pollution from gas stoves, a toxicologist named Julie Goodman was the first to testify.

Studies linking gas stoves to childhood asthma, which have prompted talk of gas-stove bans in recent weeks and months, were “missing important context,” she said. Levels of pollutants in the kitchen, particularly a well-ventilated one, were negligible, Dr. Goodman told people at the November meeting. In fact, she said, the simple act of cooking itself, “baking, frying and sautéing,” also released emissions that had nothing to do with gas.

What Dr. Goodman didn’t tell the crowd was that she was paid to testify by a local gas provider. Dr. Goodman is a toxicologist who works for Gradient, a consulting firm that provides environmental reviews for corporations. She appeared at the county hearing on behalf of NW Natural, the local utility that is heavily reliant on gas, an affiliation she didn’t state during her testimony.

In recent months, Dr. Goodman has also worked with the American Gas Association, the industry’s main lobby group, to help it counter health concerns linked to gas.  

In an interview, Dr. Goodman said she was transparent about the approach and processes she followed in her research, including disclosing the funding she receives. She said that it had been an oversight not to have mentioned that she had been paid to testify at the Multnomah hearing on behalf of the gas utility, and she said that the opinions she expressed represented her own, not necessarily the utility’s.  

She said she wasn’t saying that the epidemiological studies showed that gas cooking doesn’t cause asthma. Still, “when considering the entire body of literature, the available epidemiology evidence is not adequate to support causation with respect to gas stoves and adverse health effects,” she said.

Whether many Americans will continue to cook and warm their homes with gas, or instead switch to electricity, has become one of the most divisive issues in public health, as well as the fight over climate action.  

The gas industry has fought back. In at least 20 mostly Republican-led states, gas utilities have persuaded lawmakers to pass bills that forbid cities from pursuing prohibitions on gas, calling them too restrictive and costly.

In the quoted parts of the NYT article, one can see some of the prominent traits in culture war tactics. The expert attacks the evidence of adverse health effects as inadequate. Both the cigarette and oil industries argued for decades that the evidence was inadequate and more research was needed. Both of those industries still argue that the evidence is inadequate for (1) the second hand cigarette smoke issue, and (2) the climate change issue. That is standard culture war delay, deceive and confuse tactics.

Also note the crackpottery and lies that Goodman spews. She claims that her opinions were her own, not the utility’s. That is a bald-faced lie. No utility is ever going to pay any expert to publicly say anything that they believe is threatening to their revenues and profits. This is standard culture war quiet deceit tactics. 

It is also worth noting that Goodman is a public relations consultant, not a practicing scientist. She is a hired gun. Consultants will say just about whatever her clients pay her to say, otherwise they would have few or no clients.

Also note that corrupted radical right Republican politicians are in the mix. Focusing on and corrupting rigid ideologues is also a standard culture war tactic. Ideologues are usually much easier to corrupt and manipulate than realists because their ideology is right and everything contradictory or inconvenient is despicable garbage and lies.

Finally, NPR commented on how fast and easily the culture war gas stove front opened up:

Gas stoves became part of the culture war in less than a week. Here’s why.

At the beginning of January 2023, the health and climate effects of gas cooking stoves in homes was an issue policy makers and academics were studying.

Then, on Jan. 9, Bloomberg News published an interview with Richard Trumka, Jr., a commissioner on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, who suggested that the government might consider stricter regulation of new gas stoves in response to health concerns about indoor air quality.

Within days, those stoves had become fodder for partisan influencers and campaign merchandise.

“God. Guns. Gas Stoves,” wrote U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, (R-Ohio) on Twitter.

Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ political organization quickly came out with aprons for sale in the style of a yellow Gadsden flag, once an icon of the Tea Party, but with a gas stove where the rattlesnake usually sits.

“Not only is Biden coming for your paycheck, he is coming for your stove. You heard me right. The White House is now attempting to ban all gas ovens and burners,” said Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Each of these pro-stove declarations came after Trumka had already clarified that the agency “isn't coming for anyone's gas stoves.”

Footnote:

1. In my firm opinion, demagoguery is inherently anti-democratic because it takes power from citizens to form beliefs and act on the basis of facts, truths and sound reasoning. By definition, demagoguery relies on denying, distorting or downplaying inconvenient facts, truths and sound reasoning. Control of power is why dictators, theocrats, plutocrats, kleptocrats and the like are almost always hard core demagogues. For average citizens, knowledge is power, while ignorance and false belief is weakness. Dictators, theocrats and the rest want that power for themselves and they always rely on serious demagoguery to get it .

Critically endangered horse cloned; Finland is propaganda-resistant; etc.

Horse cloned using 42 year old frozen sperm: A bit of good news. A California zoo announced the birth of a critically endangered horse, a clone created with DNA preserved for 42 years. Named Kurt, the foal was born to a surrogate mother, a domestic quarter horse. Almost all surviving Przewalski's horses are related to 12 born in native habitats. Kurt was born through a breeding program to boost genetic variation in the species. The horse — also known as the Mongolian wild horse or the takhi — is shorter than domestic horses, and often has distinctive markings. The article has a 1 minute video showing the foal and mom doing their horse things.

Kurt

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Finland is propaganda-resistant:  

Finland is the European country that is least susceptible to "fake news," with other Nordic countries trailing close behind, according to a recent analysis of media literacy. The United States and much of Western Europe – including the United Kingdom, France and Germany – ranked in a lower tier with countries such as Latvia and Lithuania in an expanded version of the analysis, which measures countries’ susceptibility to false news reports.

According to the report, the “dangers of fake news and related phenomena for democracy are hard to underestimate.” The countries where media literacy is at its lowest have the greatest restrictions on press freedom and low levels of education and personal trust.

This is notable because it is a source other than me who is warning about the now-grave danger to democracy, truth and civil liberties from divisive fake news, lies, slanders and crackpottery. The radical right propaganda Leviathan, e.g., Faux News, has been putting this kind of anti-democracy poison out for decades. 

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The radical right Republican concept of a social safety net: Truthout writes:

Republicans Want to Raise Retirement Age to 70 as Life Expectancy Is Falling

This would shorten the retirement window to a mere six years, if the latest life expectancy average holds.

House Republicans have been working out the details of their deeply unpopular plan to cut Social Security and Medicare in order to deepen poverty and shackle people to the labor force further into old age.

What radical right authoritarian government and citizen welfare haters don't seem to realize is that if they do nothing at all, the safety net will continue to slowly melt away.  About 41% of Americans say it's 'going to take a miracle' to be ready for retirement and ~59% of Americans say they will have to keep working longer. About 36% believe that they will never have enough money to be able to retire. Apparently, the shift of Americans into poverty isn't going fast enough for the Republican Party's taste.

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RRRRDS strikes in Connecticut (radical right reason-reality derangement syndrome): The WaPo writes on the kind of baseless crackpottery that drives the radical right's deranged but enraged culture war: 

She named her breakfast cafe Woke. 

A conservative backlash followed.

When Carmen Quiroga named her new breakfast restaurant, she wanted people to associate the cafe with waking up in the morning. She settled on Woke Breakfast & Coffee and spent six months renovating a building and developing a logo. Quiroga moved to Coventry, Conn., a few weeks before the restaurant’s opening this month. While finalizing the permits at town hall, another resident advised her to check Facebook. There, Quiroga saw several town residents criticizing her restaurant’s name, suggesting she’d chosen Woke to make a political statement. That was false, Quiroga told The Washington Post. .... 

After Quiroga put up a sign with the logo on the building in September, residents began condemning the restaurant’s name.

The town divided along the usual political line, crackpot radical right vs reactionary left. Those radical right anti-woke folks are antsy to say the least. If there is nothing to get in a froth about, they just make up some crackpottery and let all their mindless rage and hate gush out. What a bunch of WWS (whining, wuss snowflakes (sorry SNOWFLAKE)). Some folks just need to get a real, adult life.

Quick, get this photo to QAnon to decipher

its dark Illuminati meaning of the egg for 

the letter O

Ooh, an evil socialist pedophile conspiracy is afoot!

Check the basement for a child sex-trafficking operation!

Bring your AR-15s and lots of ammo!!

The AR-15 "Piecemaker"

It shoots evil socialist pedophiles (and other miscreants) 

into harmless little . . . . . pieces

En/Inquiring minds want to know...

Tell me something negative about the Democrats.  Non-U.S. people, tell us what you think from your perspective.

Are Democrats:

• Too wimpy
• Too nice
• Too much “we” and not enough “me”
• Spend too much government money
• Phony balonies
• Wolves in sheep’s clothing
• Hate rich people
• Other

What’s their “problem”?  Why wouldn’t someone vote D, rather than R?  Explain in as much detail as you can.

Markets running free and butt naked; Trump fleeced his flock; Supreme Court corruption

Buyer beware: The NYT reports: 

On Trump’s Social Network: Ads for Miracle Cures, 

Scams and Fake Merchandise

Between posts about conspiracy theories and right-wing grievances was an unusual advertisement: a photo of former President Donald J. Trump holding a $1,000 bill made of gold, which he was apparently offering free to supporters.

But there were a few catches: The bill was not free, it was not made of gold, and it was not offered by Mr. Trump.

The ad appeared on Truth Social, the right-wing social network started by Mr. Trump in late 2021, one of many pitches from hucksters and fringe marketers dominating the ads on the site.

Ads from major brands are nonexistent on the site. Instead, the ads on Truth Social are for alternative medicine, diet pills, gun accessories and Trump-themed trinkets, according to an analysis of hundreds of ads on the social network by The New York Times.

Anti-vaxx cards, evil socialism, anti-woke 

insurance companies and other garbage

One ad for a $2 bill showed a fake tweet from President Biden calling for the Federal Reserve to outlaw the bill.

Unregulated capitalism, 

it can deliver lies 😱

Big companies do not advertise on that garbage heap because it would hurt profits more than enhance them. 

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Fleecing the flock: The Guardian reports that $1 million secretly donated to the fake audit of the Arizona 2020 election came from Trump. That money came from donors to Trump. TG writes:

The identity of one of the largest benefactors behind the discredited review of Arizona’s vote count has been shrouded in secrecy. Now the Guardian can reveal that the person who partially bankrolled the failed attempt to prove that the election was stolen from Trump was … Trump.

An analysis by the watchdog group Documented has traced funding for the Arizona audit back to Trump’s Save America Pac.

Trump could have made it public that he gave $1 million to the audit. His supporters would have been fine with that because most believed the election really was fraudulent. Instead he engaged in an elaborate effort to hide his involvement. But, that won't bother many of his supporters. They still love the guy, even if he takes their money and lies to them.     

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Supreme Court corruption alert: I feel some vindication about a conflict of interest allegation I recently leveled at Bush's former Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff. He was the radical right Republican that radical right Chief Justice Roberts put in charge of the Supreme Court "investigation" into who leaked the draft decision that obliterated the right to an abortion. It turns out that the conflict was far more substantial than merely political, which was all that was public at the time. Raw Story writes:

CNN is now reporting[1] that an outside agency run by former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, with long-term financial ties to the court, did the appraisal raising questions of conflicts of interest.

Of concern are questions whether Chertoff's firm, which has billed the court over $1 million for various services, may be protecting the very justices who keep sending them business.

According to CNN, "The estimated payments to Chertoff’s risk assessment firm, for consultations that extended over several months and involved a review of the justices’ homes, reached at least $1 million. The exact amount of money paid could not be determined. Supreme Court contracts are not covered by federal public disclosure rules and elude tracking on public databases," adding, "The justices have long cloaked themselves in secrecy to the point of declining to respond to questions about potential conflicts of interest, or to reveal information about some court rules and ethics codes; or to release timely information about the justices’ health and public appearances."

Once again, the secrecy that the Supreme Court has long demanded and defended without any explanation, justification or publicly apparent reason is at issue. Given the unwarranted secrecy, it is perfectly rational, fair and balanced to believe that this radical right Republican Supreme Court is not only deeply corrupt and mendacious, but it is also deeply anti-democratic. Democracy and truth die in darkness, but tyranny, lies and corruption thrive.

Put another way, why give this Supreme Court one shred of credibility unless it publicly explains itself and backs it up with evidence? Of course, a solid majority of rank and file Republicans, and essentially all elites, solidly support this court because they believe it and they are winning and the opposition is losing. It is beyond unfortunate that few of the rank and file radical right can see that democracy, inconvenient truth and everyone's civil liberties are also losing. But the elites see it clearly and they love it.

Footnote:
1. CNN writes:

Exclusive: Supreme Court did not disclose financial relationship with 

expert brought in to review leak probe

The Supreme Court did not disclose its longstanding financial ties with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff even as it touted him as an expert who independently validated its investigation into who leaked the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade.

The court’s inquiry, released last week with Chertoff’s endorsement, failed to identify who was responsible for the unprecedented leak. The decision to keep the relationship with Chertoff quiet is a reflection of a pattern of opacity at the nation’s highest court, whose rulings affect every American.  

A Chertoff Group spokeswoman declined to address questions about the firm’s previous financial dealings with the court and why Chertoff did not reveal the prior relationship. She referred questions to the Supreme Court.  

Chertoff, whose financial ties to the court have not been previously reported, already had well-known personal connections to the justices through his Ivy League education, prior judicial clerkships and tenure in the two Bush administrations.

We all know why Chertoff declined to answer questions. It's the reliable KYMS tactic in routine practice.

KYMS: keep your mouth shut

The American empire in decline: Empire cannot face inconvenient truth

It feels to me as if the American experiment in representative democracy is coming to an unhappy end. In all of human existence and history, the norm for the masses of humans has been a hard life under a usually corrupt, immoral religious or secular authoritarian(s), limited personal liberties, poverty, bigotry, ignorance and intolerance with plenty of religious superstition mixed in. Things generally improved in the last few centuries, but it feels like the progress in America has stalled in the last 20 years or so and is now in reverse. In my opinion, America is reverting to something closer to the nasty historical mean than it has existed in America from about 1950 to about 2000 for many (not all) average citizens.

This feeling is not based just on the radicalization of America's political right, or the collapse of old-fashioned pro-democracy and pro-civil liberties conservatism. Much of the rest of the elites who mostly control our society and lives have impulses that to me feel ossified and increasingly corrupt and immoral in one or more ways.

Over at his overcoming bias blog, Robin Hanson writes about what I see as one of the dominant factors in American decline. That factor is moral cowardice and/or cynical corruption in the face of inconvenient fact, true truth and sound reasoning. From what I can tell, this is probably the dominant factor. The rich and powerful, for the most part, can either no longer face inconvenience, and/or they no longer care. Presumably that is at least significantly because they believe their wealth and/or power-fortified positions are impenetrable, even if civilization falls. Hanson writes in a post entitled Prediction Market Quotes:

A senior high quality person, who I trust, who recently spent several years trying to promote prediction markets[1], reports the following relevant quotes:

A G7 government official and advisor to their head of state:

“The prediction market experiment was a success, but we will not proceed with the program as it interferes with our ability to shape the narrative around the direction of government policy.”

A leading bank CEO:

“Your crowdsourced real-time risk radar is remarkable, but we will not use it here. The only person who tells my board about unexploded bombs in this bank is me and people who answer directly to me.”

A partner at a prominent US-based global management consultant:

“The objective truth should never be more than optional input to any structural narrative in a social system.”

A Ivy League Management Guru:

“The problem with prediction markets is that they are the irritating precocious young child, entirely unfiltered socially, and yet forever talking about the elephants in the room that it may or may not be appropriate to talk about.”

Perhaps you can see the pattern here.

I see a pattern there. If one can reasonably extrapolate from those few quotes (data points), refusal by elites to incorporate relevant data into normal operations is common, probably dominant, among elites in government, business and probably religion too. 

I am biased by my belief that America is in decline. Based on that, one can argue that my extrapolation here is based on too little data. But my extrapolation is based on a hell of a lot more than just those quotes.[2] Unless I am self-deluded, e.g., applying flawed reasoning, those quotes fit very well with most of the content of most of the politics-focused content on this blog.

What Hanson reports feels absolutely right. The cluster of inconvenient fact, truth and reasoning really is a (psychologically and socially) irritating precocious young child. Research by Philip Tetlock with his discovery of superforecasters supports that characterization -- rationality is irritating and unfiltered, unless one has one's biases, social loyalties and self-interests mostly stripped away. The child is entirely, or more likely mostly, socially unfiltered. That irritating child is not just forever talking about elephants in the room that are appropriate or not. It talks about everything it believes is appropriate, unless the crowd has been deceived by the elites, e.g., lied to, manipulated and betrayed by the massively-funded, radical right propaganda Leviathan the elites run at us 24/7/365. 

So when prediction markets have been corrupted by dark free speech, the elites blame the irritating child for being wrong. In fact, the child was probably right based on the garbage inputs it got. Garbage in, garbage out. Who puts out the bad garbage? The corrupt, immoral, lying elites who reject the prediction markets. Why do the elites do this? Because they believe that the irritating child gets in the way of accumulating more power and wealth for themselves at our expense. If one steps back and considers it, those closed-minded elites will be wrong sometimes. Sometimes that will hurt them personally, but usually not. 

In my firm opinion, what Hanson writes about is more good evidence of the decline of the American empire and its descent to something akin to the much nastier norm of past centuries.

Footnotes:

1. Wikipedia describes prediction markets like this:

Prediction markets (also known as betting markets, information markets, decision markets, idea futures or event derivatives) are open markets where specific outcomes can be predicted using financial incentives. Essentially, they are exchange-traded markets created for the purpose of trading the outcome of events.

Before the era of scientific polling, early forms of prediction markets often existed in the form of political betting. One such political bet dates back to 1503, in which people bet on who would be the papal successor. Even then, it was already considered "an old practice". According to Paul Rhode and Koleman Strumpf, who have researched the history of prediction markets, there are records of election betting in Wall Street dating back to 1884. Rhode and Strumpf estimate that average betting turnover per US presidential election is equivalent to over 50 percent of the campaign spend.   

Economic theory for the ideas behind prediction markets can be credited to Friedrich Hayek in his 1945 article "The Use of Knowledge in Society" and Ludwig von Mises in his "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth". Modern economists agree that Mises' argument combined with Hayek's elaboration of it, is correct.

Betting turnover is the gross amount wagered by gamblers. One source wrote that for 2020, Biden’s campaign spent about $1.01 billion, while Trump’s campaign spent about $710 million. Based on that data, the prediction market for the 2020 presidential election was more than ~$860 million.

2. A close personal acquaintance of over 40 years with intimate personal knowledge of the operations of huge banks (huge, not medium or little) and their attitudes toward risk was constantly warning of systemic failure of internal bank risk assessments. My acquaintance kept warning bank management about unexploded bombs in their banks, and they kept telling the irritating, socially unfiltered child to shut up and fuck off.

Why? Because understated risk translated into higher profits. The profit motive caused false, understated assertions of systemic risk. Naturally, that allowed risky business as usual. Also because, the ultimate accountability for risk fell on taxpayers, not the elites themselves. After the financial and housing catastrophes of 2008-2009, Obama chose not to prosecute even one crook that caused massive damage to millions of average Americans. As far as I know, not a single person went to jail for what those capitalist elites did to us. Not one. 

Another group of elites in government treated another unfiltered child the same way that Obama treated the finance industry and other criminals. For that bunch, the irritating child wasn't even there at all:

Inconvenient truth, it's a bitch

Regarding the climate change denial industry; ~Ibid redux; ~Ibid double redux

Climate change denial really is part of the economy: The Guardian reports:

Google let Daily Wire advertise to climate crisis deniers, research shows

A media outlet founded by conservative influencer Ben Shapiro paid Google to advertise on search pages questioning whether the climate crisis is real, according to new research from a disinformation watchdog group.

The Daily Wire bought ads on search terms over the past year such as “climate change is a hoax” and “why is climate change fake,” meaning that when people Googled these phrases, stories from Shapiro’s outlet were some of the first results that appeared, the research found.

Google sold these ads even after announcing a new policy in October 2021 prohibiting ads that promote climate crisis denial. Its CEO, Sundar Pichai, publicly stated at the time that “when people come to Google Search with questions about climate change, we’ll show authoritative information from sources like the United Nations.”

“Google’s hypocrisy knows no bounds,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the US and UK-based Center for Countering Digital Hate, which provided its research exclusively to the Guardian. “They’re actually selling the right to climate deniers to spread disinformation.”  

Based on these estimates, researchers say that The Daily Wire could have spent almost as much as $60m on more than 150 Google search term ads over the past two years on various topics. These search term ads also included such phrases as “argument against reparations”, “bill gates population control”, and “why does george soros hate america.” More than a dozen of the search terms were climate-related, including:

• ‘climate change is a hoax’

• ‘climate change is a lie’ 

• ‘why is climate change fake’ 

• ‘climate change debunk’ 

• ‘the real truth about wind turbines’ 

• ‘is global warming a scam’ 

• ‘the climate change scam’

The Google spokesperson would not comment on the spending estimate.

Also important here is the estimated $60 million that a single radical right, dark free speech website like The Daily Wire spent over two years. That is a huge amount of money for just one of dozens of similar radical right lies and slanders sites. When I talk about the radical right’s propaganda Leviathan, I really mean Leviathan. The amount of money being pumped into climate change denial, lies, slandering and crackpottery is staggering. By my estimates, at least hundreds of millions/year in money for dark free speech is going to protect tens or hundreds of billions in profit. 

For the sake of transparency, The Daily Wire was one of the seven big radical right websites that banned me in 2016 when I tried to engage there. That site is loaded with lies, slanders, emotional manipulation, crackpottery and an absolute intolerance for inconvenient facts, truths and reasoning and contrary opinions.

Once again, the capitalist moral imperative called profit pushes aside everything else that gets in the way, including inconvenient truth and democracy. At least for big corporations, nothing they say can be trusted. It’s called public relations. It is also known as dark free speech, or deceptive propaganda, lies, slanders, irrational emotional manipulation and/or self-serving/crackpot reasoning to some.

In cases of possible dark free speech, e.g., like this and just about everything else coming from radical right elites, corporations, politicians, ideologues, religious zealots, grifters, traitors, public relations firms, Mike Lindell, MTG, Boebert, Jim Jordan and the like, Germaine’s rule of thumb is this simple but effective free advice:

Distrust but verify if you’re in the mood, have the time, and 

can do it, but stay distrustful if you don’t, aren’t and/or can’t.

This is a pretty effective operating procedure. Not perfect, but pretty good. Sometimes some truth gets miscategorized, but no system in a complex system like politics that is chock full of dark free speech and corrupt money will be perfect.

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~Ibid redux: Climate change denial really is part of the economy: The Guardian reported in 2019:

Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers

Firm’s public calls for climate action contrast with backing for conservative thinktanks

The obscure law that explains why Google backs climate deniers

Google has made “substantial” contributions to some of the most notorious climate deniers in Washington despite its insistence that it supports political action on the climate crisis.

Among hundreds of groups the company has listed on its website as beneficiaries of its political giving are more than a dozen organisations that have campaigned against climate legislation, questioned the need for action, or actively sought to roll back Obama-era environmental protections.

The list includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative policy group that was instrumental in convincing the Trump administration to abandon the Paris agreement and has criticized the White House for not dismantling more environmental rules.

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~Ibid double redux: Climate change denial really is part of the economy: The Guardian reported in 2019:

The obscure law that explains why Google backs climate deniers

When [former Google CEO] Eric Schmidt was asked on a radio show in 2014 why Google was supporting an ultra-conservative climate-denying pressure group in Washington, the then chairman of the internet giant offered an unequivocal response: it was wrong and Google was not going to do it again.

“The consensus within the company was that that was some sort of mistake and so we’re trying to not do that in the future,” Schmidt told NPR. People who opposed or questioned climate science were making the world “a much worse place”, he added, and Google “should not be aligned with such people”.

But five years later, Google still funds more than a dozen organizations that deny the climate crisis and oppose political action to try to solve it. Among them is the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the group that launched the notorious Cooler Heads Coalition two decades ago, a group of conservative and libertarian pressure groups dedicated to dispelling the “myths” of global heating.

For Google, providing financial backing to groups such as CEI and the Cato Institute – staunch free marketeers – has nothing to do with climate science, and everything to do with its effort to curry favor with conservatives on its most pressing issue in Washington: protecting an obscure section of the US law that is worth billions of dollars to the company.

The law – known as section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – was established in the 1990s, at a time when the internet was in its infancy, and helped to give rise to internet giants, from Google to Facebook, by offering legal immunity to the companies for third party comments, in effect treating them as distributors of content and not publishers.

Section 230, in effect, allowed Google and Facebook to be shielded from the kinds of libel laws that can ensnare other companies, such as newspapers.

The law has important advocates across the political spectrum, from Democrats who hail it as a triumph of free speech, to Republicans who say it has promoted free enterprise and innovation.

But now some lawmakers, including Republicans, think it might be time to revise section 230. The senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, has said Google’s alleged bias in favor of Democrats means it is not a neutral platform and should not be protected from liability.  

Google’s decision to give to groups such as CEI reflects an attempt to win friends in Republican and conservative circles, and support those lawmakers on the right who are champions of section 230.

This is evidence pints to:

•  The extreme radicalization of the radical right Republican Party and the fear and spending it engenders from any threatened industries, not just limited to Google and social media;  

• The extent to which threatened industries will go to defend their profits at the expense of everything else, including (i) inconvenient fact, truth and reasoning, (ii) morality, (iii) democracy and civil liberties, and (iv) anything else that winds up being collateral damage in the endless ruthless capitalist war for profit; and

• The fact that the Republican Party leadership is dominated by politicians, major donors and capitalist ideological zealots to the point that it is had become a ruthless, mendacious capitalist political force unto itself, with core moral values and policy goals being accumulation of as much power and wealth as possible, even if democracy, civil liberties, the Republic and the rule of law fall as collateral damage.

Q: Is all of this over the top hyperbole, lies and/or nonsense, or is there something here to be moderately to deeply concerned about?

2014 poll: 90% of webmasters/SEOs believe 

that Google lies to them at least sometimes

(These people ought to know because they live and 

breathe what Google does, not just what it says)

Free tax prep; IRS publication 17 and taxpayer betrayal; The failing MSM

How capitalism deals with free tax preparation: ProPublica writes:

Under the Free File agreement, Americans who make less than $73,000 per year should be able to file their taxes for free with one of the tax preparation companies that partners with the IRS. But this program has been historically underutilized, with just 4% of eligible Americans filing for free in 2021.

In 2002, Intuit, H&R Block and other tax prep companies signed a deal with the IRS to provide free tax filing services to millions of Americans. In return, the IRS agreed it would not create its own tax filing system that could compete with the tax prep companies.

A government-run tax filing system, often known as return-free filing, is already a reality in many countries around the world. With a return-free filing system, the government fills out the tax forms with the information it already has, and taxpayers simply have to review the forms for accuracy.  

Switching to such a system would devastate tax prep company profits. That’s why Intuit and other members of the industry spent millions through the years lobbying to preserve the Free File agreement, particularly the part that restricts the IRS from creating its own free filing system.

That’s not all Intuit did to limit the scope of Free File. Intuit purposefully suppressed its own Free File product. It added website code to block its Free File page from showing up in search engines and used manipulative marketing patterns to trick customers into paying for TurboTax even when they qualified for Free File. It later removed the code.   

Internal documents previously obtained by ProPublica show these strategies were intentional on the part of Intuit and H&R Block.  

Following ProPublica’s reporting in 2019, the IRS reformed the Free File program. It barred companies from using deceptive practices to deter taxpayers from using Free File and removed the prohibition on the IRS creating its own tax filing system.

Once again, the public interest is shafted by (i) brass knuckles capitalism, and (ii) the government the corporations corrupted with their free speech, a/k/a/ “campaign contributions” and lobbying. The IRS or congress should have set up return-free filing decades ago. But it did not do that to protect needless, unjustifiable corporate profits at our expense. An immoral industry built on vaporware and marketing is what one can easily get when corrupt capitalist markets get to run free, wild and butt naked (unregulated).

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Taxpayer betrayal: IRS publication 17 mentions the option taxpayers have to direct $3 or $6 into the federal Presidential Election Campaign Fund. The fund has been subverted by congress and/or the IRS. At page 14, Pub. 17 reads as follows:

Presidential Election Campaign Fund 

This fund helps pay for Presidential election campaigns. The fund also helps pay for pediatric medical research. If you want $3 to go to this fund, check the box. If you are filing a joint return, your spouse can also have $3 go to the fund. If you check the box, your tax or refund won't change.

Diverting funds from elections to pediatric medical research betrays taxpayers. The campaign fund is a lie. The same thing has been done dozens of times by the federal and state governments for decades. Taxpayers are told that money promised to go for one thing gets diverted to something else. Legislators usually do the diversion and they do it quietly. That happened to hundreds of millions that cigarette makers paid to settle state lawsuits. That happens to lottery money, which taxpayers are told will go to one thing, often schools, but then a lot of the money is quietly diverted to other things. 

Once again, the public is lied to and there is little or no blowback or accountability. 

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Is the MSM, naïve, complicit, both or neither?: In my opinion, America’s mainstream media is in bad shape. Mandatory profit demands have sapped most of it’s professionalism and capacity to  report. It went from mostly news to mostly infotainment, with a heavy emphasis on ’tainment and light emphasis on info. An example that has been around for years is the presence of commercial advertising in news. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine writes:

CBS’s 60 Minutes News Segment Was an Unlawful Weight Loss Drug Ad, 

Physicians’ Complaint Alleges

Pro-Drug Doctors Interviewed by CBS Received $100,000+ From Novo Nordisk

After receiving advertising payments from Novo Nordisk, CBS’s 60 Minutes aired a 13-minute promotion of Wegovy, the Novo Nordisk weight loss drug, during its Jan. 1 broadcast, making it appear to be a news story. The segment violates the FDA’s “fair balance” requirement for ads, according to a complaint filed today by the Physicians Committee, a nonprofit public health advocacy organization.

Four “news” segments promoting Novo Nordisk drugs remain on CBS’s site. The Physicians Committee is asking that the stories be removed from the website and that a corrective ad explaining the side effects and risks associated with Wegovy be issued immediately and distributed similarly.

“The 60 Minutes program looked like a news story, but it was effectively a drug ad. And there are FDA regulations on prescription drug advertising related risks and contraindications,” explains Physicians Committee President Neal Barnard, MD, FACC, adjunct professor of medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine. “Wegovy can cause digestive side effects and increased heart rate. Gallstones, pancreatitis, and serious drops in blood sugar have occurred, especially when Wegovy is combined with other diabetes drugs. There is also a risk for women who are pregnant or who may become pregnant.”  

“Also concerning is that Novo Nordisk’s political action committee has paid more than $250,000 in campaign contributions to members of Congress in an effort to pass legislation to make the U.S. government pay for Wegovy, a $1,300-per-month-per-person proposition,” Dr. Barnard says.

That sounds a lot like corrupt crony capitalism to me. The point of touting a commercial product in a “news” program is to disinform the public. That boosts sales and profits. This exemplifies why the professional MSM arguably deserves a grade of F. The partisan media, e.g., Faux News, has been proudly failing to serve the public interest for years. Its grade remains proudly unchanged. 

The likelihood of this complaint doing much is low. The CBS segment has already aired and taking it off the website won’t make much difference now. The sales job has been done.

Thoughts on gun safety laws -- most are going to go extinct

The recent shootings in California raise the well-known issue of gun safety laws. The shooter in Monterey Park used a semi-automatic handgun that has been banned for over 30 years in California. The gun was also equipped with a large ammo clip, also banned. Since the gun and big ammo clips are for sale in some or most other states, California's attempt to impose gun safety is neutered. State gun safety laws are futile. 

In the last year or two Chicago tried to ban some hand guns to reduce the murder rate there, but the law was held to be an unconstitutional violation of the right to own guns. Republican propaganda portrays gun safety laws as mostly worthless, which is true. 

But, bickering about gun safety laws is going to be moot as a nationwide wave of lawsuits against gun safety laws work their way through the courts. A recent radical right Supreme Court decision renders almost all gun safety laws unconstitutional. That even includes laws that require gun owners to have a serial number on guns so that law enforcement can better trace a gun used in a crime. It is reasonable to expect that in the next year or two essentially all the laws will be nullified as unconstitutional. 

The court imposed a new test in the June 2022 New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen decision. The test for constitutionality of all gun laws first asks if the plain text of the Second Amendment protects the activities the laws try to regulate. The second Amendment prohibits no infringement on the right to "keep and bear arms." That would seem to include any law that imposes any non-trivial burden on gun ownership, e.g., taxes on guns, gun licenses, gun safety training requirements, bans on any guns including machine guns, maybe bans on bazookas and stinger surface-to-air missiles (seriously, not joking), etc. 

Since the text of the Second Amendment covers essentially all gun safety laws, then “the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition” that set boundaries on gun use. Back in the 1700s, there were few, if any, boundaries on gun use. I'm not aware of any, but at least one must exist. So, the historical tradition of firearm regulation is almost non-existent.

For example, guns in the 1700s were not stamped with serial numbers. Because of that, a federal law making ownership of guns with serial numbers removed illegal was struck down by a federal court. Criminals and gun sellers rejoiced. They got out their files to file off the serial numbers of guns they wanted to use in crimes or to sell to the public. In view of radical right legal extremism like that, it is not rocket science to see that few gun safety laws are now constitutional. California's ban on that semi-automatic handgun and the ammo clip are unconstitutional. 

Fine home defense weaponry

"Nothing can match the lethality of the Binelli M4!"

(the top choice will blow you away

- starts at 7:04 of the video)

Thinking about “pledges” again today…

I might be wrong but I’m pretty sure pledges are meant to be a serious thing.  If you take one, you are swearing a personal oath to such.

There are many kinds of pledges.  Here is one:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

and to the Republic for which it stands,

one nation under God, indivisible,

with liberty and justice for all.

Seems pretty clear cut.  Let’s check it out, definition-wise, on a more granular level:

I: Me, myself, my person

Pledge: Promise, an undertaking, a vow

Allegiance: Loyalty, faithfulness, fidelity

Flag of the United States: 🏳, a national symbol, stands for the shared history, pride, principles, and commitment of its people

Republic: power held by the people and their elected reps

One nation: e pluribus unum, out of many…one

Under God: The supreme being, the Almighty (note: Wiki shows that “one nation” and “under God” are not separated by a comma.  IOW, they come as a package)

Indivisible: Inextricable, entangled, one and the same

Liberty: Independence, freedom, autonomy

Justice: Fairness, even handedness, righteousness

All: Everyone

Yes, a lot there.  But the weeds always tend to be messy. 🤷‍♀️ That’s why many people much prefer to stay out of them.  Life is a lot simpler then.

Question 1: What do you think about the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance?  If you are not an American, and if you have such a thing, what do you think about your country’s pledge of allegiance?

…

Marriage vows are another kind of pledge.  They can vary in wordage but in the end, the bottom line, it is to pledge a commitment to another.

Question 2: Are wedding vows/pledges on par with/equals to other kinds of pledges of allegiances, commitment-wise (i.e., taken as seriously)?  Or, is one kind of pledge more “important,” more “sacred,” than the other?

…

Yet another kind of pledge can be taken by politicians upon entering office, up to and including a president of the United States.  It’s called the “Oath of Office” pledge and it swears allegiance to the Constitution of the United States:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

Question 3: How solemnly or faithfully do you believe politicians take this Oath?  Is it just a nicety, a formality, something “for show?”

…

Granted, things can get complicated but give us your general opinion on these things we call “pledges.”  Please get into the weeds as much as you dare!! 😉

GOP poison flows in the House; Reality derangement syndrome; Boofer redux

House Republican ill-will and bad faith fatally poison the institution: I was wondering if they were going to do it. They said they were going to do it. By golly, they actually did it. The NYT reports:

McCarthy Ejects Schiff and Swalwell From Intelligence Committee

In an act of official retribution for how Democrats treated Republicans when they were in the majority, the speaker barred the Californians from the panel, arguing that they were not fit to serve

The move was a much-anticipated tit-for-tat after Democrats, then in the majority, voted in 2021 to eject two Republicans, Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona, from congressional committees for internet posts that advocated violence against their political enemies. It was also payback for the decision by Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, to bar Republicans who had helped former President Donald J. Trump spread the election lies that fueled the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol from sitting on the special committee investigating the riot.

This is moves the federal government closer to a corrupt, radical right tyranny-Christian theocracy. There is nothing democratic or rational about this. Greene and Goasar publicly advocated for violence. Schiff and Swalwell tried to find and report truth. Pelosi rejected Jordan and another(s) who would have sabotaged the 1/6 committee. Republicans seek retribution in anti-democratic authoritarian bad faith and ill will. Democrats sought truth and civility. 

The House is now a broken partisan, authoritarian institution. Maybe it will recover, but maybe it never will. The 2024 elections will probably shed significant light on which route Americans want to take, knowingly or not. 

This is just more evidence of how terrifyingly radicalized and anti-democratic the GOP has become.

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Reality derangement syndrome: RDS is something that the Republican Party now routinely and heavily relies on. For Republican elites, RDS usually seriously poisons and sometimes completely kills reality, reasoning, rhetoric, policy, behavior, morality and/or democracy. Newsweek reports on an example that is about as clear as it can get:

Microsoft's Changes to Xbox Console Leave Republicans Outraged

Microsoft has announced changes to its Xbox console settings that is to allow users to save more energy and reduce the carbon impact of their gaming. But this has been read (or misread) by Republican representatives and organizations as the "woke brigade" wanting to "take your Xbox."

The company included a feature that allows the console to pick a time of the night for maintenance and updates to use the most renewable energy from the electrical grid, and a "shutdown" setting that can replace the sleep mode, which it says saves 20 times the energy.

His explanation of the new shutdown setting stipulates that it "will not affect performance, gameplay, or your console's ability to receive overnight updates" and can be adjusted "at any time" so users can choose "what works best for you." Hauglie said two consoles that switched to the shutdown setting for a year would save the same amount of carbon as a tree planted and grown for a decade.

However, this was interpreted in an article by Blaze Media, a conservative outlet, as suggesting Microsoft would "force gamers to power down to fight climate change."

"First gas stoves, then your coffee, now they're gunning for your Xbox," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted on Monday, citing a previous furor over remarks made by an official from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission about the health harms of gas stoves. The CPSC chair stated emphatically at the time that it was not looking to ban gas stoves.

"A default setting does not mean they are 'forcing' anyone to do anything," one user responded. "As an Xbox owner, this has been a choice for a while now. I appreciate that they offer it."

"They want to take your guns. They want to take your gas stoves. And now they want to take your Xbox," Troy Nehls, a congressman for Texas, wrote in a similar vein to Cruz's remarks. "What's next?"

This is more evidence of the extreme radicalization of the GOP and the key role that RDS plays in it. This also points out, once again, the intense elite Republican opposition to any serious effort to acknowledge or deal with climate change. By now, the accumulated evidence strongly evinces the GOP's pro-pollution, pro-climate change stance and policy. That cannot be much clearer.

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A trip down memory lane: Regarding the Kavanaugh non-investigation: Remember the fun exploits of Brett the beer boofer, and his side-kick Squee? Over the last couple of days, multiple sources have been reporting about a documentary that was made in secrecy and released without advance publicity. It was all about the FBI's valiant non-investigation of Brett during his Senate confirmation hearings. The Guardian writes: 

Justice, a last-minute addition to the schedule, aims to shine a light not only on the women who have accused Kavanaugh, a Donald Trump nominee, but also the failed FBI investigation into the allegations. “I do hope this triggers outrage,” said producer Amy Herdy in a Q&A after the premiere in Park City, Utah. “I do hope that this triggers action, I do hope that this triggers additional investigation with real subpoena powers.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse questioned FBI director Christopher Wray on this subject back in August:

Whitehouse: As you know, we are now entering the fourth year of a frustrating saga that began with an August 2019 letter from me and Senator Coons, regarding the Kavanaugh supplemental background investigation, and I’d like to try to get that matter wrapped up. First, is it true that after Kavanaugh-related tips were separated from regular tip-line traffic, they were forwarded to White House counsel without investigation?

Wray: I apologize in advance that it has been frustrating for you. We have tried to be clear about our process. So when it comes to the tip line, we wanted to make sure that the White House had all the information we have, so when the hundreds of calls started coming in, we gathered those up, reviewed them, and provided them to the White House—

Whitehouse: Without investigation?

Wray [long pause]: We reviewed them and then provided them to—

Whitehouse: You reviewed them for purposes of separating them from tip-line traffic, but did not further investigate the ones that related to Kavanaugh, correct?

Wray: Correct.

Whitehouse: Is it also true that, in that supplemental B.I. [background investigation], the FBI took direction from the White House as to whom the FBI would question and even what questions the FBI could ask.

Wray: So, it is true that, consistent with the longstanding process that we have had—going all the way back to at least the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, and continue to follow currently under the Biden administration—that in a limited supplemental B.I., we take direction from the requesting entity, which in this case was the White House...

Yuk. That was a nauseating trip down memory lane. Despite the producer's intent to provoke outrage and an investigation with teeth, nothing will probably come of this documentary. It's merely an inconvenient nasty in the punch bowl that can politely be ignored. 

Honestly, just look at Wray's comments in that last paragraph. The FBI takes its orders from the White House. It cannot be independent or competent when it comes to political matters like this. The rule of law just does not apply. But, we can give the people who made the documentary a round of applause for outstanding effort. 👏👏👏 

As we all know, Republican elites vehemently oppose any investigations of the criminality, treason, provocations of violence and sleaze among their own, and that's that. But there will be plenty of investigations of Joe Biden, Hunter, the infamous laptop, the pics of Hunter's junk, and a slew of of other Democrats, and woke people and companies. Bring on the RDS-fueled witch hunts! 

Surprise!! Boofer's on the Supreme Court!

GOP tax code reform; The reality of capitalism sinks in with some after it bites

GOP style tax code reform: The Hill writes about a proposed House Republican reform proposal that favors the rich and lower income households, while shafting the middle class. Replace the entire tax code with a single 30% on everything tax, but with a tweak, and mostly get rid of the IRS by shifting tax collection responsibility to the states. The Hill writes:

The advantage to higher earners is so pronounced that the legislation includes a “prebate,” a cash transfer program in which taxpayers get regular checks equal to the amount that people at the poverty level would owe in taxes.

The result is a smaller tax burden for the highest and lowest earners and a bigger one for people in the middle.

A 2006 study by the House Small Business Committee on a similar proposal found that the tax burden for people making more than $200,000 and less than $15,000 a year would go down, while the burden for people making something in between would go up.

Republicans say that tax simplification is needed, which is true. Republicans have favored tax code complexity for decades because of loopholes for the rich that are routinely built in. Apparently, this proposal would reduce the burden on the rich even more than the existing code allows. 

Tax liability for the top 20% of earners would fall from 84.2% to 65.1%. People in the middle would go from 3.8% to 10.5%. Apparently, Republicans like the idea of states controlling tax revenues because it is easier for rich people and big corporate interests to subvert and corrupt a state tax agency compared to the federal IRS, which is already significantly subverted and corrupted by the rich and powerful. One can imagine how rotted state tax agencies will be once the state GOP has had time to sink its Christian nationalist-capitalist claws in states that Republicans control. 

Republicans really do want to starve the federal beast to its death, and then us to our deaths.

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Capitalism can be callous: Some of the people being laid off from jobs at tech giants are discovering that they are expendable at will. Business Insider writes:

A Google engineer laid off after over 16½ years at the firm said in a LinkedIn post that the tech giant viewed staff as "100% disposable."

Justin Moore, an engineering manager at Google, was one of the 12,000 people affected by Google's layoffs last week. Moore wrote that he found out he had been laid off via an automated account deactivation at 3:00 a.m.

"This also just drives home that work is not your life, and employers — especially big, faceless ones like Google — see you as 100% disposable," Moore said.

"Live life, not work," he added.

MAGA!! to that. Fire those suckers and losers!

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A warning about personal data safety on the internet: ProPublica reports that some websites that sell abortion pills give sensitive personal data to Google. Law enforcement can potentially use this data to prosecute people who end their pregnancies with medication. ProPublica writes:

Online pharmacies that sell abortion pills are sharing sensitive data with Google and other third parties, which may allow law enforcement to prosecute those who use the medications to end their pregnancies, a ProPublica analysis has found.

Using a tool created by the Markup, a nonprofit tech-journalism newsroom, ProPublica ran checks on 11 online pharmacies that sell abortion medication to reveal the web tracking technology they use. Late last year and in early January, ProPublica found web trackers on the sites of at least nine online pharmacies that provide pills by mail: Abortion Ease, BestAbortionPill.com, PrivacyPillRX, PillsOnlineRX, Secure Abortion Pills, AbortionRx, Generic Abortion Pills, Abortion Privacy and Online Abortion Pill Rx.

The time is coming when forced birthers are going to get laws passed that criminalize the pregnant woman. The current restraining belief is that the woman is not guilty of anything, but anyone who aids in an abortion is criminally liable. Once the urge for God's righteous vengeance punches through this already weakening mental restraint, pregnant women themselves will be zealously hunted down and punished harshly. 

That is Christian theocracy serving us lovingly but righteously, so to speak. /s