Bits: The face of collapsing civil rights; Ocean current collapse imminent; Fighting for civil rights

Keeping eyes on the flow of power: As radical right Christian nationalist extremists and brass knuckles capitalists gain and exert more power in government, commerce and society, America is witnessing a slow collapse of civil liberties for average people. Accompanying that, there is a subtle expansion for wealthy and/or powerful elites. Power is flowing from the people and secular pluralist government to the elites and authoritarian government and political forces, e.g., the radical right, authoritarian Republican Party. Law and Crime reports about a current example in Alabama:

White Alabama mayor says even if he did have a ‘secret meeting’ to keep Black mayor out of office, it’s not ‘so egregious’ as to be a civil rights violation

Patrick Braxton, along with James Ballard, Barbara Patrick, Janice Quarles, and Wanda Scott, sued the city of Newbern, Alabama and alleged that despite being legally entitled to take office, they were prevented from doing so when white residents “refused to accept” the results of a 2020 election. They argue that Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, Newbern’s white former mayor, conspired with his council, other government officials, and a local bank, to illegally install himself as mayor even after Braxton fairly and legally won the election.

That is how radical right authoritarian White people see civil liberties. Even if a Black person is elected, White elites openly subverting the election does not violate anyone's civil rights, including voters or the disenfranchised politician. 

In the 2024 elections,, one can reasonably expect this kind of poisoned reasoning to crop up from the radical right with increasing frequency and ferocity. American democracy is under an undeniable, direct attack by the radical right Republican Party, White Christian nationalist extremists, brass knuckles capitalists and other supporters of tyranny.

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

The WaPo reports:

The Atlantic Ocean’s sensitive circulation system has become slower and less resilient, according to a new analysis of 150 years of temperature data — raising the possibility that this crucial element of the climate system could collapse within the next few decades.

Scientists have long seen the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, as one of the planet’s most vulnerable “tipping elements” — meaning the system could undergo an abrupt and irreversible change, with dramatic consequences for the rest of the globe. Under Earth’s current climate, this aquatic conveyor belt transports warm, salty water from the tropics to the North Atlantic, and then sends colder water back south along the ocean floor. But as rising global temperatures melt Arctic ice, the resulting influx of cold freshwater has thrown a wrench in the system — and could shut it down entirely.

The study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications suggests that continued warming will push the AMOC over its “tipping point” around the middle of this century. The shift would be as abrupt and irreversible as turning off a light switch, and it could lead to dramatic changes in weather on either side of the Atlantic.  

The new study adds to a growing body of evidence that this crucial ocean system is in peril. Since 2004, observations from a network of ocean buoys has showed the AMOC getting weaker — though the limited time frame of that data set makes it hard to establish a trend. Scientists have also analyzed multiple “proxy” indicators of the current’s strength, including microscopic organisms and tiny sediments from the seafloor, to show the system is in its weakest state in more than 1,000 years.

The article goes on to point out that the time estimate for catastrophic collapse is uncertain, a point that climate science deniers make as they dismiss this as alarmism, a Chinese hoax and/or socialism. Of course since there is uncertainty, then the current collapse could happen sooner than ~2050, maybe ~2035 for example. Climate science deniers use uncertainty to dismiss the threat. 

In the minds of climate science and global warming deniers, all uncertainty points to things being definitely significantly better, never possibly worse. The asymmetry in how global warming deniers deal with uncertainty is a blatant logic flaw. It evinces the bad faith, ill-will and malice that dominates their thinking and motives. 

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

LGBQ nation writes about a lawsuit to have force a Florida school district to treat the Bible the same as all other banned books:

Lawyer demands school district ban the Bible after it banned 

other books for being sexually explicit

"The District must hold religious texts to the same standards it holds all other library books," the attorney wrote

A watchdog nonprofit seeking to protect the separation of church and state is demanding the Bible be banned from a Florida school district after the superintendent banned five other books due to “sexually explicit content.”

Christopher Line, a staff attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), sent an email to Leon County Schools superintendent Rocky Hanna requesting that “the District either ban the bible based on the criterion of ‘sexually explicit content’ it has used to ban these books, or cease banning books and return the banned books to school shelves.”

Unfortunately, radicalized, increasingly theocratic courts can dream up some excuse to keep the bible available, with other banned books remaining banned.

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

Patriotism poll data:

Pride in national identity is lowest among those 18-34, and illustrates the fracture between young Americans and older generations at a time of deep partisanship in the United States.

Overall, 39% of U.S. adults say they are "extremely proud" to be American in the most recent poll.

Well, maybe the unhappy young 'uns will vote and help toss Republicans out of power in 2024. Then they will have something to be proud of. We'll see.

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

Normalized Republican politician mendacity: The WaPo writes about whoppers that Alabama's radical right extremist Senator, Tommy Tuberville, is telling the public:

“My father, Charles Tuberville, made the D-Day landing at Normandy as a tank commander with the 101st infantry. He served with honor during World War II, earning five Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart.”  

“He lied about his age at 16, joined the Army.”

.... an examination of army histories, newspaper reports and other materials calls into question many of the claims put forth by Tuberville, who sits on both the Senate Armed Services and Veterans’ Affairs committees ....

Charles Tuberville, who was born in 1925, turned 16 five months before the United States entered World War II because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. His draft registration card (front and back) shows he submitted it on July 16, 1943 — his 18th birthday.

[The tank commander claim] is dubious. Charles Tuberville’s tombstone lists his highest rank as “TEC 5” or technician fifth grade, an Army rank at the time that indicated technical skills but not combat leadership. According to a 1944 Army memo, TEC 5 jobs were limited to armorer, cook, tank driver, light truck driver or tank mechanic. Tuberville would have needed to be a sergeant to be a tank commander. 

[The 5 Bronze Stars claim] is false. The Bronze Star, the eighth-highest military award, is earned when a soldier “distinguished himself or herself by heroic or meritorious achievement or service” in combat with an armed enemy of the United States. .... None of the hundreds of pages of after-action reports on the 746th Tank Battalion, from June 1944 to August 1945, lists Tuberville as a recipient of the Bronze Star even as the reports meticulously list scores of soldiers who were either recommended for an award or received one.

Egads & bejeezus! The Republican Party is corrupt, authoritarian and morally rotted to all the way to its rotten core. What is it about Republican politicians that makes them feel a need to lie so blatantly? Whatever it is, the lying doesn't seem to cost them many or any Republican votes, so making up blatantly false things is a cost free way to virtue signal to the cult.