The Independent reports about a court filing that DJT's lawyers filed. It complained that Jack Smith’s prosecution team “has been investigating this matter for three and a half years, while the defense is starting with a blank slate.” Smith's team responded “Not only is this claim impossible, as January 6, 2021, was two and a half years ago, but it is disingenuous”
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Newsweek reports that radial right Matt Gaetz is arguing that only through "force" can change be made in "corrupt" Washington. Gaetz commented: "We are having a great time at the [Iowa state] fair. We love standing with you. But we know that only through force do we make any change in a corrupt town like Washington, D.C." At present, it probably would take force to get the corrupt GOP out of power in congress. But since the 2024 elections are not that far off, waiting and voting seems like a better plan. One can reasonably take his comment as advocating civil war and preparing the radical right base for that if DJT loses the election.
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The NYT reports on clean energy NIMBYism among environmentalists. They want clean energy, but just not in their back yard. The problem is overpopulation in America and almost everywhere else on Earth that is reasonably inhabitable. Everywhere is someone's back yard, whether they believe in and/or are worried about global warming or not. The NYT writes about ostensibly pro-environment NIMBYs in Maine:
If there is anywhere in the country primed to welcome the clean energy transition, it is Penobscot Bay in Maine. Electricity prices there are high and volatile. The ocean waters are warming fast, threatening the lobster fishery. Miles offshore, winds blow strong enough to heat every home and power every car in the state.
One key to harnessing that wind lies at the end of a causeway jutting into the bay, on a mostly undeveloped island where eagles fish offshore and people walk in the quiet shade. Many officials see this spot, known as Sears Island, as the ideal site to build and launch a flotilla of turbines** that could significantly lessen Maine’s reliance on fossil fuels.
** The blades on the turbines are planned to be about 300 feet long, i.e., they are huge.
Standing in their way are environmental groups and local residents, all of whom are committed to a clean energy future and worried about the rapid warming of the earth. Still, they want the state to pick a different site for its so-called wind port, citing the tranquility of Sears Island and its popularity and accessibility as a recreation destination.
no hurdle to a clean energy transition at the speed and scale scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic warming is easier to see than the growing local backlash to large-scale wind and solar projects, like the one roiling Sears Island.
The problem boils down to this: If lawmakers want to ramp up renewables as fast and cheaply as possible, they’ll need to bulldoze or build over some places that people treasure.
From the desert suburbs outside Los Angeles to the rolling hills along the Ohio River to the Jersey Shore, residents are crying out against solar farms, wind turbines and new power lines. They are suing, passing laws and taking other steps to stop or slow projects, some of which would power the nation’s largest towns and cities with renewables.
Conservationist NIMBYs plan to sue to block the wind farm development. One activist engaged in motivated reasoning to reason that lawsuits are unfortunate because that wastes time that the state could be looking for some other place to put the turbines. Of course, the state is already aware of other sites and other places are someone else's back yard. Presumably, Maine chose Sears Island as the best site because it is the best site, but because it wanted to piss off environmentalists. So, off to court we go, pissing aways valuable years in pissing matches court. That is wasted time we probably no longer have the luxury of pissing away, but we're gonna do it anyway.
And, there are serious problems in addition to NIMBY's endless lawsuits and constant radical right Republican Party fighting against doing anything meaningful about global warming, which cynical lying radical right elites still call a hoax.
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America's moral rot and a sad note about Afghanistan: A WaPo opinion by Annie Yu Kleiman laments the tens of thousands of allies the US left behind. Their fates are currently in the hands of the vicious, murdering Dark Ages Islamic Taliban:
Annie Yu Kleiman is a senior technical analyst at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation and an 18-year Air Force reservist. She serves on the board of directors for No One Left Behind, an organization working to help evacuate, resettle and advocate for Afghan Special Immigrant Visa recipients.
As of April 2023, about 152,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) applicants remain trapped in Afghanistan. These people, who served side-by-side with U.S. forces during the long war, face years of danger, severe economic hardship and increasingly onerous restrictions — particularly on women and girls — while applying for their SIVs through a complicated, Kafkaesque process.
The dangerously slow SIV process has become practically a death sentence. No One Left Behind has documented hundreds of SIV applicants who were murdered while waiting for their visas; details will be released in a forthcoming report.To create a snapshot of the absurd gantlet our former friends and allies have to run, I gathered quotations from text messages and emails that they sent to my organization, No One Left Behind, seeking help.“I have all the recommendation letters from the teams [I worked for], but I cannot get the human resources [showing proof of employment with the US government] letter because the company does not answer our emails.”“If the Taliban finds me, they will not ask me how many days I worked for the U.S. Army. If the Taliban finds me, they will kill me.”“The Taliban has killed my brother ... and my wife. They also shot my younger brother in the left leg. The Taliban told us that we are spies for the Americans, and that one by one they will kill all my family members.”“I am living like a prisoner. After the fall of the regime, my husband and I lost our jobs. Please help me if you know any way to evacuate me. I don’t have enough money to transfer my case to a third country.”“I was in a car accident and my leg is broken. If I don’t get evacuated, I’m sure they will kill me. I no longer have a job. I can’t afford my family’s food or medicine for my three girls. Also my Pakistan visa was rejected.”
“The passport department [in Afghanistan] is either overcrowded or closed most of the time. It takes months to get an appointment, and it is risky because our biometrics are there.”
“My wife is pregnant with twins. The passport department is closed. It’s impossible. I am just confused about what to do.”
“Please help save me and my children. We are not safe and keep changing our locations.”
“My innocent baby boy was killed by the Taliban. Now it is my turn to be killed.”
Why anyone would ever trust the morally rotted US again is a very good question. We betray our local allies and leave them to die in misery and fear in local hellscapes. We even betray ourselves. The two political parties in power betray us. Racist, radical right Christianity is betraying us. So is big capitalism. Moral rot and corruption in America are rampant and deepening.
I presume that the US process to get allies out is still being sabotaged by a racist radical right deep state presence that the cruel, virulent racists DJT and the Steven Miller installed and then left behind after Jan. 20, 2021.
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