The Republican Strategy to make climate change worse

The weather is always changing. We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs. -- The one and only mention of climate change in Rick Scott’s 11-point Republican Party plan to destroy America

 

Yes, there really is a GOP strategy to make sure climate change is not interfered with. This is serious and real, not a joke. The Republican Party goal is staunch, all-out support for continuing to pollute as usual. That Tragedy of the Commons strategy will continue to provide profits to polluters, campaign contributions for Republicans and more environmental damage and misery for the rest of us. The New York Times writes:

How an Organized Republican Effort Punishes Companies for Climate Action

Legislators and their allies are running an aggressive campaign that uses public money and the law to pressure businesses they say are pushing “woke” causes.

In West Virginia, the state treasurer has pulled money from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, because the Wall Street firm has flagged climate change as an economic risk.

In Texas, a new law bars the state’s retirement and investment funds from doing business with companies that the state comptroller says are boycotting fossil fuels. Conservative lawmakers in 15 other states are promoting similar legislation.

And officials in Utah and Idaho have assailed a major ratings agency for considering environmental risks and other factors, in addition to the balance sheet, when assessing states’ creditworthiness.

Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.

“We’re an energy state, and energy accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue for us,” said Riley Moore, the West Virginia state treasurer. “All of our jobs come from coal and gas. I mean, this is who we are. This is part of our way of life here in the state. And they’re telling us that these industries are bad.”

“We have an existential threat here,” Mr. Moore said. “We have to fight back.”

In doing so, Mr. Moore and others have pushed climate change from the scientific realm into the political battles already raging over topics like voting rights, abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. issues. In recent months, conservatives have moved beyond tough words and used legislative and financial leverage to pressure the private sector to drop climate action and any other causes they label as “woke.”

“There is a coordinated effort to chill corporate engagement on these issues,” said Daniella Ballou-Aares, chief executive of the Leadership Now Project, a nonprofit organization that wants corporations to address threats to democracy. “And it is an effective campaign. Companies are starting to go into hiding.”

Once again, the GOP’s abject moral rot with its anti-democratic neo-fascism is on display in broad daylight for woke minds to see. Unwoke minds are not going to see it. To those closed minds, climate change is a Chinese hoax, Democratic Party socialist ploy, Democratic pedophilia, liberal atheism or whatever other slanders the Republican propagandists’ focus group data says will be most effective for trapping minds in the GOP’s various mental sewers.

“AMERICANS DESERVE TO KNOW WHAT WE WILL DO WHEN GIVEN THE CHANCE TO GOVERN.” — Rick Scott’s 11-point plan to screw us once the GOP gets back in power, which is going to be pretty soon; what they are going to do is defend and expand pollution and their campaign contributions

Rick Scott’s lies and slanders at the start of  

his evil neo-fascist plan

Bad COVID news

The Washington Post writes:

Vaccines may not prevent many symptoms of long covid, study suggests 

A large U.S. study looking at whether vaccination protects against long covid showed the shots have only a slight protective effect: Being vaccinated appeared to reduce the risk of lung and blood clot disorders, but did little to protect against most other symptoms.

The new paper, published Wednesday in Nature Medicine, is part of a series of studies by the Department of Veterans Affairs on the impact of the coronavirus, and was based on 33,940 people who experienced breakthrough infections after vaccination.

The data confirms the large body of research that shows vaccination greatly reduces the risk of death or serious illness. But there was more ambiguity regarding long covid.  

Six months after their initial diagnosis of covid, people in the study who were vaccinated had only a slightly reduced risk of getting long covid — 15 percent overall. The greatest benefit appeared to be in reducing blood clotting and lung complications. But there was no difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated when it came to longer-term risks of neurological issues, gastrointestinal symptoms, kidney failure and other conditions.  

At the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center’s Post-Acute COVID Syndrome Clinic, Christina Martin, an advance practice nurse, said that since November, her staff has noticed a “worrying trend” of vaccinated people having breakthrough infections and developing long covid.

When the clinic was founded a year ago, she said, they anticipated seeing fewer new patients by this time as more people became vaccinated. Unfortunately, they’ve seen the opposite, with patient numbers going up.

“We now feel that long covid is here to stay. … This will have profound implications on our health-care system and resources,” Martin said.

This is not good. It seemed reasonable to think that vaccinated and boosted people would have reduced chances of getting all kinds of long covid disease. Apparently, that is not the case if this data holds up. Given how large the database is, 33,940 patients, this finding is probably reliable.

It's beginning to look like covid is just never going to go away. The human species just cannot get its act together to fight this. Self-serving crackpots and liars like Faux News and Republican Party elites feed the endless torrent of disinformation, confusion and stupidity, which helps stymie efforts to deal with this. That is not going to change. Dark free speech is legal. It is necessary to keep radical right neo-fascists in power and wealth. Covid has and still is costing trillions, but we just cannot do squat about it on a global scale. 

Maybe it's time to accept this new risk as another bad new normal for a long time to come. Maybe forever.

US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wins GOP primary in Georgia

A defiant U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene easily defeated five fellow Republicans on Tuesday in a primary race that showed her conservative Georgia constituents standing steadfastly beside her after a turbulent freshman term.

Greene showed no signs of mellowing in her victory speech late Tuesday. She called, as she has in the past, for the impeachment of President Joe Biden and dismissed his election as the product of “fraudulent electoral votes.” She likened pandemic mask and vaccine mandates to “medical tyranny,” and bemoaned “the cruel and illegal treatment of many nonviolent Jan. 6 protesters.”

Greene called Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell one of Congress’ “failed leaders” and said to loud applause that she’s part of a “majority who even now wants to see Hillary Clinton in jail.”

“Sending me back to Washington will send a message to the bloodsucking establishment: It is we who will set the policy agenda for the next decade and not them,” Greene said. She added: “We’re going to start speaking the truth more forcefully and more loudly than ever before.”

Greene, 47, will be back on the ballot in November facing Democrat Marcus Flowers in northwest Georgia’s 14th District, a seat drawn to give Republicans a huge advantage. Flowers, an Army veteran who raised $8.1 million, easily beat two other candidates in the Democratic primary.

Greene became a celebrity of the Republican Party's far-right fringe with her election two years ago as she embraced former President Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, and engaged in conspiracy theories about the coronavirus.

Greene spoke at an event organized by a white nationalist where the crowd chanted “Putin!” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and launched other partisan attacks that critics said promoted racism and violence.

Greene remained on the primary ballot Tuesday in Georgia's 14th Congressional District after a failed effort to disqualify her by opposing voters. They argued Greene engaged in insurrection by encouraging the Jan. 6, 2021, riot that disrupted Congress’ certification of Joe Biden’s presidential victory. Georgia's secretary of state and an administrative law judge dismissed the claims.

Still, fellow Republicans refused to give Greene a free ride to reelection. Though her first term won loyal followers, it left others in the GOP embarrassed.

Leading the slate of Republicans running to oust Greene in the primary was Jennifer Strahan, founder of a suburban Atlanta health care advisory firm who pitched herself to voters as a “no-nonsense conservative.”

“This is not the time for unserious politicians who just want to hear themselves talk,” Strahan said in one campaign ad, without mentioning Greene by name. In another she stated bluntly: “Our current U.S. representative isn’t doing her job.”

Greene was stripped of her committee assignments last year by House Democrats who accused her of spreading violent and hateful conspiracies. In recent months, Greene got banned from Twitter for spreading coronavirus misinformation.

Green has been largely unrepentant. In a campaign ad posted recently to her Facebook page, she calls Biden and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “communist Democrats” who “hate America, hate God and hate our way of life.”

Greene proved popular enough that she raised more than $9 million for her reelection bid, placing her among the year’s top fundraisers in Congress, according to the Federal Election Commission. Greene spent more than $6.6 million before the primary.

Strahan's $391,000 in fundraising trailed far behind Greene but dwarfed that of other Republican contenders — retired physician Charles Lutin, engineer James Haygood, Marine Corps veteran Seth Synstelien and logistics executive Eric Cunningham.

Spanning a stretch of northwest Georgia from metro Atlanta to the state line at Chattanooga, Tennessee, Greene's district was drawn to favor Republicans even after state lawmakers slightly shifted its boundaries during redistricting last year.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/us-rep-marjorie-taylor-greene-wins-gop-primary-in-georgia/ar-AAXGiqa?ocid=mailsignout&li=AAggNb9

Any thoughts on the latest mass slaughter and the normal non-response that will follow?