Bits: BKC lobbying corrupts congress, again; COVID update; A massive BKC war is brewing

After the trail derailment On Feb. 3 in East Palestine Ohio, Norfolk Southern railroad dropped its years-long opposition to safety regulations that would have prevented the derailment. NS opposition to the regulations has returned and it effectively blocks the regulations pending in congress. In other words it is just BKC (brass knuckles capitalism) doing business as usual by corrupting and subverting government with cash. 

The Intercept describes how relatively small amounts of BKC cash controls congress to get 'er done! while the public interest gets shafted as usual:

AFTER LAYING LOW in the wake of the disastrous East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment, Norfolk Southern is back to spending millions in Congress — and a paper trail indicates that it’s lobbying for weaker regulation and rewarding members of Congress who play along.

From the day of the derailment on February 3 through the end of April, the company made no political contributions, instead receiving refunds of donations it had made to a number of campaigns. But as the national spotlight dimmed, the company got back to work.

In the last four months, Norfolk spent $1,657,500 on lobbyists who met with the same elected officials tasked with regulating the company. And in June and July alone, the company shelled out almost $200,000 to a myriad of congressional campaigns and political action committees, or PACs, according to its recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, including one from this week.  

As Norfolk went on a spending spree, the Bipartisan Railway Safety Act stalled in the Senate, due to a lack of sufficient Republican support. .... The oil company that manufactured the toxic chemicals that were released in Ohio has also donated heavily to Republicans while pushing to weaken the bill, The Lever reported.  

OVER THE SUMMER, Norfolk Southern donated $5,000 to each of the PACs associated with GOP Sens. Marsha Blackburn, Ted Budd, Shelley Moore Capito, John Cornyn, John Hoeven, and Cynthia Lummis — most of them members of the Senate transportation committee. Meanwhile, Blackburn and Sen. Roger Wicker received $1,500 and $5,000, respectively, to their campaign accounts. None of the Republican senators’ offices responded to requests for comment on the donations, nor about their stances on the Bipartisan Railway Safety Act.

Meanwhile, a few Democrats have welcomed cash from the rail giant too. The PACs of Sens. Joe Manchin and Chris Van Hollen each received $5,000. Manchin’s office did not answer a question about the donation, and Van Hollen’s office did not respond to a request for comment.  

Many of the lobbyists working on behalf of the rail industry previously worked in the halls of Congress, now subbing their congressional staffer badges for a Norfolk Southern-stamped guest pass. So far this year, 167 of Norfolk Southern’s lobbyists are among the industry pack who used to hold government jobs. And some were even members of Congress themselves, like former Sens. Trent Lott (a Republican) and John Breaux (a Democrat). In one of their $60,000 Norfolk Southern contracts, the pair were among lobbyists speaking to Congress on an array of “regulatory issues affecting the railroad industry,” including the Bipartisan Railway Safety Act.

Three very important points

Worth noting are three important things. First, in addition to this blatant but normalized and routine conflict of interest mode of political operation, one can only wonder how much that ~$2 million in recent payments to lobbyists, corrupt politicians and corrupt political groups is worth to Norfolk. Probably at least about ten times that much, each year. The Intercept did not say what the return on its corruption campaign investment is worth.

Second is the fact that campaign finance laws requiring reporting of spending were necessary for this kind of reporting to happen. Without such laws, The Intercept would not have been able to get this data. Everyone involved in legalized corruption like this would simply not answer question from reporters or anyone else about how much special interests paid to whom, or how much recipients received. The public would know nothing about any of this corruption.

Third, prominent radical right, pro-tyranny Republicans like Clarence Thomas vehemently oppose all laws related to reporting of spending or gifts to anyone in government. The radical authoritarian's legal theory is that the US Constitution contains and protects an implicit, almost absolute right to private free speech. If that radical pro-corruption idea ever becomes the law, all of this corruption would go on in private. Everyone involved could say nothing or lie. The public would never know. Kleptocrats love conducting business in secrecy. The more secrecy, the more corruption there can be. 

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COVID is probably not going to go away. It is going to keep mutating and threatening waves of pandemic. The Ohio State University newsletter discusses the situation:

COVID-19 virus is evolving rapidly in white-tailed deer

White-tailed deer across Ohio have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, new research has found – and the results also show that viral variants evolve about three times faster in deer than in humans.

Scientists collected 1,522 nasal swabs from free-ranging deer in 83 of the state’s 88 counties between November 2021 and March 2022. More than 10% of the samples were positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and at least one positive case was found in 59% of the counties in which testing took place.

Genomic analysis showed that at least 30 infections in deer had been introduced by humans – a figure that surprised the research team.

“We generally talk about interspecies transmission as a rare event, but this wasn’t a huge sampling, and we’re able to document 30 spillovers. It seems to be moving between people and animals quite easily,” said Andrew Bowman, associate professor of veterinary preventive medicine at The Ohio State University and co-senior author of the study.

“And the evidence is growing that humans can get it from deer – which isn’t radically surprising. It’s probably not a one-way pipeline.”  

The 80 whole-genome sequences obtained from the collected samples were represented groups of viral variants: the highly contagious delta variant, the predominant human strain in the United States in the early fall of 2021 that accounted for almost 90% of the sequences, and alpha, the first named variant of concern that had circulated in humans in the spring of 2021. An investigation of the mutations found in the samples provided evidence of more rapid evolution of both alpha and delta variants in deer compared to humans.

So not only are humans not taking COVID seriously, e.g., not getting vaccinated, there is a reservoir of valiant patriots who harbor misconceptions about the disease and how to reduce the risk of spreading the infection in humans who might get sick and die or suffer long COVID.

Q: Where did all the shockingly deceived Americans come from? Did QAnon do it?

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From the BKCs Are Royally Pissed Files: The NYT writes about the Biden administration starting the process of negotiating drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid under an evil socialist, communist, pedophile Democrat law: 

U.S. Announces First Drugs Picked for Medicare Price Negotiations 

The price negotiation program, established by Democrats as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, is expected to save the government tens of billions of dollars in the coming years

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced the first 10 medicines that will be subject to price negotiations with Medicare, kicking off a landmark program that is expected to reduce the government’s drug spending but is being fought by the pharmaceutical industry in court.

The medications on the list are taken by millions of older Americans and cost Medicare billions of dollars annually.

That is really going to make drug companies furious. We can expect a blizzard of lobbyists with hoards of cash to parachute onto congress so they can  get 'er done! while the public interest gets shafted as usual. It will be interesting to watch to see how long it takes before this pro-public interest effort gets corrupted and subverted by relentless, ruthless BKCs doing their business on congress. 

One can imagine that the radical BKCs that dominate the USSC might have to step in to save those outrageous reasonable drug company profit margins if suitable action from congress cannot be purchased. I think I can see some really great vacations for Clarence Thomas on the horizon.  

Drug company lobbyists 

parachuting onto congress

Supplies of drug company cash for congress 

and the Supreme Court if necessary

An incoming 2nd wave 

of lobbyists

Clarence T. anticipating fun evening soirees with the incoming lobbyists

 and their $$$, followed by some really great all expenses paid vacations!

Bits: Psychology of conspiracy theory spread; Geothermal energy update; Constitutional sherrifs movement

PsyPost writes about a recent research paper that examined the role of what is called the need for chaos plays in spreading conspiracy theories (CTs):

New research suggests that a psychological concept known as “the need for chaos” plays a bigger role than partisanship and ideology in the sharing of conspiracy theories on the internet. The study, published in Research & Politics, indicates that individuals driven by a desire to disrupt and challenge established systems are more inclined to share conspiracy theories.

The authors wanted to explore three specific motivations behind the sharing of conspiracy theories: motivated sharing (sharing to bolster their or their group’s beliefs), sounding the alarm (sharing to generate collective action against a political outgroup due to feelings of losing), and the need for chaos (sharing to disrupt the political system regardless of partisanship or belief). 

“Although earlier work found a positive relationship between the need for chaos and sharing (and that the need for chaos superseded partisan motivations for sharing) these studies did not assess how the need for chaos affected sharing when pitted against a direct measure of conspiracy theory belief. Testing these mechanisms together is important because people who believe conspiracy theories might be more willing to share them online, but belief is not a necessary condition for sharing.”

The article goes on to point out that people with a high need for chaos tend to agree with statements such as “We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down and start over” and “I need chaos around me – it is too boring if nothing is going on.” Also, the data indicated that belief in a conspiracy theory was the strongest strong predictor of willingness to share it.

The factors in order of importance of a person’s tendency to spread a CT online: 

belief a CT is true > the need for chaos > feeling our side is losing (sounding the alarm, or roughly partisanship or ideology) 

The need for chaos tends to be somewhat independent of belief a CT is true or false because the urge to spread it is driven by a person’s belief that the whole system needs to be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch. 

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By now, it is likely that the US government will no longer be able to seriously deal with greenhouse gas emissions. The polluters have won the war. The last major federal action was a big spending bill the Democrats with the support of some Republicans pushed through congress before the Dems lost the House in the 2020 elections. 

Government has been corrupted and mostly neutered by a combination of effective, decades-long opposition to dealing with global warming from (1) corrupted radical right anti-regulation dogma and propaganda underpinned by brass knuckles capitalism, and (2) major pro-pollution business interests, prominently huge oil, gas, coal and chemical corporations, also buttressed by ruthless propaganda. At this point, advances in energy science and technology will probably be needed to save us from environmental disaster. Absent that, we're probably hosed.

The NYT reports about possibly significant advances in geothermal energy generation:

There’s enough geothermal energy below ground to power the entire country. Some are trying to tap it — by using techniques from the fracking boom

Hot, dry rocks lie below the surface everywhere on the planet. And by using advanced drilling techniques developed by the oil and gas industry, some experts think it’s possible to tap that larger store of heat and create geothermal energy almost anywhere. The potential is enormous: The Energy Department estimates there’s enough energy in those rocks to power the entire country five times over ....

Fervo Energy is using fracking techniques — similar to those used for oil and gas — to crack open dry, hot rock and inject water into the fractures, creating artificial geothermal reservoirs. Eavor, a Canadian start-up, is building large underground radiators with drilling methods pioneered in Alberta’s oil sands. Others dream of using plasma or energy waves to drill even deeper and tap “superhot” temperatures that could cleanly power thousands of coal-fired power plants by substituting steam for coal.

“Everyone knows about cost declines for wind and solar,” said Cindy Taff, who worked at Shell for 36 years before joining Sage Geosystems, a geothermal start-up in Houston. “But we also saw steep cost declines for oil and gas drilling during the shale revolution. If we can bring that to geothermal, the growth could be huge.”

States like California are increasingly desperate for clean energy sources that can run at all hours. While wind and solar power are growing fast, they rely on fossil fuels like natural gas for backup when the sun sets and wind fades. Finding a replacement for gas is an acute climate challenge, and geothermal is one of the few plausible options.

The NYT article goes on to note that two different tests had succeeded in reaching the deep hot rocks and getting electricity out of the heat. One expert commented that those successes constitute major advances sooner than expected. Despite those successes, it remains unclear if and when large scale geothermal energy can be produced cheaply.

As usual, the mainstream media shows it's bias against nuclear energy. In this case, the NYT  implicitly dismisses nuclear as a plausible opinion at best. That is a bald faced lie (of omission). In fact, safe nuclear energy is more than a plausible option. It is available right now. But as usual, since our government is corrupted and broken, developing widespread nuclear is a basically off the table. That's unfortunate, to say the least.

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The AP reports about a growing national radical right movement that was started by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association in 2011:

Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer talks in his office in Goldendale, Wash., July 5, 2023. Songer is an advisory board member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association and has faced harsh criticism for his embrace of the organization's ideology about the extent of the power of the sheriff

“The sheriff is supposed to be protecting the public from evil,” Dar Leaf, the chief law enforcement officer for Barry County, Michigan, said during a break in the National Sheriffs’ Association 2023 conference in June. “When your government is evil or out of line, that’s what the sheriff is there for, protecting them from that.”

Leaf is on the advisory board of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack. The group, known as CSPOA, teaches that elected sheriffs must “protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government” by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or “unjust.”

“The safest way to actually achieve that is to have local law enforcement understand that they have no obligation to enforce such laws,” Mack said in an interview. “They’re not laws at all anyway. If they’re unjust laws, they are laws of tyranny.”

There we have it. In addition to the courts, the sheriff also gets to decide if a law is evil, unconstitutional, overreach, unjust or tyrannical, and then refuse to enforce it if it is. By golly, the radical right has discovered a new way to fight for freedom. I'll send the CSOPA a dart and ask if they oppose forced birth and election subversion laws the radical right passed. Those are forms of tyranny, right? 

And remember your 3 Gs, God, Guns 'n Guts. That probably should be GGBG, God, Guns, 'n Blood 'n Guts.

Bits: Civil war watch; BKC watch; CN watch

In yet another crystal clear sign that the ARRRP (authoritarian radical right Republican Party) is moving toward tyranny and abolition of the Constitution and the rule of law, Georgia Republicans plan to remove Fani Willis from office. Vanity Fair writes: Georgia Republicans Say They'll Move to Remove Fulton County DA Fani Willis From Office With New State Law. Willis is the prosecutor in Atlanta who indicted DJT for trying to overthrow the 2020 election result in Georgia. 

At the same time, in congress the ARRRP controlling the House has started an investigation of Willis. Politico writes:

The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday launched an investigation into Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, hours before Trump is expected to turn himself in following his indictment on racketeering charges related to his push to overturn the 2020 presidential election in that state.

Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), in a letter to Willis, said the “indictment and prosecution implicate substantial federal interests, and the circumstances surrounding your actions raise serious concerns about whether they are politically motivated.” A spokesperson for Willis didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

Jordan is asking Willis to hand over details on any federal funds the office receives by Sept. 7, as well as communications with the Justice Department — including Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading a federal probe into Trump’s challenges to the 2020 election that’s left the former president facing four separate criminal counts.

“Given the weighty federal interests at stake, the Committee is conducting oversight of this matter to determine whether any legislative reforms are appropriate or necessary. Such reforms could include changes to the federal officer removal statute, immunities for federal officials, the permissible use of federal funds, the authorities of special counsels, and the delineation of prosecutorial authority between federal and local officials,” Jordan wrote in the letter.

The ARRRP's strategy to protect DJT in Georgia is clear. ARRRP state legislators attack the prosecutor and remove her from office, while House radicals harass her with frivolous but burdensome demands.  There is no way to spin or rationalize the ARRRP's authoritarian intent into anything other than what it is.

This is what modern radical right civil war in America looks like. The ARRRP has fully transitioned into a pro-tyranny domestic terrorist organization. Radical elites are fighting hard and dirty to stay in power by telling and convincing the ARRRP rank and file they are fighting to preserve both their rights and democracy. The elite's lying is stunning and terrifying. Equally stunning and terrifying is that most of the rank and file appear to believe at least enough to keep supporting attacks on democracy and the law. 

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Meanhwile, BKC (brass knuckles capitalist) elites are moving forcefully to consolidate more power in fewer corporate behemoths. The goal is, as always, more power and wealth for the elites and more damage and risk for the masses and the environment. The NYT Editorial Board comments:

Across the American economy, in industries ranging from air travel to veterinary medicine, big companies keep getting bigger and more powerful. Swallowing smaller rivals has become a widely accepted practice.

The Biden administration is embarking on a wide-ranging effort to check corporate power by promoting competition — a stated goal of both parties — and it needs Congress to support its effort with bipartisan legislation. It has proposed new rules, like a ban on noncompete agreements that prevent workers from changing jobs more freely. It is seeding competition, for example, by investing more than $1 billion to open and expand smaller meatpacking plants. And it has taken a tough line on mergers, blocking some big deals, dissuading companies from pursuing others and even suing to unwind Facebook’s 2012 acquisition of Instagram.

This reassertion of an active government role in protecting competition has the potential to deliver significant benefits. Competition keeps pressure on prices. It encourages the development of better and more diverse products and services.  

Americans have been living as subjects in a large-scale experiment in letting big companies do as they please, and the consequences are increasingly apparent in daily life. Compare the United States with Europe, where authorities have more successfully resisted the consolidation of major industries. Airfares in the United States are now significantly more expensive; North American airlines pocketed more than twice as much in profits from each passenger in 2022 as their European counterparts did. The internet costs more, too: Americans pay more than twice as much for broadband, and the cost of cellular service is also, on average, more than twice as high in the United States as the average in other developed nations.

It is hard to imagine the ARRRP would support any government effort to curb corporate power. The modern wave of business consolidation into giant, powerful corporations started with Ronald Reagan. It was supported by both Democratic and Republican administrations. One reason to support consolidation was the idea that corporate concentration was often economically beneficial. The other reason to allow corporation to become giants was that companies engaged in harmful or anti-consumer behavior would be disciplined by market forces. That latter concept fizzled out under intense opposition to regulation and hate of government by rigid, uncompromising ARRRP dogma.

We can wish the Biden administration well in this. But there are good reasons to believe this won't make much difference for consumers or government regulators. One problem is radical federal judges. The NYT board points out that the Biden administration will need to overcome federal judge opposition. Many of whom are rigid ideologues steeped in minimalist BKC dogma. They hate antitrust enforcement. Also, when corporations turn into giants, power essentially always flows from consumers and government to the giants. After all, why grow into a giant if there's insufficient profit and power in it to make the effort? 

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Sojourners Magazine discussed the influence and traits of CN (Christian nationalism) in the GOP generally and in the debate a couple of days ago:

6 WARNING SIGNS OF CHRISTIAN 

NATIONALISM IN US POLITICS

If the first debate for the 2024 Republican primary is any indication, we’re headed toward a combative and chaotic presidential race. .... [DJT’s] refusal to debate his opponents does a disservice to Republican voters and the country, all of whom deserve to hear Trump defend his previous actions and 2024 campaign platform, which includes several dangerously authoritarian proposals such as making it easier to fire career civil servants or deploying the National Guard to fight street crime.

But my main interest in watching the first Republican primary debate was to get a sense of whether Republican candidates would challenge the growing anti-democratic forces within their party. .... I was also on the lookout for indicators of candidates’ support for white Christian nationalism, a set of ideas enjoying an alarming resurgence (and super-charging the anti-democratic forces) that pose a grave threat to both our democracy and the witness of the church.

The term “Christian nationalism” gets used in different ways, but some experts define it as “a constellation of beliefs — that the founding of the United States was ‘divinely inspired’ or that God is invested in the success of the U.S. — that manifest in political goals.” In politics (and some churches), these ideas are part of a coordinated strategy to ensure white Christians maintain their ongoing dominance in all sectors of U.S. society. 

While there are some extreme politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) who proudly claim the label, it’s unlikely the top Republican presidential candidates will explicitly embrace Christian nationalism by that name. Instead, voters in the 2024 election will need to be on the lookout for how candidates’ behavior and rhetoric aligns with Christian nationalist ideals and anti-democratic beliefs. Or as Jesus put it: “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16).

1. Does the candidate perpetuate the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump?

.... it was deeply disconcerting that all of the candidates (except former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson) raised their hands to signal they would still support Trump if he won the nomination and was convicted of a crime in a court of law.

2. Does the candidate stoke fear through “us-versus-them” rhetoric or by demonizing anyone deemed “other”?

Two recent studies show that Christian nationalism is highly correlated with racism, white supremacy, homophobia, patriarchy, and Islamophobia. While we certainly cannot say that a person who makes racist comments or expresses support for an Islamophobic policy is automatically a Christian nationalist, we can think of this connection as one of several things of which we should be wary.

6. Does the candidate demonize racial justice commitments or dismiss them as being “woke”?

Christian nationalism is often tied to an ethno-nationalist identity, which in the U.S., means being white. Many candidates who claim to be “anti-woke” are simply refusing to imagine an America in which the promise of “liberty and justice for all” is truly extended to people of every racial group. 

Other toxic CN traits that Sojourners mentioned were ARRRP political candidates who (i) assert a false revisionist history with the U.S. founded as “a Christian nation” (which it wasn't), and (ii) talk about faith or “biblical values” when it comes to normalizing and justifying hostility to and opposing LGBTQ+ rights and abortion.

Six out of the 8 openly supported DJT

even if he was convicted of crimes - 

Christie was ambiguous

(Sojourners said it was 7 out of 8)

Bits: Brain-computer interface update; Insane new electric motor; Poll data about the indictments

Wired reports about artificial intelligence-powered brain reading technology that is returning the power of speech to paralyzed two different patients. Wired writes:

PARALYSIS HAD ROBBED the two women of their ability to speak. For one, the cause was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a disease that affects the motor neurons. The other had suffered a stroke in her brain stem. Though they can’t enunciate clearly, they remember how to formulate words.

Now, after volunteering to receive brain implants, both are able to communicate through a computer at a speed approaching the tempo of normal conversation. By parsing the neural activity associated with the facial movements involved in talking, the devices decode their intended speech at a rate of 62 and 78 words per minute, respectively—several times faster than the previous record. 

While slower than the roughly 160-word-per-minute rate of natural conversation among English speakers, scientists say it’s an exciting step toward restoring real-time speech using a brain-computer interface, or BCI. “It is getting close to being used in everyday life,” says Marc Slutzky, a neurologist at Northwestern University who wasn’t involved in the new studies.  

In the Stanford study, researchers developed a BCI that uses the Utah array, a tiny square sensor that looks like a hairbrush with 64 needle-like bristles. Each is tipped with an electrode, and together they collect the activity of individual neurons. Researchers then trained an artificial neural network to decode brain activity and translate it into words displayed on a screen.

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The first electric motor was made and used in 1832. So by now one would think that it has been refined about as much as possible. One would be wrong. Using quantum mechanics stuff, quarks, physics stuff and both radial and axial magnetic fields, a car nut in Sweden has invented a pipsqueak size electric motor that puts out an insane amount of power and torque. 

Smashing down on the accelerator in a car with three or four of these runts built in will tear a person's head clean off, unless of course (safety tip) your head rest keeps it from detaching. This video gives a general audience description of the little bugger.

 

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Politico writes:

A new POLITICO Magazine/Ipsos poll provides some bad news for Trump: Even as he remains the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination, the cascading indictments are likely to take a toll on his general election prospects.

He looks as bad as he actually is