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!