Is Trump really trying to attract new voters or prepare his cult for violence in 2024?

At the recent mass shooting

at the Texas mall

I see a lot of people are discussing the possibility that Trump will win the general election. However, based on his campaign so far--and in particular what we saw on CNN earlier this week-- Trump does not seem all that interested in expanding his base, or appealing to any voters that might be "sitting on the fence," if there are any such voters anymore. No, he seems squarely focused on riling up his cult, preparing them for their roles in the coming "retribution" he promised when he announced his run. 

If you cut right to the chase, Trump is running on the following message (I'll support it with quotations in a minute).

1) I am the rightful president of the USA.  This country is under "deep state" occupation with a fake president who ran, lost to me, but manipulated the system somehow and now sits in the oval office. One way or another, I will take the power back that belongs to me by right.

2) My people know that this is true and the other people that don't know that this is true are stupid. My people are also losing patience, and if you don't set things straight again and make me president somehow they will unleash violence death and destruction on the streets of our country. Don't say I didn't warn you.

3) Either I become the President again, or I will drag this country through a violent conflict the likes of which you have never seen in modern America.

4) So get ready, because the gloves are coming off. If  I am not declared the winner there will be hell to pay.

Of course, he didn't say it in just those words, but let me offer a translation of some key statements made in recent weeks, beginning with a statement just prior to the trial in NYC and others from this week's CNN Town Hall program.

1) "I'm going to be arrested next Tuesday." He then called on his followers writing "PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!" He went on to warn that if charged we might see "potential death and destruction...that could be catastrophic for our Country." (i.e. When I don't get my way, people kill and destroy for me, either because I suggest it or because they love me that much, and I won't tell them to cool down-- so watch out!)

(From CNN Town Hall)

Asked if the 2020 election was rigged:

 

2) "I think that, when you look at that result and when you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happens.

A lot of the people – a lot of the people in this audience and perhaps maybe a couple that don’t, but most people understand what happened.

That was a rigged election."

(i.e. I'm the "real president" now, since I won. Biden is a mere pretender in the WH)

Asked if he would accept the outcome of an election in 2024:

3) "I If I think it’s an honest election, I would be honored to." [trans: I will not accept a loss under any circumstance] 

Trump continued and made what to me sounds very much like a threat-- perhaps the scariest line of the night.

4) "And, right now, we are so far ahead of both Democrat and Republican. And you know what? If I don’t win, this country is going to be in big trouble."( of course this can be understood as the claim that without his leadership America will plummet, but in light of all the other quotes, the emphasis on "retribution" and the lion's share of the time that night being spent on his insistence that he won in 2020, his view that insurrectionists in prison should be pardoned and are "beautiful people," etc.; in light of all that this is my  translation of what he means by "big trouble"-- " If I don't win, I'll trash the country; that's what I'm planning to do if I lose. I'm here for revenge one way or the other." That statement is a threat.)

When asked why he did not call off the attack on the Capitol on 1/6/21, K Collins added, "You know those people [i.e. the rioters/insurrectionists] listen to you like nobody else." This is worth quoting in full:

COLLINS: When it was clear they weren’t being peaceful, why did you wait three hours to tell them to leave the Capitol? They listen to you like no one else.

TRUMP: Yes.

COLLINS: You know that.

TRUMP: They do. I agree with that.

 

Then he nonsensically blamed Pelosi, and Schumer for the violence.  BUT his admission that "they do listen to me like nobody else"  is clear evidence of "intent" to see more violence (if more is needed to meet a legal threshold). He is aware that he has the power to unleash violence in real time, and he knew there were militia members and insurrectionists  that hang on his every word. (The Proud Boys had even made T-shirts out of Trump's famous line "Stand back and stand by").

When you add these up, you have a person who can watch people die on TV knowing he could stop it going on to now warn Americans on CNN (3.1 mil. viewers and many more who read about it) that if he is not "restored" to power, he will do everything in his power to unleash violence, perhaps causing domestic terror to spike the way it did in Ireland during the "Troubles"-- i.e. a civil war of sorts. The CNN audience that clapped at his every cruel word is but a drop in the ocean of like-minded Trump devotees out there. With 43% of Republicans claiming they would endorse violence against the gov't if things "go badly," we better think long and hard about how to make sure our leaders fully understand this looming  threat.  I don't think they do.

If they did Biden would not view Trump's despotic behavior as something to use to scare people into voting for him. That's what he's been doing. Team Biden announced this week that they are already editing select portions of the CNN Town Hall footage for campaign ads. Indeed, the only time he seems to talk about Trump or Maga or 1/6 is when he and or other democrats are up for elections. He made a melodramatic speech about Maga and Trump on the eve of last year's midterms, and after the town hall meeting has indicated this will be a big part of his ad campaign. He also launched his official campaign with a video that kicks off with footage of 1/6 in which he talks about Trump and Maga threatening our way of life and our democracy. If only he had taken any action at all consistent with such a serious threat. No. Instead Biden is busy exploiting Trump as the bad monster he can run against (knowing that his ratings are pretty low, and so safer to run against someone scary than to run for his own ideas and personality). CNN is busy exploiting Trump for ratings and money. Frankly, most of what I read in our media outlets is repetitive criticism of Trump written by and for people who already agree with everything they repeat. They do not advance a cause, but merely argue over just how bad he is, just how realistic the threat of Maga GOP is regarding democratic backslide and so on; but as Snowflake has said recently, they offer no vision, only critique. Stale, warmed over dinners from 2019 and 2020. Hell, make that 2015 and 2016. We've not only seen this movie before, but it's been running over and over like a loop in our media outlets for years now, in one form or another since Trump descended the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his bid in 2015. The only noticeable effect of all the 24/7 Trump denunciations has been to please Trump and his fans who thrive on the chaos and panic, while irritating and angering the rest. Pragmatically, it accomplishes nothing for those who would resist Trump, and the GOP he has thoroughly refashioned.

How is it that this threat goes unchecked? Something like 1/3 of the country doesn't believe our president is legitimate. Biden's inauguration occurred in what looked like a military barracks with razor wire fencing and up to 25,000 National Guard troops with weapons, in order to protect politicians from potential terrorists. And yet the promised reforms in domestic terrorism that Biden discussed at the time never came through. Why should we have another election with groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers alive and well (even if their leaders have been sent to prison, which can only anger those members left free). Even Canada outlawed these groups immediately after 1/6. These are potential death squads that wear patches that read RWDS (Right Wing Death Squad), and mean it. Why aren't Donald Trump, Roger Stone, Rudolph Giuliani and the other thuggish architects of 1/6 in prison just like Enrique Tarrio and Stuart Rhodes? How is it that with all the evidence available, Trump was not indicted in 2022 for intentionally attempting to overturn a legitimate election and unleashing insurrectionist violence aimed at preventing a peaceful transfer of power on 1/6? 

Obviously a Trump victory in 2024 would be a devastating blow to this country. But I have yet to hear an intelligent discussion about what to do if Trump loses and incites violence that could lead to, say, the equivalent of Oklahoma bombings in multiple cities after a Trump loss,  and possibly for a length of time [Note: Imperator Machinarum has correctly pointed out that this scenario of multiple Oklahoma type bombings is not realistic. On re-reading it, I plead guilty of hyperbole. However, significantly less severe bombing plots are plausible, as the continuing search for the 1/6 pipe bomber illustrates. ] BTW, Oklahoma City was not "lone wolf" but White Nationalist, as Kathleen Belew has documented in her book Bring The War Home, among other authors and journalists. Warnings from her and many others-- both in academia and law enforcement-- went unheeded after Congress held hearings on the problem of domestic terror after 1/6 in 2021. 

I hope I'm wrong, but hope is not a strategy. Forewarned is forearmed. We have no time left to waste. This message should have reached the authorities by now. I hope it has. This is what the press should discuss when the name Trump comes up rather than treating him as a legitimate candidate who must be stopped the old fashioned way-- by votes. Why do they think another election result can settle this thing, when Trump has only gone on to turn 2020 and 1/6/21 into the basis for his moronic but millions-strong authoritarian cult? It's the closest thing to an "ideology" Trump has-- this myth of the "stolen election" and the coming "retribution." I think the way our leaders and media outlets respond to Trump's candidacy is naive and dangerous.

White supremacist and neo-Nazi bling

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Full CNN Town Hall Transcript: https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/11/politics/transcript-cnn-town-hall-trump/index.html

Also, The LA Times published an editorial in November 2022 which takes much the same view that I do here. It is entitled "Trump doesn't want your vote in 2024. Just your obedience while he trashes the US again." It's worth reading: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-11-15/trumps-dangerous-declaration

What are your thoughts?

News bits: Supreme Court and political party moral rot; An endless defamation redux?: A Christian cataclysm?

MSN reports about a report by Business Insider:

2 Supreme Court justices failed to recuse themselves from cases involving their publisher after receiving large amounts in book advances and royalties

• Both Sotomayor and Gorsuch have reported earning large paychecks from Penguin Random House for publishing books.

• Gorsuch failed to recuse himself from one of the cases. Sotomayor didn't recuse herself from both [either?]. 

According to Sotomayor's financial disclosures, as CNN reported, she's made approximately $3.6 million in royalties and advances for the several books she's published under Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, which is part of Penguin Random House. 

As for Gorsuch, his financial disclosures note he's made at least $655,000 from Penguin Random House over the past few years from his book, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It."

Oh wonderful. The moral rot is bipartisan, not monopartisan. I recall when Nancy Pelosi reluctantly agreed to make insider trading illegal by politicians in congress and their staffs and family. That is when I really understood how morally rotted and corrupt both parties had become. They can't even recognize their own major corruption. They are truly morally bankrupt.*

* Yes, not all elite politicians are corrupt like that. Unfortunately, the few who do understand the concept of corruption are a minority, maybe ~20% of Dems and ~5% of Repubs.

Unlike Clarence Thomas,** who tried to hide his corruption, Sotomayor and Gorsuch did not try to hide their loot and reported all the money they received. Sotomayor and Gorsuch actually believed there was no conflict of interest going on. Which is worse, Thomas intentionally hiding his corruption or Sotomayor and Gorsuch not recognizing when it applied to themselves? Both are worse, in my opinion. Either way, this stinks quite a lot.

** Business insider reports: Clarence Thomas, who accepted lavish gifts from a billionaire, argued that a law prohibiting taking bribes is too vague to be fairly enforced. Aw, we all want fairness for poor, beleaguered Clarence, right? Opacity and not reporting income or conflicts of interest should afford adequate protection for the innocent, long-suffering patriot. Right? /s

Snark alert: A Republic, If You Can Keep It?? Anyone see any irony in that, or is it just me hallucinating?

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The NYT reports that E. Jean Carroll is considering a new defamation lawsuit against Trump for his slandering comments about her during his recent town hall. The ex-prez said that Carroll was a “wack job” and her civil trial was “a rigged deal.” One can see it now. Carroll wins another defamation lawsuit and immediately afterwards, he goes out and slanders her in public again, so she sues again. That could go on until one of the two drops dead because, as we all know, the ex-prez just can't stop publicly slandering people. Well, at least he is consistent.

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Rut roh, one can feel the wrath of an enraged, vengeful God starting to bubble up from the black cauldron of poisonous Christian nationalist politics. What could trigger such a cataclysm? Money.

The WaPo reports that the IRS has imposed a new rule that will tax private jets. But the horror of this evil, deep state, socialist pedophile aggression is that the new tax will apply to, GASP!, Pastors!! The horror, the horror. One can sense the self-righteous wrath rising among the Christian nationalist elites and their loyal flocks. The WaPo writes:

The IRS just hiked taxes on private jet flights. Pastors are not excluded.

In 2017, Texas-based televangelist Kenneth Copeland told his followers he received a very specific message from the Holy Spirit: The Lord had set aside a luxury Gulfstream V jet for his ministry’s use.

Copeland purchased the jet — in cash — from filmmaker Tyler Perry in November of that year and soon released a celebratory video, along with a request for another $2.5 million for upgrades.

“Let’s be aggressive in our faith, in our giving and in our harvesting!” the Jan. 12, 2018, post said.

Copeland is one of a handful of prosperity gospel pastors who insist that jets are essential to their ministry. “If I flew commercial, I’d have to stop 65% of what I’m doing,” Copeland told Inside Edition in 2019.

The burden on Christianity from this evil deep state pedophile attack will lead to the collapse of Christianity in America and the rise of evil deep state pedophilic atheism. Innocent Christians will be rounded up, put in re-education camps and brainwashed into mindless atheists. Bibles will be burned. Dogs will sleep with cats. Churches will be converted from tax sheltered scams into shelters for homeless people. Other horrors will happen.

So, let’s be aggressive in our faith, in our giving and in our harvesting of mucho cash for the valiant Christian nationalist elites who own luxury jets and struggle tirelessly to save us all from secular perdition and fornication. /s

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From the Daggers in the Night Files: The NYT writes about a radical right, middle of the night sneak attack on federal regulations:

Little-Noticed Part of G.O.P. Bill Could ‘Make It Impossible to Regulate’

House Republicans want every major rule to come up for a vote. That could be a recipe for no regulations at all

Under a little-noticed provision in a House bill that passed this month, all of [recently proposed new] regulations would need to come before Congress for a vote before they could go into effect.

“It may seem like it’s in the weeds, but it really affects all of us,” said Susan Dudley, the director of the regulatory studies center at George Washington University, who was the top regulatory official in the George W. Bush administration. She was one of several leading experts who were unaware that the bill contained this provision.

The Republican legislation, which is not expected to become law in its current form, has mostly attracted attention for its part in the debate about raising the country’s borrowing limit, and for its proposals to reduce federal deficits over the next decade. But its effort to reshape the federal regulatory process could arguably have a deeper impact on the future functioning of government.

Presumably, this attack on regulations comes primarily from the fascist brass knuckles capitalist wing of the radical right Republican Party. However, as time passes and the central dogmas of Christian nationalism sink in and internalize, it is more likely than not that most of the Christofascist Christian nationalist elites who control the GOP together with the fascist capitalists are on board with killing federal regulations. 

The two ideologies have significantly overlapping agendas and elite players. Both want to neuter federal government power. The fascist Christians hate civil liberties, while the fascist capitalists hate business regulations. The elites in both ideological camps want power shifted from the federal government to themselves. It seems likely that most GOP Christian nationalist elites are also radical capitalist elites. In my assessment, this attack on government power comes ~55% from radical capitalist elites and ~45% from radical Christian nationalist elites.

This proposed law will not pass congress or a Democratic Party president. But if the GOP get control of everything in 2024, this is exactly the kind of thing the fascist Republican Party will try to do. Radical Republican elite intention here is clear and undeniable -- kill government, regulations and civil liberties, and then take control of power and wealth.

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The NYT writes about intentions of radical right Republican Party elites:

Trump’s Second-Term Goal: Shattering the Norms He Didn’t Already Break

The former president made it clearer than ever this week that on issues including Ukraine, the economy and the rule of law, his return to office would lead to a sharp departure from core American values

In little over an hour, DJT suggested the United States should default on its debts for the first time in history, injected doubt over the country’s commitment to defending Ukraine from Russia’s invasion, dangled pardons for most of the Capitol rioters convicted of crimes, and refused to say he would abide by the results of the next presidential election.

The second-term vision Mr. Trump sketched out at a CNN town-hall event on Wednesday would represent a sharp departure from core American values that have been at the bedrock of the nation for decades: its creditworthiness, its credibility with international allies and its adherence to the rule of law at home.

No wonder the US has lost a lot of international prestige and respect among our allies. The fascist Republican Party clearly wants this country to be just like itself, i.e., a morally bankrupt, corrupt, brutal, tin pot dictatorship, not a pluralistic democracy.

Can anyone really argue with this?

 

Play Devil's advocate and give any counter argument.  

News: Clarence Thomas' moral rot: Santos & GOP rot; Trump rot; Tyranny vs. democracy update

The Lever writes:

Clarence Thomas Reversed Position After Gifts And Family Payments

The Supreme Court justice switched sides on a landmark legal doctrine, satisfying his benefactors’ conservative advocacy machine

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas changed his position on one of America’s most significant regulatory doctrines after his wife reportedly accepted secret payments from a shadowy conservative network pushing for the change. Thomas’ shift also came while he was receiving lavish gifts from a billionaire linked to other groups criticizing the same doctrine — which is now headed back to the high court.

The so-called “Chevron deference” doctrine stipulates that the executive branch — not the federal courts — has the power to interpret laws passed by Congress in certain circumstances. Conservatives for years have fought to overturn the doctrine, a move that would empower legal challenges to federal agency regulations on everything from climate policy to workplace safety to overtime pay.

Thomas wrote a landmark Supreme Court opinion upholding the doctrine in 2005, but began questioning it a decade later, before eventually renouncing his past opinion in 2020 and claiming that the doctrine itself might be unconstitutional. Now, Thomas could help overturn the doctrine in a new case the high court just agreed to hear next term.  

Groups within the conservative legal movement funded by Leonard Leo’s dark money network and affiliated with Thomas’ billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow have organized a concerted effort in recent years to overturn Chevron. That campaign unfolded as they delivered gifts and cash to Thomas and his family in the lead-up to his shift on the doctrine.  

In 2010, Crow bankrolled a dark money group led by Thomas’ wife, Ginni, that paid her $120,000. Leo was on the group’s board of directors. In 2012, Leo’s dark money network steered undisclosed consulting payments to Thomas’s wife. The Leo network has funded Republican politicians and several nonprofits pressing the Supreme Court to overturn the Chevron doctrine next term.

Thomas should recuse himself from that case, but he probably won't. In his mind, concerns about actual conflicts of interest do not apply to himself. That is deep moral rot. So is the dark money campaign by radical right brass knuckles capitalists who secretly corrupt those corruptible judges.

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The NYT writes:

Mr. Santos has already begun fighting that narrative. Though he has admitted to some lies, he pleaded not guilty in a packed courthouse on Long Island to all 13 counts, including money laundering, wire fraud, false statements and stealing public funds. Then he walked outside to reaffirm his intention to seek re-election.

“The reality is, this is a witch hunt,” Mr. Santos, 34, said, invoking another old American motif. “This is the beginning for me of the ability to address and defend myself.”

The indictment prompted a new round of calls by rank-and-file Republicans for Mr. Santos to resign or to even be expelled from Congress, but it remains far from clear if the political system will exact a price.

This reflects on deep moral rot in the Republican Party more than it does on Santos. If this was a Democrat in the House with a similar story, House Republicans would have expelled them long before now. Of the two nests of moral rot, that of the radical right, lies- and hypocrisy-riddled GOP is far worse for democracy and the rule of law than than Santos. 

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Fact checkers note that Trump's divisive, poison rhetoric at his town hall yesterday was a mass of deceit and outright lies. No surprise there. Just business as usual for the morally rotted fascist Republican Party's fornicating, morally rotted Grifter-in-Chief and tyrant wannabe. This is the human filth that GOP voters will nominate for president in 2024.

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In my opinion, the East-West global divide increasingly reflects a tyranny vs. democracy fight to the death. The widening split is reaching deep into commerce and leading to a bifurcation. Politics and commerce are deeply entwined and not separable any more, assuming they ever were. The NYT writes about China increasingly breaking away from the West in chip technology: 

‘De-Americanize’: How China Is Remaking Its Chip Business

Seven months after Washington unveiled tough curbs, Chinese companies are doubling down on homegrown supply chains and drawing billions in cash from Beijing and investors

.... U.S. trade barriers have accelerated China’s push for a more independent chip sector. Western technology and money have pulled out, but state funding is flooding in to cultivate homegrown alternatives to produce less advanced but still lucrative semiconductors. And China has not given up on making high-end chips: Manufacturers are attempting to work with older parts from abroad not blocked by the U.S. sanctions, as well as less advanced equipment at home.

The tough U.S. restrictions stemmed from alarm over what officials in Washington viewed as the threat posed by China’s use of its technology companies to upgrade its military arsenal. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, recently characterized the sentiment as part of a “new consensus” in Washington that decades of economic integration with China was not wholly successful, adding that the new controls were “carefully tailored” to go after China’s most cutting-edge semiconductors.

Science: Weighing empty space

Scientific American writes about a fascinating developing experiment called Archimedes to measure the weight of empty space. This is a really cool experiment. Knowing empty space weight will help explain why the universe is expanding as it is and what its ultimate fate is likely to be. SciAm writes: 

A vacuum is not completely empty. .... nature can “borrow” energy for extremely short amounts of time. These changes in energy, known as vacuum fluctuations, often take the form of virtual particles, which can appear out of nowhere and disappear again immediately.

Researchers can calculate the energy of the vacuum in two ways. From a cosmological perspective, they can use Albert Einstein's equations of general relativity to calculate how much energy is needed to explain the fact that the universe is expanding at an accelerated rate. They can also work from the bottom up, using quantum field theory to predict the value based on the masses of all the “virtual particles” that can briefly arise and then disappear in “empty” space (more on this later). These two methods produce numbers that differ by more than 120 orders of magnitude (1 followed by 120 zeros). It's an embarrassingly absurd discrepancy that has important implications for our understanding of the expansion of the universe—and even its ultimate fate. To figure out where the error lies, scientists are hauling a two-meter-tall cylindrical vacuum chamber and other equipment down into an old Sardinian mine where they will attempt to create their own vacuum and weigh the nothing inside.

Vacuum fluctuations have to respect some rules. A single electrical charge, for example, cannot suddenly appear where there was none (this would violate the law of charge conservation). This means that only electrically neutral particles such as photons can pop out of the vacuum by themselves. Electrically charged particles have to emerge paired with their antiparticle matches. .... The result is that the vacuum is continuously filled with a stream of short-lived particles buzzing around.

Even if we can't capture these virtual particles in detectors, their presence is measurable. One example is the Casimir effect, predicted by Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir in 1948. According to his calculations, two opposing metal plates should attract each other in a vacuum, even without taking into account the slight gravitational pull they exert on each other. The reason? Virtual particles. 

.... many physicists are convinced virtual particles interact with gravity just as ordinary particles do. .... To verify that virtual particles interact with gravity like normal matter, the Archimedes team members want to use the Casimir effect to weigh virtual particles with a simple beam balance. 

The weight of virtual particles in the vacuum

causes one balance beam to tilt slightly and misalign the

light beam, giving rise to different light intensity that

reaches the light detector

 

Small, slow temperature changes will be used to induce electrical

property changes in one of the disks compared to the other disk 

The Casimir effect will arise inside the superconducting 

disk, causing its buoyancy to increase or decrease compared to the other disk 

The disks have a diameter of about 10 centimeters (3.9 in) and are several millimeters thick

SciAm describes it like this: As the conductivity changes in the first sample [disk], it acts like the classic two-plate [Casimir] setup, and the number of possible virtual particles within it varies. Thus, the buoyancy force periodically increases and decreases on the first weight. This variation should cause the balance to oscillate at regular intervals, like a seesaw with two children sitting on it.

If I understand this right, when one disk is superconducting and the other isn't, the number of virtual particles inside each disk will differ. If those virtual particles interact with gravity as predicted, that difference should be detectable as a tiny weight change in the superconducting disk. The tiny weight change will tilt the balance beam up or down. That tilt will be observed as a change in light intensity that is detected by the light detector.

This is really interesting in a couple of respects. The sensitivity of the balance beam is incredible. It was not possible to build such an instrument until after giant gravity wave detectors were built and started operating in 2015.[1] To detect what empty space weighs, Archimedes has to be about 10 times more sensitive than gravity wave detectors. Archimedes is designed to measure a force of about 10(-16) newton, which is akin to trying to weigh the DNA in a single cell.[2] Once fully assembled, the whole apparatus will be about three meters high, wide and deep and will weigh several tons. It will operate at near the temperature of liquid nitrogen (-320.4°F), which causes one of two weights hanging from the balance beam to become a superconductor when cooled down enough.

The instrument will be installed in an abandoned mine in Sardinia, a seismically stable, sparsely populated area of the Mediterranean. Geologically, Sardinia is one of the quietest places in Europe. Human-caused vibrations are low. Being underground insulates the instrument from vibrations that are more pronounced at the surface. The need for designing extremely sensitive instruments for precision measurements of gravitational waves was needed to pave the way for the even more sensitive instrument this experiment calls for. The area where Archimedes will be set up is 110 meters (361 ft) below ground in a chamber like this. 

Q: Is this experiment totally cool or what? 

Footnotes: 

1. Several years ago after gushing about detecting gravity waves being a whole new way to see the universe, sort of like a new wavelength of light, I recall someone commenting that it would be of little practical use. My response was wait and see. This experiment is one practical use, i.e., the design of an instrument that can measure vanishingly small weight.

2. My experience in doing biological research let to an intuitive understanding of and comfort with small sizes, weights and volumes. I learned how easily small things could be detected and sometimes have surprisingly large effects. I literally routinely measured out small weights and volumes to do my research. Adding 1 microliter of a reagent by hand to a 50 microliter (the volume of 1 drop of water) reaction volume was standard practice for me for years. There are 20 drops per milliliter and ~29 mL per fluid ounce. I bet that most of those old 50 microliter reactions I used to run all the time have shrunk to ~5 microliter and are usually prepared by machines.

The SciAm article says that the weight of the virtual particles to be weighed is tiny. That weight is about the same as the DNA weight in one cell. From the point of view of the average person that is a vanishingly small weight. But from my point of view, I'm surprised at how much weight that is. Human DNA consists of ~3 billion base pairs with each base pair consisting of about 70 atoms. Remember, the virtual particle weight equivalent of those tens of billions of atoms in DNA arise inside a solid thin disk hanging inside a vacuum. That disk is about 3.9 inches in diameter (~1.95  inch radius) and about 0.1 inch thick.

Show your work for full credit:

How much virtual particles in the universe weigh

The volume of a disk or cylinder is V=πr²h. According to the cylinder volume calculator we all know, love and use all the time: The volume of the disk in Archimedes = πr²h = π×1.95²×0.1 = 0.38025π = 1.1945906065275 inches³

The disk in Archimedes has a volume of about 1.19 cubic inches with a virtual particle weight more than as much as DNA weight a single human cell. Remember, what Archimedes is detecting is not all the virtual particles in the disk. It is only detecting the change in virtual particle weight as one disk becomes superconducting when cooled down enough. 

For context, our convenient volume of the Earth calculator says that the Earth has a volume of about 6.61²⁵ cubic inches or 66,100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 cubic inches. Obviously, the volume of space, i.e., the universe, is a lot bigger than Earth. The universe is much bigger than ginormous. Compared to the universe, the Earth is less than a dust particle in a big room full of air.

Therefore → then an arithmetic miracle occurs → the weight of virtual particles in the universe must be millions of trillions of quadrillions of gigatons. Probably a lot more than even that.

See why this little experiment is a big deal? Little pipsqueak things can add up. A billion tons here and a gigaton there and pretty soon, one is talking about something that could be seriously influencing the entire freaking universe. 

News bits: Analysis: Corrupting the Supreme Court is a political goal?; Etc.

Lever News proposes interesting rationale for why the modern Supreme Court is so resistant to ethics and transparency:  

Here’s The Real Goal Of Supreme Court Corruption

The prospect of luxury gifts and outside cash is designed to halt the historical trend of GOP appointees becoming more liberal

As the Founders noted, judges are given lifetime appointments for the explicit purpose of preserving an “independent spirit” that allows them to change their views without fear of consequences. And in fact, data suggests that in the past, many conservative justices have become more liberal as they age.

In light of that, the money and gifts flowing to conservative justices can be seen not merely as cheap influence-peddling schemes to secure specific rulings in individual cases. It can also be seen as a grand plan to deter the ideological freedom that lifetime appointments afford.

In short, the largesse from billionaires and Leo — who helped assemble the Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative supermajority as President Donald Trump’s judicial adviser — creates personal financial incentives for justices to remain doctrinaire ideologues and resist any deviation from the conservative line, even if they might once in a while have an inkling to dissent.

No doubt, preventing this so-called “ideological drift” is exactly the point, as Five To Four’s Michael Liroff noted in a recent episode of Lever Live. From Earl Warren to William Brennan to John Paul Stevens to David Souter, the Republican Supreme Court appointees who ended up becoming liberals haunt the psyche of the right’s judicial activists. It is this dynamic that conservative puppet masters most want to prevent, because it has not been an anomaly. 

In 2015, FiveThirtyEight parsed the data and quantified a big trend in its headline: “Supreme Court Justices Get More Liberal As They Get Older.”

As you can see in the chart documenting the trend over nearly a century, many Republican nominees given the political freedom of a lifetime appointment have become more liberal in their rulings as they age.

That is an interesting, plausible explanation for why it is now so important to corrupt Supreme Court justices. It could explain why the justices themselves resist transparency and adopting any ethics rules at all. If they are properly groomed and play the radical right game well enough, they know they will probably be amply rewarded. 

Clarence Thomas has publicly stated that the pay for that Supreme Court justices get isn't worth it. He claims to be staying there for reasons of principle. Corruption can be seen as a principle that is worth staying for, at least for him. And, Sotomayor has also recently been caught in conflicts she refused to recuse herself from. At least $1 million  was involved in that little embarrassment, assuming she or any of them can be embarrassed by any level of corruption.

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The jury finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation probably won't faze him personally financially (he has to pay only $5 million), or politically, at least in the short run. The NYT comments: "After an indictment in Manhattan, Donald Trump’s supporters fell in line behind him."

Will there be serious political ramifications over time? My guess is no, but that remains to be seen. After all, now he gets to play the innocent, falsely accused, wrongly found liable, patriotic pussy grabbing, fornicating martyr. His base will eat that red meat up with gusto. 

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A post I put up a couple of days ago about reframing the federal debt issue in terms of seeing the 14th Amendment as controlling, About the federal debt time bomb: Reframing the issue. According to the NYT, Biden appears to be seriously considering it. He should. If he is right, then the debt ceiling goes away as an increasingly contentious issue. If not, the can just got kicked down the road for a year or maybe two as the case goes to the Supreme Court for a final decision.

The constitutional language of the 14th Amendment, Sec. 4 at issue is simple and clear. It reads in relevant part: The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. 

Because the radical right Republicans hate government and domestic spending programs, the authoritarian Republican court would desperately like to decide against Biden if he chooses this path. The question is what reasonable rationale could they possibly dream up in the face of such constitutional clarity and simplicity? They would have to make up a whopper of nonsense or somehow apply one of their existing bogus legal theories to arrive at their preferred destination of gutting government and civil liberties and calling it "constitutional."

But fear not, this radical right court with it's extreme lack of principle and morality, is fully up to the daunting task of shafting democracy and civil liberties, even if it commits unspeakable travesty on the constitution.

Radical right legal "reasoning"

It gets 'em wherever they want to go, 

just like "reasoning" the Bible