News bits: Supreme Court guts a key environmental regulation; Whacking Ken Paxton; Etc.

The AP writes:

Supreme Court limits federal power over wetlands, 

boosts property rights over clean water

The Supreme Court on Thursday made it harder for the federal government to police water pollution in a decision that strips protections from wetlands that are isolated from larger bodies of water.

It’s the second decision in as many years in which a conservative majority of the court narrowed the reach of environmental regulations.

The justices boosted property rights over concerns about clean water in a ruling in favor of an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near Priest Lake in the state’s panhandle. Chantell and Michael Sackett objected when federal officials identified a soggy portion of the property as a wetlands that required them to get a permit before building.

By a 5-4 vote, the court said in an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito that wetlands can only be regulated under the Clean Water Act if they have a “continuous surface connection” to larger, regulated bodies of water. There is no such connection on the Sacketts’ property.

The court jettisoned the 17-year-old opinion by their former colleague, Anthony Kennedy, allowing regulation of wetlands that have a “significant nexus” to the larger waterways.

Kennedy’s opinion had been the standard for evaluating whether wetlands were covered under the 1972 landmark environmental law. Opponents had objected that the standard was vague and unworkable.

The pro-pollution, brass knuckles capitalist Republican Party's animosity toward regulations and protecting the environment is on display yet again. Private property rights trump the public interest as usual.  

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From the Shocking and Amazing Files: In an amazing move against years of blatant corruption, the Texas House of Representatives filed articles of impeachment against Attorney General Ken Paxton. Paxton is probably one of the to five most criminal/corrupt people in high level government anywhere in America. I didn't think he could be impeached by his own party, which has serious chronic corruption problems of its own. The NYT comments: "the committee filed 20 articles of impeachment against Mr. Paxton, charging him with a litany of abuses including taking bribes, disregarding his official duty, obstructing justice in a separate securities fraud case pending against him, making false statements on official documents and reports, and abusing the public trust."

Ken has been a naughty boy. Articles 7-9 and part of 10 is shown below.

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From the climate change denier party: The Independent writes:

DeSantis dismisses climate change, calling it ‘politicization of weather’

Florida governor repeats common misconception about climate change and fierce storms

Mr DeSantis was speaking to former congressman Trey Gowdy, a conservative Republican who himself is a climate change denier, in an interview with the conservative news network following his disastrous Twitter Spaces event minutes earlier with Elon Musk.  

The governor went on to say that he believed emissions could be reduced by encouraging innovation in the private sector, and dismissed the necessity or effectiveness of government regulations on that subject.

As long as voters keep putting Republicans in power, America will be seriously crippled in its ability to even try to deal with climate change. The private sector can't and won't effectively deal with the climate issue. It's a miracle that Biden got to sign a bill with non-trivial spending to mitigate climate change. 

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From the anti-democracy, anti-rule of law party: DeSantis Says He Will Look Into Pardoning Jan. 6 Rioters If Elected President. If Trump doesn't get a chance to pardon the traitors, DeSantis will do it. 

Most Republican Party elites still support the Republican Party's1/6 coup attempt and the traitors who participated. The GOP normalized and justified the 1/6 treason event as "legitimate political discourse."

Legitimate political discourse at

the Republican's 1/6 coup attempt

Voter intimidation by White supremacists is 

legitimate political discourse

Right Wing Death Squads intimidating people  

is legitimate political discourse

Acting and looking stupid while heavily armed 

in public is legitimate political discourse

Artificial intelligence advances rapidly and increasingly so

American society and governance is a turtle. AGI (artificial generative intelligence) is a fast cheetah running flat out and pulling away from society and government at a shocking speed. Folks, we are caught flat footed. This thing is out of control. And, it's getting smarter by the day.

The WaPo writes:

Artificial intelligence has become shockingly capable in the past year. The latest chatbots can conduct fluid conversations, craft poems, even write lines of computer code while the latest image-makers can create fake “photos” that are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. 

It wasn’t always this way. As recently as two years ago, AI created robotic text riddled with errors. Images were tiny, pixelated and lacked artistic appeal. The mere suggestion that AI might one day rival human capability and talent drew ridicule from academics.

What is artificial intelligence?
AI is an umbrella term for any form of technology that can perform “intelligent” tasks. For decades, AI has been mostly used for analysis — trawling huge sets of data to find patterns. But a boom in generative AI, which uses this pattern-matching to create words, images and sounds, has opened up new possibilities.

What is generative AI?
The technology backs chatbots such as ChatGPT and image generators, such as Dall-E, which can create words, sounds, images and video, sometimes at a level of sophistication that mimics human creativity. This technology can’t “think” like humans do; it can find patterns and imitate speech, but it can’t interpret meanings.

How does AI learn?
AI can “learn” without programmer to tell it each step, a process called machine learning. It uses neural networks, mathematical systems modeled after the human brain, to find connections in huge data sets. The poems or images it makes may seem creative, but it’s really pattern matching based on which word is most likely to come next.

Much of this recent growth stems from a new way of training AI, called the Transformers model. This method allows the technology to process large blocks of language quickly and to test the fluency of the outcome.

It originated in a 2017 Google study that quickly became one of the field’s most influential pieces of research.

The model allows AI tools to ingest billions of sentences and quickly recognize patterns, resulting in more natural-sounding responses.

Another new training method, called diffusion, has also improved AI image generators such as Dall-E and Midjourney, allowing nearly anyone to create hyper-realistic photos with simple, even nonsensical, text prompts, such as: “Draw me a picture of a rabbit in outer space.”

Researchers feed these AI models billions of images, each paired with a text description, teaching the computer to identify relationships between images and words.

The diffusion method then layers “noise” — visual clutter that looks like TV static — over the images. The AI system learns to recognize the noise and subtract it until the image is once again clear.

The cost to compute is dropping. In 2023, $1 buys about 35.5 billion FLOPs/second. A FLOP refers to FLoating Point Operations.* Note the steep drop in price in the curve from 2019 until now.

* I guess FLOP is easier to say than FLPO.

 

The BaGuaLu AI system (upper right) uses 14.5 trillion 

parameters, making it currently the most 

sophisticated AI system in operation 

The first AI system in the 1970's, Bootstrap Adaptation (lower

left) operated with 21 parameters

Experts say it’s hard to predict how much better AI will get. Major obstacles stand in the way of further development. These models are expensive to run [Huh? I thought they were getting cheaper to run?] and exact a staggering environmental toll. They confidently churn out wrong, nonsensical and sometimes biased answers, while creating lifelike images that could sow confusion.

Most people are likely to interact with this new technology in the near future. But how useful it will be and what impact it will have on society remains to be seen.

Something serious is going on here and no one has a handle on it. The big players pushing this forward, including the US military and Google, openly admit they are in an arms race and will not slow down for fear of being overtaken by enemies or competitors. We are going to experience the good, bad and ambiguous consequences of whatever AGI is turning itself into.

News bits: Tina Turner

Tina Turner died. She was 83. Total bummer. 

1973

This woman was alive

1990

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A NYT opinion opines on controlling plastic in oceans. The bottom lines are (1) international cooperation will be needed, and (2) as long as brass knuckles Republicans retain enough power in the federal government, the US will not cooperate with anyone and will continue to pollute as usual. The article opines:

As the world’s population expands and more people rise out of poverty and into more consumer-oriented lifestyles, demand for plastic-packaged goods will inevitably grow. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicts plastic use will nearly triple by 2060 at the current rate, with most of the growth occurring outside Europe and the United States. Economist Impact and the Nippon Foundation’s Back to Blue Initiative modeled policy scenarios for reducing plastic production by 2050 — none of them resulted in a production rate lower than what we see today.

America's Republican Party. Pro-pollution, fascist, anti-civil liberties, anti-democracy.

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House Democrats obliterate a needed pro-democracy norm: We live in a time when adults who act like spoiled, less than average intelligence children are in power and pushing the country into American fascism. The Hill writes:

Democrats erupt in laughter after Greene calls for decorum in House

Democrats erupted in laughter on the House floor Wednesday when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — who was presiding over the chamber — called for decorum.

The heckling came as House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) was delivering floor remarks about the debt ceiling, which has been the subject of high-stakes negotiations between GOP lawmakers and the White House.

As Scalise was urging the Senate and White House to take action on raising the borrowing limit — referencing the bill House Republicans passed last month — a lawmaker yelled out in the chamber.

“We are in fact the only body in this town who has actually taken steps to address the debt ceiling and the spending problem in Washington. I would encourage the Senate to take up the bill, I would encourage the president to get engaged and address this problem, but we already have, the votes are on the board —” Scalise said before pausing to react to the yelling.

It is unclear which lawmaker shouted and what they said.

“Order,” Greene said from the dais, pounding her gavel.

“I ask that the House be in order and there be some decorum on the other side,” Scalise said.

After a roughly 15-second pause, Greene called for decorum in the chamber.

“The members are reminded to abide by decorum of the House,” she said.

Democrats in the chamber then erupted in laughter. Some members — including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) — stood from their seats and started shouting.

Republicans must have loved that. They won't forget this. In the unlikely event that the Dems ever regain control of the House, Republicans being the spoiled rotten adult-children they are will do the same at times and circumstances of their choosing. The Dems should publicly apologize and say they will never do that again. This might lead the House into an occasional (frequent?) shitfest of uncontrolled hate and childish temper tantrum. One thing is for sure, House Republicans won't rise above this because mentally they are not actual adults.

Between explicit Republican Party theocratic fascism and Democratic Party stupid this country is in desperately grave trouble.

This post brought to you by Tina performing Nutbush!

Follow-up from yesterday’s “When you get prayed for” OP…

Fellow blogger, Ellabulldog, is making the claim that pantheism is atheism.

• Do you agree?

• Who/What entity is the ultimate authority on those definitions: Webster, community (the existing folkways and mores), your/the church, fellow pantheists/atheists, the Pope or other religion figureheads, the self, other?

• In truth (whatever that is), are these two categories of “religion” (i.e., “theisms”) merely ECCs (meaning essentially contested concepts, in the eye-of-the-beholder)?

• How do you define these two (disparate?) philosophies?  Go into as much detail as you can.

News bits: A debt limit wild card?; Etc.

The Hill write about a court case filed by National Association of Government Employees that claims (1) the debt ceiling law is unconstitutional, and (2) the law should be suspended. This lawsuit has nothing to do with the bickering between Hose Republicans and Biden over the debt limit. This is an independent attempt to get existing law nullified. The Hill writes:

A federal judge late this month will hear arguments involving the debt limit law and whether it is unconstitutional and should be suspended.

The hearing, set for May 31 at 2 p.m. before U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns, will come hours ahead of when the Biden administration warns the federal government could run out of funds to pay its obligations.

The National Association of Government Employees (NAGE) earlier this month sued over the law that sets the nation’s debt limit, arguing it presents separation-of-powers issues. Yellen and President Biden were named as defendants.

If the limit is reached, NAGE contends Biden would be forced to take over Congress’s spending authority by deciding which payments to prioritize over others. It also would effectively amount to a line-item veto, the union argues, which the Supreme Court has previously rejected.

This strikes me as strange. The union did not argue invalidity of existing debt ceiling law on the basis of the 14th Amendment. How much legal traction the separation of power argument might have is not clear to me. Maybe the union had to rely on this argument because it did not have standing to sue for invalidity on the basis of the 14th A.

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The Catholic church and its sex and inconvenient truth problem: Hundreds of Catholic clergy in Illinois sexually abused thousands of children, AG finds . . . . investigators found that 451 clergy sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950 — far more than the 103 individuals the church had named when the state review began in 2018.

I thought that you must not lie was something in the Bible that could not be ignored. Guess I was mistaken. Too bad there wasn't a commandment that said you most not rape. Of course, that would have been ignored too. Those feisty priests and their libidos. That feisty church and its lies.

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Christian nationalists rise up to defend hate speech and lies: Religion News Service reports: "The National Religious Broadcasters, an association of Christian media outlets, has joined a lawsuit seeking to block a California law that requires social media companies to publish their policies on removing hate speech from their platforms. .... Under the law, companies must disclose in detail how they remove content, including hate speech, disinformation, extremism, harassment and foreign political interference. They are also required to submit terms of service reports to the state attorney general by Jan. 1, 2024. Fines for noncompliance were set at up to $15,000 per violation per day."

The propaganda spin is blatant and shameless. Here, Christian Taliban theocrats claim that publishing policies on removing hate speech and disinformation is suppressing free speech. That can easily be seen as an implicit admission that Christian nationalist media relies heavily on hate speech and disinformation to spread the infinite love of Jesus on the flock and America. 

Views From the Moderate Democrat About 2024

 Back in 2016, many on the left were looking for an alternative to Hillary Clinton based on her long time in the Beltway, her perceived self-dealing, and an air she exuded that she deserved the title of the presidency, as opposed to someone with the character to be worthy of that title.

When Donald Trump came on the scene, he was something different and gave many Americans the chance to try something outside the box. After four years, however, it became apparent to the left that whatever character flaws Clinton had were minor in comparison to the complete lack of morality of Trump as leader of the United States.

For the left in 2020, it was "anyone but Trump," and the turnout in that election from the left put on full display the danger that was perceived in a second Donald Trump term.

As we approach 2024, many on the left are starting to make it known by commenting on articles pertaining to the upcoming election how they plan to cast their vote. Both parties should take note of the leanings of the moderate voters.

In a recent call to donors, Florida governor Ron DeSantis made the comment that there are three viable options for 2024, but only two are electable—himself and Joe Biden. Based on that story, many moderates from the left had some things to say in response to his belief:

I'm going to do the Republicans voters a big favor. Speaking as a person that voted for Joe Biden last election. I'm really not thrilled with voting the same way, but if all the right has to offer is Trump and DeSantis, I'm voting Joe Biden. The Republicans have to get a candidate that speaks to more of the voting public than these two extremists you have now. As a Democrat, I'm not against voting for Republican, but there is no way I'm going to vote for Trump or DeSantis or someone like Ted Cruz , Pence or Nikki—it has to be someone with some common sense that's running on a policy to help Americans not divide America. I want to hear conversation about the border, about inflation, about what we're going to do about gas prices and less conversation about transgenders and gay people and drag queens which can come after an individual is voted in the office. But running on these policies means nothing to me or my bank account and I'm going to vote for the person that personally makes my life better.

 In response to this thought, a few others chimed in:

That makes no sense. The kind of Republican you're speaking of has no shot in today's Republican primary. Thirty years of Fox News and conservative media has filled them with hate/anger and radicalized them to varying degrees. If you speak of Democrats as fellow Americans that need to be challenged but worked with, they think you're a RINO and drum you out of the party. They only want someone extreme who thinks of Democrats as an enemy to be destroyed. Give it up, that Republican party is dead and never coming back. The remaining common sense Republicans who want to work together just haven't been drummed out yet, but they will.

 Another moderate Democrat sees things in a similar manner:

I'm along the same thinking. I would have crossed over for Kasich in 2016, but any Republican that stands up to Trump's base gets forced out of the party or has zero chance to secure the nomination. The kind of Republican that has the backbone to stand up for what is right instead of pandering to the far-right is just very rare in today's GOP. Until the scourge of Trumpism is gone, it's all blue, all day.

 

The Path to the Nomination

The problem that DeSantis faces is that in order to win the nomination from the GOP, he believes he has to pander to Trump's base and "out-Trump" Trump himself. This is looking like a major miscalculation—the reason people liked DeSantis in the first place was that he appeared more normal than Trump.

Instead, what he has done is show people that he is cut from the same mold as Trump and would be an eerily similar version of what people voted out of office in 2020. His campaign slogan might as well be "Trumpism that is popular in Florida."

His extreme positions as governor on education, the LGBQT+ community, and abortion have alienated many moderates and independents already, as seen in this comment:

DeSantis shouldn't count himself. He has burnt himself with many moderate Republicans, Independents, Black people, LGBT people and the teachers in K-12 and colleges/universities as well as the businesspeople. His name already is tarred.

Others are beginning to come up with monikers for how they see Ron DeSantis and not many are flattering.

Neither Deranged Donald nor the Florida Fuehrer will be allowed anywhere near our White House.

Ron DeExtremist is doing a great job alienating potential voters and making even more political adversaries.

DeFascist has a snowballs chance just like Trump.

DeSantis' Leadership Style

After a term in office, the DeSantis leadership style might be popular with Floridians, but others are not as enamored by him:

DeSantis is running on a more extreme platform than Trump. He just behaves less loudly, less flamboyantly and watches his speech more carefully. Pretty much the same as Trump at the core but probably more authoritarian as he seems obsessed with one subject—while Florida has multiple issues to focus on—and wants to want to run Florida as his own "personal kingdom." Being less raucous doesn't make a politician less tyrannical.

The fact that Disney is eating his lunch in the political arena, and the fact that he can't handle the reality and keeps trying more petty retaliation, is turning off many voters. His misstep in talking about Ukraine was also noted by voters, including those from his own party that are clearly on the side of democracy as it pertains to foreign nations, as stated in this comment:

DeSantis can't even handle a certain district in his state, yet alone the entire nation and our foreign allies.

Further setting back DeSantis is the view that he's anti-open market by not only Democrats, but also many Republicans.

Yeah, because I want a president that saves our economy by … driving away business that is too woke? Didn’t realize only evangelicals had green money. Guess those woke bucks don’t count.

And one user wrote his own manifesto to describe the DeSantis leadership style and how many Americans view him:

DeSantis seems to have a much higher opinion of himself than the vast majority Americans. DeSantis is an extreme-right fascist/white Christian nationalist candidate trying to woo the MAGA crowd but the MAGA extremists are split with many remaining loyal to Trump (like MTG, Lindsey Graham and JD Vance). And if the GOP doesn't back Trump, he'll probably run as a 3rd party candidate to make matters even worse for DeSantis. DeSantis' ratings have done nothing but go down, he's already past his prime and his recent more extreme actions have not made him into someone that can win a general election. Like all wannabe dictators, DeSantis lives in a bubble, doesn't listen, just pontificates and thinks bullying minorities and business with a white Christian nationalists ideology of hate, fear-mongering and division is somehow a winning strategy.

 

Beyond the Person: GOP Party Issue

Many users have gone beyond the individual candidates to note what the current form of the GOP stands for and that it's a major turnoff. The Republican party panders so far right in attacking vulnerable Americans—like the transgender community—that they are seen as extreme:

Biden will beat Trump or DeSantis by 10-12 Million Votes. Most independents are done with the MAGA extremism. Not to mention their extreme assault on Women’s Healthcare.

The further the party goes to enact abortion restrictions, including Florida's six-week abortion ban, the more they alienate half of the voting population in the country. The recent election in Wisconsin for the State Supreme Court highlighted how the issue has motivated younger voters that don't want their rights taken away, giving the Democratic candidate a whopping 10-point victory margin.

And the House of Representatives is doing the party no favors by putting some very extreme politicians into a very public spotlight. At this point, many Americans think that Marjorie Taylor Greene is the typical Republican because of how much airtime she and her extremist positions get on television. People recognize her as fully committed to Trumpism.

An Election Over Before It's Even Begun

The Republican party is using the same attacks against Biden and Harris we saw in 2020—Biden's age and Harris' capability as successor should that age become a factor. Biden's age is more of a concern, but when the left looks across the aisle and sees the 78-year-old option, one with very clear mental deficiencies, it's not really a defining issue. That is the one thing DeSantis will have an advantage on if he should garner the nomination.

However, that one advantage will not be enough to overlook the baggage of being linked to the MAGA following that has turned off the vast majority of the Democratic party and around two-thirds of Independents.

DeSantis could slide into the nomination should Trump develop health issues or end up in jail from one of his numerous upcoming convictions. But the path DeSantis is going down is the same one we saw in 2022 where GOP candidates pandered to the extreme Trump base to get the nomination and then tried to unsuccessfully tack back to the middle in the general election.

The Trumpist label doomed all of those candidates, yet DeSantis has decided that that's his best strategy for 2024.

Based on what happened in 2020 and in 2022, this election could very well be over before it even begins—much of the electorate has seen enough of the candidates to know exactly who they don't want in the Oval Office.

BY

 JOC

Would you vote for DeSantis over Biden?

•  Yes
•  No
•  I'd vote third party

https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/views-from-the-moderate-democrat-about