News bits: Tax gap update; Mary Trump speaks again; War update; Lighter news - The Goat Rodeo

The Hill reports about something (on of my fave topics) that I've been screaming and howling about for years, the annual festival of gigantic theft for tax cheaters that congress requires by law:

IRS ‘tax gap’ widens to $688 billion in 2021: report

The gap between taxes owed and paid to the government is wider than originally estimated, according to a new report released Thursday by the Internal Revenue Service.

The projected gross “tax gap,” the difference between the total taxes owed to the IRS and how much is collected on time, jumped to $688 billion for tax year 2021, the agency projects. That’s about $138 billion higher than revised projections for the three-year period ending in 2019.  

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed by Democrats last August, included an additional $80 billion in funding for the IRS to beef up its enforcement efforts.

Republicans have opposed the new IRS funding, and they made a bill that would reverse most of that funding their first legislative priority when the party retook the House in January.  

Republicans love tax cheating by rich people and big corporations because (i) most of the cheaters are rich, like many or most Congressional Republicans, and (ii) the authoritarian radical right GOP hates, hates, hates government and taxes.

Based on detailed analyses from tax years 2001 and 2006, my estimate of the current tax gap (tax cheating) is at least about $800 billion, not $688 billion. 

But something has changed at the IRS. The prior tax gap estimates I can recall were at about ~$480 billion, which I believed was to low to be credible. Someone has pressured the IRS to be more honest about this. Radical right Republicans hate release of info like this, so the pressure for transparency and honesty cannot be coming from them. 

Anecdote: Years ago when it was obvious that IRS tax gap estimates were too low, I wrote to the IRS information office that answers taxpayer questions. I was told that they did not answer taxpayer questions. I took that to mean the IRS was telling me I was an idiot taxpayer and I should shut up, pay my taxes and go pound sand. By then, the radical right had cowed the IRS into silence because the radical right hates the IRS and wants it to go away.

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The New Republic writes about Mary's latest commentary regarding her poisonous uncle:

The stakes of the 2024 election could not be clearer, says Mary Trump: It’s “​​a choice between democracy and fascism.”

They identify not with Donald’s strength … but they identify with his weakness,” Trump said, arguing that his supporters know to some extent that he’s a fraud. In fact, they like that about him. “They identify with the fact that he gets away with everything.”

“To me, one of the biggest scams was this myth that Donald was this successful businessman … that he was a champion of the working man,” she said. “By the way, that’s not something he ever says. Somebody else made that up about him.”

Trump said that Donald’s portrayal in the media as a working-class hero is founded on a misunderstanding—he grew up privileged in Manhattan, after all—and that he then exploited it. “He just then flew his stupid private jet from rally to rally, and I guess that was enough to convince people that he really cared about them,” she said.

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War update

Impending humanitarian crisis alert: Israel says 1.1M residents must leave north Gaza Strip but the U.N. says that’s impossible

Airburst burning white phosphorous rains down

Israel is using white phosphorous bombs - the material ignites on contact with air and leaves horrible burns sort of like napalm (Israel denies it is using this weapon). WaPo writes: 

Human Rights Watch confirmed in a statement released Thursday that white phosphorus was used over the Gaza City port on Wednesday, after interviewing two witnesses who noted the stifling smell of white phosphorus. The organization also analyzed video of the event and identified airburst 155mm white phosphorus artillery projectiles were used in the strike. They condemned the use of the chemical, which can severely burn people and set fire to civilian structures, in such a densely populated area.  

 WaPo: With exits to Israel and Egypt shut, the retaliatory military operations have effectively turned the narrow 25-mile long Gaza Strip into a kill box.

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A WaPo opinion by Dana Milbank comments: 

House Republicans collapse into anarchy

War in Israel. War in Ukraine. The federal government shutting down in 35 days. These are uncertain times.

But there is one eternal truth, one unwavering constant to steady us when all else is in flux: Every time the House Republican majority tries to govern, it’s guaranteed to turn into a goat rodeo.

Milbank writes a long, long opinion that recites the amazing lunacy of what the radical right GOP has degenerated into in the House. He explains his goat rodeo reference like this: Rep. Harriet Hageman (Wyo.), the Trump-backed slayer of Liz Cheney, walked into the caucus meeting wearing a big smile and carrying a lasso. Was she planning to rope some goats? She didn’t say.  

Carrying a lasso? What a lunatic. OMG, we're all gonna die. Run away!!

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DJT: “The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER, at Record Numbers.”

PolitiFact: 

UN officials condemn Israel for war crimes leading to "humanitarian disaster"

Palestinians inspect the rubble of the West mosque destroyed after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike at Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, early Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. Israel’s military battled to drive Hamas fighters out of southern towns and seal its borders Monday, as it pounded the Gaza Strip from the (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

A group of United Nations humanitarian experts denounced attacks on civilians in the escalating conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza early Thursday, saying Israel is now committing “war crimes” through “collective punishment” by blockading aid from the territory.

The war has killed at least 2,500 people on both sides. Concerns for civilians in Gaza have mounted in recent days as the territory runs out of power and medical supplies due to a complete blockade by Israel.

“We strongly condemn the horrific crimes committed by Hamas, the deliberate and widespread killing and hostage-taking of innocent civilians, including older persons and children. These actions constitute heinous violations of international law and international crimes, for which there must be urgent accountability,” the U.N. group said.

“We also strongly condemn Israel’s indiscriminate military attacks against the already exhausted Palestinian people of Gaza, comprising over 2.3 million people, nearly half of whom are children,” it added. “They have lived under unlawful blockade for 16 years, and already gone through five major brutal wars, which remain unaccounted for.”

“This amounts to collective punishment,” the experts continued. “There is no justification for violence that indiscriminately targets innocent civilians, whether by Hamas or Israeli forces. This is absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime.”

The U.N. said Thursday that more than 650,000 people in Gaza are running out of water due to the blockades. Medical supplies are also dwindling in the area's hospitals, which are at times without power. The Israeli energy minister said early Thursday the country will not allow aid into Gaza, despite calls from organizations, including the U.N.

“Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home,” Israel Katz said on X, formerly Twitter. “Humanitarian for humanitarian. And no one will preach us morals.”

The Red Cross warned Thursday those hospitals could soon turn into “morgues” without immediate aid.

“As Gaza loses power, hospitals lose power, putting newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk,” Fabrizio Carboni, International Committee of the Red Cross regional director for the Near and Middle East wrote in a statement. “Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues.” 

The Israeli military has committed to completely eliminating Hamas through a campaign of extensive airstrikes and an expected ground invasion. 

The U.N. experts specifically called out Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over comments calling Gazans “human animals” on Monday.

“Besides this appalling language that dehumanises the Palestinian people, especially those who have been unlawfully ‘imprisoned’ in Gaza for 16 years, we condemn the withholding of essential supplies such as food, water, electricity and medicines,” the group continued. “Such actions will precipitate a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where its population is now at inescapable risk of starvation. Intentional starvation is a crime against humanity.”

It is also difficult for Gazans to leave the territory because the only border with Egypt was closed again Thursday due to Israeli airstrikes in the area. The crossing was previously closed on Monday due to strikes. 

The Egyptian government has also urged Israel to stop the strikes so aid can enter Gaza.

The U.N. group called on both sides of the conflict to immediately negotiate a ceasefire, in addition to corridors for humanitarian aid and a release of the captured on both sides of the conflict.

 

 -Fr. The Hill 10/12/23: https://thehill.com/policy/international/4251899-un-civilians-israel-gaza-war-crimes/

 

 

Legal analysis: How the USSC is both powerful and political

Quick summary 

The USSC has key tools that give it enormous power that is on a par with congress plus the White House. Those tools are:

• It decides which cases to hear or reject

• It decides which legal questions the parties pose to answer or ignore 

• It writes its own legal question(s), even if none of the parties posed it

One legal scholar said the Supreme Court is moving away from “deciding cases” and toward “answering discrete policy questions.” Those three tools allow it to do that.
Credit...

By focusing on the power to dictate the legal question to be answered, the USSC has basically the same power that congress and the president have. Once a court decides a legal question, e.g., is Roe v. Wade constitutional, the decision has the same power as a law that congress and a president can make. 

One can see how a radicalized, authoritarian USSC, like the one we have today, can greatly change the law, government, commerce and eventually society itself. The USSC could, and is now in the process of, convert the constitution from a document that reflects secular democracy to one that reflects radical Christian Sharia law.  

The legal analysis

A fascinating but critically important legal analysis discussed by the NYT about how the USSC can be political reveals the vast power of the USSC to do what legislatures + presidents do:

By choosing among and sometimes writing the questions the court agrees to answer, recent studies say, the justices have distorted the judicial process

We say that the Supreme Court decides cases, but that is not correct. It picks isolated questions to answer, often choosing among ones proposed by the parties or writing ones of its own.

That practice adds a disturbing element of politics to the judicial process, said Benjamin B. Johnson, a law professor at the University of Florida and the author of three recent papers on the subject.

“They are no longer doing what a court does, which is deciding cases,” he said. “They’re now doing what a legislature does, which is answering discrete policy questions.”

Consider a few examples.

When the court agreed to hear one of this term’s most important cases, it rejected a modest question proposed by the plaintiffs and said it would only consider one that asked it to overrule an important precedent, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

The same thing happened in the Dobbs case, which eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. When the court granted review, it picked only the broadest of the three proposed questions, one that led it to overrule Roe v. Wade.

“Even though the court had alternative pathways to resolve the case without inviting a firestorm of controversy,” Professor Johnson wrote in the Alabama Law Review, “the justices intentionally eliminated those alternatives from their review.”

In the recent case of a Christian web designer who challenged a Colorado law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation, the court accepted only part of one of her two proposed questions. The court said it would not consider whether the law was at odds with her right to free exercise of her religion and would treat the case solely a free-speech challenge.

And when the court agreed to hear two big cases on the First Amendment and social media last month, it did not adopt the questions proposed by any of the parties. It looked instead to a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Biden administration, choosing two of its four questions.

This sort of cherry-picking and revision, Professor Johnson said, is on the rise. “What was once a relatively rare occurrence now makes up between a tenth and a quarter of the docket,” he said.

Data compiled by Professor Johnson from the two decades ending in 2020 seems to back that up. When the court added or subtracted questions, he found, the case was more likely to attract friend-of-the-court briefs and to result in 5-to-4 splits.

A century ago, in 1925, Chief Justice William Howard Taft persuaded Congress to cut back on the kinds of cases the Supreme Court had to hear, allowing the court to choose for itself which ones it would decide. That itself was an extraordinary move. Giving the justices almost total discretion over their docket helped to transform and empower it.

But the 1925 law did not authorize the justices to take the further step of picking the questions they would answer. “This is clear both from the statutory language and the justices’ own testimony in favor of the bill,” Professor Johnson wrote. Indeed, Chief Justice Taft had assured lawmakers that in federal cases the “power of review extends to the whole case and every question presented in it.”

Still, in later decisions and then in the court’s own rules, the justices said they would consider only discrete questions.

That was so, Professor Johnson wrote, “even though Congress mandated — and the justices promised — review of the entire case.”

It is one thing to allow the Supreme Court to decide which cases to hear and another to let it choose to answer the questions proposed in the petition seeking review. But it is a third thing for the justices to choose among those questions. And it is yet another thing for them to write their own questions.

But the court has drafted its own questions in any number of landmark cases, including ones on the right to counsel, the 2000 presidential election, campaign finance, same-sex marriage, class actions, recess appointments and immigration.

At the same time, the Supreme Court has had little patience with lower courts that try something similar.

Three years ago, for instance, the justices chastised a federal appeals court for revising the questions before it, saying that it ran afoul of “the principle of party presentation.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, quoting an earlier decision, explained that “we rely on the parties to frame the issues for decision and assign to courts the role of neutral arbiter of matters the parties present.”

This is why I keep pointing to the grave danger this USSC poses to democracy, civil liberties that God hates and the rules of law that kleptocratic plutocrats hate. The danger is lethal and intentional, and thus it cannot be overstated.

News bits: Dark free speech update; Forcing a bit of climate transparency; Etc.

Deutsche Welle writes about the degradation of Musk's Xitter into a crackpot authoritarian hellscape in Germany:

German anti-racism body leaves X over 'rise in hate speech'

A German agency that tackles discrimination and racism says it is quitting the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. It cited a rise in hate speech since owner Elon Musk took over last year

Mozilla, the company that owns Firefox, acquired Fakespot in May. Fakespot, a startup that helps users identify fake news through a website and a browser extension, has been used to spot fake reviews on Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Walmart, and eBay using an A-to-F scale.

Fakespot's Review Checker is scheduled to be released on Firefox version 120 for desktop and Android on November 21, 2023, according to MS Power User.

This is terrible news for folks who plan to use AI technologies, particularly generative AI tools like ChatGPT, to flood product reviews. Fakespot could make that task much more difficult by using its own AI to spot the fake product reviews.

Fakespot founder Saoud Khalifah told Axios at the time of the acquisition that reviews are important for the online shopping experience because "you can’t touch the product," he said. "You really need the reviews."

I was wondering if and when AI would start to be used to fight lies, deceit, slanders and crackpottery. It's about freaking time. Maybe it's about freaking time for me to stop using rotted Chrome and move back to Firefox.

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The Conversation writes: 

Exxon, Apple and other corporate giants will have to disclose all their emissions 

under California’s new climate laws – that will have a global impact

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two new rules into law on Oct. 7, 2023. Under the new Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, U.S.- companies with annual revenues of US$1 billion or more will have to report both their direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2026 and 2027. The California Chamber of Commerce opposed the regulation, arguing it would increase companies’ costs. But more than a dozen major corporations endorsed the rule, including Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce and Patagonia.

The second law, the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act, requires companies generating $500 million or more to report their financial risks related to climate change and their plans for risk mitigation. 

While California isn’t the first place to mandate climate disclosures, it is the fifth-largest economy in the world. So, the state’s new laws are poised to have substantial influence worldwide. Subsidiaries of companies that didn’t have to report their emissions before will now be subject to disclosure requirements. California is in effect exercising its immense market leverage to establish climate disclosures as standard practice in the U.S. and beyond.

That's what pro-public interest governance can look like. If the kleptocratic, authoritarian radical right, plutocratic, theocratic (KARRPT) Republican Party gets its way, its KARRPT USSC will hold laws like this to be unconstitutional. That day is probably coming.

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6 GOP lawmakers want to expel scandal-plagued Rep. George Santos. Hm, Santos is the essence of corrupt radical right GOP authoritarianism. They should be expelling themselves.

Routine radical right hypocrisy: President Biden’s reelection campaign bashed presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) for touting drug prices caps for seniors after voting against the Inflation Reduction Act. In a video first shared with The Hill, the campaign mashed up clips of Scott celebrating capping costs for seniors and saying that the Inflation Reduction Act, which Scott voted against, should be eliminated.

Brazen, insulting legal weaseling: Trump tells court he had no duty to 'support' the Constitution as president -- Former President Donald Trump is arguing to a judge in Colorado that he was not required to "support" the Constitution as president, reported Brandi Buchman from Law & Crime. .... Trump's attorneys argue: "The Presidential oath, which the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment surely knew, requires the President to swear to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution — not to 'support' the Constitution," said the filing by Trump's attorneys. "Because the framers chose to define the group of people subject to Section Three by an oath to 'support' the Constitution of the United States, and not by an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President."

News chunk & bits: Chevron defense is at risk; Lighter news

The Chevron defense is one of the targets America's ARR (authoritarian radical right) has hated for decades. The Supreme Court created this doctrine in a 1984 decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. In a nutshell, the Chevron deference doctrine holds that when a legislative delegation to an administrative agency on a particular issue or question is not explicit but rather implicit, a court may not substitute its own interpretation of the statute for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrative agency.

The reasoning is that an administrative agency is staffed with experts and has information gathering and analysis expertise the courts do not have. Sine most laws that congress writes and passes are loaded with implicit intent, usually referred to as the spirit of the law. Administrative agencies therefore have great power to implement explicit regulations that are supposed to reflect the spirit of the law. That is essence of the administrative deep state that the ARR movement and businesses hate and want to obliterate. If that deep state is dismantled, power will flow from government and citizens to special interests and businesses. That will constitute a form of kleptocratic plutocracy.

Bloomberg Law writes about a now-pending court case, which is a huge deal not a little deal, that the ARR USSC could use to overturn Chevron or narrow it into near-oblivion:

A panel of administrative law scholars and US Supreme Court watchers says the nation’s highest court is likely to narrow—if not overturn— its decades-old precedent in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a move that would significantly weaken the modern administrative state.

The prediction came as Bertrall Ross, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court also appears likely to use the major questions and non-delegation doctrines to put additional limits on agency power in the future.

The panelists said that a ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo that diminishes or does away with Chevron deference completely would empower the federal judiciary by requiring courts to interpret statutes more often. They said such a ruling could also create more work for Congress, which might have to pass more specific legislation in a world where lawmakers couldn’t rely on agencies to fill in the gaps in statutes and regulatory regimes.

• Professor Allison Orr Larsen, of William and Mary Law School, suggested that, as in Kisor v. Wilkie, the Supreme Court could limit Chevron deference to “genuine ambiguities” in statutory text

• Larsen suggested that some statutory ambiguities facilitate legislative compromise, and in a world where agencies can’t resolve those ambiguities with their own interpretations, Ross said Congress might be forced to revisit the same statute on a regular basis

• Ross said recent decisions invoking the major questions doctrine indicate that the high court wants to make sure major political issues of national significance are handled by Congress, not agencies

• Certain policy solutions clearly chosen by Congress might also be impermissible under an approach to non-delegation principles set out in Justice Neil Gorsuch’s dissent in Gundy v. United States, Ross also said

• After the Supreme Court concluded in Lucia v. SEC that SEC administrative law judges are officers of the United States subject to the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, Meaghan VerGow, a partner at O’Melveny and Myers LLP, said SEC v. Jarkesy now presents the question whether ALJs at the SEC must be subject to immediate removal by the president instead of removal for cause

• If the president’s ability to remove administrative law judges is absolute, VerGow said it was an open question whether the lack of political independence on the part of these judicial officers at federal agencies could give rise to due process problems

I cannot understate how important this case is. This is a huge step in the direction of kleptocratic plutocracy-autocracy. 

This video adds context about why this is so incredibly important:

“. . . . . the people don’t have a way to fire the bureaucrats. What we mostly do around this body is not pass laws. What we mostly decide to do is to give permission to the secretary or the administrator of bureaucracy X, Y or Z to make law-like regulations. That’s mostly what we do here. We go home and we pretend we make laws. No we don’t. We write giant pieces of legislation, 1200 pages, 1500 pages long, that people haven’t read, filled with all these terms that are undefined, and say to secretary of such and such that he shall promulgate rules that do the rest of our dang jobs. That’s why there are so many fights about the executive branch and the judiciary, because this body rarely finishes its work. [joking] And, the House is even worse.”

Context for the context: The speaker, Ben Sasse (himself an ARR Republican) explains why congress is so sloppy, and that slop in the laws explains why the Chrvron Defense is so critically important. The context here is the Senate confirmation hearings for the ARR sex predator and professional beer boofer, Brett Kavanaugh. Sasse is an Ivy League trained, soft spoken guy who sounds reasonable. But he is a flaming government-hating, authoritarian far right radical. He wants to obliterate federal agencies and the evil communist deep state. Nebraska voters RINO hunted him out of the US Senate for criticizing Trump including the crime of publicly saying this: “Politics isn’t about the weird worship of one dude. The party can purge Trump skeptics. But I’d like to convince you that not only is that civic cancer for the nation, it’s just terrible for our party.” 

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From the lighter news desk:

U.S. Representative George Santos was hit with more criminal charges on Tuesday, with prosecutors accusing him of inflating his campaign's fundraising numbers and charging campaign contributors' credit cards without their consent.

The DoJ commented: Congressman George Santos Charged With Conspiracy, Wire Fraud, False Statements, Falsification of Records, Aggravated Identity Theft, and Credit Card Fraud. CENTRAL ISLIP, NY – A 23-count superseding indictment charging .... “George Santos” .... with one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud, in addition to the seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives that were charged in the original indictment. Santos is due back in federal court in Central Islip on October 27, 2023.

My goodness. What a naughty boy. Twice!

HEY! I'm innocent, innocent I tell you!

(no, he's not)

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From the Bad Weather Files: Researchers have found that about 14,300 years ago a big solar burp (geomagnetic storm) hit Earth. Before this new discovery, the 1859 event known as the Carrington Event was the benchmark for the most intense solar belch observed on Earth. The Carrington event sent northern lights as far south as Florida and Central America and knocked out communication systems. The WaPo writes:

In a study released Monday, researchers identified what appears to be the largest solar storm to hit Earth, estimated to be larger than the Carrington Event by an order of magnitude [that's 10-fold, folks!]. The storm occurred 14,300 years ago, but is evidence of a yet unknown dimension of the sun’s extreme behavior and hazards to Earth. 

“It’s clear that if one of these events [occurred] today … this would be quite destructive on our energy network and also internet network,” said Edouard Bard, lead author of the study. “This would really freeze, in fact, all communications and [travel] would be totally disrupted.”

Brrrrap! Oops, pardon me

Fortunately, the US government is on the job. The House has it's knickers in a twist, peacefully touring fascists are roaming the halls of congress with patriotic insignia

Guy on the left: 'Where's the bathroom, 

I have to pee?'

Cop pointing to the bathroom:

'Have a nice day!

And remember, you're a people, urination!'

Thing with horns in the middle:

'Aaawwwhhh hooo doooo! Arf, arf, arf! Ahhoogah!

Baddaboom Tischhh'

Guy on the right: 'Why am I here?'

and, even better, Mitch McConnell signals that he completed the Republican Party response preparations for the next big burp (the secret GOP plan: blame Bill, Hillary, Barak, Joe and Benghazi!!)

I feel safe now that plans have been made and everything is under control.

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A comment to an article about Trump's recent portraying himself as martyred Jesus: Just because a lot of people moan 'Christ almighty' whenever they see or hear Trump doesn't make him the second coming of Christ.

Paintings and prints depicting former president Donald Trump and Jesus are seen for sale on the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2 in Fort Washington, Md. 

(He's selling this art to raise some cash)

(Note that Jesus has the same skin color as Trump)

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Trump's niece, Mary Trump asks why her ‘fucking maniac’ uncle is allowed to ‘roam free.’ “This f‑‑‑ing maniac likely gave Putin (who gave Iran, who gave Hamas) Israel’s national security secrets. ....  He divulged highly classified information about our nuclear subs to an Australian cardboard guy. Why is he still allowed to roam free?”

Good question Mary. I'll get my minions right on that.

Feng-shui is restored and peace is once again upon the happy people in the happy valley . . . . . they are happy to be happy . . . . . 

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And now there's this from Salon: 

Crackpot fight! Trump is worried about RFK Jr. running for president — and he should be scared | Trump depends on the crank vote that the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist could siphon off

He may not have bolts sticking out of his neck, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is morphing into the MAGA version of Frankenstein's monster.  

It's not because Republican power players like or even respect Kennedy. On the contrary, they see him for what he is: An unhinged conspiracy theorist with a massive ego that makes him easy to manipulate. They just thought they could use him [like they used Trump? Not!], and his famous name, to make life hard for Biden in the Democratic primary, thereby weakening the president's general election campaign.

Crackpot fight? He may not have bolts sticking out of his neck? OMG! 🤪☠️

Politics just gets funner 'n funner!

News bits: Global warming update; Lying radical right liars; Misinformation update

EurekAlert! discusses some resent new research on human tolerance to heat:

Climate-driven extreme heat may make parts of 

Earth too hot for humans

If global temperatures increase by 1 degree Celsius (C) or more than current levels, each year billions of people will be exposed to heat and humidity so extreme they will be unable to naturally cool themselves, . . . . . 

Results from a new article published today (Oct. 9) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicated that warming of the planet beyond 1.5 C above preindustrial levels will be increasingly devastating for human health across the planet.

Humans can only withstand certain combinations of heat and humidity before their bodies begin to experience heat-related health problems, such as heat stroke or heart attack. As climate change pushes temperatures higher around the world, billions of people could be pushed beyond these limits.  

The ambient wet-bulb temperature limit for young, healthy people is about 31 C, which is equal to 87.8 F at 100% humidity, .... However, in addition to temperature and humidity, the specific threshold for any individual at a specific moment also depends on their exertion level and other environmental factors, including wind speed and solar radiation. In human history, temperatures and humidity that exceed human limits have been recorded only a limited number of times — and only for a few hours at a time — in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, according to the researchers.

Results of the study indicate that if global temperatures increase by 2 C above pre-industrial levels, the 2.2 billion residents of Pakistan and India’s Indus River Valley, the one billion people living in eastern China and the 800 million residents of sub-Saharan Africa will annually experience many hours of heat that surpass human tolerance.  

“Models like these are good at predicting trends, but they do not predict specific events like the 2021 heatwave in Oregon that killed more than 700 people or London reaching 40 C last summer,” said lead author Daniel Vecellio, a bioclimatologist who completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Penn State with Kenney.

Well, this maybe is one way to reduce human overpopulation. It might also be a way to get rid of some species diversity too!

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The mendacity of America's authoritarian radical right is now completely unrestrained. Facts contrary to false narratives that authoritarian radicals routinely spread are simply ignored, or when they can't be ignored, denied or distorted. There's no shame in the authoritarian radical right for lying and being caught doing it. PolitiFact discusses a recent example:

Jesse Watters** stated on September 28, 2023 in a segment of "The Five" on Fox News:

James Biden’s text message to Hunter Biden that says, “I can work with you(r) father alone,” shows that Joe Biden was “in business” with Hunter Biden.

• A single line of a text message from James Biden to Hunter Biden that read, "I can work with you(r) father alone," does not prove President Joe Biden was "in business" with his son. The line was intentionally taken out of context to smear Biden.

• An investigators’ summary of the text message exchange shows that James Biden’s message was about family matters such as alimony and tuition, not business.

** This is the scorecard that PolitiFact has for Jesse Waters

And it wasn't just Faux News and Waters who relied on this blatant lie. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), used it during the Sept. 28, 2023, Biden impeachment inquiry hearing. 

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From here on out, we can expect fake news and blatant lies to be constantly coming at us from the unregulated hellscape called social media. NBC News reports:

A doctored White House news release posted online falsely claimed that the Biden administration had authorized $8 billion in emergency aid to Israel on Saturday. The fact that it was faked didn't stop it from being posted across the internet and rising to the top of Google search results.

The faked document is one of the most far-reaching instances of misinformation to come out of the most recent violent conflict between Hamas and Israel. It fooled several online publications into writing full articles about the fake news, which are still surfacing prominently in online search results.

The faked document appears to be an edited version of President Joe Biden's July memo announcing $400 million in aid to Ukraine. .... The faked document first started appearing on social media accounts Saturday morning. Around noon Saturday, a collection of verified accounts on X, formerly Twitter, began disseminating it.

Geez, that didn't take long. 

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From the Germaine Is Not Alone In His Thinking files: The New Republic writes in an opinion piece:

I Never Thought I’d Live to See Democracy Die. 

But Now I Wonder.

Chaos and corruption are on the rise, the perfect breeding ground for authoritarians to claim control

The situation in Israel precipitated by the vicious Hamas attacks over the weekend is ghastly on its own terms. But it’s not just a potential nightmare for Israel and for the Palestinian people. It could have ramifications around the world, including here in the United States. In sum: It’s going to bring chaos—chaos and instability. And chaos and instability are enemies of democracy.

There are grim signs practically everywhere one looks. Next Sunday, the Polish elections will determine whether the right-wing Law and Justice Party wins an unprecedented third term. If it does—and the party leads in the polls, although somewhat narrowly—some observers think Poland becomes another Hungary (it’s already part of the way down that road). More instability. Today in Europe in general, The Guardian recently reported, 32 percent of voters are casting their votes for anti-establishment parties, up from 20 percent in the 2000s and 12 percent in the 1990s. The vast majority of that increased vote share is going to parties of the far right.

And everything is prelude, of course, to November 5, 2024 in the United States. If Trump wins that election (or worse, narrowly loses and steals it), we’ll have chaos and instability like the world hasn’t seen since the 1940s. We know what Trump will do here at home, because he’s been telling us. He’ll destroy the executive branch, he’ll take whatever steps he can to shut down opposition media and cripple the Democratic Party, ....

And the impact around the world of a second Trump administration? Obviously, the end of NATO will be one early result. More generally, the United States of America will become a global partner of Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and even North Korea. Think about that. Oh, and remember this too. Back in 2016, Trump was getting a briefing from a foreign policy adviser and asked—three times—why the United States can’t use nuclear weapons.

I’m not saying all this will emanate from what happens in Israel. I am saying this: This country, and the world, are in a clear danger zone. In such a context, everything that happens anywhere in the world, especially in such a closely watched flashpoint, has the potential to increase the chaos and instability that turns people toward, and invariably helps, authoritarian propagandists.

.... Democracy won’t completely disappear. And millions of us will fight like hell for it. But the mere fact that so many millions of people across the country and the planet are voting against it—using the chief privilege and tool of democracy, the vote, to destroy it—is staggering.

I grew up thinking democracy was the culmination of human social organization, and that our job was just to perfect it. Now we’re learning it may have been just a phase.

As the chaos, corruption and dictatorship warrior Steve Bannon succinctly said about his preferred anti-democracy tactic, “flood the zone with shit.” That means lie, deceive, slander, irrationally emotionally manipulate and crackpot reasoning people into a state of confusion, division, distraction, irrational distrust and a buttload of false, anti-democracy beliefs.

Germaine is not alone in his thinking.